Freed, he dropped to the ground. He took the impact with his legs and rolled, coming up unharmed.
Tommie breathed heavily, starting to clear his head.
I need to find Damien and Anthony. This has to be some kind of trap—someone had to plan this out. The formations were made to coun- terattack their weaknesses.
Tommie moved around and pressed the different levers inside his Gnominator, checking that everything worked.
He started to jog toward where the formation had been. He stum- bled a bit. He had finished the Gnominator but he hadn’t tested it com- pletely.
Getting his feet underneath him and gaining some more con- trol, he started to speed through the forest, as fast as a stallion in the open fields.
He saw a light appear in the sky and altered his path toward it.
It was farther than he thought it would be.
***
Gerald looked at the two “creatures” that had slammed into the ground just a few seconds ago. He and other groups of chaotic agents had been sent out into the forest to create several trap forma- tions. They had worked day and night, completing them in record speed.
He pulled out a flare gun and shot it into the sky.
“They dead already?” Rosaline came out of the trees with him, looking at the landscape that had been twisted and mutated.
“They said that we need to use the power given to us to com- pletely destroy them,” Gerald said.
“Why don’t we kill them before the others get here?” Rosaline asked, her eyes dancing with different colors.
“They said to wait for us to all gather before attacking. You saw his familiar, right?” Gerald hissed.
Ever since she took on the power of chaos, her mind has been changing faster and faster. Gerald looked up at the sky and turned his head side to side. A sadistic pleasure emanated from deep with- in him; he wanted to bury his blade in their backs.
That power, how strong must they be—how strong would I grow from absorbing their power?
The heady rush made him take a step forward before he let out a powerful breath, recovering his senses and opening his eyes.
“We wait, grow the power of our cause,” Gerald said.
Rosaline twisted her head side to side, letting out a groan at be- ing stopped from letting her desires take over.
The others didn’t take long to appear. Using their powers of chaos, they were able to transform into different creatures that were much faster than humans.
They arrived in twos and in groups until they were all there. They looked at one another, growling or complaining in their var- ious ways toward Gerald. They transformed, taking on half-human forms. If they were in their chaotic forms for too long, they could lose their reasoning and the backlash could leave them as powerless as a newborn.
Gerald gestured forward. They all rushed across the ground to- ward the duo from every direction. There was forty or so of them.
A yell came from the forest as they reached the depressions that the two broken knights laid in.
Their heads turned to the side, some of them stimulating the chaot- ic power in their limbs.
Gerald sensed more than saw metal objects landing among the group. Lightning arcs covered the ground. The Agents of Chaos, all packed together, started to transform rapidly. The lightning bombs went off, making those half humans affected yell out and then drop in a smoking mess.
Explosions followed them, killing those who were stunned and wounding others nearby.
A machine exploded from the trees. Its left arm dropped explo- sive balls from its bicep that were launched by a slingshot that ran from the machine’s elbow to its hand.
The right arm changed; four arrows appeared and two metal arms appeared on either side. The arm rotated; the four arrows hit with such force to kill in one blow, or to pass through the chaotic agents and kill the ones behind them.
A chaotic blast hit the machine as it ran forward. The Agents of Chaos that were surviving and able to fight, just over a half dozen, charged forward, turning into their chaotic forms.
The left arm changed and went off in an explosion. A blast of shrap- nel tore through them, clearing an area in front of the ma- chine, killing three more and wounding another two.
Gerald’s body changed and he tore through his clothes, forget- ting the two on the ground as he rushed forward.
The machine was hit a few more times. The hits caused it to stum- ble. A chaotic agent missed their mark and raked their claws on the ma- chine, leaving glowing marks on its shoulder and back.
The machine hit the ground, pushing up dirt, stones, and roots as it crashed through a tree. It turned on its path, face up; it started to get up, coughing coming from inside.
Gerald unhinged his jaw, using his arms to pin the machine. He saw the small head inside. He snarled and bit at the head of the ma- chine and the man inside. He used his arms and legs to tear at the machine, pulling off its armor and ripping into it.
Suddenly, there was pain. Gerald coughed as he shook the ma- chine and tried to get away from the pain.
Then it appeared in his other side.
Gerald saw the two arms with blades that were stuck in his side, rip- ping through him with every movement.
His strength was draining away as the machine tossed him away.
The machine shot to his feet. Several other chaotic agents, nearly all of them sporting some kind of wound, jumped on the ma- chine, leaving ragged, glowing cuts in its body.
It didn’t care for its wounds. A shield appeared on its left hand, slamming a beast to the ground as his sword tore through them. Claws cut their back, taking off metal and gears with it.
The machine stood. Its shield didn’t close fully as the sword along the same arm swung out in the path of a beast, catching them in the throat. In their death throes, they clawed at the machine but it tossed them away. Its strength was greater.
Blasts hit the machine, causing it to fall back. There was just one chaotic beast left.
