“Hey, put me down, Fen!” he yelped.
Fen pulled his squad back out of the flow of onrushing soldiers. No one paid any attention to them, all of them in a frenzy to get inside the city.
“What just happened?” Cowley said, rubbing his temple.
“I don’t know,” Fen admitted.
“When did you get so strong?” Strout asked, rubbing his arm where Fen had gripped him.
“I think I went mad for a bit there,” Gage said.
“It was something the Fist said,” Lukas said, his brow furrowing as he tried to remember. “All of a sudden all I wanted was to kill and kill.” He looked at his hands. “That wasn’t me.”
“It wasn’t any of us,” Cowley said.
“Speak for yourself,” Noah muttered. He still looked like he wanted to rush in with the rest of them, but when Strout grabbed him he shook him off with a curse. “I’m still standing here, ain’t I?”
“They’re going to kill everyone,” Lukas said. “We have to stop them.”
“Good idea,” Strout said. “You go right ahead and try. I’ll help dig your grave.”
“The Fist could stop them,” Fen said.
“Is it even still him?” Cowley asked.
“Maybe it will wear off,” Lukas said.
“What do you want us to do?” Gage asked Fen.
They all looked at Fen expectantly.
Chapter Thirty-one
“We’re going to find the Fist,” Fen said. “I’m going to see if I can get through to him.”
“It’s not going to work,” Strout said.
“You’re probably right, but I have to try.”
“Lead on,” Strout said. “What do we have to lose?”
The eight of them passed through the ruined gates and entered the city. Darkness was falling, but the city was lit now by the flames from dozens of fires. Smoke rose in thick clouds. Inside the gates the bodies of Maradi soldiers were scattered everywhere. Most of them had scorch marks on them, faces blackened, limbs curled and bowed from the strange lightning bolts. But there were others who had clearly tried to surrender, their weapons thrown into piles, who had been cut down on the spot by the Samkaran soldiers. It disgusted Fen to see them. He’d been taught that an enemy who tried to surrender was to be allowed to. Killing a defenseless enemy was dishonorable. It was hard to believe that his fellow Samkaran soldiers had done this. Though perhaps not so hard when he recalled the wave of battle madness that swept over him outside the walls. Where did that come from? he wondered. Did the Ankharans do that? Was it the Fist? And how?
Then they entered one of the streets that led toward the heart of the city and Fen’s disgust turned to horror. He came to a halt, frozen by what he saw. The others stopped as well and they stared at a scene from a nightmare. There were dozens of bodies littering the street, and almost all of them were civilians. Among the dead he saw women, children, elderly. There was a row of one-story houses lining one side of the street. Every door had been kicked in, the windows smashed. Blood was splashed around doorframes. Flames were spreading across the roof of one of the homes. A man’s body sprawled through one of the windows, blood staining the wall below him. Further down the street, a couple of blocks away, a knot of Samkaran soldiers was dragging people out of buildings and slaughtering them in the street. The screams of the dying echoed off the buildings.
“They’re killing women and children,” Lukas said in horror, turning to Fen as if he would somehow have an answer to this. “Why?”
“Because they did it to our women and children,” Strout said hollowly.
“But they didn’t do anything!” Lukas shouted at Strout, looking like he was about to attack him physically.
Strout held up his hands. “I don’t like it either. But you asked why.”
“How did we come to this?” Gage asked.
“It’s like they’ve all gone mad,” Cowley said.
“They have,” Fen said. “You felt it too. We all felt it. It happened when the Fist waved that hammer and started shouting. For a while there all I wanted to do was kill as many of them as I could.”
“If you hadn’t stopped us, we’d be doing that too,” Cowley said. He looked badly shaken.
“Yeah, when did you get so damned strong anyway?” Strout asked for the second time.
Fen and Cowley exchanged glances. Fen could see that Cowley knew where the extra strength had come from. Fen said, “I was panicking. I didn’t want you to join in the slaughter and I went a little out of my mind.”
“Humph,” Strout said, clearly not convinced.
The squad moved down the street. The further they went, the worse it got. The screams of fear. The mix of blood and feces that was the stench of violent death. They saw a woman whose leg had been nearly severed trying to crawl away and the look of bestial rage on the Samkaran soldier’s face who chased her down and buried his axe in her skull.
“We have to do something,” Lukas said. Without waiting for anyone to reply, he ran forward. A Samkaran soldier was standing over a bloodied elderly man, who was on his knees, his arms over his head. The soldier raised his blade to stab the man, but Lukas shoved him in the side so that his blow missed its target.
“Stop!” Lukas yelled. “He’s only an old man!”
With a snarl, the soldier threw himself at Lukas, and Lukas had to move fast to parry the blows the soldier rained down on him. Lukas fell back under the onslaught, the whole time yelling at the soldier to stop.
Noah was the first one of them to react. He ran up behind the soldier and clubbed him over the ear with the hilt of his sword. The man dropped unconscious.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Cowley said.
