Rise of the Ranger (Echoes of Fate: Book 1)

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Naiveen revealed herself first, throwing a small knife at Master Tibit's throat. The mage's look of surprise was to be expected, when he gripped the knife protruding from his neck and looked on in shock as the elves came into being in front of him. Naiveen's attack had not been a killing blow, however.

  "Yala..." Master Tibit's spell came out as more of a gurgle, but his willpower continued to fuel the magic.

  Naiveen had not expected any retaliation, and as such, hadn't seen fit to erect a barrier that would deflect, or absorb, the ball of fire that erupted from the mage's staff. The elf was hit square in the chest and launched backwards into the wall, her body leaving the floor completely. Galanör winced at the sound of her head slamming into the stone. Naiveen wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

  Master Tibit dropped to his knees, still holding onto the hilt of Naiveen's knife in his throat. The pressure he exerted on the knife wasn’t enough to stop the blood from trickling down his robes. His eyes darted wildly between the four remaining elves. On seeing their ears, the mage’s suffering turned to curiosity, unable to comprehend his final moments or the reason for his death.

  A deep groan and falling rubble came from the hole in the wall. Adamar stumbled through the jagged gap with his head resting in one hand, blood streaking down his cheek. The big elf settled on Master Tibit with a gaze of rage. Galanör was annoyed that two of his team had been injured by the mage, but Adamar’s revenge would be more severe than the man deserved for defending himself. With a tug of telekinetic magic, Galanör pulled the knife free from the human’s neck. Blood poured out in deadly amounts, spilling onto the floor and adding to the massacre. In a final breath, Master Tibit’s eyes glazed over and he slumped to the floor.

  Adamar growled at the dead body and advanced to kick the mage for good measure, until Galanör stopped him with a firm hand.

  “Gather your wits, we need to move.” Galanör motioned for Lyra to wake up Naiveen.

  Putting Adamar through the wall shattered the boundaries of Naiveen’s spell. It wouldn’t be long before others arrived to investigate the commotion.

  Naiveen awoke with a start, before she patted her chest down to put out the tiny flames that licked at her clothes. Lyra helped her up and inspected the damage done to the elf’s skin. Galanör could smell the burnt flesh and urged Naiveen to use some of her stored magic to heal it. They would need to be at full health if they were going to make it across the school.

  Gideon and Abigail scrambled out of the sparring hall, drenched in sweat, and used their bodies to slam both doors shut, behind them. Not a second after the doors closed did the bombardment start from within the hall. The mages’ weight was all that kept the horrors trapped on the other side from breaking free.

  “It’ll be fun, he says...” Abigail sarcastically reiterated Gideon’s comment between laboured breaths. “I thought you said you had found a way to use the hex-traps as a sparring tool?” Another heavy knock from the other side threatened to send the mages flying down the corridor.

  “I’ll admit it got a little out of hand.” Gideon frantically waved off two fourth years walking by.

  “A little? Gideon, there’s a fully grown Hydra on the other side of this door!” Abigail was forced away from the door, after one of the Hydra’s heads thundered into the panel where her back was.

  Gideon held out his staff and used it to bar the door until she recovered. “Well it wouldn’t have been such a problem if you hadn’t removed so many of its heads on our way out!” With every decapitation, the Hydra had grown two more heads in its place. Gideon searched both ends of the corridor, hoping all the masters were detained elsewhere.

  “You’re right,” Abigail’s pitch was steadily rising, “I should have just let it devour us instead! You said the biggest thing we’d face would be a banshee, maybe a Gorgon!” The doors began to crack around the hinges when multiple high-pitched, hungry roars threatened to break their resolve.

  “So how do we fix this?” Gideon tried to ignore the pain in his back and head every time the door slammed into him.

  “You’re asking me? You’re the one who botched the hex-trap! How could you forget to place it under a boundary spell?”

  Gideon hated when he got things wrong, especially magic. The boundary spell would have limited the size and number of monsters that could cross from the shadow world into theirs, keeping the portal inside the hex-trap a moderate size. The Hydra had literally eaten the two Gobbers in its way, as it crawled out of the portal.

