I looked at the three of them again. They were marching resolutely on as though they had not a care in the world. Not slowing down as they approached, not speeding up or hurrying. Just marching, each step perfectly in synch.
Sarah’s mouth turned in a frown. “We haven’t had to kill humans before,” she said hesitantly.
Greystone gave an exasperated cry and looked around as though searching for what to say. “I can appreciate your hesitance. But you must believe me when I tell you this: those men will not hesitate for a second to kill you. All of you, and this city besides. Please, do not give them the chance.”
Sarah shook her head reluctantly, but she turned to me. “Okay, fine. Do it.” She went to tell Tess, who was further south down the wall. I turned to find Blade and Samuel were down the wall by the tower.
“Blade!” I called. The flames he was washing the hellions with sputtered out as he turned to me. “Those guys in red. We need to take them out.”
Blade looked and went pale. “Those aren’t Shadows,” he said.
“I know,” I said solemnly. “But Greystone says they’ll bring this whole place down.”
Blade hesitated, and to my surprise his hands began to shake. “I…I don’t know, man.” He gave Samuel an uneasy look.
I couldn’t waste more time talking about it. I turned to Calvin, twenty feet away on his rooftop. “Calvin!”
He turned to see me and nearly slid from the roof’s slick tiles. “What’s up?” he called back.
“There’s three men in red in the middle of the Shadows,” I said.
He scanned the army quickly. “Got’em. Hey, they’re human!”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah. But they need to go. They’re mages.”
Calvin paused and gulped. But eventually he nodded. “Okay. Understood.”
I turned to the front of the wall again, uneasy but resolute. Sarah had told Tess already. It was time to see what we could do.
The mages were far away, but I figured I could still reach them. I sucked moisture from the air above their heads, forming it into a sizable ball of ice about the size of a human torso. With a sudden jerking motion, I detonated the ball, sending razor-sharp shards raining over the ground below.
But just as I did, one of the mages raised his hand. And when the cloud of flying ice vanished, there they still stood, a near-perfect circle of fallen Shadow armor surrounding them. And still the mages walked forward without missing a single step.
I cursed. “They’ve got defense,” I muttered.
“So it would seem,” said Melaine. “I suppose that rules out the possibility of my shooting them with a bow.”
“Calvin, did they defend with Air?” I shouted. “Can you do anything about it?”
“I didn’t feel anything,” he replied. “Probably Mind.”
Okay. Another tactic then. Or rather, another direction. Below rather than above.
I reached through the earth below them, feeling a moisture in the ground. I drew it up, closer and closer to the surface. A spear of ice from the ground was just as good as a shower of ice daggers from the sky.
But the mage who had raised his hand cocked his head as he walked. Then he looked straight up at me on the wall. His eyes were hard and cruel, and he smiled. It made me shiver.
I felt my grip on the water disappear. Not loosen, not gradually slide away. It was simply gone. I grasped around for it like a man searching for straws in the dark, but there was nothing.
I realized that I couldn’t feel anything, no water in any direction. I couldn’t feel the river a half mile away, no moisture in the air, not the sweat on my own brow, which now began to flow in a torrent.
My power. My power was gone.
That’s when a massive ball of flame flew right past me, shooting across the air to arc down upon the mages. The one whose eyes were locked on me looked away for a moment, distracted. I felt my power surge back into my mind.
The man beside him raised his hands, and the fireball switched direction in midair, curving back around to fly at the wall above the gate. It shot forward like a rocket, aimed straight at Sarah and Tess on the wall.
“No!” shouted Blade. His brow became a mass of wrinkles as he concentrated. The fireball shot skyward to dissipate harmlessly into the sky.
“I’m guessing that one’s got Fire,” I said wryly. “And the middle one is Mind.”
“But what’s the third one?” asked Blade.
“Don’t know, but the Mind guy can put a lock on your powers. Tell you what, if you think you can distract him I can probably take him out.”
