That’s when I realized it never struck. Another sword that swirled like a black hole held it away from the altar. With practiced ease, the wielder of that black blade knocked Clarent from the man’s hand, stepping out from the shadows as the shining sword went spinning off the hill.
A writhing scar ran down the left side of his cheek where it looked like his cheek had been peeled away by a sword slash before being stapled back into place. His crisp white hair was cut close-cropped and his left eye burned with yellow fire.
“Who are you?” Nadine cried, moving to interpose herself between him and the Builder as he calmly lifted his own sword, laying it across his shoulder.
“You thought you would win, didn’t you?” he said, and his voice was a black hole, sucking the life from the whole of the battlefield. Time seemed to slow down as he took a casual step forward, one hand extended toward the two of them. “I am Dred.” His lips twisted into a smile.
“Dred?” the man asked, confusion filling his voice as he shot a furtive glance toward Clarent. It was only a few yards away. I knew that look, but so did Dred.
“Yes.” He clucked his tongue, sword whipping out in a blur to point at Clarent. “If you go for the sword, I will kill your girl.” He gestured toward Nadine. “I’d rather not, but I will.”
“What do you want?” Nadine asked, unperturbed by his comment. I could tell she wanted to fight but something was wrong.
“To destroy.” His grin widened. “Everything.” He tapped his sword to his head. “That’s what Excalibur wants.” He pointed the swirling black blade at them. “To destroy everything. To turn the world into an endless void of nothing. I am its chosen.” He smiled again. “Destroying is so much more fun after all.” He swept his blade in an arc that caused the ground around them to turn molten, cutting them off from Clarent.
“Why would you aid the Darkness?” the man asked, confusion in his voice. Only there was more than that. There were worry and fear, sure, but more than that, there was failure. He knew he had lost.
“Here’s the thing, boy. The Darkness was first.” His blade came up, drawing all the color and light from the surroundings. “I am just returning the universe to how it should be, how it used to be.” His blade came down, and as it did, Nadine threw herself in front of the man.
“Please, just let him go,” she cried, tears streaming from her eyes. “If you do, I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” he asked, blade hovering in midair. “Would you betray them all?” His hand swept across the battlefield. “Would you give it all up to save this miserable failure?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation, and the sky above boomed in response. Bloody rain began to fall, turning the battlefield to mush.
Dred turned his head heavenward. “It seems the Empress accepts your offer.” His hand whipped out and a blast of Darkness tore through the space between them, rending open reality. Beyond the tear, I could see a feudal city straight out of the history books. “Send him away.”
“You can’t, Nadine. We must fight,” he said, hands balling into fists. He took a step toward Dred, but before he could do more, Nadine grabbed him by the kimono, whirling him around to face her. Tears fell from her eyes, trailing down her cheeks as she brought him close.
“We cannot fight. I cannot lose you,” she whispered, drawing him into a last kiss. Hunger and need flowed through her, and as I watched, I knew the truth of the gesture. She’d never see him again.
“We must,” he said, pulling away from her.
“No.” She shoved him backward, sending him through the portal. As his body exploded into a flash of light that transported him back to wherever he called home, the rent portal closed with another clarion call.
“I have held my end of the bargain up,” Dred said, turning his gaze onto Nadine. “Now fulfill yours.” He waved a hand at the remaining soldiers. “Kill them all.”
And she did.
The scene resolved itself as Nadine’s last shuddering breath escaped her throat, leaving her dead atop of me. Above the sky boomed, and the arrows flew. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but it didn’t seem long. Part of me still hated Nadine, but now? Now most of me just felt sorry for her.
She had sacrificed it all to save the Builder of her time. It had cost her everything, but he’d survived. As I replayed the memories I’d seen, I realized I thought she was wrong. I understood why she’d done it, but I knew the look on the man’s face as he was pushed back to his reality. He had wanted to fight, and she had taken that away from him because of fear.
That was bullshit.
