Clash (The Arinthian Line Book 4)

by Sever Bronny

  Bridget winced. “I hate it, but under the bed?”

  “Doesn’t look like we have much of a choice,” Leera replied.

  Bridget placed her hands over the pine box. “Concutio del alarmo,” then she carefully hid it under her bed. “Hopefully no one sees it here.” She stood up, dusting her hands. “Right, hoods up, let’s go.”

  They made their way to room 1478, which was a long ways down the curving corridor. Augum knocked but, as expected, received no reply. He pulled the folded note from his pocket and slipped it deep under the door.

  Leera stuck her hands in the pockets of her necrophyte robe. “Now what?”

  Bridget expelled a long breath. “Now we train. It’s important Augum is as prepared as possible for tomorrow’s duel.”

  “What about the exit plan?”

  “We’ll come up with a detailed one tonight after supper.”

  They strolled to the portal room. Bridget placed her palm on an oval etching, but then paused. “Hmm.”

  “What is it?” Augum asked.

  “It just occurred to me that we have access to the entire library now.”

  Leera shrugged. “Yeah, so?”

  “So, what if we found the room that held all the arcane scrolls? The Legion has forbidden them, right? There must be a giant stash somewhere.”

  “What do we need a scroll for—” Leera paused. “Ooooh. Group Teleport. We can use one to escape after the tournament!”

  “Exactly.”

  “There is a scroll room,” Leera said. “I’ve been in it. Well, sort of.”

  “What do you mean you’ve—” but it was Bridget’s turn to pause. “The Restricted Room.”

  Leera nodded. “It won’t be easy. There’s guards and stuff. Though, if all three of us got in, we might get by them.”

  Bridget rooted around in her pouch but stopped as an attendant strode by, giving them a curious look before stepping through a portal. Bridget resumed searching her pouch. “Nine gargoyle coins left. That means we’ll need another six to get all three of us in there.”

  Leera smirked. “Whoa, Bridget Burns is wrong about something for once.” Augum could tell she enjoyed using Bridget’s full name for a change.

  Bridget’s head swung faster than a scythe. “What do you mean I’m wrong? I’m not wrong—”

  “Oh, really?” Leera’s sharply arched brows rose smugly as she crossed her arms. “You forgot I already got into the room, which means I have access and we only need one more coin. I’ll accept your apology now, thank you very much.”

  Bridget’s cheeks flushed. “You’re right. I apologize.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  Augum summoned a portal. “A single coin shouldn’t be hard to get. Let’s go train.”

  Discovered

  After paying the toll, the trio found a secluded spot in the jungle behind a hill, then spent two grueling hours preparing Augum for his fight with Robin. The girls eventually exhausted themselves by mostly attacking him with the First Offensive, which he repeatedly defended against with his Shield spell. He was getting better at angling his weight forward with the shield, preventing himself from getting thrown back.

  They strategized on Robin’s most likely attacks, almost all necromancy-related; how he might cheat, especially with his aunt being one of the judges; and how it was important for Augum to keep his hood up at all times.

  “Augum!” a boy suddenly shouted in a squeaky voice. Augum reflexively turned, immediately realizing the mistake—he had answered to his real name! For a moment, he just gaped at a small necrophyte boy with a pimpled face and short black hair, standing on the hill behind them. It was the boy from the Supper Hall, the one who had asked him if he was a Bridget or Leera fan.

  “I knew it—” the boy said, and ran. The trio immediately bolted after him. Augum, heart punching his chest, stopped on top of the hill and telekinetically yanked at the boy’s foot. The boy tripped, careening into a bush of pink grass. Augum focused and kept pulling, the girls quickly joining in. The boy struggled but was no match against their combined telekinetic pull. He was dragged back along the grass, shouting, “I found them! They’re here—mlrph!” Bridget clamped her hand over the boy’s mouth. He was tiny enough she had no problem handling him.

  Leera waved at a necrophyte who had taken notice. “Just our friend playing hide and seek!”

  They half-dragged, half-walked the boy back out of sight.

