Domina’s look would have curdled milk. “Obviously there’s more here than meets the eye. Let’s have a look inside.”
They gathered around the entrance and after a few seconds of staring at each other Domina pointed at a random solider. “Open it.”
The man had sufficient wisdom not to look at Simms for confirmation. Instead he went to the iron handle and pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
“Put your back into it!” Domina shouted.
The unlucky soldier grasped the ring with both hands and tugged for all he was worth. Tendons bulged on his neck and forearms and his skin reddened. The door remained unimpressed.
“I can’t budge it, ma’am,” he said at last.
“Useless. Give me room.”
Rondo and the mercenaries backed a healthy distance away. When Domina pulled a vial from the pouch at her side and began to chant Simms leaned closer and whispered, “She’s the sort of sage we’re used to working for.”
“You have my most sincere sympathy. Every time we have a mission, I seem to get paired with her. I can only imagine Lord Black needs the break.”
Simms grinned and several others stifled chuckles. The mirth ended a second later when Domina hurled the vial at the door and blew it off its hinges into the building.
She waved them over. “Come on. There’s a staircase inside.”
Whatever they might have thought of Domina’s personality, everyone hastened to obey. Rondo doubted a man among them believed he wouldn’t suffer the same fate as the door if he angered her.
Inside, partially obscured by chunks of shattered wood and bent iron, a stone staircase descended into the earth. Rondo couldn’t see more than a few feet down. Anything might lurk in that darkness. Though from the rotten-meat smell wafting up, he doubted anything would want to live down there.
“I didn’t think to bring torches,” Simms said.
Domina snapped her fingers and a crimson globe of light appeared above her. She pointed and it flew down the steps. There was nothing at the bottom but a blank stone floor.
“No more excuses,” Domina said. “I will wring every secret out of this place for Leonidas and anyone that gets in the way will suffer my wrath. Understood?”
Everyone understood perfectly. Simms grabbed a pair of men and led the way. When he reached the bottom without incident the rest of the group followed Domina down.
In the ruddy glow of her conjured light they found a vault of horrors. Fluid-filled glass enclosures lined one wall. Most of them held some sort of monstrous hybrid ranging in size from a dog with a dragon’s head to a horse with wings. Though well preserved, they had clearly expired long ago, assuming they even survived the creation process.
The center of the room held a number of wooden tables covered with alchemical equipment. Rondo considered himself well educated, but he couldn’t put a name to three-quarters of the tools. Many of the glass beakers held congealed liquids of various colors. The one thing conspicuously missing from the collection was any sort of book. There were a few scraps of paper and Domina went to these eagerly, one after another, only to snarl and toss them aside.
Rondo and the soldiers kept both their distance and their peace. With every paper she examined Domina grew more and more angry. She was liable to lash out at them simply because there was no one else to attack.
She slammed her fist on the final table. “There’s nothing of value here! No tomes, no instructions, nothing. Just burned leavings and failed experiments.”
Rondo dared moved closer. One of the vials had caught his attention. He picked it up and let it glitter in the light. The wax seal appeared intact.
“This looks promising,” he said.
Domina stalked over and snatched the vial out of his hand. At her gesture the light turned from crimson to white. The liquid in the vial remained as red as rubies. Domina closed her eyes and tapped the vial.
A moment later her eyes popped open and she stared at him with unsettling intensity. “Do you know what you’ve found?”
“Should I?”
“No, I suppose not. This is a sealed vial of pure dragon’s blood, easily from a three-hundred-year-old specimen. Do you understand how rare and valuable it is?”
“I know any reagent coming from dragons is worth a fortune.”
She held the vial up to the light again, a not entirely sane smile twisting her lips. “This much dragon’s blood, of this age, if we sold it, would pay for a fourth flying ship. But to a skilled alchemist, it’s nearly priceless. I will do great things for Leonidas with this. It will finally allow me to prove how valuable I am.”
“Great,” Rondo said. “Maybe we should go catch up to Lord Black and the others.”
“Not until we’ve scoured this mess for more intact vials.”
A tremor shook the lab and set the glass to rattling. Rondo and the mercenaries gave the ceiling a nervous look, but Domina only had eyes for the work tables.
Rondo grit his teeth and helped her search. The sooner they finished, the sooner they could leave this place.
Halfway through searching a worktable covered with a shiny purple crust another tremor shook the lab. That one felt a little further off, but still too close for comfort. Rondo caught Simms’s eye and nodded toward the stairs.
The corporal nodded and took a trio of men to investigate. Less than a minute later, Simms came running back. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
Domina tossed aside the bottle she was holding. “What problem?”
“Vines, ma’am. The entrance is covered with the things. They’re as big around as your arm and have thorns as long as your finger that shine with what I assume is poison. I can’t see far, but the vines fill every inch visible.”
Domina scowled. “You’re telling me giant vines grew thick enough to trap us in seconds?”
Simms nodded. “Exactly, ma’am.”
Rondo mentally applauded Simms’s self-control while panicking a fraction himself. How were they going to get out?
