“Can you save us?” the man said.
“No.” He couldn’t. If these prisoners got free, the Faceless would know something was going on; he couldn’t risk warning them any more than he already had.
The man snarled and lunged at the bars, his filthy hands reaching out for Ash. “You’ll leave us here to die?”
Ash backed away, guilt curdling in his stomach. It could have been Rae in one of these cages; the chances were she huddled in a similar cell above him. “I-I’ll come back for you,” he said. He would. As soon as he found Rae and got her free, he’d save them all—all the prisoners.
“You bastard!” the man spat. He pressed his head into the bars and tried to force his skull through the narrow gap.
“I’ll come back.” Ash backed away from the cell until the light from his hand fell away from the prisoner’s twisted face and hid his anguish in shadows.
Ash turned and hurried away from the cell, but every few paces he felt the same change of air to his left or right and heard ragged breathing. More prisoners than he could count languished in the dark. He hardened his heart and moved faster, the dim light in his palm and the sensation of Rae getting closer guided him onward.
At the end of the corridor, he reached a set of thin winding steps that led to a solid door. It was locked but a few gentle probes with kinetic energy saw it click open and he snuck through into the corridor beyond. He had to pause, blinking against the bright light that flooded through an open window. Fresh air gusted past him, carrying away the stench of the prisons below.
He took a deep breath and locked the door behind him. He let the light in his palm go out.
Unlike the corridor below, this one overflowed with light and color. Paintings adorned each wall and narrow windows looked out over the snow-laden forest surrounding the fortress.
Ash’s heart pounded in his chest. Rae was just ahead, like a glowing light in his senses. He strode down the corridor with the heat stone clenched in his fist. He felt like a hero from the old stories, gone to save the princess from the dark fortress.
He glanced out of a passing window and gasped, pressed himself flat against the adjacent wall. The windows faced a parallel walkway on the other side of the Stronghold where Faceless Monks patrolled. If one of them happened to look across and see Ash strolling through their corridors…
His chest heaved as he waited for sounds of discovery, but nothing came.
He eased his tensed muscles and ducked below the next window. He walked the length of the corridor in a crouch, keeping as low as he could while still keeping an eye on the door ahead. It remained closed.
He placed a trembling hand on the cold handle. His heart fluttered and his breath caught in his throat. He steeled himself against what he might find on the other side. Based on the extreme pain he’d felt, Rae had been hurt badly and he needed to be ready for that. She might be trapped in a tiny cage, covered in her own filth, or worse.
He took a final deep breath, shoved the door open and burst into the room, knife raised.
In the circular room beyond, two Faceless Monks spun to face him. They lifted their arms and two suits of armor from the sides of the room jerked to life and advanced on Ash, sharp swords glinting.
Ash swallowed, he’d been so sure Rae was just beyond the door. Now he had to get passed two possessed suits of armor and two Faceless Monks so he could break through the next door where Rae had to be waiting.
He clenched his hand around Rae’s heat stone and took a deep breath, letting its energy flow into him, gathering for an attack.
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The two suits of armor lunged at him with their swords. Ash ducked and rolled, and he came up with his back against the wall. The two Faceless Monks stood unmoving on the other side of the room.
Ash took a deep breath and channeled the energy gathered in his chest toward the closest suit of armor. A thick band of brown kinetic energy surged forward and slammed into its silver breastplate. The figure flew backward and slammed against the far wall. Pieces of armor flew loose and clattered across the stones.
Ash blinked away exhaustion and clenched his hand tighter around Rae’s heat stone, the only source of energy he had. It felt colder than it had before and fear surged through Ash’s veins. If he used up all the heat, he’d have nothing left to fight with except the tiny knife at his waist.
Time for worry ran out as the second suit of armor swung its sword at Ash’s head.
