The Beginning After the End: Book 7: Divergence

by TurtleMe

  ‘Are we allowed to hurt them, yet?’ Sylvie asked impatiently, still keeping the lightning net from closing in on us.

  The mounted soldiers released their spells as well, and their combined power was enough to put cracks in my bond’s mana barrier.

  I nodded. Just don’t kill them.

  Sylvie responded by conjuring dozens of mana arrows outside of her barrier and launching them at the soldiers, while I manipulated the clouds below us.

  With a wave of an arm, I drew Dawn’s Ballad and sliced through the lightning-charged metal net. With Bairon distracted by the mana arrows, his artifact was easily disabled, and the two of us were free.

  As Sylvie distracted the soldiers by launching an endless volley of mana arrows at them, I conjured a little present for Bairon himself.

  Fashioning a compressed sphere of wind in my hand, I combined it with fire and lightning, creating a swirling blue fireball the size of Sylvie in her dragon form that crackled with trails of electricity.

  Bairon retracted his net and was already preparing to defend against my attack when a distant flickering caught my attention.

  I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Everyone stopped what they were doing as we stared at the source of the phenomenon, still miles away. I enhanced my eyes with mana and could just make out the rolling red and black waves… A jolt of shock and realization slammed onto me from my bond.

  I turned to Sylvie to see her eyes wide in horror. She spoke aloud for everyone to hear. “That’s… the castle.”

  237

  Dim Tunnels IV

  MICA EARTHBORN

  My senses came back to me in stages. My hearing returned first as the sounds of tumbling debris and burbling water found my ears. Then the heavy scent of dust and scorched stone filled my nose and lungs, causing me to break into a fit of coughing. As I shook with racking coughs, I felt the rubble pressing down on me, holding me as tightly as Black Diamond Vault had.

  That’s also when I felt the pain. Pain is good, I told myself. Pain means I’m not dead yet.

  My mouth was full of the metallic taste of my own blood. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or not, so I closed them. Opening them again, I found the world around me still entirely black. Reaching for my mana, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was depleted but not completely gone.

  My mana core ached as I cast Null Gravity. It took a moment for the effects to be felt, but little by little, space opened up around me and I was able to shift slightly as the stones floated apart, no longer bound by gravity’s pull.

  As space was created within the mound of demolished rock, I felt the cool sensation of water trickling across my arm. A sickly green light illuminated a small patch of floating debris as a glowing mushroom became visible.

  I pushed off the ground below me, forcing my way up into the cloud of stones. They were still too densely packed for me to easily maneuver through them, but as they continued to spread out, drifting farther away from each other, I was able to redirect them and create a sort of path.

  As I couldn’t tell which direction to go, I followed the sound of water. The crater full of pulverized rock was unbelievably large, but eventually I came to its edge and met solid stone. It must have been near where the stream originally ran, because there was a tiny waterfall splashing down the sheer wall and into the crater.

  I pushed off the ground, letting myself float upward under the effects of Null Gravity, finally breaking free of the nimbus of debris. Enough of the glowing mushrooms survived the blast to see by. The explosion had torn though Black Diamond Vault and the tunnel walls, leaving a roughly spherical hole nearly thirty feet across. On the other side of the crater I could just barely make out the fissure leading downward to the Alacryan camp.

  I released the spell and winced at the cacophonous crash caused by the avalanche of stone falling back into the crater.

  Nice one, Mica. Let’s just announce to the world that we survived, shall we?

  Flying to a ledge of stone, which I thought must be the tunnel we’d arrived by, I landed on my feet and attempted to take my full weight. I immediately had to reinforce my legs and back with mana lest I collapse in a quivering heap. Leaning back against the cool wall of the tunnel, I slid down onto my rear and released the reinforcing mana.

