by Dave Oliver
“Come on,” Casselle said. “Don’t start now. How fast can you move?”
“Bah, I can’t run, even with the prosthetic, but I can hobble quickly. You remember when we heard about that sale on fried gelvin wings? That’s how fast I can move.”
“We need faster. What about a cart or something?”
Ragna took a deep breath. “Not much dignity, but I’d ride one if it means we get out alive.”
“Great, I’ll go search in the mine house. I’m sure there are some rock barrows lying around.”
“I’ll pack some stuff. Just, uh, knock a special knock next time. I’m going to cleave whatever doesn’t.”
Casselle nodded and hurried out the door. She took a left and ran past the courthouse. Something big had happened there. There were bodies piled up in that spot more than any other. They were fanned out in a crescent shape too. That didn’t look like two forces meeting to fight. That looked like a group attacking one person and losing. All the bodies were Zahl too. Good to see there was a strong soldier out there fighting that well.
She reached the mine house and looked around to see if there were any Zahl around. She saw one writhing on the ground over toward the castle approach. She walked over to it, unsheathing her sword as she did. Probably best to put it down in case it found a way to get back—
Casselle gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. It was the king, his midsection impacted so hard that the front of his breastplate was pinched all the way to the ground. She wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. What would she say? The king was a Zahl anyway. He’d just stare and think of a way to kill her. This really was the end of Ildia, wasn’t it? With the king turned into an enemy and the fate of the other patrons unknown, recovery didn’t seem very likely. They wouldn’t just have to flee the city; they’d have to find a place to resettle.
She raised her sword, mouthed an apology, and swung down at the king’s neck. His head severed easily, and his body stopped writhing and searching for a way to get upright. She wiped her weapon on her jerkin and turned back to the mine house. She saw a little blond girl walking past it and into the mine entrance. She had color, so she was no Zahl. But what could she possibly be doing this far into the thick of things?
“Shit,” she muttered. She hurried over to the girl but couldn’t reach her before she headed into the mountainside where the mining operations and forges were located. She couldn’t think of a more dangerous place to be while the city was under attack. The mountain had been so heavily mined throughout Ildia’s history that it probably wouldn’t take much to bring it collapsing on itself. But how could she live with herself if she just let a poor little girl wander to her death in all this madness?
She raced for the iron doors and slipped inside.
“Fierd,” the girl yelled. “Fierd, get up.”
Casselle looked up and saw something sloshing around in one of the slag troughs. If that was this girl’s friend, she pitied her the loss. Standing nearby, heaving and staring at the writhing liquid, was Glory. Casselle gaped in disbelief. She’d fled directly here from the fight with him, and her stop at home hadn’t been but a few moments. It also looked like Glory had sustained some real, permanent battle damage. So that meant he had to have moved from the courtyard south of the barracks to the mines at impossible speeds. Casselle couldn’t imagine feeling more small. Glory turned to the two of them.
“Come, girl,” Casselle said, reaching for Karedess’s shoulder. “We need to get out of here. I’ve seen what that thing can do. We’ll be torn apart if we stay.”
Glory unfurled his gargantuan feathery wings and started walking toward the two of them. A bright light shone from him, and Casselle thought she might be blinded by it. She covered her eyes as well as those of the child and began moving slowly away. Something inside her felt cool and inviting; her pain and doubt faded. She resisted as hard as she could and kept guiding the child toward the exit. She expected to be slain right then and there. She expected that monster’s featureless face to be the last thing she ever saw. Then the light was gone.
