***
Lucan and his Argetallams ate something unrecognizable, the color of dirt with black flecks. It must have been bread. None of the other three were offered any and none of them asked. Their group settled on the floor around the crystal chamber for an effort at rest. It seemed no one knew for sure what they should do now, despite Lucan’s display of certainty.
The stone was dusty with countless years of residue and Karile sneezed like a cat in a flour mill. Saoven was across from her, sound asleep by appearances. But she suspected that he was just pretending to make her and Karile feel better. He looked more peaceful when he was truly asleep.
The enchanter was undoubtedly deep in slumber, his usual porcine sounds caused Lucan to glare groggily at him from the terrace steps. She feared Lucan might do something such as throw that dagger, so she kicked the enchanter until he stopped.
Janir couldn’t close her eyes even though they were heavy as bricks. The sound of the empty armor knights pounding on the gate kept her sharply awake. It was also uncomfortably luminous, for better or for worse, the lights never faded or changed though it must still be dark above ground.
A piercing, sharp noise rattled the air and shook the ground. Janir bolted upright along with everyone else to behold in terror a blade sticking through the iron door. Soon countless axes and swords were shoving their way through, making the hole in the door bigger and bigger. They cut through the iron as if it were tough leather or wood—what manner of magic endowed those weapons?
Within seconds, the hole was widened enough to let a body through. A knight clattered to the ground, lay still for a moment, then rose forebodingly to his feet and began marching toward them. The opening was still not large enough to let more than one through at a time and the others were preoccupied trying to shove past one another, but that wasn’t going to last.
“On me,” Lucan said calmly, drawing Janir’s karkaton and motioning for his warriors to take up positions at his sides. Leaving his sister and the others behind, he strode decisively toward the shade.
Saoven gathered Janir and Karile to the side of the room and edged them behind him. Janir peered over his shoulder nervously, afraid to watch and yet at the same time unable to look away.
The knight seemed locked on her brother, holding a giant spear expertly with both hands. Lucan made straight for the creature and feinted to the right to draw the knight’s attention. It worked. The huge hulk veered to the left to jab in Lucan’s direction.
As a distraction, one of the Argetallams rushed the knight, aiming for the back of its neck with his karkaton. It took one swipe with a spear and the man was lying on the ground gasping for air. It hadn’t even struck with the end, but the creature was strong enough to take the proud warrior down all the same.
A disgusted sound escaped Janir’s brother as he dodged the spear head again. Holding his side, the downed Argetallam staggered to his feet to rejoin his comrades as they tried to find an opening with the creature.
Like a harpoon toward a fish, the spear stabbed in Lucan’s direction again. He knocked it off course with his karkaton and it embedded its tip in the stone. The knight spun around faster than he should have and jabbed another Argetallam in the middle of the chest with the butt of the spear.
That Argetallam went down without ever landing a strike and laid still on the ground. Janir gasped in shock and horror, realizing that the fiend had just struck hard enough to stop the man’s heart.
Choking on fear, Janir watched Lucan repeatedly feint from side to side, dodging the head of the spear with a practiced precision. He was a good fighter, that much was clear.
At the far end of the hall, more knights began trying to force their way through the cleft in the gate. Saoven edged her and Karile back farther, as if it would do any good when the fiends came. Even if Lucan and his warriors managed to best the one that had already broken through, there were legions beyond that door.
One of Lucan’s mortahns dove at the knight this time to be met with a heavily armored elbow in the face. The force of the blow left him supine on the floor, staring up at the vaulted ceiling of the temple.
Argetallams were great warriors, Janir knew that. They were feared and revered and famed—yet this creature managed to keep four of them at bay on its own. She was beginning to wonder how Lucan had managed to kill the first.
Janir pulled her gaze from the shapes clamoring at the door to see Lucan make a slight error and stumble. Frantically, he tried to rise but was too late. The spear found its mark this time and buried itself in Lucan’s side. He cried out and clenched the shaft whilst the knight ruthlessly rammed him against the pillar, driving the spear deeper.
Resolving not to fail this time, Lucan’s Argetallams dove at the knight again. With his back exposed, they made short work of cramming the tips of four karkaton deep between the plates of his armor. He shuddered, and crumpled to the ground in shambles, various pieces clattering this way and that.
With the knight at last defeated, his warriors knelt beside Lucan. His face was contorted into an expression of agony and he gripped the part of the spear that was still outside him. Janir wondered if that was what Drell had looked like, all those years ago, when he had been undergoing the transformation from farm boy to Argetallam—a small child in huge pain.
“Elf!” snarled one of his warriors. “Elf!”
Saoven reluctantly strode toward the wounded Argetallam prince. Though he tried to keep her back, Janir stayed right on his heels. Her instincts refused to let her become separated from him again.
In spite of a thousand reasons to the contrary, it bothered her to see Lucan suffering. She hovered over Saoven’s shoulder as he knelt by the boy’s side.