  “So,” I said aloud in a voice as gravelly as the pit beside me, “Mica should take stock, yes.” I held up one finger and stared at it. My whole hand was black with dust and blood. “Mica is alive.” I held up a second finger. “Oberle is certainly dead, poor boy. Mica’s party is otherwise unaccounted for. An unknown amount of time has passed, though based on the feeling of dehydration it has been quite some time. It is unlikely that the enemy hasn’t noticed our approach.” I had raised a third, fourth, and fifth finger as I recited each item.

  What the hell happened? I wondered.

  This was an interesting thread for my tired mind to pull at, and so I sat for a long time and considered Oberle’s last words, the explosion, and what had triggered it. The Lances had all been briefed on the interrogation of the Goodsky woman and the curse she had been placed under, so I knew that the Alacryans possessed such capabilities.

  The corrupting light, though, was unlike anything I’d experienced before. What could be strong enough to demolish Black Diamond Vault with a single spell? I shook my head, immediately regretting it as pain erupted behind my eyes.

  I pushed myself into a cross-legged sitting position, forcing my back straight, and began refining mana within my core. I felt better immediately as the familiar activity calmed my nerves and took my mind away from my current situation.

  “What’s that?” a cool female voice asked in a whisper, drawing me out of my meditation.

  “Is that a person? A guard, maybe…” A gruff male voice responded.

  “Well,” I said, opening my eyes and rising to my feet, “you’d be in trouble if Mica were an Alacryan watchman, wouldn’t you? Have you not yet been introduced to the tactical concept of a stealth approach?”

  “You’re one to talk,” Hornfels responded, beaming at me. “That ruckus you made echoed for a mile up the tunnel. We were expecting to find every Alacryan left in Darv waiting for us.”

  Looking over the group, I realized how tired and battle-worn they appeared. All were covered in grime, their faces pale with thick, dark rings under their eyes. Two were missing. Oberle, of course, must have been disintegrated in the explosion, but the quiet Jasper was also absent.

  Noticing my gaze, Tetra shook her head. “We all survived the blast, thanks to you. Knocked around a bit from tumbling ass over kettle back down the tunnel was all.” She met my eye and smiled sadly. “Thank you, really.”

  “What happened then?” I asked, wanting to fill in the gap while I lay unconscious under several tons of blasted stone.

  Skarn spoke up, his voice deeper than usual, almost as if he’d been weeping. “Took us a minute to pull ourselves together, then we ran back to see if we could find you. We didn’t even have time to start shifting the rubble, though, before the first Alacryans showed up. Must’ve had guards at the bottom of the fissure. We fell back into the tunnels, fighting as we went, moving to keep from getting boxed in.”

  “Those battle groups they fight in are tough nuts to crack,” added Hornfels, “but we had the advantage of being at home in the tunnels. Some of their spells didn’t seem meant for fighting down here and we were picking them off one by one.”

  “One of their spellcasters was launching these electric blue motes of energy at us,” Tetra said, looking back down the tunnel, “which would zip through the air like hummingbirds, avoiding the obstacles we’d been conjuring to slow down the pursuit. Jasper was getting pelted with them—one must have broken through his protective mana—and he went down.”

  “I got the bastard, though,” snarled Kobel. “Dropped half a mountain on his whole damned team.”

  “How long since the explosion?” I asked when the others fell silent.

  “Al
most two days,” Skarn answered.

  Two days! Plenty of time for the Alacryans to have packed up and left, or they may have spent the time fortifying their position and preparing for us. We wouldn’t know without making our way down into the grotto.

  “How many of their soldiers did you kill?”

  “At least twelve,” Tetra answered. “Maybe fifteen. Then they stopped pursuing and fell back.”

  “As Mica sees it, there may be another fifteen or more mages waiting for us at the bottom of that fissure”—I pointed back across the crater to the crack in the wall, clearly outlined now by the green-blue glow within—“perhaps supported by a Scythe. Assuming the enemy hasn’t retreated from this position, they will certain be waiting for us. Personally, Mica has just had a two-day nap and feels wonderfully prepared, but you lot—”

  “Are ready,” said Hornfels and Skarn together.

