“Lost count?” Jadeth blinked away bitter tears. Her heart choked her throat and her lungs burned with the effort it took not to scream the world down around them. “I have remembered them all, you sadistic bastard!”
Rodon’s broken smile widened into a mask of death. “But she hasn’t, has she?”
His bony finger stabbed at Emaranthe. She stumbled back, only Jaeger and Ivo’s strong hands saving her from a fall. Haunted golden eyes dominated a face gone white with shock.
“Leave her out of this,” Ivo pulled her behind his broad back with one hand and lifted his sword with the other. “What do you want, Rodon?”
The cruel chuckle echoed, magnified, until a blast of thunder took it and shaped it into a rumbling boom. Ivo fought a flinch, barely, and his chest tightened when tiny fingers crept into his hand. Shaking, they closed around his and held tight, as tight as the breath choking his throat closed. He swallowed, unable to speak with his heart and soul so solidly lodged, and returned the simple, comforting gesture.
“What I want? Death, vengeance, The Crown of Gods will suffice,” Rodon chuckled. Oily spit oozed from the corner of his mouth. “And when it comes, you will feel every inch of their pain. Scream every scream they cried.”
“Rodon, this is madness!” Ivo said. He shuddered, unable to tear his gaze from the Lord babbling at the end of his leash.
For a split second, the oily swirls faded to cold silver and the invisible strings vanished. The illusion shifted the Earthlander leader’s features, turning rotted teeth whole and his lined face almost handsome again. Almost.
“The madness began over 14 thousand years ago, Ivo. You’ve been blinded by faith in beings that cursed you,” Rodon grunted, suddenly far too sane. “The Four are murderers and you’ve been the puppets, not I. I’ve tried to find them and end this war. The Fall was only a small hiccup, one I’ve now defeated.”
“Find them? Puppets? ” Ivo stepped forward, heart pounding. “Rodon, stop—”
Rodon flung an arm up and the illusion melted away, leaving the corrupted puppet in charge of the most powerful army in the world once more.
“Kill them,” he barked to the soldiers behind him. He sneered at Ivo, his lips twisting into a slobbery, mad grin. “Rid this world of one more pestilence!”
“NO!” Emaranthe screamed. She shoved past Ivo and flung her hands high.
A wall of flame erupted between them and The Unknown Sun.
Behind the flames, their allies-turned-enemies unleashed the very hell they had been trained to for nearly a thousand years.
Bows twanged. Emaranthe shoved her power against the tide of immortals working to break through. Muffled by the heated roar of flames, the cries and howls continued. A rain of arrows broke through near the top where the flames flickered weakest. They peppered the ground bringing heated air, rank with the stench of sulfur and evil magic.
Ivo and Jaeger dove to position themselves to meet the incoming army head on, weapons drawn.
“Get back, the arrows are getting through!” Ivo bellowed at Emaranthe when she ducked around him, arms still raised and gloved fingers splayed against the waves of heat rolling back toward them.
“I have to see it,” Emaranthe growled. She dodged a pair of arrows that nearly impaled her right leg and foot. “I can’t hold it much longer, they will break through.”
Behind them Jadeth’s snarls were punctuated by the sound of her giant hammer batting aside a hail of spears from their right.
“Ivo,” Jaeger grunted, his shield high between him and the rain of projectiles. Already a half dozen bristled from his shield. A swift swipe knocked another spear out of the air before it could get past him to Jadeth. “We have to act, they haven’t used their spells.”
At his words the first line of warriors marched straight through the roaring flames, swords ready, shields high.
Ivo reacted without hesitation. He pulled the wind from the air around them and sent it gusting back at the steadily advancing line of soldiers. The sharp blast of wind did little but slow them for a split second.
It did, however, blow out the fiery wall.
Emaranthe gasped and staggered. Ivo grabbed her arm and shoved her behind his back. The wind circled back around them, enclosing all four in a protective wind funnel.