  “Great, now what do we do?” Leera said, panting. “He’s going to blab as soon as we let him go.”

  Bridget held the boy firm. “We’re not going to hurt you, promise. I’m going to remove my hand now. Please, don’t yell out. We just want to talk to you, all right?” She slowly withdrew her hand from the boy’s mouth.

  His pimpled face was pale, eyes darting about. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re on an important quest,” Augum replied. “How did you know it was me?”

  “You told me you were from Blackhaven, but then I heard the arena announcer say you were from Everscale. Then I was in the Hall of the Ancients and I overheard a fat attendant saying to her guards that she swore you three were the fugitives—”

  “Watts,” Leera muttered. “Figures.”

  “Then I watched you and checked a Tiberran poster, which had a better drawing of you all, and you were near identical. I’m going to tell on you as soon as I—” but Bridget clamped a hand over his mouth again.

  Leera sighed. “What a mess. What do we do with him?”

  “Hold on.” Augum raised a hand, concentrating. “Flustrato.”

  The boy’s eyes instantly crossed. He moaned, then whined, “But Ma, I don’t want to do my homework right now …”

  “We have to get him to Secretary Klines’ office,” Bridget said as the boy rambled on. “She’ll know what to do with him.”

  “What if we take him to our room?” Leera asked. “Have Malaika and Charissa watch over him, then let him go tomorrow?”

  “Too risky,” Augum said. “Besides, he might be tiny, but I’d guess he’s also a 1st or 2nd degree necrophyte. He knows arcanery—they don’t. He’d get free in no time.”

  “I’ll take him up to Klines’ office,” Bridget said, giving them a serious look. “With my hood down. It’ll be less suspicious.”

  “On your own?” Augum asked.

  “It’ll be safest that way. Let’s all cast Confusion on him at once. If it wears off too soon, I’ll cast it on him again. If anyone asks what’s going on with him, I’ll just tell them he got in over his head in the Training Room.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous—” Leera said, and the trio argued the point, until the boy mumbled, “Augum Stone … Hood …”

  “He’s coming out of it, we’ve got to do this quickly,” Bridget said.

  “Fine, but I still don’t like the plan,” Leera said.

  The trio lined up before the drooling boy and stretched out their hands, chorusing, “Flustrato.” The boy dropped like a sack of spuds.

  “Is … is he sleeping?” Leera said.

  Bridget ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation. “Looks like the combined effects were too strong for him.”

  “Jonathan—!” called a girl’s voice nearby. “Jonathan, where are you?”

  “It’s that girl that was with him back in the Supper Hall,” Augum whispered, grabbing the boy’s feet. “Quick, help me carry him into the bushes before she sees us.”

  They grabbed the boy and hurriedly carried him to a thick bush underneath a tall palm tree, just as the girl appeared over the hill.

  “This is a disaster,” Leera whispered, craning her neck. “A complete disaster.”

  Augum watched the sienna-haired girl grimace and turn around, complaining loudly how he was standing her up again for supper, before disappearing back over the hill.

  “Maybe Senior Arcaneologist Ning will have a spell that will erase his memory or something,” Augum said.

  Bridget grabbed his
arm. “That’s it—the obstacle field!”

  “What about it?”

  “Remember when we first got here and the attendant warned us about the memory wiper obstacle? All we have to do is set it to a high-enough degree that erases a couple days of memory, that’s all.”

  Leera snorted. “Oh, nothing could possibly go wrong there.”

  “Look, I agree with you about how risky it is trying to drag him to Klines’ office. This is the better option.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for it, I just think … wow, Bridge, that’s kind of cold.”

  “Would you rather have Mrs. Stone back or be in an iron room with a questioner?”

  “I see your point. Besides, you’re right, it’s only a couple days of lost memory.”

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” called out an arcanely amplified voice from afar. “The eighth evening bell tolls!”

  “Great, we were supposed to be in the supper hall by now to meet Miss Jealous and Miss Annoying,” Leera muttered.

  “We’re going to have to skip supper altogether,” Augum said.

  Leera made a face at him as if his brain had been wiped.

