by Martha Carr
The crunch of breaking bones was masked beneath the other sounds of battle. The skaxen dropped to the ground, and Lumil cackled. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
The battle died quickly as L’zar’s band of rebels made short work of the Crown’s servants. The only battle still raging was between General Hi’et and the ogre Yarin. He kept a firm grip on the metal plate serving as his shield. Maleshi darted around him, denting the plate and sending silver bolts of lightning at it, but she was unable to bring the ogre down.
Cheyenne wiped something wet and sticky off her forehead, breathing heavily as she turned to watch the final battle. “No one’s gonna help her?”
Lumil chuckled. “Better not, kid. Get in the general’s way, and you might as well slit your own throat.”
Corian retracted his claws from a gray-robed goblin’s chest and turned to watch the other nightstalker battling the semi-armored ogre. Then he scanned the destruction littering the chamber, searching for survivors as the metal clang of Maleshi’s claws on Yarin’s shield echoed around them.
A thin, withered skaxen pulled herself from the wreckage beside the giant hole in the wall and the missing door. While L’zar’s party watched Ambar’ogúl’s greatest war general fight a shielded ogre, the skaxen crawled silently across the floor. She considered snatching up the motionless, hovering fae three feet away but thought better of it. Instead, the rat-faced servant of the Crown seized the opportunity and slunk out of the chamber, scrambling to her feet around the corner and racing down the hall to alert the Crown’s Heart to what had come for them.
The second the skaxen disappeared to sound the alarm, Maleshi’s claws shredded the metal shield in Yarin’s hands and the thing broke clean in two. The ogre paused, his helmet moving between the twin pieces of metal in surprise. He reeled backward when Maleshi advanced again, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough.
The general’s clawed hand pierced the shielded visor protecting his face, then she jerked down. The ogre stumbled forward, roaring, before the nightstalker’s other handful of piercing claws ripped into his chest. Maleshi screamed with effort and pulled her arms away from each other, shredding the metal mask and the ogre’s chest until something crunched behind the visor and a gush of dark blood fell from beneath it.
The ogre hit the floor. General Hi’et stepped back, growling, and tossed her black hair out of her eyes.
“Feel better?” Corian asked.
“Well, it’s a start.”
L’zar materialized behind the fallen ogre and gestured toward the door leading to the corridors beyond. “By your leave, General.”
“Cut it out. We both know I don’t have a damn clue where we’re going.”
Ember floated toward the pool of bubbling black goo, her violet eyes swimming with tears. “We can’t just leave them in there. They need help.”
“Not anymore.” Byrd sniffed and brushed glass shards off his shoulder. “These assholes were keeping their prisoners alive. My guess is the electric rods and something moving through those cages. Nobody’s alive in there, fae. They’ve been left too long.”
Ember scanned the faces of the tortured magical prisoners, looking for signs of life. “We don’t know that. Can’t we just check?”
“Your heart’s in the right place, kid.” Lumil patted Ember’s back and steered her away from the pool toward the opposite side of the chamber. “We don’t have time, and they don’t have a spark of life left. Let them have their peace as they found it, huh?”
Ember turned over her shoulder to check one more time for movement, but that only came from the black bubbles bursting on the surface of the pool.
Cheyenne bit her lip and stared at her friend as the party gathered behind the exit to follow L’zar. If she makes it through this and doesn’t lose her mind, she can make it through anything. The halfling gently took Ember’s wrist and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” Ember grimaced at her friend. “But at least they’re not screaming anymore.”
L’zar waved his hand across the door, which opened slowly to let them out into another series of corridors. “Keep up. Two minutes tops and we’re at the courtyard.”
He looked at Cheyenne and nodded.
Her hand went to her pocket and felt the gold coin’s outline there. And then I’ll have to get this thing on a stupid table. Yeah, I’m ready.
L’zar gazed at the top of the open doorway, then darted into the corridor to lead them through the Crown’s fortress. The party quickly followed, racing against what little time they had left.