  “Aye,” added Kobel. Tetra only nodded, her expression one of determination.

  Ah, now that is true dwarvish grit, I thought with a grin.

  Wasting no time, we picked our way across the blast zone and crawled back up the other side and into the crack in the wall, careful to avoid the luminous fungi growing everywhere. As Oberle had said, it was around three hundred yards to the bottom.

  At the end of the fissure, we found a fortified position like a guard post, but there was no one manning it. We moved carefully out of the tunnel, using the guard post and natural columns that supported the high ceiling for cover.

  The cave was nearly a hundred yards long and perhaps eighty yards wide. A pond filled nearly a third of that space, however. Tents and campfires were set up on the far side of the cave, while the end nearest to us contained rows of crates and barrels. The cave roof was fifteen yards high and entirely covered by stalactites.

  Thirty Alacryan soldiers stood at attention near the center of the cave, clearly organized into battle groups of three. They stood still as statues, facing our end of the cave. They gave no sign that they’d seen us enter, however.

  Looking to the roof again—in particular the hundreds of stalactites that draped from it—I considered sending a tremor through the grotto to knock them free, dropping a rain of stone down upon the unwary soldiers. Something stayed my hand though.

  Why did they give up their pursuit? Why did they not dig me out of the rubble and finish me off? I felt like I was missing something important.

  “What’s the plan here, Mica?” Skarn hissed in my ear. The others were all looking at me expectantly.

  “Stay here. If anyone attacks, kill them all. If the Scythe appears, leave it to me.”

  I crept forward as close as I could get while maintaining cover, then stepped out into the open. The moment I did so, the soldiers burst into motion. One mage in each group conjured a large rectangular shield, separating me from the line of soldiers. The others prepared their spells but held them, not attacking.

  “I applaud your restraint,” a woman’s voice said from somewhere in the shadows to my right.

  The speaker, a girl with long amethyst colored hair and two spiraling black horns jutting from her skull, stepped away from the cave wall and walked calmly to stand before the line of mages.

  “Given your recent near-death experience, I can’t say I would be as calm if I were standing in your shoes. Now,” she said, her blank face becoming serious, “you are interrupting an essential operation. As you have yet to do any damage of real consequence, I am willing to let you simply leave. I will relocate my forces, and we will continue our labors.”

  “Near-death?” I said, feigning mild surprise. “Mica appreciates the warm up, but assures you that she’s in perfect fighting shape—and unlike you, whoever the hell you are, Mica is not prepared to be so magnanimous.”

  The girl cocked her head slightly to the side, looking at me with interest. “The war is happening far from here, General. Shouldn’t you be in Etistin, repelling the attack there alongside the other Lances?”

  Flashing the demon-horned creature a jaunty grin, I said, “Mica will fight you Alacryan mages wherever you are to be found. The other Lances will handle your invasion at Etistin.”

  “Oh, I’m afraid that’s not likely. But I see you’re set on fighting.” A black blade of pure mana grew from her hand, radiating dark purple light. “I will let you choose the rules of engagement. Shall we ask our troops—such as they are—to stand down, and proceed with a duel, or would you prefer a battle? The advantage of numbers is with me, I believe.”

  “While Mica would dearly love to fight you one on one, her companions would never forgive her for excluding them from what is sure to be a glorious battle.” As I finished speaking, I focused on the stalactites above the enemy line, increasing their weight until they began to crack and break free of the cave roof, plunging down upon the Alacryans like ballista bolts.

  A sphere of translucent energy appeared around the Scythe. The stalactites that struck the barrier disintegrated on contact.

  The mages repositioned their shields, in some cases layering multiple shields one over another. The stone missiles punched through a few of the shields, skewering several soldiers, but the rest held.

  With a flick of my wrist, three large slabs of stone grew from the cave floor to shelter me from the hail of spells that flew my way a moment later. As the enemies’ attacks impacted against the slabs, I felt spells begin to fly from behind me toward the Alacryans; my allies had released a volley of their own.