The Gnominator charged forward, blocking its head with an arm and crashing through a tree.
Rosaline, in her chaotic beast form—a creature with four legs and five tentacles along her back—shot more blasts at the machine, a pleased smile on her face as she advanced.
The machine turned and rolled. Gerald saw a smile on the gnome’s face as its left arm launched a ball right into Rosaline.
Gerald closed his eyes, coughing. Everything was getting dark.
Defeated by a gnome.
***
Tommie panted as he stared at Damien and Anthony. Once he killed the group of attackers, he had grabbed them both, and ran away as quickly as possible.
He had no idea how far he had run or where they were as he put them down.
Now that the adrenaline had worn off, the fear came in.
What if without magic they can’t come back?
“Ahh!” Damien kept screaming and kicking, but he found he was on the ground. “What the hell happened?”
Power was sucked into Anthony as his familiar tattoos glowed once before settling down. “Magic trap!” He jumped up on his feet and looked around, finding Tommie. “Badass Gnominator! I didn’t know you had finished it.”
Tommie had a rueful smile on his face, remembering how he didn’t want to tell them, scared that they would look down on or think less of his Gnominator. He shook those thoughts and mem- ories away.
“There were these assassins—well, like, people, like the ones I heard about in Skalafell, people who changed when they used their power. They were sucking power from you and then I killed them and we es- caped.”
“Agents of Chaos?” Anthony’s expression turned seri- ous. “Yeah, like that elf ? Legi, Lead...” Tommie mut- tered.
“Leadio,” Anthony said in a dark voice. “Damn, there must have been more of the Drafeng that had a way to send a message. If they told these Agents of Chaos about us and knew that we were going to Laisa, then they might have told the other Drafen
g. We need to tell Aila and Claire, warn them. Damn, we need to tell everyone.”
Tommie had never seen him this stressed. “What does it mean?” “It means that they could move up their sched- ule to attack Dena,”
Damien said in a grave voice.
“We can head back to Ascen,” Tommie said.
“We’re just a day’s travel from Laisa. The Deepwood is right there and most of their cities have a Guardian Flame, or did at
least. With it ignited again, then the fires should be lit again. We can use them to communicate with Ascen and every city that has a Guardian Flame,” Anthony said in a firm voice.
“We’ve got a long distance to cover,” Anthony said. Red and gold wings appeared behind his head, disturbing the ground.
“Crap.” Damien got up and turned around.
Anthony grabbed onto the back of his armor and the back of the Gnominator.
“What?” Tommie yelled out as he was lifted up into the air.
He was unable to say anything else. His head was plastered to the rear of the cockpit as wind howled through the Gnominator as their speed almost doubled.
I need to add a damn covering for my face next time! I think my eye- lids are going to be stuck to my forehead for the rest of my life! I can’t feel my lips. That was a bad idea. Don’t open your mouth in mid- flight!
Chapter: Changes Across the Land
Lord Dion Lemar looked over Skalafell. When he had fallen sick, he didn’t know what was happening around him. When the fever broke and he woke up, his world had changed. The man he thought was his brother had used a plague to try to take his power.
His wife had died; his daughter had grown up—overnight, it seemed.
The people of Skalafell came together in a way he hadn’t seen be- fore. The Black Rags not only took up residency in Skalafell, they spread to other cities as well. At first, people thought that they were up to no good, but with them around, people worked togeth- er more; the economies and the running of the cities took a turn for the better. They turned to bounty hunters, clearing out the crimi- nals and seedier elements of the cities.
Bounty hunters on one day, volunteers on the next.
Keze made a noise as she looked over Skalafell, learning geogra- phy and also city planning. “What is that out there?” She pointed beyond the wall.
Dion smiled. Clearly she wasn’t paying attention to her studies, yet again.
The tutor sighed and Dion raised his hand, moving up to his daughter. He saw her face screwed up in concentration.
He smiled and looked in the distance, wondering what she had found interesting. His smile fell away.
“Alert the guard.” Dion grabbed a telescope and looked at what Keze saw.
“It looks like a distortion. That’s not a mirage, is it?” Keze asked, embarrassed.
48
“No, little one, that is a convergence of mana, which means that either something has disrupted the mana in the surrounding area, an
27
elemental is being born, or someone is trying to summon some- thing,” Dion said.
A guard was already running off as the tutor started to use the tele- scopes to see what it was.
“Send word to the closest cities and to the training camp,” Dion said to another guard. They nodded and ran off on all fours for best speed.
The training camp only has recruits in it now that the war has started with the humans again. Maybe Camp Commander Jaclu will have an idea of what to do.
***
Anthony slowed down as they got within range of Laisa.
There were earthen works being built up around the town. There were signs of broken buildings and Anthony could see fresh cremation piles in the cemetery area.