Chapter Ninety-Two
The corridors got darker and narrower as they ran. Cheyenne tried to look straight ahead and watch where she was going, but the activator kept catching her attention with bright flashes of light racing along the walls beside her. The instant the activator alerted her to the fact that they’d been found out, a siren erupted from the walls, groaning and wailing like a trapped beast crying out in pain.
“Shit.” Corian hissed as they ran behind L’zar. “Someone was bound to see us eventually. Sooner than we’d hoped, though.”
“Don’t stop!” L’zar shouted. “Just around this corner!”
A blaze of searing heat and roaring orange flames hurtled down the hall toward them. L’zar stopped at the front of their line, staring straight at the fire, but didn’t lift a finger to do anything. Cheyenne gritted her teeth and raised a shield in front of him at the last second, sectioning off the corridor from floor to ceiling before the fiery attack reached them. The blaze flared and brightened with an angry roar as it churned against her shield, turning the stone and metal corridor into a magical oven. The rebels leaned away from the glaring brightness, bearing the heat and the deafening roar until the flames subsided.
Cheyenne hissed and let the shield drop so they could press forward. Maleshi turned briefly toward her as they ran. “Way to use your head, kid.”
“Just trying not to lose it.”
The alarm wailed around them, and the second they turned the final corner, they were met by a full contingent of orc soldiers, all with the Bull’s Head embroidered on their black uniform chests, shoulders, and collars. The rebels hurtled down the next walkway, and Cheyenne almost stopped when she realized where they were.
They’d come out six stories above a massive sunken courtyard of black stone. The corridor they’d reached encircled the courtyard, open to the wide space in the center and separated by a narrow stone rail from the drop. In the center of the indoor courtyard stood the last Nimlothar tree, its gnarled trunk twisting up toward the domed ceiling far above. Gloomy gray light spilled onto the stone floors and the giant tree’s twisted roots, which protruded from the broken stone around it. The Nimlothar pulsed with a faint dark light, its branches mostly bare but for the occasional cluster of frail purple leaves that looked as sick and twisted as the rest of the tree.
This is it.
Cheyenne spun toward the orc soldiers heading toward them along the narrow stone walkway around the courtyard and the next battle began.
Spells flew in every direction. Maleshi and Corian met the first line of orcs charging toward them, silver light flashing as they barreled through the snarling Crown loyalists trying to run them down. Orcs screamed as they dropped over the stone rail and hit the courtyard floor at the bottom. There wasn’t much room for the other rebels to join the fight as the nightstalkers fought their way through the armed soldiers.
Footsteps pounded across the stone behind Cheyenne, and she turned in the opposite direction to see another wave of soldiers streaming from a second corridor opening onto the walkway. The first few caught sight of her and leered, then pounded meaty fists against their chests and broke into a run.
“Behind us too!” she shouted, summoning crackling spheres of black energy in both hands.
Lumil and Byrd turned and broke into matching grins of battle insanity when they saw the second group of orcs. “Excellent.”
Cheyenne fired her churning black energy spheres, catching the oncoming orcs in the shoulders and chests. Two of them fell and were trampled by their fellow soldiers, who cared more about catching the invaders than the fate of their comrades.
“Cheyenne!” L’zar’s hand wrapped around her wrist and jerked her into a recessed niche along the walkway. Lumil and Byrd met the next wave of orcs with red-flashing fists and bursts of green flame, laughing maniacally.
Cheyenne jerked free of his grip and glared at him. “I’m not hiding with you. I have to get out there and fight!”
“No. You need to get down there.” He pointed into the courtyard. “Black metal table. On top of it is something that looks like an anvil. Get the marandúr into the bowl shape on top. That’s the only thing you need to worry about.”
From the opposite side of the courtyard on the fourth level came echoing shouts and the clang of weapons meeting. Bright bursts of lights lit the stone corridors, then a stream of magicals locked in battle spilled out onto the walkway.
