Legend (The Arinthian Line Book 5)

by Sever Bronny

  Persephone, brow speckled with sweat, placed a finger to her lips before stepping onto a crude cobbled path that led straight through the bog, a path that intersected with others like a great spider web, a path only wide enough for one person.

  “Wait—” hissed Leera. “Turn around.” Persephone did as she was told, facing Leera, who made a crushing gesture with her first. “Voidus lingua.” It seemed to Augum that she too had been practicing the spell in her spare time, perhaps with Bridget. He needed to catch up.

  Persephone’s face twisted with resentment at being muted. Augum thought it was a smart move though. The girl hadn’t earned their trust yet, not by a long shot. It was best to be safe.

  Persephone led the way on the thin cobbled path, followed by Leera, Augum, and the others. Shapes loomed up around them from the depths, threatening shapes that seemed to be in some kind of stasis. The bog bubbled here and there, and what Augum thought had been sticks jutting from the putrid stew turned out to be skeletonized limbs. It was like a rancid graveyard, but one that could come alive at any moment.

  The walls of the vast cavern were so distant that even lit by torchlight they appeared dim. The rocky ceiling soared far above, reminding Augum of the great labyrinth chamber under the Library of Antioc. But nothing rivaled the rancid meat stench that roiled Augum’s stomach. Thankfully, he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, so there was nothing to throw up.

  Somewhere in the center of the cavern, Persephone stopped.

  “What are you doing?” Leera hissed. “Keep go—” but Persephone whipped around and shoved at the air. “BAKA!” sending Leera flying into Augum. As he was sent tumbling into the others, he realized—too late—that Leera’s Mute spell had prematurely worn off. He also briefly glimpsed five black rings appear around the girl’s arm. The shouted words he heard next shriveled his insides.

  “ALLO NECRO ATTA!”

  All undead attack.

  The Return of an Enemy

  All at once the entire spawnery seemed to wake. The great cavern echoed with one resounding roar that signified every monster in that rancid place had become alert, followed by the cacophonous clacking of a thousand undead jaws. Even by the time Leera had finished rolling into Augum, bones were creaking as water splashed from furious skeletal limbs. And everywhere, what Augum had thought were torches lighting up, were actually burning swords in rotten fists.

  The attacks began instantly and came from all sides. Bridget, fighting to stand, began the complicated gestures of a Cron casting, only to have her foot yanked by an undead hand reaching up from the bog, causing her to crash to the cobbled path.

  Augum fought off multiple grasping bog arms and shoved at the air. “BAKA!” sending the closest walker flying into two others. All at once there was a flash so bright it seemed to pierce his being, followed immediately by a tremendous CRACK that rumbled his insides. Every single monster within thirty feet was struck by a massive bolt of lightning that appeared to have come from the ceiling of the cavern. They burst into flames, most torn apart limb from limb. The group was pelted by chunks of bone and splashed with stinking water. Yet a slew of new frantic walkers quickly shot out from the bog, making it appear like the whole swamp was infested with them.

  Amongst it all, Augum spotted Persephone running away from them. It was impossible to cast Cron with all these grabby hands. Yet he couldn’t let her notify anyone, and so he quickly gave chase, trusting Mrs. Stone to keep the others safe. Just as he was about to telekinetically yank on one of Persephone’s feet, she veered off the main cobbled path onto a bisecting one, slipping beyond a wraith and two walkers.

  “FLUSTRATO!” Augum spat at one of the walkers. To his surprise, the spell worked, and the walker stumbled off, confused. “BAKA!” he shouted at the other, shoving the air. It was sent flying at the wraith, which batted it aside like it would a pesky fly.

  Augum, sprinting while trying to avoid grasping arms, slapped his wrists together. “ANNIHILO!” An electric surge burst through his body, exiting his hands. The thick bolt of lightning smashed into the wraith’s chest, making the giant stagger back with a smoking cavity. Augum took that opportunity to perform a move he had had plenty of practice with—roll under its great legs, which happened to be straddling the cobbled path. He deftly got to his feet on the other side and sprinted on, keeping Persephone in his sights.