He darted sideways and the blade passed inches from his neck so that he felt the wind of its passing as a gentle breeze that left a tingle across his flesh. He crouched and threw himself forward, carrying both himself and the suit of armor to the floor. Metal struck stone with a harsh clatter and the helmet rolled away across the floor. The headless suit of armor grabbed Ash’s shoulders and hurled him sideways.
Ash landed hard, the air knocked out of his lungs. He lay like a dying fish, gasping for breath, as the suit of armor snatched its sword, got to its feet, and advanced toward him. Its metal feet clinked with each step and its shoulders squealed as it lifted its sword and brought it down toward Ash’s throat.
Ash’s hand instinctively fell to the stone in his pocket as he threw up his other arm to block the blow.
The expected burst of pain never came.
He squeezed his eyes open and peaked around his arm to see the blade hovering just inches above. His attacker’s arms quaked with the effort of pushing the sword down but it wouldn’t go any farther.
A thin layer of kinetic energy lay over Ash’s arm, like a shield, and kept the sword at bay. But the heat stone in Ash’s hand grew colder and once it went out there would be nothing stopping the sword.
Ash tensed all of his muscles and then hurled himself out of the way. His face scraped along the rough stone floor, stinging grazes bit into his flesh.
The sword struck the ground to Ash’s left with a metallic clang and sent up bright sparks. It left a chalky white gouge in the floor. The suit of armor straightened and strode toward Ash.
Ash dragged his exhausted body across the floor, elbows scraping on rough stone. His lungs heaved and a chill tipped the ends of his fingers. The rock in his pocket was like ice against his chest, useless. He reached the wall and used it to pull himself up onto shaking legs. He turned to face the monster and pulled his knife from his belt, his hands trembled.
He had no doubt he was about to die. With no source of energy there was no way he’d be able to overcome the enchanted suit of armor, let alone the other set which had begun to reassemble itself, and then the two Faceless. A shudder shook his body. So close, he was so close to Rae, he could feel it in his very bones. If he could just get to her, so she could see he’d tried, at least then it might all be worth something.
Ash gathered all of his will and every ounce of strength he had left.
The suit of armor swung at him with its massive sword.
Ash ducked and darted left, barging into the armor with his shoulder. It clattered to the ground. Ash sprinted across the room at the Faceless Monks. He gathered his own body’s heat to his chest, and hurled it at them. A wall of kinetic energy flew out of him and slammed into the Monks, but they stayed rooted to the floor as if made of stone. The only sign of Ash’s attack was the blowing gale of wind that billowed their black cloaks out behind them.
Chill swept through Ash, from his fingertips and toes, then into his arms and legs, finally converging at his heart. He ignored the searing pain and pushed more energy out at the Monks. He’d given up on surviving the encounter, but if he could get through the door to Rae, that was something.
The wind grew stronger, buffeting the Faceless Monks’ robes so that they fanned back, like wings, behind them. A surging upwind tore at their hoods.
The Monks scrambled for their heads, but before they could snatch their hoods down the wind carried them up and backwards, baring the faces beneath.
Ash froze. His flow of energy stopped dead, leaving the room with the eerie stillnes
s of a tomb. He gaped. His mind rejected what his eyes saw, but there could be no doubt. He’d recognize that brown hair and tilt of head anywhere.
Rae.
Only, where before her delicate nose and sharp green eyes had been, now lay gaping black holes. Scars criss-crossed the skin of her face and all of her features had been taken, her eyes scooped out, her nose and lips scraped off, her mouth sewn together, so that all that remained was a sheet of scarred skin.
Bile surged into Ash’s mouth and he doubled over, hurling onto the ground. Thoughts swirled in his head but none of them made sense. He twisted his head to look at her again, begging that he’d see something different, that it had just been a trick of the light, but it hadn’t. The man standing beside Rae sported the same scarred mass instead of a face and somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind Ash processed the real meaning of ‘Faceless Monks’.
He straightened with the greatest effort and faced the two dark-robed figures. The suits of armor stood silently at the sides of the room.
“Rae,” Ash croaked.
Neither of the Monks responded.
