by Ron Collins
He scrambled away, crawling on hands and feet and elbows and knees until he was certain he was out of danger.
Then he sat back against ice-cold rock and gasped for breath.
That had been close. So close. After all this, his story had nearly come to its anonymous end at the hands of a magical ward-beast. “That would be fitting, eh?” he said to himself.
What dangers were the Koradictine and Lectodinian god-touched mages finding?
He stood up and waved the magelight of his dagger before him.
This tunnel curved in a lazy spiral further upward. He climbed until he came to a place where the passage suddenly opened to a platform like a stairwell might open to a roof, and where brilliant light blinded him.
He blinked and shaded his eyes from the blazing light with one hand as his sight adjusted.
It was as if the room had been sliced cleanly from the mountain, leaving the peak floating in open air above. The floor was smooth and polished, as was the ceiling above. They both reflected the sunlight that streamed through the non-existent walls as natural as day.
This, Garrick realized, was the chamber atop God’s Tower.
Chapter 15
“Looks like it should crush us, doesn’t it?”
Garrick whirled to find a man standing behind him. He wore a blue shirt with white laces running up the front, tanned breeches that clung to him like a second skin, and gemstones that glittered from his fingers. His dark hair was cut short along the top and sides but flowed down his back in a cascading river. His cheeks were sunken. Dark circles ringed his eyes.
“And you would be?” Garrick said.
“Parathay,” the Lectodinian said with oily smoothness. “Commander, lover of books, and occasional mage. At your service.”
The Lectodinian bowed with a flourish, then gave a cold grin.
“Marvelous place for a battle, isn’t it?”
The Lectodinian’s spell came so quickly Garrick barely had time to cast a barrier. It was weak, but enough. The Lectodinian’s magic was cold as ice, bold and strong. It was also exploratory, an early volley meant merely to test him.
Garrick glared and struck a defensive pose. He brought life force up to support his shield as Parathay strolled about him with a confident swagger.
“You thought I would wait for Jormar?”
“It seems only appropriate.”
“Koradictines are always late. It will be their eventual downfall, you know? They have no discipline, no vision.”
“And what, I wonder,” Garrick said, “would the Koradictine say about you?”
A throaty voice came from behind Garrick.
“He would say they have no creativity.”
Garrick instinctively rolled to the side and came to one knee as a bloody flash of fire blasted by him.
“Greetings, Jormar el’Mor,” Parathay said. “So good to see you.”
The Koradictine was a large man, fleshed out as if he rarely left an empty dinner table. His bulging red robe flowed around him like a skirt. A yellow sash rode up over his ample gut.
They glowered at each other. These were the most powerful mages on the Adruic plane, and it was obvious they could barely stand to be in the same room together.
“Best friends, I see.”
“Common goals make great partnerships,” Parathay said as he cast another bolt of cold energy at Garrick.
Garrick’s shield throbbed, and his hands grew numb.
“And when those goals are no longer common?” he said.
“We’ll address that when it becomes necessary,” Jormar responded.
The Koradictine spoke thunderous words. Lightning flashed, and Garrick tumbled to avoid a shower of sparks redolent with the odors of burnt honey and curdled blood.
Where Parathay’s magic was cold and hollow, Jormar’s carried overwhelming heat and vitality.
Sweat beaded on Garrick’s brow. He retreated to give himself space, totally on the defensive, now. His life force dwindled, and the other mages seemed to be just now warming to their work. He needed a moment, so he latched onto his link and cast flames at Parathay.
The Lectodinian caught the spell with one hand, then kneaded its energy like clay between his palms until it was a ball of brilliant blue light that he eventually absorbed, the energy simply seeping into his skin until it was gone.
Parathay grinned at Garrick.
“Quite tasty,” he said. His eyes flickered with life. “Is this the best a Torean can manage?”
The Lectodinian twisted his hands together, and a cold web whipped itself around Garrick, its filaments burning against his skin. His life force was drawn toward it like iron to a magnet. Rather than fight it, Garrick used its momentum, sending life force through his arms and legs that burned the net into a cloud of gray ash.
“Fine shot, Parathay,” Jormar el’Mor said. “Alas, it didn’t do the job.”
The Koradictine’s body jiggled as he whipped his arm forward to throw a wave of power toward Garrick, a flow of golden current that rolled through the cavern with dark fishes riding its breaking crest, their over-sized jaws clacking with metallic teeth.
The wave pushed him backward with a rush of salt and sewage.
The fish bit into his legs and arms.
Garrick set gates and cast what remained of his life force at the fish. They fell away, leaving him gasping for breath and in smoldering pain, prone on the floor, and sopping wet as the wave died out.
He was near the edge of the chamber, now, nearly blinded by sunlight, but able to make out the ground below. The Lectodinian army had closed in on the western flank, and the Koradictines were pinching from the east. The Torean decoy mages bought them time, but the eventual outcome was obvious. The orders’ armies were too large. The Toreans’ would soon be destroyed.
His muscles ached and his vision swam.