  A beam of black light cut through the stone and I ducked just in time to avoid it as it carved from left to right, passing just over my head. The stone slabs slid apart and fell to the ground with a booming crash. An instant later, the three heavy blocks fell toward the Scythe as I twisted gravity around them.

  The first struck her protective barrier directly and was almost entirely disintegrated, but the second and third only glanced the sphere, falling past her to crash through the line of soldiers, flattening two battle groups.

  An orb of pure mana was forming at the end of the Scythe’s sword, but she appeared to be aiming past me and toward my team. Knowing I didn’t have much time, I began condensing gravity into small point ten feet in front of her. Sweat beaded on my forehead and there was a twinge of pain in my mana core as I struggled to contain the force building within that space. Just as she released the destructive orb, I completed casting Singularity.

  A well of massive gravity appeared in the air in the form of a black hole in the fabric of reality. The orb passed through the Singularity, but the gravitational effect was strong enough to pull it significantly off target, so when it impacted against the far wall of the cavern, blooming into a ten-foot-wide disintegration field, it was far from Hornfels and the others.

  Several of the tents ripped free of their moorings and were dragged into the gravity well. Water began to lift off the surface of the pond and swirl around the spell, while from behind me crates were sliding across the ground toward the black hole.

  The Scythe seemed to be largely resisting the effect. Behind her, the mages scrambled to hold themselves in place. Three failed and were jerked off their feet and pulled into Singularity where they were crushed.

  The translucent field of mana surrounding the Scythe slid away from her, moving to contain the black hole. The shield contracted until it was the same size and shape as my spell, then vanished, taking the Singularity with it. She had somehow nullified my magic.

  Thunderous steps from behind me drew my attention to a charge from my allies. Two golems, each ten feet tall and wielding a massive stone axe, were barreling toward the enemy line. Between them, a twenty foot long snake made entirely of lava undulated back and forth to propel itself forward at surprising speed.

  Tiny next to the towering golems, Kobel followed the charge. He had encased himself entirely in shining plates of volcanic glass, and all around him there was a swirling cloud of thin, razor-sharp blades.

  A spear of ice shattered against one golem, while a ball of
crackling lightning impacted harmlessly against the other. Several bullets of black mana punched through the magma-snake, but the lava simply flowed back into place as it moved forward.

  Several of the remaining Alacryans, all with physical combat spells similar to an augmenter’s, charged forward to meet our advance. I prepared to drive them to their knees with Gravity Hammer but was forced to dodge a black arrow of mana projected by the Scythe’s sword.

  The two forces crashed together. The magma-snake struck, engulfing an Alacryan mage. Another Alacryan, whose skin had taken on a red glow like iron pulled from the forge, used his bare hands to punch through the leg of one golem. The stone melted where he touched it and the golem crumpled. The second golem threw itself at the Scythe, but her mana-blade carved effortlessly through it.

  Three enemy mages surrounded Kobel, snarling and hissing like beasts. The augmenter didn’t even slow down as he run through them, his whirling knives cutting them to ribbons. Four translucent shields appeared around him like a cage, preventing him from reaching the enemy rear line.

  Seeing the Scythe turn toward him, I conjured two giant hands of stone, one from the floor beneath her feat, the other from the ceiling. She was lifted up into the air, but before the hands could crush her between them, her spherical barrier reappeared and the hands disintegrated where they touched it, leaving her floating in midair.

  The glowing-skinned Alacryan had thrown himself onto the magma-snake. He seemed immune to the lava’s heat, but he couldn’t do any real damage to Tetra’s construct as it flowed back together as fast as he could pull it apart.

  Kobel was hammering at the shields holding him in place, Skarn and Hornfels were attempting to reconstruct their golems—I could see the pieces fitting themselves back together as the golems struggled to rise—and Tetra was lashing out at the Scythe with her magma-snake, which grew smaller with each strike as the destructive barrier disintegrated the construct bit by bit.