I pushed on her with all my strength, creating enough of a gap between us for me to wedge my knee under her. I shoved her off of me. As her lifeless body hit the ground next to me, I pulled Clarent free of her. It came away easily, blazing to life in my hand as I called upon its power to clothe me again. My armor reappeared, and with it, my extra strength and speed.
I sprinted forward as arrows pierced the sky and bats swooped down on my forces. I knew what I had to do. More than save Gwen, I had to destroy the altar. Doing so would free this land from the Darkness. At least they’d thought it would and trying to do it had cost everything.
As I came to a stop beside the later, I saw Gwen. Her body was alight with magic as she flung fireballs with her free hand, desperate to keep back the horde of beholders surging up toward the statue.
“Gwen!” I cried, bringing Clarent down on her right arm’s binding. As the bond shattered beneath my attack, she sat up, flinging a fireball past my ear to incinerate another bat.
“Arthur! Untie me, we have to get out of here!” she cried, pointing to the beholders. “Everyone else is too busy with that thing.” She pointed, but I didn’t need to look at the wannabe Cthulhu to know that’s what she meant. Instead, I severed her last binding, freeing her.
She jumped off the altar, coming to my side. As she did, I shoved the Nexus Gateway Conduit into her hand.
“What’s this?” she asked, confusion filling her voice as I turned back toward the altar.
“A portal home. Get everyone out of here, okay? I’ll be right behind you. I have to do something first!” I moved toward the altar as she fumbled with the device. “Just hit the button on it, and it will work.”
“You can’t stay. You’re too important!” She took a step toward me.
“Do as I say!” I snarled as the Darkness beyond the altar began to swirl, letting me know something was about to come through. I wasn’t sure if it was Dred or something else, but I knew one thing. We were out of time, and I would not let Gwen become Nadine. “Go!”
She took a long look at me before nodding. Holding the device out in front of her, she hit the only button on the Nexus Gateway Conduit. A portal the size of a movie screen swirled to life in front of her, and as it did, my people instantly broke formation. They knew the drill. As soon as the portal opened, they were to shove everyone through.
I turned my attention back to the altar, Clarent blazing with blue fire as I raised it up to bring down on the altar. Darkness swirled all around me as the beast above turned its hideous gaze upon me. Power rippled through me, shattering my armor as I brought Clarent down with everything I had, driving the blade into the altar of Darkness.
The staccato clang of it filled my ears as the Altar fell in two. At first, nothing happened. Then, all at once, the sky began to swirl, sealing off the void from which the tentacle monster screamed at me with a loud pop. Sparks shot from the cleaved edges of the altar, and the Darkness spiraled around me dissipated into smoke. With a tortured shriek, the Nexus gateway behind me shattered. Blue light streamed across the whole of the sky as the sky changed from the torn mass of red to the familiar storms of Hell itself.
As that light spread out across the whole of the world, the Darkness warriors, beholders, and other creatures (including our own ravagers, unfortunately) dissipated into smoke.
“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” a voice unlike any
I’d ever heard rumbled. It was primordial and so evil that it made me want to jump into a black hole. The statue of the Empress glared at me with the same yellow eyes Dred had. “But you’ve really just lost.” Hideous laughter filled my ears as the statue shattered into pink sparks that burst outward like a shockwave.
As the sparks touched the statues, the stone fell away, turning the warriors trapped within back into flesh and blood people. One by one they fell to their knees, finally freed from their endless purgatory.
“You did it,” Gwen said, coming toward me, the backdrop of Lustnor in the distance. She pointed behind me. “The Darkness has receded for miles!”
“Not far enough,” I said, turning to see that while she was right, that was all it had done, pushed back like the shore at low tide. All that sacrifice for a few miles of territory. How many had we lost because of it? Too damned many.
“You should take your victories where you can,” she said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “It is not often one stares into the abyss, and the abyss pulls back.”
50
In the days that followed the battle for the statue, everything changed, and yet it stayed so much the same it was maddening.