  “He’s right,” Bridget said. “We have to skip supper. We have to do this as close to closing as possible, that way almost all the necrophytes will be gone.”

  Leera sighed but nodded. Then she grimaced. “No, forget that. We’ve almost got a full hour. I’m going to the Supper Hall, talk to Dim and Dimmer, then bring us back some food.”

  “All right, but maybe I should go instead,” Bridget said.

  Leera gave Augum a quirky smile, which Bridget caught.

  “Never mind,” Bridget quickly said. “You go, otherwise you two will just make eyes at each other the entire time and the boy will run free.”

  “Pfft,” Leera said. “All right, I’ll meet you two back here in a bit. Oh, and—” She thrust out her palm at Bridget and wiggled her fingers. “Gimme, gimme.”

  Bridget withdrew fifteen coppers and handed them over.

  “We’re not that bad, are we?” Augum said, watching her go.

  “I was just teasing.” Bridget shrugged. “But still …”

  “I do miss spending time with her.”

  “I know you do.”

  He and Bridget took turns keeping the boy under the Confusion spell. At last, Leera returned carrying a small potato sack stuffed with supper.

  “What did Malaika and Charissa have to say?” Bridget asked.

  “They’re so useless.”

  “You argued, didn’t you?”

  “Let’s just say we’re not going to be best friends anytime soon, but then we all knew that anyway. I mean, one spent all the coin daddy sent on a mountain of stupid clothes she can’t possibly take back without an army of warlocks helping, and the other one is a complete airhead.” Leera made a circular motion around her head. “I swear you can hear things echo around in there when she walks.”

  “To be fair, I’d have said something too, Bridge,” Augum said. He turned to Leera. “They’re going to leave all those clothes behind, right?”

  “They’re still deluded into thinking they can bring the entire pile.”

  Augum shrugged. “Fine, let’s burn their stuff then.”

  Bridget gave him a look.

  “I was jesting.” Sort of.

  Leera waved dismissively. “I told them they can take their stupid horses and we’ll take the arcane route.” She bit her lip. “Except I guess that’s when the argument really got heated.” She added in an undertone, “There was some food thrown … and stuff …”

  Bridget ballooned. “What?”

  “Nothing to worry about, uh, I just won’t be allowed back into the Supper Hall again, but that won’t matter because we can catch some street food tomorrow—”

  “Leera Jones—”

  “I was merely escorted out of there by an attendant, it wasn’t like, you know, the Legion was called in or anything. But look—” She flashed a cheery smile while raising the sack of food. “I brought supper!”

  Bridget placed her head into her hands. Augum gave Leera a You’ve done it now look.

  Leera lowered the sack. “It’s really no big deal, Bridge.” She paused, awkwardly placing a hand on her shoulder. “Uh … I’m sorry.”

  Bridget’s shoulders shook.

  Leera gave Augum a horrified look he interpreted as Is she crying? He nodded somberly in response. Leera plopped down beside Bridget and wrapped an arm around her. She placed her head on Bridget’s shoulder. Augum did the same from the other side, and the trio just sat there a little while … until the boy beside them gave a drooling moan.

  Augum casually reached over. “Flustrato,” he said, and the boy resumed his stupor, which by then had devolved to staring at the exotic tree canopy with glazed eyes.

  Bridget raised her head. “I’m … I’m sorry, it’s all the stress. Everything’s falling apart, and it just feels like we’re juggling too much. I feel like I’m coming undone at the seams or something. We’ve still got so much to do—find one more coin, get past those gargoyles without getting killed, find a Group Teleport scroll, make a detailed escape plan, then Augum’s got to beat Robin—”

  “Which he will, handily,” Leera said with a firm nod.

  “—then he has to somehow snatch the divining rod from Earring Head—”

  Leera snorted a laugh at that one.

  “—amongst the most powerful warlocks in the kingdom, and then somehow escape without being caught.”

  Leera crinkled her nose. “Ehh, you put it like that and it does sound … completely crazy, yeah, but that’s why we’re going to plan it really well, right?”