“It has gone deep,” Saoven surmised, carefully examining the wound. “But I think it missed the main arteries and organs.”
“Pull it out,” Lucan pleaded, sounding for the first time desperate and weak. He was pale and blood leeched slowly down his side in small rivulets.
Saoven shook his head. “If I do—”
“Pull it out!” Lucan cried. With a stifled whimper, he leaned back against the pillar.
“You will bleed out. There is no way of stopping the blood—”
“Janir!” Lucan shoved a karkaton in her direction. “Get over here, girl.”
Hesitantly, Janir took the black rod. Lucan let go of it the instant her fingers made contact.
“You can stop the bleeding.”
Realization dawned over Saoven, but the girl still didn’t understand.
Janir shook her head. “I don’t—”
“Pull it out,” Lucan repeated, clamping a hand on Janir’s shoulder. “In this state, anyone else’s rod would kill me. Hurry!”
A loud clatter alerted them to the advance of more empty armor knights and Saoven made the decision. With a hard yank, he tore the spearhead free. For a moment Janir saw the white of bones before blood welled over the wound. Lucan gasped and cried out, his hand tightening like a vice on her shoulder.
He squeezed her so hard Janir wanted to scream herself. Saoven grabbed her wrist and drove the karkaton deep into Lucan’s wound, at least three inches.
A shrieking wail split the hall along with the screams of Lucan. His Argetallam warriors leapt to hold him down as the harrowing wails rang through the hall. The sharp stench of burning flesh sliced into her nostrils.
Janir wanted to stop, she ached to stop. The look of pure torment on Lucan’s face was too much to bear, but Saoven held her hand in place. When she was finally allowed to pull away, Lucan was pale and breathing heavily, all but two steps from the grave.
Janir shuddered and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Ignoring her, Lucan staggered to his feet with the help of his Argetallams. He had remarkable resilience. Another knight was already fitting through the opening in the door and Lucan was scrambling not to be near when it came through.
Although he instinctively tried to shove her
away, Lucan had to submit to letting Janir support his shoulder as he slowly trudged back to the other end of the crystal chamber. Perhaps it was guilt that drove her to help him, it felt like guilt.
One of the other Argetallams supported Lucan as he picked up her second rod—which he had dropped when he was stabbed. She felt a flicker of resentment as he claimed it and thrust it into his belt.
“Karkaton,” her brother hoarsely barked. “Now.”
The scorching glares of the other Argetallams warned what would happen if she didn’t comply. Janir dropped the rod she held into his open hand. He snatched it and stuffed it in alongside its twin, tanned face turning a sickly shade of white. Janir found herself with the powerful urge to take the karkaton back, but she waited for now.
“Elf, help him to the terrace,” ordered the Argetallam warrior who seemed to have taken Camak’s place.
Saoven obeyed, thought probably more for Janir’s sake than her brother’s or the other Argetallam’s. As soon as Saoven was supporting Lucan’s weakened frame, the Argetallam rushed to join his last remaining counterpart in meeting the oncoming wave of empty armor knights. They did not even need the command.
Janir and Saoven reached the lower terrace of the crystal chamber and they laid Lucan down gently, far gentler than he deserved. Karile and Saoven looked on with a kind of quiet disapproval.
In the back of her mind, Janir remembered the things he had done to her and other people. She remembered how cruel and ruthless he could be, yet she couldn’t stand to see him suffer.
Lucan submitted to her help with weakened resolve, still making sure he glared at her whenever he got the chance.
Janir looked back at the empty armor knights. Six of them had broken through now and they were marching uniformly toward the Argetallams. They met with the shriek of karkaton and the clang of metal. Within seconds, blood had been drawn. Drastically outnumbered, they didn’t stand a chance.
“Ideas—quickly!” Karile squeaked. “Climb the walls or play dead or—something!”
“The chamber,” Saoven said. “There must be some way to subdue them, yes?”
“Lucan!” Janir gripped his shoulder. “What do we do?”
“I have failed,” Lucan moaned. “I failed Lord Father. I failed my people.”
“What are we going to do?” Janir cast about in vain, trying to think of anything even remotely useful.
“I failed,” Lucan murmured.
Janir glanced again to the increasing number of empty armor knights nearing them at a steady pace. Only one Argetallam remained on his feet and he wasn’t going to last long. Despite everything, his courage was undeniable as he faced certain death. His companions already lay in sickening piles of blood and limbs on the ground. Janir couldn’t look and she couldn’t watch.
“What are we to do?” she demanded, spinning on Karile. She expected him to have answers or perhaps she was just looking for someone to blame. The enchanter had gotten them here, in a fair world, he should get them out. If only they lived in a fair world.
“I don’t know,” Karile said, shrinking back as panic bled into his words. “I don’t know, I—”
“I failed,” Lucan whispered again. Then a hard iciness filled him, a determination. “But I will not die in vain.”
The Key of Amatahns Page 36