His life force was all but gone, and the god-touched mages of the Lectodinian and Koradictine orders strode forward, each vibrant, and each with wickedness pasted on their faces.
It was over, he realized.
He would not win.
The thought made him angry. He had been a pawn his whole life. If he was going to die today, he was not going to go out as a meek apprentice.
Garrick grimaced against his pain, willed himself to one knee, then stood as straight and as tall as he could.
Then he turned and faced the Koradictine and Lectodinian god-touched mages one last time.
Chapter 16
Smoke and swordsong rolled over the battlefield as Darien rode among his soldiers. Blood colored the soil, and the screams of the wounded filled the air. Dorfort’s army had held their own until a gathering of Koradictines cast great bolts of magic across their positions.
He called for a retreat to the next line, but three of his men were trapped.
Darien spurred his horse forward, hacking at Koradictine mercenaries as he raced across the field. A battle-ax clanged against his armor, and a sword slashed at his thigh, but his men slipped through the opening he created, and they raced away with shouts of victory.
Koradictine troops chased until a line of Freeborn mages leapt upon the fortified ridge and cast magic into the fray. Flames of blue and orange gave Darien the time he needed, and the hooves of his horse thundered as he made the Torean line.
An arrow pierced the chest of one black-garbed mage, though, and she fell, screaming.
Darien’s men turned to defend once again.
The retreat had been successful, but Darien understood the critical word in that thought was “retreat.”
The orders were winning. They had more men, and their wizards were stronger. It was only a matter of time. The end was drawing near, and there was nothing he could do for it.
His gaze went to the peak above.
Chapter 17
Sweat poured down Garrick’s face, and his body ached. His life force was spent and his hunger ravaged his mind. He had used his rage to force himself to his feet, but on
ce there he had nothing left.
Braxidane! he thought, or maybe he actually spoke the name, he couldn’t tell.
Braxidane!
Help me!
There was no answer.
He could barely stay on his feet.
“You were unwise to call us out, apprentice,” Jormar said.
“Now you’ll pay the price,” Parathay finished.
Hunger stirred deep inside Garrick, seeming to rise to the movement of the other two. He felt the god-touched mages as they prepared their killing blows. The portly Koradictine soul was a blazing kiln of fire, and the Lectodinian’s the cold breath of winter. Their dichotomy was as painful as a blade.
A thought came with crystalline purity.
He remembered his conversation with Suni, and his eyes widened.
“The most complex spells require the least energy,” she had said, “but the greatest clarity of thought.”
He hoped this was true.
Jormar raised a hand, and Parathay’s eyes focused into intense beams.
Garrick put his thoughts together, setting about creating a spell armed only with a vision of how it ought to flow—matching order with chaos, setting gates and creating an empty loop, a vessel he knit together but left vacant of either magestuff or life force.
He timed his sorcerous phrasing just as Jormar and Parathay unleashed their red and blue streaks of magic.
Garrick pulled on the beast inside him, opening its vampiric hunger to the avalanche of Jormar’s power, and pouring it into Parathay’s draw.
It was like catching a smithy’s hammer with his lungs.
He gasped and twisted his mind into a loop, folding his hunger back upon itself and tying it into a knot. Numbness crawled up his arm. Electricity crackled. Jormar’s heat mixed with Parathay’s chill, and as Garrick pulled the loop tight, the two veins of magic twined around themselves to create a pulsing thread of violet energy that writhed across the chamber, wrapping itself around him, constricting tighter with each breath.
Garrick ignored pain and pressure. He forced the ends of the stream together, Koradictine to Lectodinian, Lectodinian to Koradictine.
Time stretched.
Light flared.
He thought he heard the orders’ mages scream.
And in that moment, nothing existed.
No Darien, no Suni, no Arianna.
No slaves in Arderveer or villagers in Sjesko.
No God’s Tower.
No Caledena, no Baron Fahid, no Alistair.
In that moment, there was nothing in this world but Garrick and his sense of balance.
When the cacophony finally died it was like light being doused, leaving behind only a low drone of power and the rasp of Garrick’s breathing.
Slowly, painfully, he raised his gaze.
The orders’ mages were frozen in place, Parathay casting his draining thread and Jormar throwing his bolt of power, but now the two threads looped through Garrick’s device—they were entangled, frozen, their faces fixed with grimaces and their eyes open in shock. Their sorcery was locked in a recursive loop, Parathay endlessly being fed and Jormar constantly drained.
Garrick lay there, feeling like a scarecrow on fire, his bones feeling detached and his body loose enough that he could swivel at every joint.
He had done it, though. He had survived.
He had nothing left to give.
But he had won.
Chapter 18
Garrick crawled to the edge of the chamber and peered at the battlefield below.
The orders appeared to have the upper hand, though it was difficult to see. His hunger surged at the sensation of bloodshed, though. His stomach churned for it even at this distance.
He forced himself to stand, raising himself with the cautious, ginger movements of a newborn foal though the effort nearly made him pass-out. He felt the battle below, though, and it moved something in him. He reached his hand out to what might have been the wall, but found passage through was possible. So he stepped directly from the chamber to the surface of the mountain, and found himself standing suddenly calf deep in snow and nearly falling over.