“What happened?”
He didn’t know what he expected, they couldn’t answer with their mouths sewn shut and he couldn’t read any expression on their featureless faces. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. What had they done to Rae? How dare they try to turn her into a monster, and now they were controlling her; it was the only thing that made sense.
Anger turned to rage in Ash’s chest, heating his chilled limbs.
He strode forward and snatched hold of Rae’s hand. “I’ll get you out of here. I know the best healers. Maybe they can…”
She ripped her arm from his grip and shook her head once.
Ash clenched his teeth. It wasn’t her fault, they had control. He gripped her hand again and tried to drag her toward the far door from which he’d come. He didn’t have a plan, other than he had to get Rae out of the Stronghold and back to the Institute. Rae didn’t move, and no matter how hard he pulled, he couldn’t budge her.
“You can’t take her,” a voice echoed in the room. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. “She’s ours now.”
“No!” Ash said.
“Yes. She is one of the Faceless. As you will be.”
Ash’s gaze fell to Rae. He might have recognized the tilt of her head but it was like she was an empty shell, nothing of her former self left inside.
He reached out clawed hands toward the other Monk. “How dare you!”
He drew upon the Monk’s energy. Blue light poured into Ash’s hands, filling his chest and chasing away the last of the affects of his over-channeling. “I will drain you all! I will kill every last one of you! I will—”
The ethereal voice chuckled. “You are nothing more than an insect.”
Ash kept drawing blue light from the Monk but it seemed that no matter how much he took there was more. Sweat beaded down Ash’s face as energy built up inside him. His skin became hot and his clothes stuck to his flesh. It was as if he’d been thrust into a steaming spring and the water kept getting hotter.
He swallowed, the Monk had to run out of energy soon and then Ash would just let the excess energy go. But blue light kept surging from the Monk and he showed no sign of being affected.
Ash’s vision spun. His head pounded and his brain threatened to boil inside his own skull. He had to stop. He let his hand fall to his side with a groan and gripped his temples. Too much energy. It radiated from his skin like from hot embers. He had to get rid of it.
A sudden thought flashed into his mind. With so much energy he might just be able to get out of the Stronghold with Rae.
He didn’t have time to think the plan through, so he snatched Rae’s wrist. It felt icy against his own burning flesh. He brought his excess energy under control and hurled himself and Rae at the side of the room. He’d never tried anything like it before but it was all he had left. He threw his weight against the stones and they cracked, spilling away into the courtyard below under the force of his kinetic shield. He gripped Rae tighter and leapt through the hole in the wall toward the forest beyond. He used a stream of kinetic energy to carry him forward and keep him in the air.
He allowed himself a brief flicker of hope as he surged away from the tower. Throwing himself had taken a huge amount of energy, but he’d had excess pouring out of him, now he felt almost normal. He glanced over his shoulder to grin at Rae but faltered. She stood at the edge of the hole, staring after him with her eyeless face. He looked at his hand, which was supposed to be holding her. Empty.
His arms cartwheeled. He had to get back. He cast around, trying to gather enough energy to hurl himself back at the tower, but before he could react, something snatched him from the air and held him in place. It was as if a giant, invisible hand held the back of his shirt, dangling him tens of meters above hard, stone ground.
“You’re not getting away that easily,” the ephemeral voice sounded again, only now it was many voices, and it twisted Ash’s heart to recognize Rae’s among them.
“Let us go!” Ash bellowed.
“Oh no. She’s much too valuable and you’re much too troublesome. Say your goodbyes.”
“No.” Ash locked his gaze on Rae, sick to his stomach. “No.”
“Goodbye, Ash.” This time Rae’s musical voice dominated.
The invisible hand jerked Ash up and hurled him at the forest like a pebble thrown across a lake. Ash’s limbs spun useless in the air. He craned his neck to keep his eyes on Rae. He toppled through the air and his stomach lurched up into his throat as the tops of the trees rose up to great him. He scrambled for a scrap of energy to slow his fall but he couldn’t control his thoughts enough to channel.