  Bridget nodded her head, wiping her eyes.

  “You just needed a good cry,” Augum said in a soft voice. “You’re frazzled. It’s all right. This isn’t easy for any of us. I’m amazed we made it this far, if you think about it. I mean, we’ve kind of gone through a lot.”

  “You win the understatement of the year award with that one,” Leera muttered with a gentle smile. “Oh, I guess I should also mention that they found the wraith and walkers we killed in that closed-off part of the library.”

  Augum and Bridget stared at her.

  “When … when were you going to tell us that little, you know, kind of important piece of news?” Augum asked.

  Leera shrugged. “When the opportunity presented itself. And now seemed like a good time.”

  Bridget was ballooning again. “Not earlier, when we were talking about—”

  “Now don’t get upset again, Bridge—”

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” an attendant’s amplified voice called out. “The ninth bell tolls! The library is closed. All warlocks are to vacate library premises or see themselves to their rooms. Hear ye, hear ye—”

  Bridget threw up her hands. “Great, just great. There’s no chance of getting back now without being caught.”

  “So are they doing anything different with the guards?” Augum asked.

  Leera opened the bag and doled out some bread. “Don’t know, but there were way more guards in the halls as I walked here.” She glanced at the sleeping boy nearby. “That memory wiper obstacle is close to the doors. We should wait and hide until we see how many walkers we’re going to have to deal with. Anyway, I’m starved. Let’s eat.”

  Bridget stared at the chunk of bread. “After we deal with him, we might as well use our cloaked access to get into the labyrinth directly.”

  “Either that or we take the waterfall route again,” Augum said.

  Leera dug through the sack once more. “No thanks.” She withdrew linen-wrapped chunks of beef, pieces of cheese, some carrots, and doled them out. They ate in silence, watching the arcane braziers steadily dim. The vast cavern would soon go dark.

  A Talk with the Enemy

  The necrophyte stirred and Augum raised his arm to cast Confusion again, but then dropped it. “No point, is there?”

  “Not if his mind’s going to get
wiped, no,” Bridget said, taking a swig from a waterskin.

  “I’m amazed the attendant doesn’t come around to check if there are any lingering trainees,” Leera said with a mouthful of food. “They just dump undead guards in here and leave.”

  “I read that Library policies have changed significantly since the Legion took over,” Bridget replied.

  They ate in watchful silence until the boy, Jonathan, opened his eyes. He watched them for a while before weakly asking, “How old are you?”

  “Augum’s fifteen,” Bridget replied. “And Leera and I will be fifteen very soon. Why do you ask? And how old are you?”

  “Thirteen.” He paused. “For your crimes, you’ll be the youngest to see the public gallows in years.”

  “So we’re going to hang,” Augum said. “For what crimes?” What was the Legion telling necrophytes nowadays?

  “You won’t hang because you’re the Lord of the Legion’s son.” Jonathan eyed the girls. “Them. They’ll hang.”

  Leera put down the chunk of cheese she had been nibbling on. “What are our crimes?”

  “Theft. Helping to brainwash the Lord of the Legion’s son. Murder … and worse stuff.”

  Leera resumed her nibbling. “Really now?”

  “You stole the scion and the Agonex.” Jonathan’s eyes briefly flicked to Augum. “The crone has put a spell on him. You murdered all those people in Sparrow’s Perch and Tornvale—”

  Leera froze. “How dare you—”

  “My father murdered everyone in Sparrow’s Perch,” Augum said. “Including Bridget and Leera’s families. We saw it with our own eyes.” The memory of dangling feet flitted through his mind before he pushed it away.

  “You think you saw it. It’s a spell the crone cast to make you believe that. False memories.”

  Leera looked like she was about to say something vile but instead took a breath.

  Augum gave the boy a pitying look. “Clever, but in my heart, I know that’s not true.” He leaned forward. “My father has managed to convince a lot of people of a lot of things that are not true. And he did murder and burn down those villages. It was no illusion, that I guarantee you.”

  “The Lord of the Legion is a just and fair man. He does not kill innocents. He’s not a murderer.”