Jataan gave her a stern look that she studiously ignored.
Alexander woke a few hours later, his leg aching dully, but otherwise strong enough to fight on. He tested it with a few stretches, feeling the limits of his healing with each twinge and jab. Good enough, he decided. He’d certainly gone into battle in worse condition. He just hoped that he hadn’t lost everything with his delay.
“We were thinking, maybe you should ask the sovereigns about those things,” Jack said.
“Information about an adversary is always welcome,” Jataan added.
“Fair enough,” Alexander said, going to his magic circle and touching the Stone.
He took his seat at the table and spent a few minutes describing everything that had transpired since his last visit.
“Much has happened that we should speak of,” Balthazar said, “but you expressed a concern for time, so I will offer what advice I can on the threat you face. They’re called Ravathan and they are deadly in the extreme. I only hope that the three you face are males. A breeding female would be a threat to the entire world.”
“Where do they come from?”
“They were created during the shade wars. The legend says that Shivini, in control of a powerful but unnamed magical creature, created the Ravathan to serve as his army. He used them to cause great destruction before they were finally exterminated, or so we thought.”
“Why are they so dangerous?”
“They’re fast and deadly with any bladed weapon, easily outrunning even the quickest person, but their real power rests in their ability to attack the mind. They can reach into an enemy’s mind and render him stunned and confused, unable to react to the attack that invariably follows. Also, they think in a hive mind, so the three that you face see themselves as one collective entity.”
“How do I kill them?”
“They die like anything else,” Balthazar said. “You just have to get through their defenses and their armor.”
“Thank you,” Alexander said, walking away from the table. After he recounted what the sovereigns had told him, he and his friends formed a plan.
They approached the threshold of the hallway cautiously, staying a foot behind the imaginary line. Everyone made preparations for the battle to come. Alexander tested the weight of the vial of liquid fire he held.
With a look left and right, he nodded and all of them began to run toward the enemy. At the first step into the hallway, the three bubbles burst and the creatures fell to the ground, scrambling to their feet, awake and alert in an instant, much faster than Alexander would have thought possible.
He threw the liquid fire. It flew in a shallow arc, but as it neared one of the Ravathan, its head snapped toward the vial, sending it into the wall and ceiling as if it had been hit by a force-push.
Tasia sent a jet of dragon fire three feet in diameter, roaring orange down the hallway into one of the three creatures. It screamed as its antennae singed off, then it curled into a ball, its carapace facing the onslaught of fire. Tasia shouted out in pain, falling backward and losing her balance, her fire vanishing with her focus. She hit hard, rolling onto her side and coming to a stop.
Anja raced to her side with Lita arriving a moment later. Tasia was breathing, but her eyes were staring off into the distance, vacant and empty.
“Tasia, are you all right?” Anja said.
She got no response.
Alexander and Jataan carried the charge into the enemy, Alexander raising his light to blinding brilliance. The remaining two Ravathan both began to shield their eyes. Then their chitin outer lids snapped into place, blocking out the light, rendering them blind and immune to Alexander’s light.
He and Jataan were within feet of striking distance when both Ravathan unleashed a force-push, blasting Alexander and Jataan two dozen feet across the floor. Alexander tried to roll to his feet, stumbling and nearly falling again before regaining his balance just as the Ravathan reached him, whipping its glaive around in a powerful arc and catching him across the back, knocking the wind out of him and causing his muscles to spasm as he flopped face first onto the ground.
The other Ravathan skittered across the floor toward Jataan, but the battle mage recovered much more quickly than Alexander had, tuck rolling and landing on his feet in position to counterattack. His Weaponere’s stone transformed into a spear as he lunged, reaching out and piercing the armor plate covering the Ravathan’s torso, driving through the creature and out its back. It stiffened for a moment, then looked intently at Jataan.
He fell backward as if someone had hit him in the chest with a war hammer, flopping to the ground like a dead fish and coming to an awkward stop, eyes open and distant.
