by Jamie Davis
The guard turned again and started into the room. Hal let the silencing bubble of spirit magic dissipate as he entered the room and then leaned forward to kiss Mona.
“Alright, you two, enough of that. I let you have your fun but now it’s time to go.”
The guard grabbed Mona by the arm and pulled her up and away from Hal.
“Mona, tell me you’ve got this.”
She stared at him, her eyes boring into him. If they got out of this alive, he knew he was going to hear more about how she felt.
“Yeah, Hal, I’ve got this.”
Mona wheeled around, pulling her arm free of the guard’s grimy hand. She slipped him a coin of some sort and he smiled and nodded. Then she was gone, and the door closed, encasing him in blackness again. He didn't need to sit in darkness anymore, though. Hal enabled his dark vision thief ability so he could see the room and began to plan for what was to come in two days.
37
Hal shuffled between two huge imperial guards in full armor, once again heading towards the dais in the Emperor’s audience chamber. This time it was to receive his sentence for rebellion against the Empire. The Emperor had decided he didn't need Hal, something for which Hal had planned. He had no doubts as to what that sentence was to be.
This was the moment of truth, Hal knew. This was going to decide not only if he survived to get out of here but if he could manage to free Mona and Cari from their captivity. He reviewed the things he had to do when the time came to act. He kept his head down and his hands clasped in front of him, trying to appear submissive as he walked the length of the audience hall.
Emperor Kang wanted a show. He’d ordered the audience hall filled with nobles, visiting dignitaries, and leading bureaucrats in the capital. Now they all watched as Hal Dix, the man who’d been stirring up all the trouble to the west, was brought before the Emperor to receive judgment for his crimes.
Given the number of people and guards in the room, Hal decided this was going to be a more significant challenge than he’d planned. He thought there would be the empty room as before, with only about twenty guards and another ten sycophants clustered around the Emperor. This required some changes to adapt the plan to fit the circumstances.
Hal shifted his hands inside the metal cuffs on his wrists and tried to hide the rivets holding the shackles closed. If anyone inspected them closely, they’d see how they’d been cut almost all the way through as if by a blowtorch.
Once Hal had used his command of spirit magic to dispel the magic cast on his metal bonds, it had been easy to use a focused jet of high-intensity heated plasma from his forefinger to cut through the metal on each cuff.
He’d repeated the process on the shackles wrapped around his ankles. If he calculated correctly, Hal should be able to break free with only a sharp jerk against his bonds. All that depended on the condition of the shackles escaping notice from guards.
He was almost to the dais when he raised his eyes and saw Mona standing there, holding Cari in her arms. The two-year-old looked older than the last time he’d seen her. Kids her age grew so fast and two months could seem like forever.
Seeing his daughter for the first time since he’d come back to Fantasma brought tears to his eyes. Blinking them away sent a few streaming down his cheeks. This produced a snort of laughter from the Emperor. No doubt he thought Hal was crying out of fear. Hal wished he could wipe the damp trails of his tears from his face, but he couldn’t lift his hands high enough to reach his face, at least not yet.
One of the guards flanking him tugged on the chain attached to Hal’s wrists, halting his forward movement. He was about ten feet from the Emperor, ten feet from Mona and Cari. That was a long way when bare seconds counted the distance between success and failure.
Hal tensed his forearms as he prepared to make his move. It was all about the timing for maximum effectiveness and surprise now.
“Greetings, Hal Dix.” The Emperor announced his full name as if everyone in the chamber had no idea who his Majesty held captive before him.
Hal didn’t bow this time. Instead, he held his head high and met Kang’s gaze, matching stare for stare.
“Hello to you, too.”
“I trust you enjoyed your accommodations while staying here in the palace the last few days?”
The question brought titters and chuckles from the people assembled around the room. They all knew the Emperor kept Hal in the dungeon’s dank cells below the palace.
“They were adequate for what I needed to do.”
Kang scowled. He didn’t like that answer. It was clear Hal wasn’t acting the way he was supposed to. He wasn’t the cowed, condemned prisoner, waiting for his death sentence.
“Insolence at this time will not get you any leniency, you fool. Did you think you could stand here and defy me in my house?”
“It’s not technically your house, now is it. I mean, you stole it from the previous owners. That makes you a thief and a murderer, not a king and emperor.”
Kang bolted to his feet, pushing two of his concubines away from where they sat at the base of the throne.
“How dare you! You think you can cast doubt on my claim to the throne here in the presence of my loyal subjects? Do you forget I hold your wife and daughter as my hostages?”
“No, I do not forget. They are the reason I came here so I could stand before you and face you one on one. One of us is not going to survive the day.”
“Now you threaten me, too,” Kang laughed aloud. “I am tired of this false bravado, Hal Dix. Guards make him kneel so I might pass down my verdict and sentence him for his crimes.”
One of the guards kicked Hal behind the knees with a steel-toed boot, knocking him down to his knees. He almost fell over but managed to remain upright in the new position. Hal decided those two guards would be the first to go.
