But here he was, about to attempt something that could kill him. For the first time in his life, he was ready to die for something. It felt good.
Looking at the sarian, he thought of Kaden, and was glad that he hadn’t killed him to try and save Coffman and Nalani. If he had gone through with it, he didn’t know where he would be right now. He might have tried to go back to save Nalani and Coffman and only gotten himself killed. Now he was with Nalani and Coffman and was about to be killed alongside them anyway. It seemed the more honorable choice didn’t necessarily provide the best outcome.
He reached to his pockets and felt the medallions. The two items would have fetched him a fair price – a thought that had entered his mind on more than one occasion. But now, all he wanted was to use them to blow up the Sphere.
All he had to do was place them in the correct slots and Silas would take care of the rest from some unknown location. He shook his head at the thought. He hoped Silas was right. He would get up there, fight off the Stühocs, try to kill Marcus and put the medallions in their slots, but that was all he could think to do. He had no words, no thoughts that could make them explode like Silas did. He wished he could do more.
Cole was untiring. Alric had barely made it above the gray clouds when the bright sun blinded him for a moment. Cole flapped to keep them steady, waiting for Alric to give the order to dive.
He scanned the peaceful cloud cover below him for a moment, taking in one last picture of beauty before diving back into battle. He breathed in the fresh air and then snarled.
“Ah, this is boring,” he said to himself. “Come on, Cole.”
At the command from his rider, the sarian dove back into the clouds and Alric felt his stomach leap into his throat. In moments he was through the clouds and could see the tiny specks of people warring against each other. He scanned the area for other sarians and their riders. With a careful eye, he could see all six of them aiming their way toward the top of the Pyramid.
Alric kicked the bird into a sharper dive, hoping to reach the Pyramid at the same time as the others. One or two arrows whizzed by his head, but for the most part, the Stühocs on the Pyramid’s platform were preoccupied with the others.
One sarian went down with an arrow, but he couldn’t tell whose it was.
Please not Nalani!
Alric was basically standing on the sarian’s back as he came closer. At about the same moment, the sarians converged on the top platform. The Stühoc soldiers let out another flurry of arrows.
Before landing at the top, Alric looked one more time at the five remaining sarians. He spotted Nalani to the right, and further up was Coffman. Another arrow landed in Dink’s shoulder, knocking him off the back. Emma’s sarian was quicker than his fall, as she whipped around to catch her husband from the deadly plunge.
Alric and Cole dropped to the top of the Pyramid with a crash. Most of the Stühocs hadn’t even seen him. Cole slashed his talons through two of them instantly, while Alric hopped off the back and slammed his shoulder into another Stühoc, throwing the unsuspecting creature over the edge.
Coffman came in next, jumping off the top of his sarian before it even landed, tumbling into a group of Stühocs. Nalani flew in, then Darius. At first, it looked like they had the upper hand, but the Leapers soon sprang into action.
Darius was the first to take on the two towering monsters. Their claws thrashed and swiped, and he parried each blow with masterful precision.
Marcus had become distracted from the Sphere and watched the fighters as they took over his platform.
“Get them off!” he yelled at the Leapers.
Alric joined Darius, as Nalani and Coffman continued to fight the Stühoc regulars against the Pyramid’s edge.
Angry at the intrusion, Marcus pulled out his sword and stomped toward the Leapers. He came up to Darius from behind and brought his sword to swing down, but Darius spun and met him head-on.
Marcus bared his teeth as he swung again and again, but Darius was unfazed. Alric, however, was doing everything he could to keep his balance against the Leapers. He ducked low as a set of razor-sharp claws missed his head by mere inches. He swung upward and caught a Leaper on the side of the face, only adding fuel to its fiery anger.
With the anger came a tenacious ambition to dice Alric like vegetables on a cutting board. The other Leaper fell back as the one Alric had cut put all of its strength into decimating its enemy.
Moving back, inch by inch, Alric tripped over his own feet and fell to the ground with a thud. The Leaper pounded the ground with it claws, aiming for any part of Alric’s body, but either missed because of Alric’s ability to move quickly, or was deflected with a parry.
With one swipe, Alric repelled the set of claws, but swung too wide to recover and the Leaper shoved a hand full of spikes into his leg.
Alric cried out in anger and pain as he looked down at the claws that had gone through his leg, ripping the skin and shattering bone. He tried to swipe with his sword again, but the Leaper shoved it away. It brought up its hand to finish the job, and Alric prepared himself to leave this world – this second life. He closed his eyes to accept the blow, but it never came. When he looked up, the Leaper had a black arrow protruding from its head and when it fell, he could see Nalani standing behind it, aiming a stolen Stühoc bow.
For a brief moment, he smiled, but his smile turned into a look of horror when another Stühoc pulled up his bow and arrow from the ground, aimed, and released.
Before Alric could yell out to her, the arrow sailed through the air and landed in her chest. Her weapons dropped to the floor when she instantly fainted and fell over the side of the platform.
Alric couldn’t find his voice. He watched as the sarians Fury and Cole jumped into the air, determined to catch the falling victim, but there was no way for Alric to know if they were successful.
