by Logan Jacobs
Then again, we had just taken out a whole fort of elven magic casters, and even though many of them had been lower-level, it was still no small feat. And the best part of my planned attack on the elves this morning was that they had no experience against human magic that could freeze things into place and give us the clear advantage.
I wondered for a moment if that was true of all human magic, or if it was just true of my own magic. Either way, we would find a way past their magic wards on the temple door, and then we would capture as many members of the priesthood as we could. Ideally, I wanted to take all six of them alive so I could feed them to Azure and make my dragon grow to his full size, but I would settle for less if it meant that we captured them without any losses to our side.
Ava and Cimarra returned with breakfast at about the same time that Penny and Clodia joined me in the courtyard. The pixie thief and the elven guildmaster were both already dressed in their battle-gear, so I knew that Leif must have told them that we were going to take the temple today.
Then while the Elite all marched into the courtyard and prepared for battle under Leif’s direction, I ate a quick breakfast with my four women. I had too much adrenaline to eat much, but I gulped down a savory egg pastry and a mug of warm tea, just so I would have something on my stomach before battle.
“Arlix!” I called when the human guards escorted the elven second-in-command into the courtyard. “Come here, I’d like your help with something.”
“What can I do for you, my king?” the day elf asked as he joined us.
“I need an inventory of food supplies and other goods that we might need in case of a siege,” I said. “I need records, storehouses, all that sort of thing. If you can’t or won’t do it, just tell me, but--”
“My king,” Arlix interrupted, “I know this may sound strange, but… if there is anything that I can do to help you, I will, so--”
“No offense,” Penny interrupted, “but why exactly are you so eager to help out a human?”
“I’ve lived long enough to see what the elves have become,” Arlix said with a shrug. “We used to be just and righteous, and we used to care about law and order, but now… and for as long as I can remember, really… all the elves care about is power.”
“Very true,” Clodia said.
“And if I learned anything from your battle to take the Blood City,” the day elf continued, “it’s that you will be a fair and just king, who knows when to strike and when to show mercy. And that is certainly something that I would like to support.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, “and your help to me now may end up saving a lot of lives before this is all over.”
“I can take it from here,” Cimarra said, “as long as a few guards accompany us. I hope you understand, Arlix.”
“Of course,” the day elf said with a little nod.
After I tasked a few human soldiers to guard Cimarra while she went over the inventory numbers with Arlix, I kissed the beautiful dancer and then went to see if Leif had the Elite prepared for me. They were more than ready to move out, so with Penny, Clodia, and Ava by my side, I led the black-clad soldiers out of the garrison and toward the Blood City temple.
When we reached the temple, blue fire still pulsed around the lock on the front door, so it was clear that Clodia’s wards were still in place. The night elf checked the door quickly and found that it was also still guarded with magic from the priesthood inside, so I knew that we might be in for one hell of a fight just to get through the door.
“Go ahead and take your ward off,” I told Clodia. “Then we’ll see exactly how much power we’re up against.”
But as soon as the night elf let the blue fire die away from the lock, I felt the familiar thrum of the Rainbow Keys inside my pocket again. I ignored it at first, since I really needed to focus on finding a way past the magic that blocked the door, but when the keys continued to pulse and grow warmer inside my armor, I knew that they needed my full attention.
It took me a minute to reach inside my armor and pull out the red key, but as soon as I did, it grew even hotter in my hands, until it almost felt like I had picked up an iron poker from the fire. I looked down at the key and waited for some kind of vision or message, but then I suddenly realized that I already knew what I was supposed to do with it. I already knew what the red key unlocked, and the answer now seemed so simple that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before.
The red key opened up the Blood City temple.
I couldn’t explain how I suddenly knew that, just like I couldn’t explain how I suddenly knew how to cast magic flames of white light. All I knew was that I felt the truth of it in my bones.
“On my signal,” I said, “Clodia and I will move forward first, Ava and Penny come right behind us, and then the first unit of the Elite follow after them. If we need reinforcements, the second unit can follow after that, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Would you like me to lead one unit around to guard the back entrance?” one of the unit commanders asked.
“Yes, make sure no one escapes,” I said.
“Um, Wade?” Penny murmured. “What about the little detail of the magic wards on the door?”
“I think I have the magic key,” I said with a grin, and then I waved the red key in the air. “I’ve wondered for a while now what this one was going to open.”
“Oh, shit!” the pixie thief said.
“The priestesses and priests will never know what’s coming,” Clodia snickered.
“Let’s play this like the temple in the Capital,” I called out to my troops. “Take them prisoner if possible, but not at the expense of your own lives.”
“We hear you, and we follow!” the Elite shouted back.
My sword was still sheathed at my side, but I raised my shield with one arm and gripped the burning key with my other hand. I strode up the front steps of the marble temple with Clodia right beside me, and then I heard laughter from the windows above us.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” one of the elven priestesses sneered from inside the temple, “but your little human key is no match for our magic.”
