Hubric nodded but there was a strain behind his eyes.
“And that’s why we need to seal up the entrance below,” he agreed, adding a comforting smile. “And we’ll do it.”
It wasn’t like Hubric to comfort people. Usually, he barked and ordered. He didn’t usually look gentle and mild. I must have really screwed up.
I was surprised that we hadn’t been attacked yet. The golems let me stop them or redirect them, but we had yet to be surrounded or pinned down.
Don’t wish for it, boy. Kyrowat said in my mind. I’m sure they’ll get to that when they realize what you’re doing.
True. Eventually, one of those Magikas would realize there was trouble coming up from behind the frontlines. And then they’d co-ordinate and all these golems would come crashing down on us.
We followed the bodies, mostly. They would lead to the entrance below.
“I’m afraid this is where we dismount,” Hubric said when we got to the first set of doors that Kyrowat had to squeeze through.
Bataar was still singing.
“An angelic song won’t bring back the dead,” I said curtly.
“It’s the Kav’ai song of the dead,” Bataar said. And as he began to sing again, I listened to the words.
Rest, weary one,
The sun, the sun
Is rising.
In this new life,
The pain has flown, away.
Rest child of earth,
And let your soul,
Fly heavenward,
No tear to mar the eye,
Or pain the heart again.
Until one day,
When we, our hearts united,
Stand under sun,
We’ve never seen before.
Until one day,
When hope has shown her merit,
And all will rest in faith,
and warm to brand new life.
It felt strange to sing such a soft, longing song in halls filled with the squeal of metal on stone, and the smell of death and desperation.
I gritted my teeth. Bataar wasn’t so bad. And he’d chosen to join us. No one asked him to come and die with us. He’d just chosen to come along. You couldn’t fault a man for that.
I almost knew his song by heart when we heard the first sound of people still alive in the Castel.
Chapter Fourteen
“Three ... two ... one ... and HEAVE!”
Was that Lee Estabis? But hadn’t he flown away on his Black dragon?
And yet I could have sworn I heard his voice. The corridor ahead was choked with golems pressing away from me but toward the voices.
“Stop,” I said to the others, and then to the golem creeping up on Kyrowat in the hall behind him, “Stop.”
The golem blocked the hallway behind us, but what could I do about the ones in front of me? One by one, I maneuvered them into doorways and arches along the corridor, untangling them like pieces of a slotted puzzle as I slowly worked toward the door beyond. When I pulled the last golem out of the way, tucking him neatly against a tapestry depicting Haz and Haz’drazen meeting in the snow for the first swearing, I saw the few people left. They were guarding that holding room – the room where Lenora and her clerks had so carefully separated people into groups to travel into the warrens.
My heart stuttered at a small child’s toy broken on the ground. It must have been dropped in the chaos. Somewhere there was a child crying in the dark, wondering where that toy was.
No time for that!
I forced myself to ignore the piles of abandoned goods – a sign of the terror of the people who had disappeared down the hole. I forced myself to look past the bodies piled in every entrance where people had stood and fought to keep the golems back. Most of the entrances were collapsed, debris and balking keeping them closed. Likely, the men inside had done that. I could hear golems outside banging at the rubble, trying to get in.
Sweating and swaying on his feet, Lee Estabis stood with four other men. Blood caked his bandaged head and one of his arms hung lifeless to the side. Broken, perhaps. His men were equally battered, their eyes lighting with a hope so slight it barely existed.
“Tor,” Lee breathed. “You have returned.”
He sounded neither happy or sad by the revelation. Just tired. We were all so tired.
I didn’t know why I laughed, but I did. I was so tired. So bone tired. After a moment he joined me.
“I thought I saw your dragon fly away,” I said.
“He went with my sister,” Lee said. “And our wounded.”
I nodded. The nod of one dead man to another.
“And now we are the only ones left to defend the doors of our citizens escape. Pray we can last a few more hours,” Lee said.
“Actually,” I said with a grin, “I think I have a better plan.”
I had envisioned us being killed after Kyrowat sealed the entrance from this side, but it suddenly occurred to me that a door has two sides. Who said he had to flame it from this side? Couldn’t he just as easily flame it from the other side?
“You and your men will flee into the warrens. Kyrowat and Hubric will seal the entrance behind us, keeping the citizens safe and keeping the golems from ever being able to enter through this entrance.”
I looked at the door at the end of the room. It led to a basket that descended deep down the stem of the city into the entrance to the warrens. The last obstacle.
I could go find Zyla. I could make sure she was okay. Kyrowat had even been through the warrens before. He would be fine.
“You can lead us through the warrens, right Hubric?” I said hopefully.
“Could be,” he didn’t seem certain. And shadows wreathed his eyes but if there was ever anyone who could step up and do what needed to be done, it was Hubric.
“Then it’s a plan!”
“There’s a problem with your plan,” Lee said reluctantly.
“What kind of problem?”
“Someone up here is required to lower the basket.”