He wrenched the dead Leaper’s clawed fingers out of his leg, numb to the pain. He was probably in shock, but he didn’t care. He dragged himself to his sword using his arms and good leg. He watched the last Leaper walk up behind Darius who was too engrossed in his fight with Marcus to ever notice the creature.
“Darius!” Alric called out.
He didn’t hear him. Alric tried again, but this time it was too late. The Leaper walked behind him, unhurried, and shoved his bladed fingers through the Dunarian commander’s back. The man fell to his knees and Marcus flipped his sword around and stabbed him through the chest to finish the job.
This was it. It was ending. The war was over and Alric had failed. Everyone below them would soon be Soldiers of the Dead. He looked to his right to see a sarian going after Marcus and the Leaper, but it was shot down immediately by another Stühoc. To his right, Alric saw Coffman pick the Stühoc off the floor and toss him over the side.
Everyone who had attacked the top of the Pyramid was either dead or severely injured except for Coffman. That left the four of them: Marcus and the Leaper, and Alric and Coffman.
The Leaper wasted no time in attacking. It jumped for Coffman’s throat from the other side of the platform. Alric then saw that Coffman was empty-handed, but it was too late to throw him a weapon. The big man threw up his arms to block the Leaper. He stopped one of its arms with his hand, but was unable to block the other as its claws buried deep into his shoulder.
Coffman screamed out in pain, but wasn’t deterred from the fight. He brought his hand up to the creature’s throat and squeezed as tight as possible, but the Leaper jerked away and slashed with its other clawed hand and ripped through Coffman’s side. This brought him to the ground as the blood ran from the fresh wound.
Alric couldn’t bear to watch his good friend die like this, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to drag himself to Coffman, but his movement was too slow. One quick glance to Marcus showed that he cared nothing about those on the floor of the platform. He was done with them and ready to let out another blast of light from the Sphere.
Coffman struggled t
o stay alive with the Leaper on top of him. Another swing of the claws caught his upper leg, spraying a fresh geyser of blood in the air, but he wasn’t giving up yet. The Leaper stabbed downward, but this time Coffman caught its wrist with his right hand, and with his left, he rammed his palm into its elbow. The Leaper howled in pain. Coffman lifted his non-injured leg up and gave a smashing kick into its gut, causing it to double over. With the same foot he kicked it again in the face. It never knew what killed it as it stumbled backward, slipping in and out of consciousness, finally tumbling over the side of the Pyramid.
Alric and Coffman knew they would be no match for Marcus in their injured state. Coffman was bleeding freely, and Alric could barely move. He felt the medallions in his pockets, unsure if he would actually be able to do it. But he had to try. He had to at least get the medallions to the pedestal and end this mess.
As he crawled, he finally made it to Coffman.
“You alive?” Alric asked.
“Not for much longer,” Coffman said. A smile came to his lips when he turned his head to Alric. “Not unless you can hold these wounds closed for me.”
“We’ve got to kill Marcus.”
“We can’t even walk.”
“We’ve got to try!”
The two of them turned their heads to Marcus whose only focus was on the Sphere as it churned into its weapon form again.
He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but Alric was going to get the medallions to the pedestal. He knew it would probably kill him but he had to try.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kaden, Inga, and Lorcan made it back to the city to find the Erellens, Anwyns, and Humans fighting amongst themselves. The Sphere had fulfilled its purpose, and from what Kaden could tell it wasn’t finished. The Stühoc army stood back in awe of the scene before them. They weren’t fighting because their enemy’s own troops were doing it for them. The new Soldiers of the Dead had rendered their presence nearly unnecessary.
In the distance Kaden could see Robin leading the Humans, but they fought mostly against their own undead soldiers. Jiaros and his generals led the Erellens, but it seemed to be the same story. The Anwyns, too, fought hard against their own combatants. Blood mixed with sweat and tears as the warriors killed their friends and family members, knowing that their loved ones were already gone. It was a heartbreaking scene to watch. Kaden felt sick at the thought of making the choice to fight companions to the death in these dire circumstances. Their struggle with the current batch of Soldiers of the Dead would soon be finished, however, and they would be able to push forward, unless more of the undead were created using the Sphere.
Kaden wasn’t going to stand for that.
Resting behind a boulder, he looked at Lorcan and Inga.
“Looks like Alric and the others failed to stop the weapon,” Kaden said. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get up there.”
“If I can get a sarian, I can make us invisible and get up to the top of the Pyramid,” Inga told them.
“You have enough strength for that?” Lorcan asked. “You’ve used a lot of your magic already.”
“I can handle it,” she said. “But we have to get to a sarian first.”
“I can’t tell from here,” Kaden said, “but it could be well-guarded up there.”
“We’ll see when we get there,” she answered back.
Kaden knew it would take a lot of effort to even get close to the Pyramid, but they had to try. He led them forward, through the crowd of Human soldiers, doing his best to move them away from any of the Soldiers of the Dead.
The Sphere atop the Pyramid was swelling and he could tell that another burst would shoot out at any moment. The troops wouldn’t be able to take much more. Another blast, maybe two, and the leaders would call for their soldiers to retreat.