“I can’t let everyone fight for me.”
“That’s why they’re here—to fight and buy you time to do what you came here to do. I’m right behind you. Go.” He shoved her out of the recessed niche in the wall, and she caught herself on the stone rail.
On her right, a leering orc with a glistening scar running down the center of his face caught sight of her and summoned a crackling blue spear in his hand. He drew his arm back to throw, then lurched forward. The orc’s eyes rolled back, and he fell onto his face on the walkway.
Behind him, Ember slowly lowered her outstretched hands and looked from the soldier’s body to meet Cheyenne’s gaze. “Turns out, I can fight.”
“Em, I have to get down there.”
“Yeah. Go. I’m good.” Ember spun and shot shimmering darts of opalescent light into the orc army fighting the nightstalkers.
“Right.” Cheyenne peered over the railing into the Nimlothar courtyard below. The Rahalma altar stood six feet from the base of the gnarled trunk. How to get down safely? Six stories is a long way to jump.
Across the courtyard, the second battle raged along the walkway. An ear-shattering bellow echoed around them before a hulking magical with gray skin and red fur barreled out of one converging corridor. Stone split and fell around Nu’ek’s hulking shoulder as the golra squeezed onto the walkway and flung the Crown’s soldiers down into the courtyard.
“They’re here.” Cheyenne turned toward the nightstalkers as she climbed over the rail and set her feet down on the other side. “They’re here!”
L’zar’s rebels spared a glance across the chamber to see the rest of Ambar’ogúl’s defectors in the capital surging along the walkway. Lumil screamed a battle cry and pounded on anything within reach of her fists.
“Go!” L’zar snarled, ducking a swinging blow from an orc’s monstrous sword. He lashed out with his fists and feet, pummeling the orc without using magic.
Cheyenne watched her drow father beating back his opponent with nothing but his bare hands, which moved in a blur of gray flesh. At least he’s finally fighting. She glanced at the floor of the courtyard, gritted her teeth, and started to climb down. Fortunately, the stone walls that had stood at the heart of Hangivol for countless Cycles gave her plenty of hand- and footholds. Weapons and magic clashed around her as the drow halfling slowly descended.
From within a dark archway on the other side of the courtyard, a tall figure cloaked in fluttering black robes emerged. The figure’s hands were clasped in front of it, hidden by the draping sleeves of the robes. The black hood concealed the features of the magical, but two golden eyes glowed within the darkness. The figure moved slowly across the stone, not heeding the battle raging above.
Cheyenne’s foot slipped on the jutting stone beneath her and she shouted, clinging to the stones by her fingertips and forcing herself to regain her footing and her balance. A screaming orc dropped a foot to her right and slammed into the stone floor. She kept climbing down. Just focus on this, and on not getting knocked off.
A burst of crackling yellow and blue magic crashed against the stone wall on her left, pelting her face and arms with shards of black rock. She blinked and tried to blink the dust out of her eyes. When she glanced down again and saw how far she hadn’t come, Cheyenne pressed herself against the wall and shook her head. This isn’t working. I need a faster way down.
She looked as far as she could over her shoulder and eyed the gnarled, twisting branches of the Nimlothar in the center of the courtyard. This is a real shot in the dark. I’ve been hit with black-magic sludge and bullets and almost had my hands melted off by war-machine spy beetles. This is a piece of cake.
Summoning all the strength she had, Cheyenne lowered her grip to a handhold closer to her chest so she could bend her knees as she clung to the wall. With a roar of effort, she leaped off the wall with a powerful kick and turned toward the Nimlothar. Her black tendrils lashed from the fingertips of both hands, whipping through the air as she sailed toward the ancient drow tree. The tendrils of one hand missed the first branch, but the others wrapped around the next one down. Cheyenne swung from the branch, feeling it shudder and jolt beneath her weight. She scrambled to whip the tendrils from her hands around another branch and succeeded, but the force drew her back toward the tree’s gnarled trunk way too fast.