Blade shook his head. “The other one can block me too easily. The Mind guy won’t be bothered.”
“Calvin!” I said, turning. “Think you can tornado the three of them or whatever? Just get the attention of the guy in the middle.”
“I’ll give it a shot,” Calvin said uncertainly.
As I felt a gale beginning to build around us, I saw a mound of rock spring from the ground in front of the men, then topple toward them, threatening to crush them all. The third mage, the one who hadn’t made a move yet, flipped his fingers in a dismissive gesture. The rock shattered and fell harmlessly around them in pieces no bigger than a finger.
And still the three of them kept walking, utterly undisturbed by our efforts.
“Okay, so that’s Earth,” I said. “Perfect. Better than Water.”
Calvin’s winds blew overhead, trying to pull my clothes and hair along with them. The gusts slammed into the mages like a hurricane, forcing them to lean forward as they continued their relentless walk. But they didn’t slow down, and they didn’t stop.
But as I’d hoped, the Mind mage looked above me to see Calvin on the roof. His mouth twisted in the same cruel smile I’d seen before.
The winds died as suddenly as they’d started. “What the — ” I heard Calvin cry from behind me.
But it was too late. I’d had all the time I needed to summon the water below the surface of the Earth again. I hesitated only a second before forming it into a solid shaft and sending it erupting from the earth.
The ice spike drove through the man’s chest, impaling him at an angle. His face assumed a brief look of shock before he died. His limp body was caught on the pole, still stuck in the ground, and there he hung, propped up by the ice that had killed him.
I heard a faint whining in my ears, and my knees grew weak. I almost pitched forward and vomited over the edge of the wall, but I managed to keep it down.
Melaine put her hand on my shoulder. “Lord Miles!” she said. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Give me a second.”
I took deep breaths, using the time to observe the battlefield around me. Blade was keeping up a steady barrage of flame, but the Fire mage was batting it aside without any discernible effort. Calvin resumed his blasts of wind, but he might as well have been pelting the mages with houseflies for all the effect it had. Sarah’s attacks of giant rocks and rolling earth were having about as much luck as Blade, and I wasn’t sure what Tess even had in the way of offense.
I had to try again. I summoned another projectile of ice. But this time, just as it was about to erupt from the earth, the third mage raised a single hand. The ground beneath the two of them instantly compressed into hard stone rather than the earth I’d been pushing my spear through. The ice stopped, stuck in the stone.
I cursed.
The only other thing we had was Raven in the sky above, but we hadn’t had the chance to tell her to focus on the mages. It was just as well — her bolts of lightning were probably the only thing keeping ladders off the wall. But if she didn’t act soon, the mages were going to start unloading. They were almost to the gate, and I didn’t know what was going to happen once they got closer.
I ran to Greystone, who was watching the mages intently. His lips were twitching as though he was trying to talk, but his body wasn’t fully responding. I put a hand on his shoulder and he started as thou
gh coming awake.
“You need to tell Raven to hit the two of them,” I said quickly. “They can stop me, Blade and Sarah too easily.”
“Tell her yourself,” he snapped.
I pointed to where she was flying on Ella’s back. “I mean with your mind. She can’t hear us.”
Greystone’s eyes narrowed for a moment. Above us, Raven suddenly wheeled around and began to descend, her spiraling bringing her closer and closer to the mages.
“Awesome,” I said, eyes on her, mouth slightly opened as I waited for her to unleash.
She didn’t disappoint. With both hands out she sent crackling bolts of lightning to crash down on the earth. Both of them flew into the Earth mage and coursed through his body. He jerked and spasmed like a dead frog I’d seen electrocuted once in science class, then he flew back ten feet and crashed to the ground, utterly still.
I smiled grimly, but I was suddenly distracted by the sound of the tower door crashing open again. I turned and gave a disbelieving gasp.