  The gnashing jaws only served to increase Gideon’s resourcefulness. His mind raced through all the texts he had ever studied about Hydra, specifically their weaknesses.

  “We have to pierce its heart!” Gideon exclaimed. “That means no more decapitations, Abigail!”

  “Oh, well I think I left my spear in my other robes!” she replied dryly, shouting over the banging doors.

  Gideon’s mind raced through every possible idea. The Hydra’s scales were thick, requiring some force to pierce its hide. Think Gideon!

  He made a series of ape-like noises before he could find the words. “I’ve got it! The statue of the old knight, the one outside the alchemy lab!” A statue of a knight from the Dragon War had been guarding that corridor for centuries.

  “What about it?” Abigail asked.

  “The spear he’s holding was inserted afterwards. They’re two separate pieces!”

  “That would mean us outrunning this thing until we reach the alchemy lab...”

  Gideon could see the flaw in his plan now; the alchemy lab wasn’t even in this wing of the school. But it was close to Master Tibit’s room. If they failed to defeat the Hydra, the old mage would surely know what to do. Of course it would come with some severe punishment for Gideon and Abigail, but at this point, punishment from the masters was better than being digested by a Hydra.

  “We’ll throw everything we have at it to slow it down!” He made a list of spells in his head, ready.

  “We’re never graduating...” Abigail was looking as tired as Gideon felt.

  “I’ll take surviving over graduating any day! Are you ready?” She nodded between fighting the door. “Run!”

  The two mages sprinted down the corridor to their right, just clearing the doorway before the Hydra burst through it in an explosion of splintered wood. Its momentum propelled the beast straight into the opposing wall, where the Hydra’s bulk crumpled the stone and shattered the bay window. The torches lining the wall fell across the monster’s writhing body, aggravating the creature even more. Gideon regretted looking back upon the nightmarish vision. A dozen heads, that could torment the minds of lesser men, battled one another into lead position to find their prey. Four thick legs, with sharpened claws, lifted its girth and dug into the hard floor, crunching the stone to dust. A long reptilian tail followed the Hydra out of the sparring hall, as it launched itself down the corridor, after the mages.

  “Just keep running!” Gideon shouted. “And don’t look back!”

  Abigail looked back...

  “What was that?” Lyra’s expression was more curiosity than fear.

  “It sounded like a Basilisk...” Ailas replied, notching an arrow.

  Galanör had heard that particular screech before. As a younger elf he had been on many expeditions around Ayda, as part of his training to becoming a warrior worthy of his family name. The Shalarian woods, east of the Nylla river, were home to many unnatural creatures and had served as his father’s personal training ground for Galanör.

  “That was a Hydra.” His statement drew all their gazes.

  “Why is there a Hydra in the grounds?” Eliön asked, puzzled.

  “There could be a hundred reasons in this place,” Adamar replied, a little louder than Galanör appreciated. The knock to his head was potentially more severe than the gash he had healed.

  “We need to keep moving, quietly.” Galanör pressed on, sticking to the walls and taking cover behind pillars and hiding in archways.
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  As the sun had set, a pre-cast spell swept through Korkanath, lighting all the torches and hearths. The flickering shadows served them all, allowing them to avoid the rush of masters and students that flocked to the history classroom. There had been no point in concealing the presence of the bodies when they couldn’t hide the giant hole in the wall, or the smell of sulphur from the fireball.

  The elves sharpened their hearing, as they passed through an indoor courtyard, filled with the sound of splashing water from the central fountain. A nod from Galanör was all the communication needed for the team to conceal themselves from sight. Concealment magic was among the most taxing, even for an elf, and the team were slowly absorbing the power that ebbed from their various hidden crystals.

  By the time Galanör felt the stinging sensation spreading across his skin, it was too late. Their concealment spell was broken by the wards placed on the room, exposing them to three separate hex-traps. The elves rallied together, back to back, when the first demonic arms, claws and tentacles emerged from the circular portals on the floor. The ancient glyphs lining the traps glowed with brilliant purple light, powering the portals to the shadow world.