Tiny grains of dust kicked up with it, turning their view of the battlefield dirty and hazy.
The line advanced.
They waited.
***
“No!” Gabaran growled out as the barrage of spears and arrows pelted the fiery wall. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it was something.
He reached for the black bow, drew, and let an arrow fly in the same breath. He did it again. And again. And again.
His arrows fell among the enemy but the with the fire blocking his view, he could not see what to hit. He kept at it. His arrows, he knew, were making it through, but he could only hope he was at least slowing their advance.
Too soon, a gust of wind guttered the fiery wall. In the absence of the bright light, the plateau was now plunged into disorienting darkness.
To his surprise, instead of being blinded, his gaze sharpened and everything remained easily visible as if the sun had returned to the sky.
He blinked and the ambient light waxed and waned. He squinted and let another arrow fly silently toward the enemy. It found a gap in the armor beneath an arm and the soldier crumpled.
“One down…ten thousand to go.”
He took aim again, using his unusual night vision to see well past the line of advancing solders. They had simply continued on, oblivious to the fallen soldier left behind. Of course, they were Immortals…they could come back. Eventually.
His lips sneered up into a smirk as he focused on the tall, black eyed man trailing behind the armed soldiers.
His friends sprang into action.
He released the arrow.
The air around them shimmered and thickened with a static crackle a split second before it would have pierced the skull of Rodon the Traitor. The black arrow halted and hovered, imbedded in nothingness mere inches from the target. Sweat streamed into Gabaran’s burning eyes, blurring his vision to match the vague shimmer.
He stumbled to his knees, stunned, as a shimmering dome of light rippled with the impact. Static traced faint lines in the sky, expanding and arching, until the entire eastern half of the plateau as well as the desert floor below, was encased within it.
“What?” he rasped. Unable to take his eyes off the hovering, motionless arrow, he didn’t notice anything else. “What’s going on?”
His gaze drifted to his friends. Almost afraid to look, he blinked in shock. They stood immobile under the dome with the enemy, as if time itself had failed, their bodies twisted in grotesque and futile motions to counter the stunning barrage weapons unleashed upon their small group.
Tears burned, but wouldn’t fall, as he took in the frozen horror before him.
“No[WU2],” he whispered. He realized their doom. There was no escape for them. The attack had been fast; yet they stood frozen in time, spared the unforgiving assault by only seconds. Trails of smoke froze midair behind the deadly rain. The enemy had just unleashed their powerful magic.
Gabaran didn’t care who had created the dome, nor how, or even why; it was enough to keep his friends alive. For now. Perhaps a god had intervened; perhaps a fallen Immortal’s power had run amuck.
He had time now. Time to save them. He squinted at the tableau, the semitransparent field making his preternatural vision poorer. At first glance, they appeared to be frozen in the throes of battle, at second glance his heart broke.
Emaranthe stood twisted and off balanced, her petite frame flung between her lover and danger as if her fragile bones alone could protect him. A banner of blonde hair, whipped and swirled into the air, curled with ghostly swirls of fire as she turned to look over her shoulder at him and her friends. Golden eyes burned with haunted terror, but it didn’t stop her from trying to prot
ect whom she loved.
Heartsick, Gabaran swiped a broad hand across his face. It came away damp. He forced himself to see.
Ivo stood sideways, mid leap, his face hidden, but the sheer anguish told by his outstretched hand was nearly enough to burn Gabaran’s struggling heart to ash within his chest. His friend’s fingers halted inches from their goal, the tiny Mage with the heart made of fire. The sheer agony of the unrequited inches between them sent spikes of pain through the old Elf.
Jadeth stood behind Ivo, tall and strong. Long, elegant fingers wielded her massive hammer aloft. Green light exploded from it and froze in colorful ribbons midair. Her heart shaped face, hidden behind a whipping red braid, was pale and drawn. Tears wound visible trails down her high cheeks, tracks of a grief so strong Gabaran could feel the dampness on his own face.