“Follow me,” Fen said. He took off at a run and the rest of the squad followed him. It hurt him physically, passing through the scenes of butchery and horror that were taking place on every street, and he knew he would remember them the rest of his life, but he also knew the only chance they had to stop the slaughter was if he could get through to the Fist. The soldiers would listen to their Fist, he kept telling himself as he led his squad through the blood-soaked city. They would listen to their Fist.
At least he hoped they would.
They found the Fist standing in the front yard of an estate. The head of the mighty hammer was resting on the ground and he was holding the handle in one hand and breathing hard. Man and weapon were splattered with gore. Two bodies were sprawled amongst the immaculately-manicured landscaping, their skulls smashed to a pulp.
“Wait here,” Fen told the squad, and went forward alone, sheathing his sword as he went. A wrought iron fence surrounded the home, the iron gates torn off their hinges. He passed through the gates and walked up the flagstone path.
The Fist looked up as Fen approached. Fen saw a flicker of recognition in those cold eyes, but the grim mask of his liege’s face never budged. He was still bulging with unnatural muscle, though it seemed to have faded somewhat. “What do you want?” the Fist asked sharply.
“Fist, I beg you, call them off. The city is ours. Stop the slaughter.”
The Fist’s face twisted with sudden rage. He lifted the hammer in one hand and jammed its head against Fen’s chest, knocking him back a step and pinning him against the stone column of one of the gateposts.
“Don’t ever challenge me,” he hissed. “I am your king. I swore to be the Fist of vengeance and I am.”
Fen could feel how close the Fist was to attacking him. He doubted there was any way he could get through to the man, but he also knew he had to try, or he couldn’t live with himself. “You also swore to be the protector of the weak and the innocent,” he said.
The Fist blinked and something flickered in his eyes, something that was quickly gone. But Fen was sure he’d seen it, and so he pressed ahead.
“This isn’t you, Barik,” he said, hoping that using the Fist’s name would help him get through to the man. “I know you and this isn’t you.”
&n
bsp; Barik looked vaguely around as if unsure where he was.
“Your soldiers are slaughtering innocent people. You’re the only one who can stop them.”
“I…I’m having trouble remembering…”
“We’ve taken the city. We’ve beaten Marad. Call off the army, Barik. You’re the only one they will listen to.”
“We’ve won,” Barik said, and lowered the hammer. In his eyes Fen saw the man he’d come to view as a father figure over the years. At the sight something unclenched in his chest. There was still hope. They could still stop this madness.
Then the darkness behind Barik rippled and inside a blackness more intense than the night a figure appeared. His face was an inhuman one, like something chiseled from stone rather than flesh and blood. Scars crisscrossed his face and an ancient rage burned in his eyes. Before Fen could react, he raised two white hands and gripped the sides of Barik’s head. Black mist or smoke began to stream from his fingers.
“No!” Fen yelled. “Behind you!”
But it was too late. The scarred face retreated into the shadow and disappeared. The person he’d seen in Barik’s eyes only moments earlier was gone, replaced by towering rage and hatred. The Fist lifted the hammer once again and jabbed Fen in the chest hard. Only the instinctive response of the Stone power inside Fen kept him from suffering numerous broken ribs.
“Do not speak to me of mercy,” the Fist snarled, his eyes filled with unthinking rage. “They killed my family. They slaughtered my people. For this, they will get what they deserve.”
He swung the massive hammer then. Fen threw himself to the side, rolled and came to his feet. The hammer struck the stone pillar and shattered it, shards of rock flying everywhere. Without another glance at him, the Fist headed back out into the smoke-filled street, looking for new prey.
The squad came running up. “I thought you were dead for sure,” Noah said.
“For a moment it seemed like you were getting through to him,” Lukas said.
“I thought I was,” Fen said, staring off after the Fist as he receded into the gloom.
“What now?” Cowley said.
“I don’t know.” Fen walked back out into the street and the others followed. Fen had some vague idea of looking for the Ankharans. If they could find them and bring them down, maybe this madness would end. Who was the figure who came out of the shadows? he wondered. Was he also an Ankharan? Whoever he was, he wasn’t human. That much he was sure of.
They turned onto a quiet street, so far untouched by the violence. One of the buildings was fairly large, three stories tall, a plain building, yet solidly built and well cared for. Out front in the small yard flowers had been planted and there were a handful of toys scattered around, no doubt left behind by children when the adults hurried them inside.
As they drew near the building, the front door burst open suddenly and a little girl with pigtails came running out. Behind her was a middle-aged woman in an apron, chasing her, calling her name. “Lidia! Come back! It’s not safe!”
The little girl ran to the scattered toys and picked up a doll that was lying there. As she did, she looked up and saw Fen and his squad standing there. About then the woman chasing her saw them as well and she skidded to a halt, her expression fearful.
“It’s okay,” Fen said, holding up his hand reassuringly. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
The woman snatched up the little girl and began backing away. Behind her, in the doorway of the building, Fen could see a dozen or more small faces and the figure of another woman, who was holding them back. The first woman backed through the doorway. The door slammed shut.
“Did you see all those kids? I think it’s an orphanage,” Gage said.
Fen made up his mind on the spot. “I know what we’re going to do,” he said. “Maybe we can’t save everyone, but we can save the people in there at least.”