  Two walkers, which had been dashing to intersect from opposite paths, dove simultaneously. Augum jumped. Almost as if in slow motion, he watched as they soared underneath him like lethal undead arrows, crashing into each other with a clacking hiss.

  His feet hit the stones running, but the path quickly devolved into a series of large boulders that Persephone navigated nimbly, jumping from one to the next, as if she had done it plenty of times before.

  As Augum cleared a particularly long jump—shooting his arms out precariously for balance on the other side lest he fall into the bog—he heard multiple quick feet. He glanced back just in time to see something with long black jagged teeth leap right at him. Out of pure instinct, he ducked and used Telekinesis to propel the body across and over him.

  It had been a hellhound, which growled as it flew, splashing into a pool. The demonic thing immediately began drowning. Who would have figured that some hellhounds couldn’t swim?

  “INFERMI!” Persephone shouted from a distant rock.

  Augum, having no experience against this particular necromantic spell, immediately collapsed, muscles and limbs feeling like jelly. It took a lot of mental effort, wasting precious arcane stamina, to fight off the weakness, allowing Persephone to increase the distance between them. She jumped from boulder to boulder while the horde mostly concentrated on Mrs. Stone’s tight group, from which came constant loud crashes, bursts of lightning, and echoed spell shouts.

  As Augum finally—and weakly—got underway again, a wraith and several walkers made their way to him through the bog, the latter up to their chests in water, slowing them down tremendously, while the former strode easily along. The wraith was the problem. With those giant limbs, it would get to him before the walkers, and Augum was too slow on the rocks to get away. He made a split decision to try something new against it, hoping he was strong enough with the spell. He splayed a palm at the wraith, bringing all his arcane focus to bear.

  “Paralizo carcusa cemente!” The wraith slowed significantly, allowing Augum to continue chasing after Persephone, who was edging along the far wall now on a thin ledge, vine-encrusted torches burning just above her. Augum shot his hand out, knowing he was at quite a distance, but hoping Telekinesis would work.

  One of the torches ahead of her loosened and fell. She yelped and dodged, but doing so caused a misstep and she fell into the swamp with a yelp. Augum, regaining his strength with each heartbeat, jumped from stone to stone, closing the distance between them, all while she scrambled to get out of the sticky swamp. By the time she climbed back onto the ledge, Augum had joined her on it—except he was about twenty paces back. She gave him a furious narrow-eyed look and continued on, five black rings ablaze around her arm. She had passed her Torment Trial and was a full-blooded—albeit young—necromancer, though one that had not been disfigured like the others.

  He saw where she was going. Beyond, on a rather wide rocky ledge, was a set of doors. But it was what was beside them that concerned him. Etched into the wall and glinting in the torchlight were distinct small silver ovals … portal runes.

  A deep rumble reverberated through the cavern, followed by a massive roar. The bull demon had entered the fight. Augum only hoped Mrs. Stone was strong enough to handle it.

  He furiously worked his way along the edge. The walkers had caught up, but they were in the water below, seemingly unable to find a handhold to get up to him. Both soon disappeared into a black pool—a spot too deep for them to walk through. He hoped they’d drown too, though seeing as they didn’t breathe …

  Just as he jumped over to the wider ledge, Persephone said, “Shyneo!
” Her hand flared with black light. Augum was already sprinting at her as she smacked one of the silver ovals, shouting, “Emerga exato!” a phrase Augum quickly committed to memory. The portal ripped to life, its fierce wind tearing at her robe and short blonde hair. She jumped inside—but not before Augum snatched one of her legs with Telekinesis. She fell to the bottom of the portal, her torso beyond its pitch-blackness, legs flailing in the spawnery, with Augum desperately hanging on.