Sharp pine trees loomed at him, their branches like spears ready to impale him. A raw scream escaped his throat just as the forest swallowed him.
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Ash’s limp body tumbled through the air and into the grasping forest below. Sharp branches pierced his flesh and wrenched his limbs away from his torso. Sharp lines of pain tore across his skin and left streamers of blood flying behind him. The world flew by in a swirling maelstrom of white snow, black tree branches, and cold despair. A bare branch pierced into his stomach like a sharpened sword, skewering him and tearing open his gut before finally snapping free. He fell like a twisted mannequin; wind rushed up from below and whipped his cloak up around his head.
His body slammed into the hard ground, spine first, and his skull smacked a sharp rock. Two of his vertebrae cracked and his skull split open, leaking blood and gray matter onto the white snow below. The bones in his leg shattered like dried twigs and thrust up through his tattered skin. A broken rib pierced his right lung and seemed to encase his chest in a tight iron band.
Pain encompassed every inch of his body, burning through his air-starved lungs and coming to sharp points where his broken bones surfaced. Dizziness filled his head. But none of that could compare to the pain in his heart that wrenched harder every second as Rae’s face surfaced in his mind’s eye. Her empty eyes, the gaping hole where her nose used to be, the lip-less mouth…
He screamed, despite the pain and his injured lung. He screamed so loud that it echoed through the trees and came back to him, bouncing through the forest and shaking snow loose from the branches above. He screamed until flecks of blood sprayed from his mouth and encased his tongue with the taste of iron. Rage seethed through his veins. It bubbled and twisted in his stomach like acid over a fire. It burned along his arteries and carried away the pain until all that remained was a desperate thirst for revenge.
His body hovered on the edge of death but the rage fed him. He wouldn’t let go, not before the Faceless Monks got exactly what they deserved. He’d gut every last one of them and leave them holding in their own intestines. He’d let their beating hearts be eaten by worms. He’d skin them alive and feed them the pieces.
Rage gave him purpose. He needed to live.
> The snow around him melted, trickling in rivulets of water away from his body. The tree nearest to him blackened, the thin pine needles sloughing off in twisted handfuls that shriveled on the ground, turning to ash. The trunk shrank, pulling in on itself and twisting until it became a bare skeleton. Already the trees next to that had lost their leaves so that the white snow was stained black with scattered ash.
A circle of destruction spread out from Ash’s twisted body. Every last piece of energy streamed from the trees and into his limp form, flowing to his broken bones, his pierced abdomen, and his shattered skull. Using the rage, he focused the energy, molding it to heal his body. His broken vertebrae clicked together like pieces of a puzzle and only then did the full pain of his shattered legs rush into his awareness.
He screamed and his concentration wavered, some of the energy escaped to melt more of the surrounding snow. Agony seethed from his bones and he could feel them moving inside him, as if some invisible hand were rummaging inside his skin. He forced his shattered bones back into place, pressing them down through his broken flesh.
He heaved a series of heavy breaths; the cold air burned his lungs and seared his raw throat.
All of the trees within ten feet of him had become blackened stumps surrounded with ash. One had been pulled out of the ground and its roots hung limp and lifeless, waving in a slight breeze that carried a chill through the trees.
Ash closed his eyes and reached out with his mind for more energy to feed his broken body. In a dim recess of his mind he knew… this was power; feeding on another living thing, taking its life and making it his own.
The next row of trees shook and dropped their leaves, pouring energy into Ash that he channeled to his broken rib. It slid out from his lung, like a butcher’s knife through a hunk of pork. His rib bent back to its proper place and the slash in his lung closed over. He took a choking gasp and the injured lung filled. Some of the dizziness left his head as oxygen flew through his body. He took another deep breath and the tightness across his chest eased.
Shadow of a Slave (The Blood Mage Chronicles Book 1) Page 35