  “I didn’t feel any wards,” Lyra said, holding her scimitar in both hands.

  “They must have activated Korkanath’s defensive measures when they found the dead teachers,” Eliön replied, aiming his bow with Ailas at the Ghoul being birthed on the other side of the fountain.

  Galanör braced himself, twirling his one-handed sword, feeling the weight of it.

  The plan was falling apart.

  The odds of the elves reaching the Elder Book were becoming slimmer. The noise about to be created in closing the hex-traps would attract every mage in the grounds. How far would they go to achieve their goal? There was a good chance that the students would rise to defend their masters and protect the school.

  More children to the slaughter.

  Galanör’s resolve faltered at the thought. A ten foot Gorgon slithered from the nearest portal, with dozens of snapping snakes whipping out from its semi-human face. The horrific combination of snake and woman brought Galanör back into the moment. Preternatural speed launched the Gorgon across the gap in the blink of an eye, two outstretched arms with clawed fingers ready to rip the elf’s head off.

  Ailas unleashed his arrow into the Gorgon’s breast, halting it just enough for Galanör to slice its neck, removing its horrific head from its body. He was careful not to look the monster in the eye, while it tumbled to the floor, for fear of being turned to stone.

  There was no time to catch their breath, when the Gorgon was followed up by a charging Minotaur and several hungry Gobbers. The elves responded with centuries of training, each moving their own way to allow the Minotaur to pass through the huddle, so they could dismember the beast with a quick slash of their swords. The now separate limbs flew off into a pile, carried by the monster’s momentum. Adamar picked one of the Gobbers up with his free hand and threw it aside, causing a backlog of creatures to fall back into the hex-trap.

  “We need to close the portals!” Galanör looked from Lyra to the hex-trap, beside the fountain.

  Naiveen followed Lyra, helping to cut a swath through the advancing hordes of monsters. Their swords slashed in every direction, parting limbs from bodies and turning the fountain water red. Eliön and Ailas fired their bows with deadly accuracy, never requiring more than one arrow to put a beast down. Whenever a Gobber or sand-stalker got inside their aim, the elves resorted to using the bows themselves to beat their enemy away, until Adamar waded in with his blade. They were a force to be reckoned with.

  A scream from beyond the fountain gripped Galanör with concern, as he cut open the bellies of two ghouls in one slice. Naiveen had been slashed across the back by the razor sharp claws of a Gorgon, trying to defend Lyra from a Werewolf pulling itself out of the very portal they were closing. Galanör reacted with reflexes honed over centuries of fighting, and threw his sword across the room, sending it spinning end-over-end and pinning the Gorgon’s head to the wall. It gave Naiveen the precious seconds she needed to get up and fend off a flying Imp, before decapitating the Werewolf.

  Now without a weapon, Galanör ran to their aid, relying on magic to cut his way through. A flick of the wrist sent a sharpened icicle, formed from thin-air, between the tiers of the fountain and into the heart of a Gobber. With his other hand, Galanör unleashed a fireball into a Werewolf, setting its fur alight. Calling on the magic of the earth, the elf manipulated the stone on which they stood, creating an eruption of rock that scattered a group of Gobbers and killed a small Troll in the explosion.

  When Galanör reached Naiveen and Lyra, he looked back to ensure the survival of the others. Adamar looked happier than ever, while Ailas and Eliön moved with intrepid speed, firing arrows in every direction. Lyra rose to her full height, exhausted, after deactivating the hex-trap.

  “Are you hurt?” Galanör asked, as he yanked his sword free of the Gorgon’s head.

  “These hex-traps are powered with great magic,” Lyra replied. “I feel we have been misinformed of the humans’ capabilities.”

  “We need-” Galanör’s order was cut short by the blast of telekinetic energy that blew half the fountain to rubble and threw Ailas across the room.