Lukas drew his sword and walked over to stand with his back to the door. “No one is getting past me,” he said stoutly. The others began to follow his lead, even Strout, though he looked grim.
And it was none too soon either, because up at the next corner a small mob of Samkaran soldiers appeared, blades dripping blood. They began making their way towards the orphanage, kicking in doors as they came. Wolfpack squad settled into fighting stances.
Then movement beyond the mob caught Fen’s eye and he straightened, peering through the gloom, trying to see better.
He caught only a glimpse before the figure passed out of sight, but it was enough to see the distinctive robe and know it was one of the Ankharan sorcerers.
Fen turned to the squad. “I just saw one of the Ankharans. I’m going after him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Cowley said quickly.
“No. You’re needed here. You have to protect those children.”
“You shouldn’t face them alone,” Cowley said.
“But you know I’m the only one who can,” Fen told him in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear. Cowley hesitated. “There’s no time,” Fen said, and took off running.
Chapter Thirty-two
When Fen reached the corner, the hooded figure was nowhere in sight, and he feared he’d lost the man. He ran hard in the direction he’d seen the Ankharan going and when he reached the next corner, to his relief he saw the man again, passing through the gate into a cemetery.
The wall around the cemetery was high, with sharp spikes set into the top to deter intruders from climbing over it. The cemetery was clearly for the graves of the wealthy of the city. Some of the graves were marked only by large gravestones, but much of the grounds was taken up by crypts and mausoleums, many of them very elaborate, with stone columns, gabled roofs, and stained glass windows.
Fen ran through the open gate in time to see the Ankharan walk up to the largest of the crypts in the center of the cemetery. The iron-bound door to the crypt was already open and lamplight spilled from within. At the door of the crypt the hooded figure stopped and looked around. Fen ducked behind a tall gravestone that was topped with a carved eagle. When he peered around the edge of it a moment later he saw that the man had disappeared into the crypt.
Fen hurried to the door of the crypt and peeked inside cautiously. The crypt was long and narrow and made entirely of marble chased with gold. Along each side were large stone coffins set into niches in the walls. The lids of the coffins were stone likenesses of the people entombed within, bearded kingly men clutching stone swords, tall, regal women.
One of the coffins at the far end of the crypt had been pushed aside, revealing a hole cut into the floor. The Ankharan was disappearing down into the hole, taking the lantern with him.
Fen hurried across the crypt to the hole, his boots sounding terribly loud on the marble floor. There he saw steps leading steeply downward. The receding echoes of the Ankharan’s footsteps drifted up to him. Drawing his sword, Fen started down the steps.
Fen tried to move as quietly as he could, but he was forced to hurry because the Ankharan was moving quickly, and if he didn’t stay close he would soon be left in complete darkness. As it was, the light was so dim he could barely see, and so he didn’t notice the broken step below him. A piece of it shifted when he put his weight on it and he almost fell. The broken piece of stone fell off the next step and the noise it made sounded terribly loud to Fen, who stopped, his heart pounding. But the Ankharan’s footsteps never faltered.
As Fen continued deeper into the earth, he felt the familiar sensation of pressure inside his head and heat inside his chest as the power inside him came awake. It was a comforting feeling, knowing he was not helpless. The Ankharans doubtless knew he had brought the tower down, but they did not know how much more he was now capable of.
Fen put his hand against the stone wall to steady himself and from within it he could feel the vast power of Stone waiting, ready to respond to his call. He knew that if he summoned only a tiny fraction of that power he could collapse this tunnel and every tunnel and cavern in a w
ide area, likely killing everyone down here. But he held back. He didn’t yet know if all of the Ankharans were down here, nor did he know what they were up to. He wanted to find that out before he committed to any course of action. Flint had told them all many times to use their heads, to understand what was going on before they made a rash decision.
Fen continued on down the stairs for several minutes. The steps grew rougher. They were cracked in numerous places and chunks of stone had fallen out of the walls and ceiling onto the stairs, making footing difficult. It was apparent that no one had been down here for a very long time.
At one point Fen realized he could no longer hear the footsteps of the man he was following. Nor was the light still receding. Instead it seemed to have grown brighter. He slowed down and carefully made his way forward. Stone power whispered and surged within him, close and ready enough that he could release it in an instant if he needed to.
He came to the end of the tunnel and peeked around the corner. He was standing at the edge of a large, natural cavern. Huge stalactites hung down from the ceiling, in some cases joining with the equally huge stalagmites rising up from the floor. There was a sound of dripping water.
The four Ankharans were a few dozen paces away. One of them gripped the arm of a slight figure with bound hands and a hood over its head. Beyond the Ankharans and their prisoner was a remarkable sight.
It was a large, oval-shaped, black stone, as big as a small room. Lamplight reflected off the stone’s glossy surface. In the side of the stone was a pair of double doors. Set horizontally across them, indented into the doors, was a crystal about three feet long and several inches thick. The crystal was glowing with a sickly yellow light.
One of the Ankharans reached for the prisoner’s hood, and Fen switched his attention back to them. Before the hood even came off he knew who it was and cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.
Sea Born (Chaos and Retribution Book 3) Page 37