Alexander rolled to his back, Thinblade still firmly in his grip. The glaive was raised to strike, but the creature stopped when a spout of blood erupted from one of its legs.
It turned and blindly directed a force-push into the area where Jack was crouched. He flew back across the stone floor, his hood coming down and dispelling his invisibility.
Lita hit the Ravathan in the shoulder with a light-lance, burning off one of its arms. It squealed and then chattered angrily as it spun its glaive up into the other hand, bringing it around on Alexander again. He rolled, letting the blade slam into the floor beside him, then slashed at the creature’s forearms, cleaving them off with a stroke.
It shrieked, holding up its severed arms just as Anja arrived and cut it in half between the torso and the legs. It toppled to the ground, focusing intently on Anja even as it died. She fell back with a shock, dropping to the floor like a sack of beans and going still, her eyes open and glazed.
“You all right, Jack?” Alexander asked.
“Just got the wind knocked out of me,” he managed, getting to his hands and knees.
Alexander opened his Wizard’s Den as he sat up and rubbed his back.
“Let’s get them inside,” he said, dragging Luminessence closer and using it to help him get to his feet.
“I can’t wake her,” Lita said, still kneeling next to Tasia.
“I’m hoping they’ll recover with time,” Alexander said, checking on Anja and finding her breathing steadily but completely unresponsive. He dragged her into the Wizard’s Den and lifted her into a bed, wincing in pain from his back injury. He sat down for a moment as Jack and Lita carried Jataan and Tasia into the Den. It hurt to breathe—a sharp stabbing pain when he filled his lungs, and yet he felt starved for air and wanted nothing more than to take a big, full breath.
He lay down while Jack and Lita did what they could to make the others comfortable. Lita cast her healing spell on them, but didn’t seem optimistic.
When they finished, Alexander rolled slowly to a sitting position, groaning slightly, in spite of his best efforts to hide the pain.
“We’re not in any condition to press on,” Lita said.
“They’re not, but I am,” Alexander said.
Chloe buzzed into existence in a ball of light right in front of him.
“You’re not either,” she said. “You have a broken rib.”
“I don’t have time for a broken rib,” he said, getting to his feet, struggling to endure the stab of pain he felt without showing it.
“You can hardly stand without wincing … how are you going to fight?” Chloe asked.
“She’s right, Alexander, you need to rest and heal,” Lita said.
He stretched his back, letting the pain wash over him, embracing it. Then he carefully took a deep breath, holding it for a moment in spite of the agony it induced before letting it out slowly. He was stiff and sore, but he felt strong enough to do what needed to be done.
“I can manage,” he said, heading for the door. Jack followed, tossing his hood up without a word. Lita frowned but followed anyway, casting her shield as she passed out of the safety of the Wizard’s Den.
Chloe buzzed out into the hall just before Alexander closed the door.
“You know there’s darkness ahead,”
she said.
“I’m counting on it.”
Alexander headed to the set of stairs leading down to the next long corridor. This one was filled with fog, thick and swirling, cold and oppressive. He sent his sight into the mist and found three demons living within the confines of the hallway, the fog beginning and ending at the thresholds of the staircases at each end. The formless, shadowy creatures of the netherworld trapped inside were ravenous—desperate to feed on any source of life they could find.
Alexander took the stairs carefully, approaching to within a few yards of the corridor, and waited. The fog swirled and then something hit the plane of the threshold like a bird crashing into a window, hard and loud, bouncing away into the fog, a forlorn shriek following it into the hallway.
“Don’t much like the looks of that,” Jack said.
“Me neither, but it’s the only way,” Alexander said, raising Luminessence to just a few shades dimmer than full brilliance—enough, he hoped, to keep the creatures at bay, though probably not enough to kill any but the weakest demons.
“Stay close,” he said, stepping out into the fog. Jack and Lita followed, though both showed colors of fear. Another shriek moved past them, turning from rage to pain when it got too close to Alexander’s light. He started breathing again and increased his pace, focusing his mind on the light and the next step.