“I don’t see a problem,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
“But then you’ll be up here when we all go into the warrens. You’ll be sealed out of them, too.”
His words hung heavy in the air. I swallowed. I wouldn’t be seeing Zyla anytime soon after all.
But there was only one person here who could stop golems. There was only one person who had a chance of escaping alive once everyone else was gone. I could see the future weaving out in front of me and there was a soft spot again. One thing I could do to change it.
This time, I wouldn’t miss my chance.
I swallowed down the fear rising up from my belly.
“One thing at a time. First – ”
With a roar, a golem burst toward us down the hall I’d cleared.
“Stop!” I called, but already more were surging around the frozen one, fighting and kicking to push their fellow out of the way.
The Magikas had found us.
“Hurry,” I said to Hubric, grabbing him by the shoulder. “You can do this, right?”
“Are you sure that you should stay, boy?” Hubric looked worried. “Even your power over these things is limited.”
I didn’t want to stay. I wanted to flee, too. The basket that Lee Estabis’ men climbed into looked incredibly appealing.
“Don’t tell me you’re so afraid of those warrens that you’re trying to stay behind, old man.”
He snorted, though the haunted look in his eyes was still there What had happened to them in the warrens before? I hoped Zyla and the people with her were okay.
“I could take you down the shaft on Kyrowat’s back,” Hubric offered as I fought against the tide of golems pushing forward.
Was I imagining things, or had the first few golems I’d stopped started to push forward again?
“If we do that, we’ll be overrun with these before we can block the warrens and if we don’t block them off then all of this has been for nothing.” I risked a glance at Hubri
c. “I’ve done the impossible before. Don’t mind me while I do it again.”
He snorted at my hubris and mounted Kyrowat. “Stay alive, boy. I’m growing fond of you.”
I fought the fresh surge of golems, my mind forced to give them all my attention. There! One was bursting around the side, snapping with metal jaws. I froze him in place.
The steady boom of the golems attacking the collapsed doorway to one side turned into the gravelly sound of rock being dragged over rock. They were opening that entrance.
I kept the heaving rocks in view while stopping another golem in his tracks moments before he crashed into me.
There was some kind of commotion from the soldiers behind me. It sounded like Bataar was arguing with Lee Estabis. That guy couldn’t get along with anyone! If he wasn’t looking down on me and thinking I wasn’t good enough, then it was someone else!
“Get out of here while you still can!” I ordered, backing up to the crank and beginning to lower it without even watching it while my eyes sought golem after golem as they burst into the wide room. The soldiers would just have to get themselves together and sorted out before the basket was lowered too far to change their minds. I wasn’t waiting on petty squabbles to save their lives.
There was a curse behind me and a few more terse words, but then they faded as the basket lowered down into the stem of the city. Hopefully, they’d make it down there and into the warrens before I was overwhelmed.
Sweat formed on my brow and dripped down my face. My hand on the crank felt slick. I’d better not lose my hold, or they’d plummet down the stem of the city. I gritted my teeth.
“Playing the hero again?” my mimic asked. “Somehow you always find the high ground and draw everyone’s eyes.”
Was it drawing eyes to die alone in a big empty room, crushed or torn to pieces by metal mutants?
I couldn’t hear the soldiers anymore and Kyrowat and Hubric had descended before the basket. They must be at least a third of the way down by now. I just had to keep cranking.
“I wouldn’t call this, ‘alone’,” my mimic objected.
I didn’t consider him someone else. For better or for ill, he really was a part of me. My worse self. The self I had to be sure not to listen to.
“That’s hurtful. But I was talking about Bataar.”
Chapter Fifteen
A hand grabbed the crank from my grip.
“I’ll finish that while you take care of the golems.”
It was a good thing he’d taken the crank, because I froze when I saw him, my mouth dropping open.
“I can’t do everything, Tor! Mind those golems,” Bataar said.
In shock, I continued to fight, swaying with exhaustion. They’d opened up the door from the stairs above and sunlight poured through the opening between the gathered bodies just before they surged through.
I fought them on two fronts. Freeze. Locate new golem. Freeze. Stop wave of golems. Locate new golem. Freeze.
My mind had bled from tired into sheer exhaustion long before I finally managed to gasp, “You were supposed to be in the basket!”
“Lee thought so, too. He thought he should be the one to help you make this last stand. Fool.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s not the fool here, Bataar. You’re a dead man for staying, you know that right?”
“Zin would kill me if I didn’t,” he said coolly.
Zin. I hadn’t thought about her in a while. It was hard to disappoint a girl like Zin.
“She sent me off with these words,” Bataar said, imitating her voice. “’Two must stay where one would stand. Tor always thinks he needs to do things himself, Bataar but he needs you there with him. If he tries to send you away at some point to do something heroic, you have to stay.’”
“Wait, so I’m stuck with you now for the rest of my life?” I asked between gritted teeth. “What if I need to take a bath? I prefer to do that myself.”