She slowly opened her eyes to see Glory studying the trough. The slag was still splashing as a figure panicked inside. Far too long for someone to survive in the molten slop. Far too long for anything to have lived in that heat. The far end of the trough burst open. Slag ran onto the floor, and two gigantic earthen legs protruded from the torn metal. Two wide feet lowered to the ground and a huge body started sliding out. Something monstrous was in that trough. Casselle’s heart pounded with dread.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Fierd felt himself fading away. His thoughts, emotions, and senses rapidly became memory. He thought of the animals he’d tended to back at Camston. All the folks he’d called friends. All the work he’d done to help maintain that town. All the good he’d planned to do there. He thought about Mag and how her hair looked in the spring sun. The way she always treated him kind even when she was busy or irritated. The way he always swallowed his words instead of telling her how he felt. He thought of Karedess and how he’d let her down by not getting her safely to her mom. In all of those memories, he’d lost everything and shown how powerless he was to do any true good in the world. His final thoughts were of being a failure—wishing he’d been able to do more.
Then something new took hold. As his life slipped away, a long-hidden will rose to the surface. Fierd saw it, felt glad, and then was gone.
***
Fury pulled himself out of the slag and into the stuffy air of the cavern. As he rose, he felt the hot, soggy flesh falling from him in large, gelatinous piles. The muscles, skin, and tendons of his northman host all slid onto the floor. He stretched. He brought his oversized hands up to his face and admired that they were no longer meaty human paws, but the thick earthen mitts of his real body. His human shell, Fierd, may have been killed, but now Fury was once again able to roam of his own volition, this time in the mortal world.
Glory laughed. “You are a relief. I thought that human was actually a challenging fight for me.” His joviality faded. “So you were the reason I couldn’t convert this city.” He waved his hand in the air and a long gleaming sword appeared in his grasp. It shone a brilliant white-gold, and the lightest tickle of flame ran across the blade.
Fury kept stretching each limb. His entire body was made of a thick, dark clay that rippled and roiled with each movement. It felt so good to be back in full control. He shook his head to loosen his neck, the last remnants of human scalp and hair flopping to the ground. He looked up at Glory.
“I know you. We’ve fought before.” His voice was thick, like rock grinding against rock.
“Probably,” Glory said. “You all look alike to me.”
“You don’t see a difference between me and an aspect like Appetence? What are you, the Aspect of Blindness?”
Glory’s body tensed. “Yes, we fought before. We were both at that crater before the rapture.”
A smile pressed itself onto Fury’s muddy face. “Yes, that’s it. You’re Glory. I fucked you up real bad last time.”
“That won’t happen again. You’re still waking up from your nap inside the human. I’ve been—”
Fury’s fist slammed into his face, flinging him far into a solid rock wall. He flexed his hand and grinned. “The human got into enough trouble to keep me in good practice.”
Glory peeled himself out of the wall and floated back to the ground. Then he flew at Fury, swinging his sword as hard as he could.
Fury kept Glory’s sword at bay with his bare hands, yet Glory still looked completely in control. The angelic aspect was much faster, and Fury knew it. Glory took the advantage where he could and made as many small cuts as possible. Underneath Fury’s muddy hide was some impossibly hard rock, so the damage was mostly superficial, but the angel was clearly besting the infernal beast.
Fury felt himself in the weaker position, which fueled the anger within him. As the rage grew, so did his speed and strength. Bright red and orange flared
across his body like magmatic veins. He answered Glory’s swings with powerful punches and cleaving molten claws. The longer the fight went on, the more things began going in Fury’s favor.
Glory recognized his advantage slipping away and flew backward, launching into the air to escape Fury’s reach. He noticed that the two humans were still at the cave entrance. The smaller of them had seemed quite concerned when the human died in the slag trough. With a twisted grin, Glory flung his sword at the pair.
Fury’s entire body flashed a brilliant red color, and he bolted toward the sword. He caught it midflight and shattered it on the ground. He couldn’t remember if Glory was able to make more of those swords. He looked behind him at Karedess and her armored companion.
“Run,” he growled, his voice shaking the cavern. He turned back to Glory and began to glow a ferocious orange. He burned so hot Karedess and Casselle wouldn’t be able to stand it. Unlike the inviting glow that Glory emitted, this one inspired unbearable agony and dread. He opened his mouth, and a large wave of thick flaming fluid flew at great speed toward Glory and the cavern ceiling beyond.