The fog swirled around them, indistinct forms just beyond the light, howling with rage, snarling and snapping with unquenched bloodlust. One came into the light, rebounding with a yelp.
Alexander pressed on, holding his light bright even as it began to sap his strength and drain his will. His awareness began to narrow to the light and the next footstep, each of paramount importance. Everything else was set aside. His pain, his worry for Isabel, the Nether Gate, even the Wraith Queen was displaced with the single-minded effort it took to maintain the light while simply walking down the hallway.
And then he found himself stopped with Jack gently shaking his shoulder.
“You did it,” Jack said.
Alexander had reached the stairwell at the far end of the hallway, the shadowy demons railing against the barrier holding them inside the corridor, Jack and Lita both alive and well, though slightly paler for the experience.
He frowned when he gently stretched his back and it felt better than it had before the harrowing passage through the mists. On reflection, he decided that he felt better in general than he had any right to feel, given all of the injuries that he’d recently sustained.
He sent his sight down the staircase and into the fourth corridor of Phane’s gauntlet. It was empty, though well-lit with softly glowing ceiling stones. The entire hallway radiated magic, but there was no specific location or concentration that he could see.
He led the way down, stopping well away from the threshold and frowning to himself.
“Nothing?” Jack asked.
Alexander shook his head. “Just lots of magic.”
He opened his Wizard’s Den and went inside, checking on Anja. She was still dazed and entirely unresponsive. Jataan and Tasia were in a similar condition. Alexander could only imagine what an army of Ravathan could do. It was no wonder that Shivini’s name had always evoked such fear.
He sighed heavily, getting to his feet.
“Only one way through,” he said, drawing the Thinblade and heading for the door.
“Alexander,” Jack said, waiting for him to stop and turn.
“Is there a potion you could drink that would help?”
Alexander blinked, the rhythmic stab of pain from each breath causing him to flinch almost involuntarily. He went to the chest and found a potion of warding, drinking it without hesitation. Then, almost as an afterthought, he took a vial of liquid fire and put it in his pouch.
Jack followed him out.
“Are you sure?” Alexander asked.
“Relatively,” Jack said with a shrug, peering out into the hallway for any hint of a threat.
Lita stepped out and cast her shield.
“We don’t know what’s out there,” Alexander said. “You might be better off in the Wizard’s Den.”
“Nonsense,” Lita said.
He closed the door with a thought and stifled a grin. Sword in one hand, staff in the other, he stepped across the threshold. The magic filling the entire corridor suddenly condensed into five points of reddish, angry-looking magical energy, the first just thirty feet ahead. They shined, swirling and refracting, sending bright red light dancing across the walls and ceiling. Then they took shape … five perfectly proportioned men, wearing plate armor and armed with swords and shields, but instead of flesh and blood, they were made entirely of red magical force, transparent and terrible.
“Get to the far side any way you can!” Alexander said, trotting toward the first enemy. It lunged at him, crackling energy radiating waves of heat toward him as he slipped past the textbook thrust and sliced through the guardian at the torso. He felt a surge of heat rush into his hand through the Thinblade a moment before the force knight vanished. He rushed ahead toward the next.
Lita hit it squarely with a light-lance before Alexander could reach it. It raised its shield, which failed a moment later, and the second guardian vanished in a flare of light. Alexander looked down the hall, expecting to see three. Instead he saw four … then a fifth appeared.
He opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and motioned for his friends to enter.
“What are you going to do?” Jack asked.
“Cheat,” Alexander said. “Inside. Hurry.”
Lita and Jack hesitated for only a moment.
Alexander closed the door and sprinted directly toward the next force knight, opening the door to his Wizard’s Den just scant feet away, barely avoiding a collision before running inside and closing the door behind him. Pain stabbed into his chest with each breath and his leg ached, but the battle was joined … he wasn’t about to stop now. After a moment to slow his heart, he opened the door, stepped out, closed the door behind himself and opened it again right in front of him, stepping back inside and closing the door before the enemy could react.