“Hal Dix, you have fomented rebellion across the western provinces, raised an army against my lawful rule, and assassinated the wardens set to represent me around the empire. For these crimes and more, you must die the death of a traitor. Know as well that I will use what I’ve learned about you and your origins to take power from your wife and child to use as my own. When I am finished, they will be empty, lifeless husks and I will be the most powerful ruler Fantasma has ever seen.”
As the Emperor spoke, two other guards stepped up behind Mona and grabbed her arms, securing her. Another snatched Cari from her arms, making Hal’s daughter cry out and begin to sob while calling for her mother. Alarm and fear flashed in Mona’s eyes, stoking Hal’s anger to white-hot intensity.
“You’re a fool, Kang,” Hal hissed through gritted teeth. “Your arrogance leads to your downfall. I would have enjoyed killing you but, alas, I promised that task to another.”
The slot machine in Hal’s head clattered to life, its wheels spinning the chances of his luck. It was louder than ever before.
Time to press his luck one more time.
Kang’s eyes widened, his mouth hanging open at Hal’s brazenness in the face of his death sentence and all arrayed against him.
With the Emperor speechless and stunned shock passing through the room at the condemned man's words, Hal decided it was time.
He closed his eyes and drew on all his magical energy, readying the spells he’d need to pull this off. A note of alarm sounded from a cluster of mages near the dais.
“Impossible, he’s drawing in energy. He can access his magic. Stop him!”
Hal clenched his fists and snapped his forearms away from each other. The force broke the remaining metal holding his wrist shackles, dropping them to the floor.
Leaping to his feet, Hal kicked outward at the guard to his right, catching the man by surprise and knocking him clattering to the floor.
The kick also served to snap the leg shackles off as well freeing him completely to engage his enemies.
The imperial guard on his left drew his sword and prepared to hack the unarmed prisoner down.
He never g
ot the chance.
Hal loosed a spell and an ice dart drove up into the unarmored chin of the guard, stabbing up into his brain. The man collapsed in a heap on the floor.
3,000 experience awarded.
Scooping up the sword, Hal manifested his ice armor and shield, charging toward the throne in a feint. The guards there formed around the Emperor rather than coming to engage him, allowing Hal to shift his focus to the cluster of eight mages, including Decimus.
Each of the magic users had begun casting magic of their own. Hal had to act fast. He’d only used this spell once before, so he wasn’t sure if it would work but he didn’t have time to think about it.
Using a variation of the dispel magic spell he’d used on the enchanted shackles, Hal cast an invisible, anti-magic bubble around the imperial spellcasters. Nice of them to stay together in a group like that.
Hal’s spell was rewarded by the looks of consternation on their faces when all their magic failed simultaneously. He hoped it took them a while to figure out why their spells weren’t working. The area of anti-magic was static in that location. All it would take would be for one of them to move out of the bubble.
Turning back toward the dais, Hal pointed off to one side and focused all his spirit energy, while casting the wind spell to open a portal. The plan had been to get inside the wards around the Crystal City where they would be weaker. In theory, the spirit magic would pierce the outer barrier allowing one gigantic portal spell to work.
That was a lot of ifs.
A chime in his head alerted Hal the slot machine had stopped.
His luck held.
The portal opened wide to the left of the dais. Armed soldiers rushed through, led by Kay, Anders, and Otto. Rune and Junica charged out just behind them, then the rush of soldiers became a torrent.
Hal held the portal open, knowing he couldn’t let it go until everyone was through, even though it left him defenseless.
“Kill him!” Kang shouted.
Three guards charged at Hal from where they stood along the walls. Others rushed to stem the tide of rebels flooding into the audience chamber.
Hal allowed himself a trickle of energy to beef up his ice armor but that was all he could do to meet the coming attacks. He had to maintain his focus on the portal.
The first guard to reach him hammered at his back with his sword. The blow nearly took Hal down, but he somehow remained on his feet.
Health damage: Health -12
He steeled himself for the next blows to fall as the other two guards reached him and the first guard prepared to strike again. An arrow whizzed by Hal’s face, taking the first guard in the eye, pitching him over backward with the force of the recurve bow in Junica’s hands.
A blurred form in yellow robes met the other two. Hardened hands and feet snapped out, first disarming and then disabling the two remaining guards coming at Hal.
The blur stopped moving, taking a guarding stance. Rune smiled at him while Hal shook his head. The bald, eastern monk wasn’t even breathing hard after that display of martial prowess and explosive force.
Junica ran over to join Rune, taking up a station on Hal’s opposite side, another arrow nocked as she prepared to defend him while he held the portal open.
Hal kept it in place for thirty seconds longer. Then the doorway snapped shut, the spell’s energy spent. It cut off the flow of men and women from the rebel army outside the city's wards. It had been enough, though. Several hundred rebel knights and soldiers spread out, engaging the imperial forces charging forward to protect the Emperor.
Theran was there and fired off a series of fire spells at the open doors into the audience chamber. The explosions cut off more imperial reinforcements trying to enter the room.