Jaeger’s lean body had frozen mid leap around the Elf Healer, his battered shield between her and the incoming storm of death and destruction. Helmless, grimy blond hair streaked with sweat and frost, his mouth widened in an unheard war cry, his only thought had been to save his friends.
Gabaran would never forget the naked emotions on their faces. Ever.
Fear.
Love.
Anguish.
Pain.
Sorrow.
Every emotion at the same time.
He staggered toward them. Lightning struck the ground between him and the entryway. Spikes of electricity ripped through every nerve in Gabaran’s body and threw him to the ground. Writhing with pain, his limbs thrashed against the ground and canvas walls. The stench of scorched flesh blurred with smoke and sweat, turning his stomach inside out. Retching, he twisted to gain his feet as soon as he could feel them.
Instead of vanishing, the white-hot light filled the cavernous tent, blinding him. Heart racing, he blinked to clear his eyes. The bolt of lightning hovered, and then curved into a static laced oval. Wreathed in white fire, it swirled with a deceptively innocent grace.
He staggered toward the spiraling light with a hoarse cry. The familiarity of it burned the back of his throat. The static crackling in the center of the oval rippled like a rock dropped into still water. It smoothed and an image sharpened. Screams of terror erupted from somewhere within, drawing raw tracks of dread along Gabaran’s spine as he studied the scene in mute horror.
Blood and gobs of gore splattered the stone floor of a massive room. A statue took up nearly half the space; the other half was filled with the rubble of another. A stone face, staring in blood-streaked blankness, peered at him from beneath the crumbled rock.
A flash of scarlet near the bottom of the rubble sucked his heart into his throat. Dread battled grief when the image swung around revealing a crumpled, blood stained figure. Pale arms, slashed and blackened with bruises, hid a face blanketed by a riot of red curls.
Too much of the red wasn’t her hair.
“No!” Gabaran lunged for the broken figure, not caring if the spinning fire and raw energy sliced him to ribbons. He hurtled into the writhing portal and a blast of hot wind tore his hair back. He staggered and fell, cracking his knees on the sticky stone pavers of the unfamiliar chamber. Eyes burning, he scrambled to the unmoving woman, but halted inches from touching her, his hands shaking violently. Braziers spilled wavering light from the far corners of the giant stone room, throwing the broken woman into alternating shadow and light.
Touching her would make her real. Would take his deepest ingrained beliefs and stomp on them. Gods weren’t touchable. They didn’t bleed.
But she was, and he would save her and his friends at any cost.
Time had stopped; he could do it.
He gathered the woman into his arms, wincing as each open and raw cut bled anew. Her curls, matted with blood, still covered the face he had grown to adore from afar. Thoughts of her had carried him through the years; dark years that had threatened to stretch his soul to the brink. He’d only seen her once, but it hadn’t mattered; tales of her existence had fed his imagination, stoked it. The reality was all that and more, and he’d vowed to find her again.
Tall and slender with doe brown eyes and wild curls tamed by sun-shaped clips, she had appeared and stolen his heart. Already older, bitter, his frozen heart had caved first for her, then the young, dying Immortal female she’d begged him to save. It was those eyes, huge and soft, that had silently pleaded and won him.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against her hair. He stood and turned to the portal. “I’m so sorry, Light.”
A wheezing exhale bubbled into silence from beneath the blanket of curls he had been too afraid to smooth away, too afraid to see the damage. His heart twisted as if wrung by cruel hands. Or cruel gods.
“Ta–na—ri,” she breathed the word in gagging syllables. Brown eyes, dull and glazed with pain, snagged his gaze from beneath a stray curl. Stunned by the wealth of emotion within those huge doe brown eyes, he stumbled.
“Tanari?” he swallowed the word, tasted it, a name. Her name. The name of the woman he had searched for. His heart pounded so hard in his ears that he had tuned out the screams of terror, the howls of rage, and the gruesome sounds of bodies being torn apart.