Casselle and Karedess fled. The cavern shook and looked ready to collapse, and they had no desire to get caught up in the affairs of angels and demons, especially if it meant being crushed in the process. Something within them had been urging them to flee since they’d first seen the two beings anyway. It was high time they followed that instinct.
Fury hunched over, his hands curled into fists, and his whole body seemed to flex. Large, earthen wings shot out of his back, glowing with the same streaks of red and orange. He looked a bit like a gargoyle in the middle of being forged.
Glory and Fury flew at one another and began swiping like wild animals. Glory’s small, graceful slashes met Fury’s large, powerful swipes in midair. The battle continued for only a few moments before boulders the size of buildings began falling on their battlefield. The sounds of otherworldly entities fighting slowly subsided as the mountain began to collapse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
They ran well clear of the mine entrance before Casselle remembered why she was there in the first place. She took a sharp turn back toward the mine house, yanking Karedess with her.
“One sec, we need a cart first.”
Karedess stayed quiet and followed the Warden.
Casselle tore open the door to the mine house, looked about, and found three carts lined up in a row. She took one and began to leave with it, but it had a bum wheel that kept drifting to the left. She cursed and threw it on its side. She grabbed a second barrow, which seemed to move much more smoothly. She hurried back outside.
“Hop on this. It’ll be faster if I push you.”
It was little more than a wooden board on wheels with front and rear handlebars. It looked ready to fall apart under any serious jarring, but they supposedly carried rocks around the mines with these, so it must have been pretty sturdy. Karedess jumped on and held on to the front handlebar while Casselle shoved from the rear.
They rolled past the courthouse, where Karedess took one last longing look, and they came to the central field of the barracks. Casselle parked the cart just outside the door to her quarters.
“We’re going to pick up my wife before we get out of this city. She’s on edge, but don’t let her scare you.”
Karedess glanced back to the east where they’d come from. “What could scare me now?”
“Good point.”
She rushed to her home and knocked on the door. She chose the opening beats of the Ildian anthem as her special knock before she opened it.
She yelled from the doorway, “Let’s go, Rags. I got a cart and another survivor.”
“They armed?” Ragna yelled from the back room.
Casselle looked at Karedess, who shook her head. “I like bows, though,” she said.
Casselle yelled back, “She’s not. Grab a shortsword and a hatchet for her.” She leaned down and told Karedess, “Arrows won’t do much against these things.”
They waited a few moments while they heard clanking and clattering from inside. When Ragna hobbled through the doorway, she was carrying a sack loaded with enough weapons to suit a small army. She looked at the cart and at Karedess.
“The survivor’s a kid.”
“You’re brilliant,” Karedess retorted as she slunk off the cart.
Ragna looked at Casselle. “The survivor’s sarcastic. I like her.” She set down the sack and handed the small sword and hand axe to Karedess. Ragna pulled her claymore from the sack, and she already had a few smaller weapons strapped about her as well. She eyed Casselle curiously, noting that she had a scimitar instead of the rapier that she always carried.
“Thrusting weapons don’t work.” Casselle grabbed the spear out of Ragna’s sack and tossed it back through the doorway. “Only slashing weapons.”
“Hmph, good thing that’s all I use. Anyway, we’re all armed.” She shoved the sack between the board and the rear handlebar of the cart and unsheathed her claymore. Then she shooed Karedess away from the cart as she sat down on it and leaned up against her bag of weapons. “Sorry, kid. But I’m gonna need room to swing this thing. Let’s get out of this place.”
Casselle looked at Karedess as she stood by the cart. She held her sword loosely, staring off at the neighborhood of patron homes. The entire row was engulfed in flames. “You ready to go, kiddo?”
Karedess raised her head and looked at the two of them. Her eyes were red and half open. She wiped away some tears from her cheek and gave an unenthusiastic nod.
Casselle pursed her lips. She couldn’t blame the poor girl. She had no idea how she’d have reacted to all of this if she were her age. “Well, let’s get a move on.”