  For a moment, it was a tug of war, until Augum summoned his arcane focus and gave a sharp yank. Persephone flew backward. She was caught mid-sentence, shouting, “—alert his lordship!” He glimpsed a look of surprise on her face before she careened into a nearby boulder in the swamp. There was a thump as her head smacked the rock, then she splashed into the bog, face down.

  Augum just stared stupidly before realizing she would drown if he left her that way. He jumped off the ledge into the bog and scrambled over, flipping her limp body onto the rock while fighting off a bunch of grasping undead, undead that left the necromancer well enough alone. Augum wiped the mud from Persephone’s face so that she could breathe easier, before scrambling back onto the ledge, just as something emerged from the portal. He stood up to see a flaming being standing before him, the same one he had seen in the waters of the sewer.

  “Hello, sweetie,” sang the flaming woman as the portal dissipated. “How pleasant revenge will be.” The voice was a warbling fire, like a quivering chord of disharmony, and it was awfully familiar.

  “Who are you?” Augum asked.

  “I do not blame you for not recognizing me, kiddo, seeing as my appearance has changed a wee bit.”

  The burning woman took a step forward and Augum took one back, feeling his heels on the edge of the rocky plateau.

  “You killed me, cupcake, like the murderer you are,” said the flaming woman in deadly yet playful tones. “But I have been raised by His Malevolence, to exact revenge and serve the cause. I have, at long last, achieved the eternal.” The woman chortled to herself, the sound much like water being poured onto a bed of hot coals. “Last we met, you stole something that belonged to me, something I took great pride in being responsible for.”

  Augum gaped. It couldn’t be …

  The woman took another threatening step forward. “And I am not talking about my life, nor am I talking about my sweet nephew, whom you murdered in cold blood on that arena floor.”

  Into the Nothing

  Erika Scarson, now a burning revenant, lashed out like a viper. Her quickness surprised Augum, who reacted too slow to block some kind of fiery flash strike that instantly seared his chest, sending him stumbling off the ledge and splashing into the swamp. He immediately received a hard whack in the brackish waters, and turned to see a purplish meaty clacking jaw come at his face. He recoiled, seeing that the walker was a fat man that had to have been recently raised. One eye was missing and his cheeks were hugely swollen, giving him a bullfrog appearance.

  Augum’s panicked reaction was to make a whipping gesture at the water, shouting, “GRAU!” A fierce crack of thunder rent the air. But the fat walker was immune to such a display of intimidation. It lunged at him, its jagged jaws biting into his shoulder. Augum screamed from the tearing pain before being dragged underwater, flailing like a drowning madman. Luckily, a punch connected with the walker’s fat face, allowing him to surface and catch a breath. And as he did so, he heard a massive explosion followed by a deep rumble that shook the very floor of the swamp, sending low trembling waves across the surface of the brackish waters. Above him on the ledge, through the thrashing of his limbs as he flailed against the walker’s grip, he could see the murky outline of a burning woman. Her arm rose slowly, as if she knew how much time she had, for here he was at her mercy, about to die.

  For a precious and painful moment, Augum ignored the walker, which now rabidly tore at him with thick hands that had black and broken nails. He shot his hand out, timing his mouth to be above the swamp water at the crucial moment, and shouted, “FLUSTRATO!”

  Erika hesitated. She glanced at her own flaming arm, then took a step forward—right off the ledge. She splashed into the water beside Augum with a mighty hiss.

  Augum returned his attention to the fat walker, which was now trying to drown him with its great weight while simultaneously choking him. He knew he was in deep trouble as he couldn’t get a spell off underwater.

  A frantic voice suddenly penetrated his brain, a voice he barely recognized as Bridget’s. “Aug! Help! Gods, NO—” There was a sudden enormous blast, one he felt reverberate concussively underwater. It was deep and strong, so strong he felt the entire cavern shifting, like a plate that had been tilted. The water immediately began to move, faster and faster. It was such a pull the walker had a hard time holding onto Augum, who by then was on the edge of unconsciousness, desperately fighting to take even a single breath above water. Just as he was about to drown, the walker slammed into something hard and was ripped away. Augum immediately surfaced and took a huge lungful of air. Yet what he saw before him made his eyes widen with terror—he was caught in a massive whirlpool.