There is a Guardian Flame here. Maybe with us igniting the Guardian Flame, this one activated?
Anthony slowly headed toward the village.
They walked up the road, greeted by the human army, led by a pow- erful woman.
“Who are you?” the woman demanded.
“You sense that?” Damien asked as he released his hammer. “What?” Tommie asked, ready to fight.
“They’ve been judged already,” Anthony answered Tommie and raised his voice. “I’m Guardian Anthony. Move aside.”
They moved to the side, a look of confusion on their faces. An- thony walked forward. Damien followed. Tommie was hesitant,
his face dark. Anthony felt an itch behind his back, feeling that every- thing and anything could go wrong in the next few seconds.
It passed as they got away from the group and went toward the wall, when crossbows and arrows were pointed at them.
“Richard! It’s me—Tommie! Where’s my dad?” Tommie yelled up at the defenders.
“Tommie, is that really you? Did they turn you into that?” Richard yelled back.
“No, that’s Anthony, the tree knight, and his friend Damien.
They’re Guardians,” Tommie said.
There was some talk up on the wall before another face appeared. “Yeah, that’s them. Let them in!” Wemtic said.
The gates opened and they walked forward.
“Guardian Anthony,” Wemtic greeted him. His voice turned heavy. “Tommie, you should come in.”
“Is there a Guardian Flame here?” Anthony asked.
“A purple flame that looks like your magic appeared in the southern part of the village,” Wemtic said.
“Go tell Aila and Claire,” Anthony said to Damien.
“Got it.” He jogged off toward the fire and people moved out of his way. Humans, gnomes, and goblins looked at him.
Hob and head boomer Gixai stepped forward with more burns and a few new wounds.
“Head boomer Gixai, it has been a long time,” Anthony said.
Gixai nodded to Anthony and leaned on her staff. Anthony turned to the side, as she looked up at Tommie in the Gnominator. “Words to be said Tommie.”
Anthony felt the atmosphere become tense.
“Adventurers, friends of father, left through south gate, heading Deepwood. Nasty light humans attack and kill many.” She gestured with an open hand to Wemtic. “Power within him, ignite purple flame, bring trial that friend Anthony bring before. Light people flee, some captured, some running to the south survive, make it to the forest. Do not know about your father.”
Tommie was stunned, his Gnominator keeping him upright.
Those around him lowered their heads.
“We don’t know if he’s dead, though, right?” Tommie grasped onto hope.
Gixai shook her head.
“We need to go to the elves and find him.” Tommie looked at An- thony.
Anthony nodded. “Take some time to work on your Gnomina- tor and repair it. We’ll head out tomorrow.”
Tommie nodded and headed off to his home.
Anthony indicated to Wemtic and left the group. “What hap- pened with the fire?” Anthony asked.
“I could hear voices calling to me. Once I saw the Army of Light and knew what they would do, I dug up that formation plate. It was kind of working. Then the voice told me how to fix it. I carved it new and then gave it some of my blood—gnome blood is powerful—and it started the enchantments. The fire started but it wasn’t fast enough to save many.” Wemtic hung his head down.
Anthony patted him on the back.
As he had been flying in, he had seen familiar buildings. They were like the winter growing houses that Wemtic had designed. Now they appeared around the village in the new spring. The whole village was growing.
Damien slid to a stop as he saw them. “Anthony, you need to come with me.”
“What is it?”
“I sent a message to Ascen but Claire and Aila have set out for the Guardian crypt. Then I sent a message to the elves in the south. I didn’t get a reply after messaging some of the flames; then some elf called Ce- cilia sent a reply. You’ll want to hear this yourself.”
“Cecilia?” Anthony saw the watcher in his mind merging with
his memories from centuries past.
He left Wemtic behind, following Damien to the Guardian Flame. People were looking over and there was an anxious-looking elf created by the flames.
“Cecilia, you get yourself into trouble again?”
“So it looks like you have your memories back. I hope you have your power. Doomsday gates are opening across Dena,” Cecilia said in a rush.
Anthony’s joy at seeing an old friend faded. “Already,” he said to himself.
“I have reports from across the Deepwood, sights in other lands and such. They haven’t materialized completely, but it will only take them a few days,” Cecilia said.
“They had to have a second way to contact home,” An- thony hissed. “What did you do to bring the Guardian Flames back to life?” “We took back the tower and cleared out the Church of Light.
Claire is back in Ascen, sending out Guardian Flame enchant- ments to be placed across Dena. Do you have a clear sense of where these Doomsday gates are?”
“Remote locations, or in places close to cities but in advanta- geous positions to launch an attack from. They’re a lot more pre- planned than they were the last time.”
“Which doesn’t mean anything good for us.” Anthony sighed and held his helmet. “Cecilia, could you do a favor for me? We are looking for a gnome from Laisa, name of Todd. Could you see if he is alive or dead? He and his friends were fleeing to the south.”
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