When he opened the door next, he ran into the corridor at full speed, closing the door with a thought and racing away from the magical apparitions. The force knights began to give chase, but quickly fell behind.
A moment later one appeared twenty feet ahead of Alexander. He swept into it, dodging its attack and slashing at it in passing with the Thinblade. It flickered out of existence with a flash of heat that only served to make Alexander run faster.
His leg hurt. His back hurt. His ribs hurt.
Two more appeared before him, both angling to attack simultaneously. Alexander slowed, sensing another threat. He ducked and swept his blade back through a force knight that had just materialized behind him. The other two lunged. He rolled to one side, coming to his feet and sweeping his blade up through the nearest enemy before running toward the end of the hall again.
He hadn’t made it ten steps when his battle sense showed him the coming moments—a force knight materializing behind him and killing him with a single thrust to the back of the skull. He willed the door to his Wizard’s Den open and tumbled inside, seeing the phantom blade come within inches of ending his life. He closed the door an instant before it could follow him through, then crawled to the foot of the nearest bed and sat with his back against it, breathing shallowly and carefully.
“I guess we know what they are now,” he mumbled.
“Come on, let’s get you into a bed,” Lita said. “You’re of no use to anyone like this.”
As much as he hated it, he had to agree, though he didn’t tell her that.
Chapter 40
He woke to find Jataan, Anja, and Tasia awake and well. They were all sitting around the table waiting for the effects of Lita’s spell to wear off. He still hurt, but it was more distant, less urgent.
“I’m glad to see you’re all awake,” he said, sitting up.
&nb
sp; “How are you feeling?” Anja asked.
“Beat up. How are the three of you?”
“Well enough, considering the power of the creature’s magic to stun and confuse,” Tasia said.
“It was impressive,” Jataan said, “though somewhat unsettling.”
“You up for a fight?”
“Of course, Lord Reishi,” Commander P’Tal said.
Lita sighed, shaking her head.
“Hit them hard and keep moving,” Alexander said. “They don’t die, they just vanish for a few seconds and then reappear, so the objective is to get through the hall alive, not to kill them all.”
Anja shrugged when he looked at her pointedly.
“I’m still going to kill some of them,” she said.
“Just keep moving,” he said.
“I will,” she said, drawing her oversized sword.
Jataan was rubbing his Weaponere’s stone like a good-luck charm. Jack vanished. Lita cast her shield spell and Alexander drew the Thinblade.
He opened the door and they filed out into an empty hallway, running toward the far end, about fifty feet away now, when the five force knights materialized as one amongst them.
Alexander saw it coming, shouting, “Fight!” as he swept through one, dispelling it with a stroke. Jataan danced outside the thrust of another and stabbed into its empty skull with a short spear. The knight vanished. Lita hit another with a force-push, blasting it off its feet and out of her way. She and Jack sprinted past the remaining enemy and raced toward the staircase landing.
One stabbed at Anja. She slapped its force blade aside with her broadsword and thrust into its chest and out its back. It vanished with a loud pop.
The fifth charged Tasia. She launched a jet of fire at it that seemed to have no effect. It smashed into her, but she caught her balance with a hand on its shield. It stabbed over the top, driving its hot blade down into her shoulder. She screamed with pure rage, whipping the apparition around by the shield and throwing it into the wall with such force that it shattered in a dazzling display of sparks.
Already two had reappeared between them and the end of the hallway. Lita stopped just this side of the threshold and hit one in the back with a light-lance, causing it to vanish again for a few moments. Another appeared. Alexander reached the nearest one, walking deliberately toward it, focusing on his battle sense, waiting for the moment when he saw the coming seconds, then stepping into just the right place to avoid the enemy strike and deal a killing blow. He didn’t even break stride, his focus turning to the next closest force knight.
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 48