“Are you planning to take a bath right now, Tor?” Bataar countered, still cranking the winch while I fought the next wave of golems.
I wasn’t seeing things. Golems that I could have sworn I’d already frozen in place began to move again, reanimating.
“Why does it have to be you?” I asked. “Why not Lee Estabis?”
“Because we’re both marked by the world beyond, Tor. And you don’t know what kind of magic you can access with those marks!” he sounded frustrated. He should try being me sometime and see how that went.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I have the power to stop these things with my mind,” I said. “That’s kind of a big deal.”
“And you think that temporarily stopping them is enough?” Bataar argued.
“What more could you want?” I growled. Because that was Bataar for you. Always wanting something more. Always wanting a guy to measure up to his high standards of faithfulness and responsibility.
“What powers the golems, Tor?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s souls,” I replied.
There was a thunk and the crank stopped.
“They’ve reached the bottom,” Bataar said, and then his hand clamped on my shoulder. “If there are souls trapped in those golems, however they are being used, we need to free them, Tor. It’s our responsibility.”
“Great. More responsibilities,” I growled. “I was just thinking, ‘Boy, I’m all out of responsibilities now that I’ve volunteered to die so everyone else can escape. Wherever will I find more?’”
“Sarcasm aside,” Bataar said gravely, “We must find a solution to the problem.”
The man had no sense of humor at all.
“How long do you think it will take for them to seal that passage?” I asked, wiping sweat from my forehead as I concentrated on the golems.
Freeze. Locate. Freeze. Locate.
“I don’t know. Why?” Bataar asked.
“Because I’d like to try to survive this once we know they’re safe!”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh, I thought this was a suicide mission.”
“Well, we can hardly free all those trapped souls for you if we both die here!”
I felt like rolling my eyes, but all I could do was continue to fight.
Freeze. Locate. Freeze. Locate.
A faint voice spoke in my mind.
Still alive, Tor? It was Kyrowat. If you are, the door is blocked. Glory to the trickster. We will remember your name.
It faded from my mind. Great. A real consolation being remembered like that. Made dying soooo worth it.
With a roll of my eyes, I turned to Bataar. “How fast can you run?”
Chapter Sixteen
“Run?” Bataar asked, but I was already racing toward the cleared entry, blasting the golems in front of me with barrages of mental force, demanding that they stagger backward before our charge.
“What are you doing?” Bataar asked.
“We need to get higher up so we can see what’s happening,” I said.
“We already know what’s happening! We’re surrounded by hundreds of golems!”
I searched for Saboraak’s mind. Nothing.
Hopefully, she and the other dragons were far away out of this mess. Hopefully, she was flying free toward Questan. There would be allies there.
We climbed the stairs between the frozen golem bodies as my mind raced. If these things were reanimating, it meant I could only pause them, not kill them. And an army this size couldn’t be stopped for long. Bataar was right that we needed a way to get those souls freed from the bodies of the golems.
“How do you think they made so many golems so quickly?” I asked Bataar as we scrambled up the staircase. I could barely spare enough mental space to ask anything with the effort of keeping the golems back. Someone had said something about where these golems had come from. Why couldn’t I remember it? I was too tired.
“I don’t think that Apeq made all of these, if that is what you are asking. I think he made the flyers. Ore production has massively increased in Ko’Torenth ove
r the past two years, but even with all of that, the industries in that country can only produce so many finished metal products. I could see him making these flyers. But I don’t’ think he made the land golems.”
“I think of them as creeping golems,” I said. “And someone said something about them being ancient.”
We reached the next floor and I led the way to the staircase. It was the exact route I’d taken before to come downstairs with the mother and children. Now, I was racing time again – but this time with Bataar.
“Stop,” I shouted at the golems. “Stop, stop!”
“I think you need to stop shouting and sing,” Bataar suggested.
Ha! My singing was bad, but not bad enough to slay the enemy.
“Any idea where he could have found thousands of creeping golems?” I asked, ignoring his suggestion as I blasted at golems behind us and in front of us.
The Castel was crawling with them – every room, every hall, every staircase had golems creeping across it, slowly and steadily like ants marching in a line. It made my skin crawl.
“There is an ancient legend of Kado the Wolf King,” Bataar said. “Kado marched his army of silver wolves across the earth and won for himself a great kingdom.”
“Lucky Kado.” I paused to catch my breath. We were on the third staircase. One more to the top of this tower, if my memory was correct.
“When he had finished cleansing the land of a great evil and winning it back for his people, he marched his armies under the mountain and there he died with them.”
“Wait, so they all just disappeared?”
“Yes. The people celebrate it on the night of the darkened moon.”
“The eclipse?”
“Yes. Kado and his wolves were at peace under the mountain.”
“And where was this mountain?” I asked.
We were almost there. Just a few more steps. I was growing used to the constant distraction of freezing golems, but it still felt strange to walk between their frozen forms. They were like dozens of serene statues posed with snapping jaws and half-raised paws.
Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 9-12 Page 12