“When we finish here,” Domina said. “I’ll burn us a path out. I’ve found a few usable reagents so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
For the first time ever, Rondo found her power and arrogance reassuring. Hopefully, her confidence wasn’t misplaced.
A third tremor, the biggest one yet, shook them. The glass enclosures holding the failed experiments clattered back and forth until first one then the next crashed to the floor and shattered, flooding the lab with a new noxious stench.
Rondo tried not to breathe deeply. At least things couldn’t get any worse.
That was when the first corpse, the dog with the dragon head, rose on its misshapen legs. Fire leaked from around its partially open jaws.
Leonidas drew the final line of the activation sequence and the dragon symbol rushed up through the ceiling energizing the spire. This tower was a little different than the first two he claimed. The main difference being the absence of a library on the ground floor. In fact, the first floor was totally empty, not even a chair had been placed for the emperor’s comfort. Perhaps he spent all his time in the hopefully nearby lab. The more Leonidas saw, the more eager he became to see what awaited at the final two towers.
But first things first. He needed to find Domina and escape the spirit of the forest. Leonidas wanted to believe it would be simple given his ring’s abilities, but he wasn’t as arrogant as some of his peers. Overwhelming as it was, the Black Ring’s power had considerable limits as well. They’d just have to take it one step at a time and hope for the best.
“Hey, Boss?” Shade said. The assassin stood leaning with his back and one foot flat against the wall. “Why do you suppose that spirit or whatever didn’t just smash the tower flat? I mean is she – is ‘she’ the right word? – anyway whatever it is has power over the entire forest, it shouldn’t be that hard to knock down a tower, right?”
“There must be wards on the tower,” Leonidas said. “I hadn’t given the matter much thought, but
now that you mention it, destroying the tower would be the most sensible decision. But that’s a mystery for another day. Let’s go find the others.”
“Right you are, Boss.”
Shade pulled the door open and immediately slammed it shut.
“What’s the problem?” Leonidas asked.
“There’s a small army of ape things in the clearing out there. I counted at least fifteen before I shut the door.”
“The spirit can’t defeat us with her magic so she’s going to try brute force. Not terribly elegant, but possibly effective. Form ranks in front of the door.”
The mercenaries clanked into position and readied their shields and spears.
“Open it, Shade.”
The assassin pulled the door open and leapt back behind the soldiers. No rush of screaming monsters greeted them. Leonidas looked between two of the soldiers. A dozen ape beasts stood staring at the doorway from twenty feet away but made no move to attack.
What were they waiting for?
Leonidas didn’t get the impression that the creatures were smart enough to realize how poor the strategic position was relative to the defenders. Maybe it was the spirit’s influence.
Did she want a standoff? Maybe it would give her time to finish off Domina and the others. Then again, maybe she wanted him to think that and make a rash move that would lead to them being overwhelmed.
Leonidas growled a little. He could go back and forth in his head forever and never get a definite answer. He was just going to have to make a decision and go for it. And since he didn’t want to lose Domina when they still had so much left to do, there was only one real choice.
“If they won’t come to us,” Leonidas said. “We’ll have to go to them. Form a defensive square and prepare for battle.”
The soldiers shared a few nervous looks, but quickly got into position with Leonidas in the center and Shade at the rear ready to close the door behind them.
“Forward.”
They marched out. The moment the first soldier cleared the doorway the monsters bristled and bared three-inch fangs. The mercenaries didn’t hesitate, instead advancing at a steady pace toward the waiting beasts.
Behind them the tower door shut and Shade joined him in the center. They were committed now. No way would the monsters give them time to put in the entry code.
As if the door closing was a signal, the mob attacked en masse. They hit the front line with enough force to stop the soldiers dead in their tracks. The scrabbling of their claws on the steel shields set Leonidas’s teeth on edge.
One of the apes tried to leap into the center of the formation.
Leonidas gestured and a burst of magic from his ring sliced the beast in half, sending blood and bile raining down on its fellows.
The death of one of their own combined with the smell of blood to drive them into an even greater frenzy.
A fresh batch of screaming monsters came from behind the tower to attack the rear of the formation. Despite the fury of the attack, none of Leonidas’s soldiers had fallen, or even called out in pain. The heavy armor and shields were doing their jobs.
When the initial attack had spent its fury, Sergeant Shanks said, “Spears out!”
Gaps opened in the shield wall and the spears thrust out into the massed apes. With a mix of efficiency and brutality, the soldiers stabbed into the mob felling monster after monster. Screams of fury turned to squeals of pain.
One of the monsters broke and ran in a limping trot, blood matting its fur. Leonidas blasted it to pieces. He had no intention of letting a single monster escape. Every one of the bloody things was going to die here and now.
His men knew their business and the slaughter was completed in barely five minutes. There was no time to celebrate their victory. The gods alone knew how far they had to go to reach the others and what trials they’d face.
“Let’s move,” Leonidas said.
As they marched out of the tower clearing the spirit said, “Enjoy your victory, human, it will be your last.”
Leonidas ignored the taunt. He had plenty to concern him beyond empty words.