We’d lost people. Good people, and that was my fault, plain and simple. I knew that we were at a war with an unceasing, uncompromising enemy, but that didn’t stop each and every death from weighing me down. Buffy had told me that was good because I didn’t want to be the kind of leader who could order troops into battle and not care whether they lived or died. With the way I felt, I wasn’t sure if I believed her because the casualties had been high.
Sheila had lost both of her eyes and Crystal had lost an arm but Sally had managed to get them both back to normal. That had cost a lot of Experience, but she’d gladly ground it out. Not that it was hard since there were so many injured.
Blade’s End had been left without a leader, but thanks to the Nexus Gateways and a little conniving by Buffy and Elizabeth, we were temporarily in charge of it. For the most part, they seemed okay with it, and not just because, thanks to Sam’s casting technique, Etheric Flame and dragon taming had become lucrative.
We still had problems with the guilds of Royal Centre, but they were starting to come around. Not quickly because bureaucrats, but still coming around. After we’d freed all the warriors, some had gone home to their families, while others had settled with us.
Lustnor had expanded, and we even had farmers now. It was a good thing too because the food was getting expensive, and we couldn’t send everything we needed to the front lines.
Hell was still being attacked by Darkness warriors, but not as often as before. Still, try as I might, I couldn’t enjoy it. Something felt wrong.
Why hadn’t Dred shown up? Why had the statue of the Empress felt so sure of her victory as she lost?
Neither of those made sense.
“If you keep worrying about it, you’ll drive yourself insane,” Gwen said, putting a hand on my shoulder as I stared out at the horizon. I wasn’t sure what lay behind the Darkness, but it scared me. It would cost more people to take that bit of land back, and while the Graveyard of Statues had bolstered our ranks, I didn’t think we had enough people to besiege the Darkness itself. More and more, I just felt like we got lucky.
“I’m the Builder of Legend. It’s my job to worry.” I took a deep breath and turned to look at her. She had a coy smile on her lips. “I have to be the one to fix all this.”
“I know, and it’s a big burden, but we’re all here to help you.” She smiled at me. “Thanks to you, we’ve recovered more ancient magic and technology than ever before. We know how to do things we thought myth and legend.” She nodded at me. “If you did no more, this would be more than enough.”
“For others, maybe but not for me.” I could still see the look on Nadine’s Builder’s face as he tumbled back home. He would have fought until the last drop of blood had been spilled from his body. “It’s not in me to give up, not while we aren’t free.”
“Are you thinking about Akimitsu again?” she asked, touching my shoulder. “His and Nadine’s fates are not your fault.”
“I know that,” I said, taking a deep breath as I put my hand to Clarent, “and I know that Nadine was wrong but at the same time, it worries me.”
“What worries you?” she asked, moving closer to me.
“How powerful Akimitsu was. Well, how strong all of them were. We could work for another century and not be as powerful as they were then, and the Darkness beat them without any effort.” I gestured at our town. “What we have is not enough.”
“We won. Yes, we will fight more, will drive the Darkness back until it is gone, but for now, we are in the eye of the storm. Let’s relax a little.” She quirked a smile at me. “Come on.” She took my hand in hers and moved to drag me away. “You can put it anywhere.”
I felt my face heat up, and as she winked at me, I thought I might be about to get one of my favorite things. “Stop trying to distract me. I'm serious.”
“So am I,” she said, fixing me with a stern look. “We should rest while we can. That Dred you spoke of will come. I know it, but he probably won’t come today.” She shook her head.
“What about what Nadine said about the destroyer?” I asked, shaking my head. “His sword, you should have felt it.”
“Then train until you’re stronger.” Gwen pressed her body close to me. “Until we’re all stronger.” She leaned in until her lips were nearly to my ear. “I will not pull a Nadine and sacrifice everything for you because that is not your wish.” She licked my ear lobe. “This you can trust.”