“Oh, but it’s not just a human key,” I said with a smirk. “It’s one of the Rainbow Keys, and as you know, they were forged by the Ancient Lords themselves.”
“But that’s… that’s impossible!” the priestess gasped. “You’re a human! You can’t possibly use a Rainbow Key.”
“Watch me,” I growled, and then I slid the red key into the lock.
Red sparks showered from the lock down to the marble floor, and then after the lock gave one loud click, the key itself dissolved into a powdery red dust that blew away in the next gust of wind.
Without another word, I pushed open the door and strode into the Blood City temple.
I entered a huge rectangular room with a wide railing that went all the way around the second floor, so anyone up top could look down on the main room below. Directly in front of me, three priestesses looked up at me from where they stirred a huge fire-pit that smoked up into a wide chimney, a priest stopped mid-stride on the other side of the temple interior, and the last two members of the priesthood were nowhere to be seen.
The elven priestesses and the single priest only got half a shriek out before I froze them in place. Their magic was strong, so I couldn’t hold them long, but I held them still until Clodia, Penny, Ava, and the first unit of the Elite all marched into the temple with me.
Then as my hold on the elves collapsed, Clodia held up her hands and sent a blast of blue fire toward the priestesses. She aimed it at their feet so she wouldn’t immediately kill them, but the priest on the other side of the temple threw his own blast of energy to deflect Clodia’s.
All four members of the priesthood started to hurl one ball of fire after another at us, so the Elite locked shields and formed a solid wall to block any of the elves who might try to escape. Every time another pulse of fire streaked toward us, I froze it in
place before I let it drop harmlessly to the ground, and Clodia answered each one with another stream of blue fire from her own fingers.
The force of the elves’ magic was too strong for me to risk the lives of the Elite, so I just had them hold their position for now. They would help prevent any possible escape, but I wouldn’t make them do any more than that, especially not while two members of the priesthood were still missing.
“Clodia!” I shouted over the constant hiss of fire that hurtled back and forth across the temple. “Go find the other two elves! Take Ava!”
“Yes, my king!” Clodia and Ava shouted back.
I pushed my magic toward the four elves in front of me again, so they all froze in place just long enough for Clodia and Ava to dart off toward the stairs to try to find the last two members of the priesthood on the second floor. As soon as they were out of danger, I felt the hold begin to collapse again, but right before the elves regained consciousness, I sent a streak of white fire toward the priest’s ankles.
He started to move again just as my fire hit him in the shins, and instantly, the elf dropped to his knees and let out a screech of pain. When he tried to push himself right back up again, I hurled another blast of white-hot flame at his legs and then raised my shield up in front of Penny and myself to block any magic that the three priestesses sent against us.
When the elven priest shrieked again, I knew that I had made a good hit, so I turned toward one squad of the Elite unit behind me.
“Go take him prisoner!” I barked. “Keep your shields toward the priestesses!”
As the squad of black-clad soldiers moved toward the wounded priest like a solid wall, I froze the three priestesses in place again, so they couldn’t lash out at my troops while they were on the move. Their magic was strong, so I felt them wrestle themselves out of my hold a few seconds later, and then we all sent so much fire toward each other that the whole room seemed to explode with blue and white fireworks.
Finally, I decided to take a different approach. The next time they sent blue flames toward me, I didn’t try to freeze them or counter them with white fire of my own. Instead, I just held up my right hand, focused all my concentration onto the priestesses’ magic, and then caught every last one of their blue flames in my hand.
All three elven priestesses just stared at me with their jaws open.
“Surprise,” I said with a grin, and then I hurled their own fire right back at them.
Their own blue flames hit them right in their stomachs, so the force of the impact instantly flung them onto their backs, but the fire wasn’t quite hot enough to burn through all their robes, so instead, it just knocked them onto their asses.
“Move in and take them!” I called to the Elite just as I froze them in place again.
This time, they were weak enough from my last hit that they couldn’t fight back, so I was able to keep them in place until the Elite had secured their hands behind their backs to prevent their use of any more magic.
“Wade, up top!” Ava suddenly shouted as she rushed into view up on the second floor.
I looked up just in time to see a day elf priestess lean over the railing across the room from me. Her pale hair was wild, and she looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in about three days, but her eyes were filled with more hatred than I had ever seen before.
Ava fired an arrow toward her, but the priestess just held up her hand and made the arrow fall to the ground below, and then she hurled what looked like a river of blue fire down toward me. Instantly, I threw my shield up to block the force of her magic, and I pulled Penny close to my side to keep her safe. The force of her magic flames on my shield was enough to send a throbbing vibration all the way up my arm and into my spine, but I held the shield steady, even as flames spilled out on either side of it.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Clodia appear up top beside Ava, and she flung her own stream of fire at the elven priestess. As soon as I felt the blast of flames on my shield start to weaken, I kept it right in front of Penny and me, but I poked my head above the shield just long enough to get my aim right.