The scorching heat of the dog monster’s fire breath brought sweat to Rondo’s brow. He was crouched behind two rows of mercenaries who were doing their best to hold the staircase against the horrors that had come suddenly and violently to life. They had all assumed that the specimens were long dead, but they’d been wrong. Those tremors had struck at exactly the wrong moment. Talk about rotten luck. Even Domina had been forced to admit their search was over.
She was upstairs in the small entrance area trying to figure out how to get rid of the vines blocking their retreat. Before falling back, she tasked Rondo with guarding the staircase against the hybrids. A single look exchanged with Simms transferred command to the corporal. It was the first and best order he could think of.
When the flames stopped, the horse hybrid trotted in, spun, and lashed out with a kick that hit with the force of a battering ram. The front row slammed into the second’s shields before being pushed back into position just in time to absorb another fire blast.
How long could they keep up this pattern? Surely the dog would run out of fire eventually. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Rondo didn’t know enough about dragons, much less dragon hybrids, to venture an even vaguely informed opinion.
“Simms, can you see any of the other experiments moving around?”
“No, sir, though it’s awfully dark along that back wall. At least they aren’t attacking us yet.” Yet being the operative word. “Anything happening above?”
Rondo trotted up just enough to peek over the top step. Domina was mixing the contents of two of her vials. Maybe she was close to opening a path. Rondo had no idea and no intention of asking.
“Looks like she’s making progress,” he guessed. “How are you guys holding up?”
“We’re hot and bruised, but no one’s bleeding,” Simms said.
That was the best they could hope for under the circumstances.
“Sir, we’ve got movement,” one of the soldiers said.
Rondo risked standing up enough to look over the heads of the front row. A vague shadow shifted at the edge of the light. What had been in the glass cylinder in that section? Damn it, he couldn’t remember.
The answer came a moment later when an orange tabby cat with the head of a blue dragon stepped into the light. It couldn’t have weighed more than ten pounds. Its puffed-out tail twitched as it stared at the soldiers with bright yellow eyes.
The cat hybrid opened its mouth and a white glow grew in the back of its mouth. The memory came crashing back. Blue-scaled dragons breathed electricity.
The knowledge came half a second too late. The lightning bolt shot out into the central soldier. His body spasmed as his muscles contracted all at the same time.
He collapsed and a momentary opening appeared in the shield wall.
The dog and horse hybrids rushed to fill the opening. Simms lunged toward the gap, shield leading while the back row struggled to drag the limp soldier out of the way.
Heavy blows from the horse’s hooves filled the air with a horrendous racket.
Rondo reached out and got a hold of the fallen man’s wrist and heaved. Gods that armor weighed a ton. The back row got the man out of the way just in time for the front rank to close and turn aside a blast of flame.
“That was too close,” Rondo muttered as he checked the unconscious mercenary’s pulse. It felt strong and steady. That was something anyway. “Simms, I don’t care if you have to use every spear we’ve got, the next time you see that cat hybrid, kill it.”
“You read my mind, sir.”
Rondo barely had time to settle himself for the next round of attacks when Domina’s squad came running down the steps.
“What—”
A horrendous explosion from the entrance cut him off in mid question. Smoke rolled down the steps and Rondo covered his mouth. A little warning would have been nice.
“Domina?�
� Rondo called. “Is it safe to come up?”
“Of course it is. What do you think I am, an amateur? The doorway’s clear.”
Thank the watching gods. Maybe she could throw some of whatever she just used down the staircase and seal the monsters in forever. Either way, it was time for them to go.
“Simms, pull back to the top of the stairs.”
Rondo shooed the mercenaries behind back the way they’d come. They went, but not with great enthusiasm. When he reached the top step Rondo said, “We’re clear, Simms.”
“On our way, sir.”
The mercenaries backed slowly up the stairs, never breaking formation, until they reached the top.
“As soon as we clear the way, those things will be on us,” Simms said.
“Domina?” Rondo asked.
“Ugh! Do I have to do everything around here?” She stalked over and threw a vial down the stairs between two of the locked shields.
The resulting explosion sent everyone but her sprawling and the staircase crumbling into rubble. The path to the basement was sealed, at least until the hybrids dug their way out. Rondo hoped to be long gone before that happened.
All that remained in the doorway was the singed remains of the vines that had blocked their path. Whatever Domina used had done the job with gusto. It also blew chunks out of the door frame, but that was a small price to pay for their freedom. Now to get out of here and join up with Lord Black.
He glanced at Domina, but she was busy glaring at the ruined staircase. Probably still angry that the lab hadn’t offered up anything of greater value.
“Simms, let’s take a look outside.”
“Yes, sir.” The corporal barked orders and a square of soldiers was quickly put together with Rondo in the center.
Being the first through the door didn’t really suit Rondo, but Domina was in no fit state to take the lead. Never thought he’d be eager for her to start shouting orders, but here he was.
The square exited the stone entrance and froze a moment later. A dome of massive vines surrounded them. The barrier started thirty feet from the building and went all the way around. They couldn’t even levitate out since the top was sealed as well.
The Mysterious Coin Page 12