Her words lifted a weight off my shoulder I knew I shouldn’t have felt. I hadn’t even realized I’d worried about something similar happening, but at the same time, now that she’d said it aloud, I knew that was what had been bothering me.
“Thank you,” I said, smirking at her. “So, is that offer still good?”
“Which offer is that?” she asked, giving me a devilish smile.
“The one where I could put it—”
My words were cut off as a comet punched through the cloud cover overhead. Golden sparks trailed off the end as it hurtled toward us. As I watched the sky roil, golden light shone through, turning the ground all around us lush with life.
A moment later, the comet slammed into the ground just beyond the gates, sending a wave of gilded light outward as the shockwave threw me from my feet. I hit the ground hard, and as I did, I heard alarm bells going off.
Scrambling back to my feet, I climbed up on the wall, scaling the ladder in a moment to look out at what had come through.
A blonde woman wearing a snow-white gown with a golden belt stood there with a gilded mace in one hand and a glittering sword in the other. Her white, feathered wings were spread to their full expanse as she took a step forward. As she did, flowers sprouted in her wake. Her crystal blue eyes scanned the wall before looking up to find me.
“Builder,” she called, and her voice was like honey and sage, threatening to wrap me up in the pure goodness of it. “I am Gabriella, Archangel. I require your assistance.” She took a deep breath and leaped into the air, her wings easily holding her aloft as she came toward me until we were eye to eye. “You must help me.”
“Wait a second. You’re an angel?” I asked even though the statement seemed really dumb in retrospect.
“I am Gabriella, second to Michelle of the archangels, and we require your assistance.” She pierced me with her blue eyes, and I got the feeling she could see every speck of my soul. “Dred has breached our gates and will soon march upon the seat of Heaven’s power. He has all the Empress’s armies at his disposal.” She reached out and touched my cheek then and warmth filtered through my skin, making me forget I’d ever worried before. “Please, you must assist us.”
“Get back, angel!” Gwen snarled, stepping between us and pushing Gabriella’s arm away. “I won’t let you hurt him.”
“I don’t want to hurt
him!” Gabriella snarled, her hand tightening on her mace.
“Stop, both of you,” I said, taking a deep breath and pushing between them. I glared at Gwen. “You behave.” As a look that let me know the offer was most decidedly off the table materialized on Gwen’s face, I turned to Gabriella. “And you. Be nice to my friends.”
“She is the spawn of the great deceiver.” Gabriella crossed her arms indignantly over her chest. “I will do no such thing.”
“Then I won’t help you,” I said, glaring at her. “You can just shove off back to Heaven and fight Dred on your own.”
“You would really leave Heaven to the Darkness?” she asked, alarm filling her voice in a way that let me know this was not going as she’d expected.
“I would.”
“You mustn’t. You must help. If you do not come and stop Dred, he will come here next. Heaven will become a ravaged wasteland.” She snorted at the town. “Maybe you’re used to that, but once you see the splendor of Heaven, you will want to save it.”
“Don’t listen to that self-righteous bitch,” Gwen sneered. “All that glitters isn’t gold. That’s for damned sure.”
“Gwen, play nice.” I smiled at her. “I got this.”
“You’ve got this?” Gwen snarled at me while pointing a finger at Gabriella. “Do you even know what they are like?”
“Builder,” Gabriella said, moving forward only to be buffeted back by the barrier surrounding the town. The sigils flared to life, keeping her from getting closer. She stared at it for a moment before sighing. “Please, you must come quickly. We are running short of time.”
“Fine,” I said, holding out a hand to Gabriella, “but only if you learn to be nicer to Gwen.”
“You can’t go, Arthur!” Gwen said, reaching for me. “She can’t be trusted.”
“It is you who can’t be trusted!” Gabriella snapped back.
“Well, you both better get over it because she’s coming.” I took Gabriella’s hand then, and the feel of her was like jumping into a swimming pool on a hot summer’s day. “They’re all coming.”
The Builder's Sword (The Legendary Builder Book 1) Page 29