A shout to his left drew Hal’s attention. The Emperor, inside a ring of guards, was being hustled away toward a side door. The group dragged Mona and Cari along with them.
“Finish the mages,” Hal told Rune and Junica, pointing to the cluster of magic users nearby. “The spell stopping their magic will fail soon.”
Both turned to assault the imperial mages, joined by Theran and Otto. As he ran by, the fire mage tossed Hal his staff.
Hal grabbed the staff from the air then took off after the retreating Emperor. Kay and Anders also pursued the retreating cluster of guards. All would be lost if the Emperor managed to get away.
They almost caught up with Kang in time.
The Emperor and those holding Mona and Cari backed away and disappeared through a side door leaving behind five of the imperial guards. All were highly trained and prepared to die to protect their ruler.
Hal pulled up short and leveled his staff. He fired a blast of hail at the nearest of the guards. Two of them went down as hardened, fist-sized ice balls slammed into their armored forms leaving them in twin piles of dented, bloody metal on the floor.
3,000 experience awarded.
3,000 experience awarded.
Kay and Anders charged in on the other three guards. Hal ran in right behind them.
Hal used his ice shield to bash into his opponent, knocking the guard’s shield to one side and stunning him. Spinning his staff one-handed over his head, Hal brought the enhanced wooden shaft down on the guard’s helmet, denting in the cheek plate and eliciting a grunt of pain.
The guard countered with a slashing attack that chipped away at Hal’s shoulder armor.
Health damage: Health -14
Hal didn’t have time to deal with this guard. Kang was escaping with his wife and daughter. Growling deep in his throat, he released a series of vicious combined attacks on the guard, utilizing both his magic and weapons together.
Bringing his shield up to fend off a barrage of ice darts and fire jets, the guard blocked his vision enough to allow Hal a break in the follow-up attacks from the guard. Seeing his opportunity, Hal swung the staff low striking the guard in the ankles and taking his legs out from under him.
“Sweep the leg!” Hal shouted.
He spun the staff overhead once, twice, then brought it down, butt first into the guard’s unprotected face. The crunch of his facial bones cracking like an egg reverberated up the staff. The supine guard spasmed one time and was still.
3,000 experience awarded.
Kay finished her opponent, too. She turned to help Anders, who’d drawn the officer of the imperial guard as his opponent. They were soon all three tied up in a blazing duel of swordplay.
Kay spared a single glance his way.
“Go! Get your family before it’s too late.”
Hal didn’t have to be told twice. He reached down and scooped up the guard’s sword, then dashed through the door and down the hallway on the other side with his staff in one hand and the borrowed blade in the other.
The hallway ended in stairs heading up.
A voice echoed down from above, followed by a scream.
Hal took the stairs two at a time. In the back of his mind, he knew this exposed him to attack at every turn in the staircase.
He didn’t care.
He had to reach Mona and Cari before it was too late.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His battle prescience warrior ability gave him a warning. On pure instinct, Hal dove for the floor of the next landing as soon as he reached it. A double-bladed axe whistled past his head just before he hit the floor.
Diving to the landing drove the air from his lungs with a whoosh. Knowing he had to keep moving despite the pain of trying to draw in a breath with collapsed lungs, Hal rolled over to the left. The axe slammed down into his shoulder rather than his back. It didn’t kill him, but it still hurt.
Health damage: Health -12
Gasping to catch his breath, Hal continued rolling onto his back, raising his staff to deflect the next blow from the axe.
The axe’s blade skittered down the staff's shaft and hit the flagstone floor with a shower of sparks. Hal got his first look at the wielder. The wild, hairy, half-orc standing over him pulle
d the axe back up past his shoulder for another strike.
Hal raised his sword, lunging upward with all his strength.
The blade took the guard in the gut and slit it open sideways, spilling intestines out on the floor. The half-orc dropped the axe and clutched at his opened belly, slumping to the floor.
4,000 experience awarded.
Hal jumped to his feet and started up the stairs again. The initial sprint and the fight on the landing had him winded and he moved slower up the next flight of stairs while he tried to catch his breath.
That was when the glass ball rolled down the stone risers from above, breaking open two steps above his.
The blast of the fiery explosion knocked him back down to the landing, wrapping him in flames.
Hal managed to cast his resist fire spell but not before he’d been burned across his face, chest, and arms.
Health damage: Health -25
A quick check of his health status showed him he was in bad shape.
Health: 22/155
Groaning at the agony of the burns on his face and with the taste and smell of burned flesh in his nostrils, Hal rolled over and got back on his feet. The pain was so intense he couldn’t concentrate on his chakra healing when he tried. In the end, he was only able to heal up 9 points worth that way.
Knowing he didn’t have the time to cast any healing magic, Hal pushed through the pain and headed back up the steps. This time he readied an ice shield spell that was large enough to block the stair if another magic grenade came bouncing down the stairs at him.
He heard the glass globe before he saw it.
Hal cast the ice wall just before the globe burst. This time the explosion splashed against the wall of ice. It melted about half the frozen, foot-thick barrier before burning out. The ice melt helped to douse the flames.