Elanor stood there once more, her dress a filthy collection of rags barely clinging to her wasted frame. Her eyes had looked insane before, but now they were stark raving crazy. She clutched the sword of one of her guardsmen, looking utterly ridiculous as she fought to bring it to bear.
“Greybones!” she screamed. “I will have my reckoning upon you!”
She leapt, but Greystone put up a ward. She came against the invisible barrier and raged and struck at it with the sword. Greystone’s eyes blazed fury as he held her back with no more effort than you spend putting a hand on a five-year-old kid’s head when he’s trying to punch you.
With Elanor contained, I looked back out at the last mage again. He was staring up at Raven, who was circling and trying to line up another shot. But the mage sent a blaze of white-hot fire at her, and Raven careened madly out of the way before it could strike. She’d only need a few seconds to wheel around and finish him off.
But that was too long. Seeing his comrades dead, the Fire mage placed his hands in a circle and summoned a great spinning orb of flames. The orb grew larger and larger, until it was as big as a hellion. Then bigger. Twice as big.
“Blade!” I shouted.
“I can’t stop it!” he called back. “He’s too powerful! It’s too big!”
The Fire mage unleashed his ball of death just as Raven sent another crackling bolt of death earthward. At the same time, Sarah sent a gushing tide of earth swarming up and over the mage, burying his body deep within the ground.
But the fireball flew through the air anyway, smashing into the gate.
The sound was so massive that it defied hearing. It was as though the ground itself was being uprooted with the rumble of the world’s largest subwoofer.
The gate detonated, seeming as fragile as a plaster model with a firecracker inside it. I felt the terrible weightlessness of flight as my body soared through the air, and then a world-shaking crash as my body slammed into the ground.
Somehow, I kept myself from blacking out, something that surely would have killed me after I woke up on Earth and was unable to return. I struggled to hands and knees. My face was dripping, and reaching up a hand to probe it my fingers came away covered in blood. My blood.
I got shakily to my feet. The others were lying in various states of consciousness around me. Thankfully none of the other Realm Keepers had been knocked out, but I saw Samuel lying senseless several yards away. Blade was kneeling over him, checking Samuel’s breath. I saw a relieved look cross his face.
Elanor had staggered back to her feet, about halfway between us and the broken rubble that had once been the city gate. She stared around, eyes wide like she was blind.
A chorus of triumphant roars took my attention from Elanor to the destroyed gate. Shadows surged through by the dozens, hellions stomping along amongst them. The Shadows swept over Elanor like a tide, and she disappeared from view.
Sarah appeared beside me, making ripping motions with her hands. The walls on either side of the gate suddenly cracked and crumbled away, tumbling together to form a massive pile of rubble that blocked the way into the city. The frustrated howls of the Shadows on the other side was music to my ears, but it was a bleak enjoyment. There were still hundreds of them within the gates, not to mention the hellions. Raven landed on the street among us, her eyes on Barius and then the rest of us, making sure we were okay. Ella gave a cry of defiance as she readied herself to fight the oncoming Chaos soldiers.
“No!” shouted Sarah. “Raven, it’s time! Go! Go now!”
Raven looked at her uneasily. “You gonna be okay?”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t go, now!” said Sarah.
It wasn’t a question or a request. It was a command. And Raven listened, kicking her heels in once more and sending Ella spiraling off into the sky.
Which still left us with all of the Shadows and hellions to deal with.
I reached for my power, ready to hold them off as best I could, but a hand grabbed my shoulder roughly and pulled me back.
“Retreat to the Runehold!” Greystone shouted hoarsely. “We cannot hope to fight them in the streets. Get behind the walls of the Runehold! All of you!”
I opened my mouth to remind him about Calvin, but there was a rush of air and Calvin and Darren landed beside me. Calvin’s face was ghost-white, and he was cradling his injured shoulder. The splint looked to be coming undone.
Along with the soldiers of the Runegard and the Morrowdust army, we fled for the safety of the Runehold. Behind us, Sarah’s hasty barrier was overcome, and Chaos flooded over it and into the streets of the city that had become our home.