The three ran together as fast as they could through the mess. Inga shot magical bursts of fire in every direction, and at one point, conjured a green shield around each of them.
Lorcan dealt a bit of his own magic, but mostly relied on a sword.
Kaden alternated between his sword and his bow and arrows to stave off the enemies.
He knew they were running out of time. Each second that passed brought them one second closer to possibly becoming a Solider of the Dead.
He hurried them forward. They actually found that the least amount of action happened at the base of the Pyramid. Many of the soldiers had tried to get away from the Sphere’s energy because their natural instinct was to flee as far from it as possible. But there were plenty of dead bodies and injured combatants to show that there had been conflict here earlier.
They found the group of sarians at the base – two of them dead, two of them injured, and three of them standing tall.
Kaden noticed Cole, Fury, and Skarret were the three uninjured. He didn’t see Julian’s sarian among them at all.
Daewyn sat at the base of the Pyramid with an obvious broken leg. Dink sat next to him, keeping pressure on a deep shoulder wound. With his good arm, he pointed to his left, and they could see Emma over another body, doing everything she could to save the person.
Nalani.
The three rushed to her side. She was barely conscious. An arrow stuck out of her chest, and looked like it should have killed her.
“How long has she been here?” Kaden asked.
“Just a few minutes,” Emma told them. “I think the arrow missed her heart, otherwise she’d be dead by now. But I’m afraid to take it out.”
Kaden bent down beside her and placed a calming hand on her forehead.
“Nalani, you’re going to be alright,” Kaden said.
She bit her lip and nodded. Her eyes darted to the top of the Pyramid. “They’re still up there.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Who?”
“Alric and Coffman. They need help.”
Kaden turned to Lorcan and Inga and nodded. This was it. They raced over to the three remaining sarians and mounted them.
“What are you doing?” Dink said. “The Sphere’s about to go off again!”
“That’s exactly why we’re going up there!”
With that, they took off.
*****
Inga did all she could to make it to the top as quickly as possible and the others followed right behind her.
When she made it above the platform, she almost couldn’t believe what she saw. Darius lay on the ground, dead. Coffman and Alric might have been dead too – she couldn’t tell.
Then there was Marcus. The Sphere was ready to blast, and she knew there wasn’t time to go after him before it took the lives of more soldiers.
Kaden and Lorcan were right behind her. There was no time. Before the Sphere exploded, all she could think to do was throw up a green shield of energy around them.
She had no idea if it would work. She had no idea if it actually did work. All she knew was that everything had gone black, and she was falling.
*****
Silas followed his father through the dark caves of the Reemlock Mountains.
Will held up a finger to tell him to stay quiet. “We’re not far now. Just another minute or so.”
The path wound through another set of corridors and cave walls until Silas wasn’t sure he would ever be able to find his way out again. But then, of course, he assumed he would not survive anyway.
“I want to know something,” Silas said.
“Yes?”
“Why did you tell me in my dream that destroying the Red Gate would kill me?”
“Because it will,” he answered.
“But, how do you know this for sure?”
“You hear a lot of things when you’re imprisoned in Mudavé,” Will said.
“What, some guard just said that to you or something? I find that hard to believe.”
Will turned on him sharply and grabbed his arm. “Why don’t you go and try it then?” he nearly yelled. “See if it kills you.”
Silas pulled his arm away from t
he strong grip, surprised at Will’s sudden burst of anger. “I plan on it. Forgive me if I’m curious as to why something would kill me.”
“Don’t you feel it, Silas? In your bones, in the magic?”
Silas knew exactly what he was talking about, but he wasn’t going to say it outright.
Will continued. “When you destroyed the Blue Gate, what happened to you?”
“I blacked out.”
“How long?”
“Two days.”
“What about the Green Gate?”
“I blacked out for three days.”
“And have you felt yourself weaken?” Will asked him. “Have you been able to use your magic as effectively?”
“No.”
“Your magic is tied to the medallions, right?”
“I guess so.”
“You’re destroying the medallions. You’re destroying whatever life you have in you right now.”
Of course Silas had suspected this. He knew that his power came from the medallions and he knew that when each one was destroyed he felt tired and weak.
Silas wished that it wasn’t true.
“I know you find it difficult to believe me,” Will said. “I just wanted you to know what you’re getting yourself into before you do it.”
“I never went into this thinking I was invincible.”
“That’s very wise of you.”
Silas didn’t like his father’s darkened tone. Didn’t fathers want to keep their sons from harm? Shouldn’t Will be urging Silas to stay away from the Red Gate?”
But this man was his father. He had to be. Kaden’s own memories had confirmed this.
Will silently led him further until they came to a door that seemed very out of place to Silas. It was a plain wooden door seemingly embedded in the cave. Before opening the door, Will looked back at Silas.
“Are you ready? He’s just on the other side.”
The revelation came so abruptly. There truly was no preparing for such a fight, and though Silas would have preferred another night’s sleep to gain some of his power back, there was obviously no time for that.
The Marenon Chronicles Collection Page 78