  The spawnery floor had been pierced.

  Augum was too weak from the rabid underwater struggle to resist the whirlpool’s powerful current. Monsters of all sorts bobbed about. Any that saw him tried to attack, but the currents simply scattered them all like seeds in a storm. Somewhere in that watery maelstrom was Erika Scarson, a flaming shark in a dark pool, no doubt searching, hunting …

  Exhausted, Augum briefly wondered where the others were. Had they been sucked under already? Were they alive? Oh, Leera, beloved, please be all right! And Bridget! And Nana! And Mr. and Mrs. Ribbons! Where were they—?

  Augum began circling the massive drain faster and faster. The center was a roar, an unforgiving, gurgling rush of destruction. The waters lapped at his face, making it difficult to breathe, and his necrophyte robe kept catching on things, dragging him under. He soon reached the terrible center and was sucked down … down … into the deep and suffocating darkness. Then, all of a sudden, his stomach jammed into his throat as a horrible butterfly sensation tingled through his entire body.

  He was falling in pitch-darkness. Water attacked him from all sides, water that seemed to be turning into mist, much like as if he was falling amidst a waterfall. The roar of that great whirlpool maelstrom slowly died above. And he kept falling and falling …

  All at once, as if punched in the gut, he became aware of the most peculiar sensation. Yes, he was weightless, and yes he was most certainly falling … yet no wind tore at him. In fact, he was randomly bumping into objects in that pitch-darkness, as if …

  “Shyneo,” Augum spat, coughing. His palm flared electrically, lighting up the surrounding objects. Through the mist he made out a boulder, a soggy branch, and a flailing, clacking walker, desperately trying to get to him. All were weightless, tumbling gently in a foggy water cloud. The walker soon disappeared into the mist. He had actually witnessed it float away. The sensation reminded him of when he was flying above the Tallows, lost in a storm.

  They must have fallen into some kind of cavern enchanted with ancient arcanery! Could this be the fabled Cloud Chamber Mrs. Stone’s party of mischief-makers had found in their youth?

  Augum brought his Exot ring to his lips. “Contact Bridget Burns. Bridget, are you all right?” He received no reply. Bumps rose on his skin. “Bridget are you there?” But the mist seemed to swallow his voice. “BRIDGET—!” All he heard were the dull sounds of objects gently smacking into each other, interspersed with the occasional muted clacking. A stick bumped into his head. He knocked it away, watching as it twirled lazily through the mist.

  A large shape loomed out of the mist, floating toward him. It was a giant wraith with its back turned. Augum extended a hand and telekinetically stopped it from smacking into him. Its goopy limbs wobbled about idly like a child in its crib. Out of curiosity, Augum arcanely turned the wraith around. It hissed and flailed
the moment it laid its hollow black eyes upon him. Augum watched, noting that he could arrange his body relative to the wraith as long as he maintained a telekinetic grip on it.

  “Don’t suppose you know where my friends are?” he asked. It hissed again while swiping feebly at misty air. “Thanks for nothing.” He shoved at the air. “BAKA!” but instead of the wraith being sent back, it was he that was sent flying away from the wraith … or so it appeared to him. That’s how he’d get around, he realized—telekinetically, using the forces at play to work his way around this strange chamber, a chamber that appeared to have no walls, no up and down, no … nothing.

  He heard a voice calling. A distant, echoed voice. Somehow it had reached him through this misty nothingness.

  “HELLO! I’M HERE!” Augum shouted, realizing the absurdity of the statement. There was no here, nor was there any there, only a seemingly infinite dark space defined by the relatively weak blue glow of his lightning-infused palm. He batted a soggy lump of something gooey out of his face before shouting again, “HELLO! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME! BRIDGET! LEERA—!” but he still heard no reply and he was losing his voice. It worried him greatly the Exot ring did not reach Bridget. Had something serious happened to them?