  A group of mages had entered the foyer with their wands and staffs held high. They were a mix of teachers and older students by the look of their different robes. Unfortunately, the hordes of monsters flooding the room paid no attention to the mages. The elves were out of their depth. The school was designed around protecting its students and secrets, and their knowledge of magic had been underestimated. Or had it? Had the elves simply been too arrogant in their assumption that they were superior in every way?

  Galanör was forced to roll across the wet floor to avoid a volley of fireballs, icicles and lightning that tore through the horde of monsters. The mages’ spells couldn’t be heard over the howls, screeches and roars bellowing from every creature. Ailas and Eliön didn’t hesitate to drop four of the mages in quick succession with a hail of arrows.

  The oldest of the mages held up his staff, stopping the final arrow in mid-air with an invisible shield, saving his life.

  Galanör could only react with self-preservation in mind. The elf jumped up from his roll and stepped on the remains of a dead Imp to launch himself into a group of Gobbers, advancing on Adamar. A swift twirl of his sword killed three in one swipe, while Adamar turned at the pivotal moment and cut the final Gobber in half. Galanör’s momentum never ceased, as the elf continued to run round the fountain, dodging spells and cutting a bloody path through the exotic gathering of beasts, until he found himself charging at the three remaining mages. He conjured a fireball in his open palm and released it in their direction, knowing full well that the mages would easily deflect the spell.

  The older mage held up his staff, creating a translucent shield that exploded in sparks and fire when the spells collided.

  The blinding burst of light was the effect Galanör had intended. The elf skidded on his knees, coming up under the mage’s defences, and whipped his sword up with enough force to separate the man from his waist to his shoulder. Another flick of his sword chopped the second mage’s hand off, causing him to drop his staff, but before the man could scream in shock, Galanör let loose with a barrage of green lightning that launched the mage back down the corridor. He was dead before his body hit the floor.

  The last mage was a young girl with short dark hair and glassy blue eyes. She was terrified of Galanör. Of all the monsters in the room, the elf was the only one that scared the girl.

  The young mage set free a pathetic ball of fire that Galanör didn’t even need magic to avoid. The elf dodged the spell with a quick turn of his shoulders and retaliated by whipping his sword across the girl’s hand. He deliberately held back, making certain to cut her fingers rather than remove her whole hand. The mage’s wand fell to the floor, as the girl pulled her hand into he
r chest, clutching the lacerated fingers. Galanör decided he would hit her with a wave of telekinetic energy and leave her unconscious, but alive. The others would never know of his mercy.

  As the magic coalesced in his palm, Lyra appeared from behind the bulk of a dying Gorgon, her speed impossible to stop. Galanör could see what was about to happen, but knew he would never be able to come between the mage and the elf in time. Lyra’s sword sliced across the young mage’s neck in a blur of motion. Lyra took no notice of Galanör’s shock, moving on to kill another Ghoul before tackling the next hex-trap.

  Her wounded hand forgotten, the mage gripped her gaping throat in futility. Galanör wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and ease her passing with a friendly face and a kind smile. But he could feel Adamar’s eyes on him from across the room. Anything but deadly precision would be taken as weakness and exploited by the large elf. Before the tears could reach her bloody throat, Galanör strode forward and plunged his blade into her heart, ending her suffering in an instant. The elf pulled his blade out of her body and the young mage collapsed to the floor, dead.

  A rage was building inside Galanör. A rage he very much wanted to take out on Adamar, or his father, or even the lord of elves! He had pretended for too long to be something he wasn’t. How many people had been taken from the world because of his faꞔade? Were the lives of so many worth his noble sense of duty?

  The elf’s momentary lapse in concentration cost him. By the time he noticed the two new mages, dashing into the hall, jumping over the destroyed fountain and dodging the monsters, Galanör was already under the shadow of a fully grown Hydra.

  The overriding fear of being eaten by the maws of a hungry Hydra drove Gideon and Abigail into the chaos of whatever was happening in the central foyer, without a care. It was only when they reached the broken fountain that Gideon turned back, realising that he had jumped over several dead mages in his frantic dash to escape death. They barely had time to register the cloaked strangers battling the many monsters that poured out of two hex-traps.