Bitter cold of altitude bit his lungs, and he shivered.
He turned to look back into the chamber, but saw nothing beyond the snow and barren rock that ran with mineraled veins. His horse stood a few hundred yards down the mountainside, so he staggered toward it. Darien and Sunathri needed him. The Freeborn needed him. The battle raging below, the power of life force. It all needed him.
His vision fogged as he took a step toward the animal, then another and another before falling over. He crawled, shivering so hard his teeth rattled.
“Horse,” he yelled into the wind.
The beast looked up.
“Come here!”
He stood one more time. Miraculously, the animal came his way. He pulled himself over its back. His body was drained and his muscles ached, but he clutched the animal’s mane well enough for the horse to carry him, and as they moved he got a leg over.
A moment later he was racing down the mountainside.
Chapter 19
Four Lectodinian mages attacked the Freeborn’s flank at the southern pass, their light blue tunics whipping in the wind as they bore down.
Sunathri called three wizards to follow her, and set off to stop them.
The southern pass was critical. The Freeborn had arranged most of their forces to the east and west, hoping that the surprise of Torean mages at the orders’ rear guard would reduce their southern offensives. The gambit had succeeded for a time, but the orders had regrouped and were beginning to expose their weakest areas.
She had to stop them here.
Sunathri touched her link and waited for energy to pool. She was tired, and her casting took more time than she would like. Green and red flares burst from her palms, taking two of the men. The third continued to ride away.
“Come on!” she yelled.
She and her Freeborn chased the remaining Lectodinian through a row of sycamore trees.
It was a trap, though.
She brought her horse up as soon as she recognized it, but it was too late.
A row of warriors rose before them, shouting battle cries, their swords and halberds flashing in the sun as they raced forward. A handful of mages cast spells from positions behind the warriors.
“Retreat!” she called.
Her men brandished their weapons and spread out to perform a controlled maneuver.
She cast a shield just in time to deflect sorcery, but green sparks flew around her and numbness buzzed her arm. These spell casters were fresh, their magic was strong.
Swords clanged on shields.
A man screamed.
Three mercenaries closed in on one of her men, and Sunathri cast a bolt to save him.
The Lectodinians took advantage of the distraction, and a bolt of energy struck her mount full in the chest. Sunathri rolled off the animal as it fell. She scrambled to her feet and cast a wild fan of flames to protect herself.
One of her men was pierced through by a spear.
Another was dismounted.
The orders’ mercenaries swept around the two men, but they fought on, crying out Sunathri’s name and giving her time to cast another spell.
She stepped onto a rock, leaving herself exposed for an instant, but also providing a broader range of vision. She gathered as much energy as she could summon, and set a simple series of gates. Her spell work wasn’t as sharp as she wanted, but this magic was basic, and she needed to save her men. Flames spewed from her hands, pouring down upon the southern flank.
Men died.
She fell to one knee as her energy waned, flames still flowing.
Below her, the Lectodinian’s lips twisted.
Sunathri turned her aim to engulf the mage, but she moved too slowly. The Lectodinian raised one arm, and a flash flared from his palm. Fingers of purple lightning clutched at the sky, and everything froze in the electric strobe—men
with gleaming swords raised, tree limbs bent with the wind, the grimace on the face of the Lectodinian mage as his robe caught fire, and Sunathri, leader of the Freeborn, standing alone and exposed atop the mountain rock, an expression of defiance etched on her face.
Chapter 20
Garrick held onto the horse’s neck as if it were the only thing left in the world. His legs quivered, and his arms burned as the horse raced down the snowy mountaintop, past the tree line, and over the rocky trail that led down the mountain. His bloated eyes blurred as he burst onto the battlefield behind the Koradictine line.
His hunger was a beast of its own.
That beast felt the presence of every soldier on the battlefield as if each was a point on a map. That beast was the force by which he moved. It was the presence that filled his mind. And, unfettered by the balance of life force, this beast that was Braxidane’s dark magic was on the hunt. It found steel ringing against steel, warriors screaming with pain. It found horses braying, a field that erupted with sorcerous flashes, and a pallor of life force that hung over that field like an unearthly blanket of power.
Garrick—that small part of him that was still human—felt it all, sensed every movement, every slice of a blade, every fiery spell as it burned through a battle line. His hunger, starved and angry, inhaled voracious gulps of energy that fed his body, its essence so exquisite and so intoxicating he nearly fell. He pulled his dagger and leapt into the scrum. Three warriors died in silent surprise, and his hunger fed. A Lectodinian wizard whirled, fingers splayed for the attack, but Garrick ripped his life force from him with nearly effortless haste.
Steel sliced into his leg.
He destroyed the wielder as rapidly as the cut healed itself. Horrified cries rang across the battlefield as he tore souls from men.
The Freeborn army cried in victory.
“Lord Garrick!”
“God-touched!”
As they called his name, the Freeborn fell back, leaving space for Garrick, but blocking their opponent’s escape and creating a killing field for him that he did not resist.