Then the moment the day elf priestess paused to summon up the energy for another stream of fire, I pushed all my magic into my hand to form a huge white flame that danced above my palm. I popped up above my shield, hurled the white fire at her, and then at the last second, I froze her in place so she couldn’t dodge or block it.
My flames hit her exactly where I had aimed them, so they burned straight through the top of her hair and even singed the top of her skull. The intensity of the heat must have been enough to knock her out, because just a second later, she swayed and then plunged to the ground.
“Where’s the sixth priest?” I called to Ava and Clodia.
“Dead,” Clodia said as she looked down over the railing. “The last priest went after Ava, so I--”
“Then you did the right thing,” I said. “Come back down and join us.”
After I gave orders to another squad to go secure the unconscious priestess up top, I checked on our other elven prisoners to make sure that everyone was secure. The three priestesses downstairs all had their hands bound so tightly behind them that they wouldn’t be able to cast any magic, and so did the elven priest.
Shortly after Clodia and Ava came back downstairs, the Elite soldiers up top dragged the bound and unconscious priestess down and dropped her beside the rest of her companions.
“Is anyone hurt?” I asked as I squeezed Ava’s shoulder.
“I think we’re all fine,” the blonde assassin replied.
“Yeah, they clearly weren’t a match for your human magic,” Penny added.
“We did good work here this morning,” I called out to the Elite inside the temple. “We only lost one of the priests, and we didn’t lose a single one of our own people.”
“Plus, we captured that one super powerful priestess,” Penny said, “and I have a feeling Azure is really going to like her.”
“So what do we do next?” Clodia asked.
“Exactly what Penny said,” I laughed. “We go feed them to Azure, and if these five assholes aren’t enough to make him grow to full size, then I don’t think anything will.”
I started to give orders to move the prisoners, but before I could even get the words out, I felt the last Rainbow Key grow warm inside my pocket, and instantly, a black veil seemed to fall over my eyes.
The darkness was replaced a second later by a vision of green fields outside of blood-red walls. The Rainbow Keys had taken me here before, but this time, I did not see any armies. I only heard the blast of a single elven horn, and when the sound died away, the green fields turned blue with blood. The bloody fields then shifted back to green, but now every inch of the hills outside the Blood City was covered in red and gold wildflowers.
The vision faded as quickly as it had come, and without a word, I reached into my armor to pull out the green Rainbow Key.
“You had a vision, didn’t you?” Ava asked.
“What was it?” Penny whispered. “What does the green key open?”
“I think that whatever it opens,” I said and then took a deep breath, “is gonna be the key to our goddamn victory.”
Chapter 16
As the green key continued to grow hotter in my hand, I felt it pull me toward the fire-pit right behind me in the main temple hall, and as soon as I turned around, my gaze was drawn toward the empty shelf above the fire.
“There’s nothing there,” I said.
“I knew a human wouldn’t be able to use the Rainbow Keys,” one of the priestesses sneered from where she knelt on the ground behind me. “See? You don’t even know what it’s trying to tell you.”
“Yes, because clearly, there’s nothing there!” the elven priest said, but his tone was a little too enthusiastic.
“Oh, clearly,” I snickered.
Even though I couldn’t see anything, the priest’s words made me feel like there was definitely something to be found here. And since I s
till felt the tug of the green key, I just shrugged and placed it on the empty shelf.
Instantly, the air behind the key began to shimmer, until all at once, a gold chest about the length of my forearm appeared on the shelf, as if from thin fucking air. There were jewels of every color embedded into the chest, and the gold itself looked like it had been braided into thick ropes while the metal was still hot.
“Damnnnnn,” Penny gasped.
“Now, that’s a nice trick,” Clodia said.
“That is not for humans to touch!” the priest shrieked.
“It will kill your unclean hands,” an elven priestess snarled.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said with a grin. “In fact, I can almost guarantee what happens next.”
I picked up the green key again, slid it into the lock on the chest, and smirked as it made a satisfying click when I turned it. The chest opened with a slight hiss, so then as the key dissolved into thin air, I opened the chest the rest of the way to see what treasure laid inside.
Compared to the elaborate goldwork on the outside, the interior of the chest was pretty goddamn bare, and in fact, there was just one piece of paper rolled up like a scroll at the bottom.
“Do not--” a priestess started.
“Do not tell the king what he can and cannot do,” Clodia snapped, “or I will burn the tongue right out of your mouth.”
The priestess kept silent after that.
I pulled out the rolled-up piece of paper and started to unscroll it, only to quickly realize that it was even wider than the length of my arm. As I continued to unroll it, Penny stepped forward and grasped one side of the paper, so I could continue to unroll it.
When it was fully open, Penny held it by one corner, and I held it by the other, so we could examine what was written on it.
“Oh!” Ava murmured.
It was a map of the whole empire, but it didn’t just have the ten cities pictured. Every single fort was also marked on the map, along with the secret stronghold that we had just destroyed and a detailed picture of all the rivers, mountains, and other landscape features that could prove useful to know.