Those brown eyes broke contact and shifted to look at the blinding glare of the portal. A low moan turned to a choking cough and he stilled, terror robbing him of reason.
“I can take you to my world, time has stopped. I can save you there—” he pleaded.
Before he could finish, her eyes had turned to him, begging silently. Shaking, her head twitched in denial, sending the wild curls cascading away. Bared to the hot glare of the portal, she didn’t break eye contact. A jagged gash bisected her beautiful face, drawing a raw line from her left cheekbone to her right. Bared to the bone, her nose bled freely, streams of red mingling with hot tears.
Lips, cracked and bloodied, parted into a beautiful smile.
“Leave me, my future is spoken for,” she licked her bloodied lips, smearing scarlet at the raw corners. “But you are needed now, for them. We will meet again, Gabaran.”
The effort it took for her to inch her lacerated arm up to his sent him to his knees. A shaking hand, raw and scraped, pushed something brittle and fragile into his.
He feared it was his heart.
Her hand fell away, smearing blood in its wake. Her arm swung freely, the torn muscle too weak now. The drips of blood on the stone floor fell in time with the beats of his broken heart.
“I can’t leave you,” he said. The stinging glare was nothing compared to the pain of his heart ripping in two.
“You must, Gabaran,” she whispered. “Everything has a time and place in our world, and endings are not what they seem. Your fate is what you make of it, as is mine. Take this to them, use it to save us all. Change the future.”
Her gaze flicked to the crumpled paper he’d continued to hold. His fingers spasmed around it. It crumpled, masking the distant screams and sounds of battle.
“What? What is this?” he asked. He knew she couldn’t say much more. Her chest shuddered and he knew blood was drowning her an inch at a time. “Light? Tanari?”
Her smile faded. Her eyes slipped shut, the long black fan of her eyelashes dark slashes against her ashen cheeks.
“I am nobody.”
Her chest caved, her slender body relaxed. Rage and anguish fought, burning tears on his lined face. He curled around her and his raw throat could no longer contain the roar of anguish.
***
The portal winked out behind him, the blast of hot wind and the pop of sound unheard by any including Gabaran. He didn’t look back.
The world now held little interest to him beyond the four figures stuck in the throes of motion within the strange, timeless dome, and a fifth who was missing.
Without them, the world was lost. They would save it. She had told him so.
Change the future.
The broken world blurred. Something hot and wet stung his raw face.
His fingers uncurled, rev
ealing a rolled up scrap of parchment. It fluttered and unfurled in his broad palm. Blood smeared one side. He turned it over. His stomach flipped with it as dread and hope fought for control.
A partial map. It was shredded, bloodstained, and barely legible to the point Gabaran could just make out two sets of words that made his heart pound.
Norii-Iasin … The Unknown City.
Orin-Iad… The Citadel in the Sky
The map.
But how had a god in another realm come by it? Why were the two fabled and unreachable cities on the same map?
Who or what had frozen time?
His hand closed around the priceless scrap of paper, the crackling sound mimicking the low hiss he exhaled. Starlit eyes blazed with renewed determination and a feral smile twisted the edges of his lips.
He will save them. They will save the world. They will change the future so he could save her.
He ripped the tent flap aside and lunged at the shimmering dome with a roar.
TO BE CONTINUED…
If you enjoyed this novel, don’t worry more is coming! As of now, there will be at least 2 more parts to continue Ivo, Jaeger, Jadeth, and Emaranthe’s story. If you read and enjoyed THE IMMORTALS: SHADOWS & STARSTONE and ALLIES & ENEMIES please read THE UNKNOWN SUN, which is set in the distant future of Ein-Aral, one shaped by the characters and events of this prequel series! You can find THE UNKNOWN SUN here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00K1EL76Q
Book 2 is currently in progress for this series as well!
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Allies & Enemies Page 13