Shit. Her eyes widened, and she spun in the air as much as she could to crash against the thick tree with her hip and shoulder instead of her face. The Nimlothar pulsed with a brighter purple light on impact, then fell still.
Grunting at the pain in her side, the halfling looked down at the courtyard floor and released her tendrils to drop the remaining twelve feet. She hit the stone floor and rolled, then picked herself up and shook off the pain before turning to find the Rahalma altar. The Nimlothar’s massive trunk blocked the black metal table from view, but Cheyenne darted around it to look for the altar.
She skidded to a stop when she saw the black-cloaked figure walking slowly toward the center of the courtyard. Great. I thought I was in the clear.
The halfling stepped forward, staring at the two glowing golden eyes within the black hood as she summoned a black energy sphere in one hand and pulled out the gold drow coin with the other. Her fist closed around it tightly. Here’s hoping whoever that is doesn’t know what I’m about to do.
The figure stopped walking and slowly lifted their hands to remove the hood. The slate-gray skin and bone-white hair coiled in thick braids on top of the drow woman’s head made Cheyenne’s heart drop. The Crown.
The drow woman smiled as she stared unblinking at the halfling in her courtyard. It was a dead smile, amused but without sympathy. The Crown raised a hand shrouded by the sleeve of her black robes and flicked her wrist.
The courtyard filled with the rumble of moving stone and shifting metal. All around the circular courtyard, every space between the overhanging wall and the floor of the walkway was sealed by thick, heavy walls of black metal dropping into place. One after the other, the walls clanged against the stone floor of the walkway, blocking Cheyenne off from the magicals fighting on the other side. The same metal doors dropped with an echoing bang to block off the other corridors on the courtyard’s ground level. Two horizontal doors slid into place with a boom overhead, blocking out what little light there was from the domed glass ceiling at the top of the courtyard.
Cheyenne stood alone in the stone courtyard with the Crown of Ambar’ogúl, separated from the fighting rebels and the orc army. Separated from L’zar.
She turned quickly to search for any archways left open as the muted battle sounds faded behind all the metal walls. The only exit now was behind the Crown.
Turning toward Ambar’ogúl’s dark drow monarch, Cheyenne bared her teeth. “Scared someone else is gonna come down here and help me?”
“Not at all.” The Crown tilted her head and glanced up at the closed-off walkways far above them. “I merely wish for us to have a more private conve
rsation, Cheyenne.”
Cheyenne’s blood ran cold, and she was vaguely aware of a sudden ringing in her ears. I’ve heard that voice before.
“You didn’t have to come all this way just to speak with me, hidna, though I’m quite flattered.” The Crown chuckled. “I did what I could to reach you before you were forced to go to all this trouble. For some reason, you didn’t seem to want my help.”
“I still don’t.” Cheyenne took another slow step toward the Rahalma. Six feet away. I can make that. “I never will.”
The halfling darted toward the table. The Crown hissed and reached out with both hands, sending a wave of crackling black light barreling toward the halfling like a cyclone. Cheyenne stopped to throw up a shield against the whirling storm. Sparks and dark light spewed when the Crown’s spell met her shield, then the spiral vanished.
“I see you’re hasty.” The drow woman dipped her head and grinned. “Don’t be. We have all the time in the world.”
Gritting her teeth, Cheyenne darted toward the altar again. This time, she was stopped by a blast of invisible force hurling her back. She staggered against it and felt the sharp bark of the Nimlothar biting into her back. The rushing spell pressed her against the tree, her white drow hair fluttering around her face and shoulders. Cheyenne roared and tried to peel herself away from the bark, but she couldn’t.
No black fire either, or that vision comes true, and I’ll be the drow-halfling fuckup who burned the last Nimlothar to the ground.
The howling wind of the Crown’s invisible force cut out, but Cheyenne was still pinned to the tree. The Crown spread her arms and smiled. “Don’t go anywhere. I just want you to stand there and listen to my offer.”