Ragna brought her sword up in readiness for battle, and Karedess held onto Casselle’s left fauld as she tried to keep pace. They jogged down the ramp to Patron Row and then southeast toward the Hunter’s Gate. It was the quickest way out of the city. Once they’d escaped, they could figure out where they wanted to go next.
They got out of the barracks area before they saw the first sign of Zahl. None of them were moving. They all stood at attention, as though they were finished with what they’d come here to do and were awaiting the next order.
Casselle let go of the cart and put an open hand out toward Karedess, letting her know to stay put. She crept up on the nearest Zahl and readied her scimitar. When she was close enough, she pounced. The Zahl reacted and attempted to defend itself, but it was too late. Casselle had her sword through its throat and was working on sawing it through the side. Once it broke free, she grabbed its head and ripped the rest of the unbroken flesh apart. She then crouched back in a combat stance, ready for more enemies to respond, but they kept standing there.
She crept up on another one, this time approaching it from the front. She kept her weapon ready and her stance defensive. She got close enough to touch it, and still no reaction. She stood and walked backward until she returned to where Ragna and Karedess were waiting.
“They don’t seem to move unless they’re attacked,” she said. “Let’s just try sneaking through them.”
“Feh,” Ragna spat. “Figures.”
The three of them crept through the cluster of Zahl until they finally reached the Hunter’s Gate. There were only a few places where they needed to kill a Zahl they couldn’t sneak around, but it was pretty easy work now that they were so vulnerable. They left Ildia and moved across the plains. None of them could say where they’d go now, but they’d made it out alive. Casselle looked back at the ruined city still in flames. It was hard to believe one of the most powerful cities in the world could fall in just one day.
Karedess sniffled as she watched her home burn.
“We’ll be back once word gets to Eralda and they send reinforcements to retake the city. You’re going to be okay, kiddo.”
Karedess shook her head and wiped her face. “No I’m not. Even if we get the city back, everyone is already gone. T
here’s nobody left to save.”
She wasn’t wrong. The three of them would have to start over somewhere else. Even if the forces in Eralda could get Ildia back, it’d be months before they got the message, mobilized, and got out here. It would never be the same Ildia again. She reached down and squeezed Karedess on the shoulder.
Karedess slumped down and cried.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Merrik had ridden hard to get to the conduit before anyone could catch him. He wasn’t much of a rider, but he knew how to hang on and make the horse go as fast as it could, which was enough. The animal was completely blown by the time they arrived, but he didn’t have the luxury of caring. As soon as the conduit sprang into view, he stopped the horse.
He felt nearly blown himself. His whole body ached, the back of the horse’s neck was covered in specks of blood where his coughs had landed, and additional lesions had opened on his arms and legs. He slid from the saddle into the sand. His whole body screamed and the addition of hot sand wasn’t making it any easier. His mind was just now catching up as well. What he’d done to Merveille was monstrous. He could still hear the screams as he’d broken each of those little limbs and shoved him in his robes. The little plant monster had been making pitiful crying noises the entire ride too. He didn’t necessarily regret it if it meant he could traverse this conduit now. And if he still couldn’t, he probably wouldn’t last long in a prison cell anyway. His body begged him for sleep, to just let his muscles relax and recover, but he refused. He flipped onto his belly and did his best to crawl toward the conduit.
He heard hooves coming his way from the south. Shit. He’d figured he was being followed, but he’d overestimated how far back they were. He turned to the horse, which was heaving desperately to catch its breath. He grabbed on to it to use it for support, and he managed to bring himself to his feet. He shuffled to the stone basin in the middle of all the vined plant life, though it felt more like dragging a sack of wet potatoes through the sand. He was nearly out of the little strength he had, but the thought of dying in a jail cell when his ultimate goal was standing here right before him kept him going. He’d never felt this tired, this defeated. Even if he managed to make it through the portal, he felt he might very well die right on the other side.