BLADE
“LOOK, BLADE,” SARAH SAID LOOKING at me. “We just have to hold out. If we can defend the Runehold until help arrives, we’ll win.”
“What makes you think we can do that?” I asked with a shrug. “We thought they couldn’t breach the barrier, and they did. Then we hoped they couldn’t break the city walls, and they did. How long do you really think the Runehold will last?”
“It is the Runehold,” Cara said, as though that explained everything. “We are the Runegard, not some motley collection of men pressed into service in the King’s army. We have trained our whole life for battles such as this.”
I rolled my eyes, though Cara’s words had a ring of truth to them. At the city walls, the Runegard had been the toughest fighters, the hardest workers. They hardly ever took breaks from the wall, usually disappearing for an hour or two to eat and sleep.
It was three hours since Chaos had broken the city gate and swarmed through the streets of Morrowdust. We’d made it within the Runehold just in time to slam the gates shut in the faces of the Shadows pursuing us. Then the Runegard had gone to work. With clouds of arrows and rocks as big as your head, they’d repelled the Shadows from the outer walls. They’d shot fire arrows into the buildings where the Shadows tried to take cover, burning them out. Not so much as a single ladder had made it to the Runehold’s walls, which were much taller than the wall surrounding the city. The Runegard had been spread out and limited by the length of Morrowdust’s walls, but now they were a concentrated ball of death just daring Chaos to come and take a swipe at them.
But still, any fortress could fall. Just because the Runehold hadn’t in millennia, didn’t mean that couldn’t change.
“I still say we just sneak into his camp and take care of him,” I insisted. “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”
“Your attempts at poetry are adorable,” said Greystone. “But no. It would be ridiculously dangerous. You cannot imagine how dangerous Terrence is.”
“How strong can he be?” I asked with a shrug. “He had to send those mage guys or whatever after us. He wouldn’t even come himself.”
“He did not come himself for the same reason he did not bring down the barrier on the first day of the siege,” Greystone growled. “And for the same reason that he does not appear outside the walls of the Runehold this instant. If he
can achieve his goals without unleashing his secret weapon, and with no personal risk to himself, he will sacrifice a million lives to do so. What does he care for the deaths of thousands of Shadows? And the longer he sends them after us, the more they will wind us down. They will wind you down. You all feel the effects of it.”
It was true. We were standing around the table instead of sitting, because none of us trusted ourselves to plant our butts without falling asleep. Calvin was jumping up and down where he stood, just trying to keep his eyes open. I tried to act like I was fine, but I was blinking way more than I normally did, and every once in a while the blinks were just a little too long.
But I wasn’t going to let the others know that.
“Okay, so what?” I said, turning to Sarah and hoping she could be a voice of reason. “We just sit here, killing more and more Shadows until finally they get lucky and break through the walls? Is that the plan, boss?”
“Don’t call me ‘boss,’” Sarah said tiredly. “But no. Armies are being summoned from all over Athorn and beyond. We just need to give them enough time to arrive.”
“So they’re just going to stroll into Terrence’s camp and shoo him off?” I asked. “Unless they all get here at the same time, they’re going to have a hard job of that.”
“Lady Raven is tending to that,” Greystone said gruffly. “And we must give her as much time as we can. We have no other choice — certainly not sneaking into Terrence’s camp in the black of night like assassins.”
I shrugged. “If the shoe fits. I’m just saying, Terrence going down solves a lot of our problems.”
Greystone grasped the hair atop his head, looking like he was going to pull it out. “What about the things I am saying do you not understand? You will not be able to kill Terrence. It is impossible. It is worse than impossible. It is…” He trailed off.
I snickered. “Looks like we’re not the only ones getting tired.”
“It’s impossible!” he shouted. “You would not get into the camp. If you did, you would not reach Terrence. If you did, you would not kill him.”
Midrealm Page 62