by Rosie Scott
During our slow progress, the sympathizers were working behind the scenes, freeing slaves from the places they knew them to be, and killing the sisters who would not agree to our cause. Their orders were to keep doing this until the explosion, at which time they would provide support. In the meantime, the freed slaves would be as quiet and hidden in their respective locations as possible, equipping themselves with any weapons and armor they could find.
Azazel's mental list of sympathizers had numbered over a dozen women, and only one had not agreed to help, but only because she was not found. Our small group of stealthy soldiers had surely progressed farther into the city while we'd been doing our part, and with the addition of these women and their vast knowledge of the slaves here, we were weakening Hazarmaveth from its foundation, whittling down its numbers and adding to our own. Azazel's plan was ingenious, and it was working.
Exhaustion filled every fiber of my being as we switched our focus from gathering support to getting to the tower. I was weak with a lack of sleep. We'd surely been moving through the city for longer than a day by this point, and we couldn't stop to rest. My tactic of leeching to refuel myself in Thanati could not work here—not yet. Until we were in open battle, I could not rely on such a noisy spell. Azazel and I tried to make up for the lack of energy by stealing food from the apartments we'd needed to clear out to get to the sympathizers, and it helped as much as it could. But food alone was not enough, and I inwardly pleaded for Azazel to quicken his pace.
The archer stopped at the edge of another building before me, the soft turquoise glow of fungi from the wall beside him brightening his black hair. He pointed upward, above the structures before us. One of the defensive towers loomed a few streets away, little more than a shadow against the glow of the surfaces around it. At this closer distance, I could see two archers standing near the top of it, looking out into Hazarmaveth from over small stone half-walls.
It was our destination. Azazel pulled an arrow from the quiver at his hip, before taking a risk and standing up straight beside the wall.
Surely he doesn't mean to hit them from here. I could say nothing to convince him not to try it, because I couldn't risk saying anything at all. Like I had many times throughout this quest together, I decided to trust him in his judgment. It hadn't failed him yet.
Azazel tilted the bow back, calculating his shot for distance and drop. His black eyes were unblinking as he loaded the arrow, pulling the string of the bow back until it was taut. The muscles of his periwinkle arms rippled with the effort. It never ceased to amaze me how strong elves could be despite not outwardly showing it with their builds.
The arrow was released, and Azazel didn't wait for it to hit before he'd loaded another one, already preparing his next shot. One of the shadows collapsed like a sack of vegetables. The other noticed, and hurried to the southern side of the tower, looking for the attacker. The second arrow hit its target, and the last woman on guard fell backwards from the force of it.
I shook my head in disbelief at his skill. Years ago in Sera, Silas and I had spent time together near the barracks, where targets had been set up for the human archers of Sera's army. Because my home city did not like employing many archers, the targets were rarely used. Bjorn would often come and watch Silas practice his archery there, because he'd claimed the Celd was the best archer he'd ever seen. And it was true; Silas's arrows sometimes traveled twice the distance of those belonging to Sera's best human archers.
Azazel's skill was on an entirely different level. We were still many streets away from the base of our target tower, and his foes had been far up in the air. The shots he'd taken had to have been immensely difficult for any archer. But Azazel had killed both of the enemies in our path, and far before they knew of our presence.
Seeing such prowess invigorated me. As Azazel hurried across the next street, I followed with just a bit more energy in my step, eager to finally reach the tower. I no longer felt any anxiety over whether Azazel could accurately hit the explosives from such a height, no matter how difficult of an angle it would be. If anyone could, it was him.
Two streets farther into the city, and Azazel stopped in the shadows beside yet another wall, his ears picking up on footsteps. I waited patiently behind him. Even with the glow of the fungi, I didn't see the three women approaching us from the north until my partner shot the first one through the eye. As the other two started to panic, an arrow punctured a throat, leaving the second victim gurgling as she fell. The third woman turned to run, though she fell face-first to the cavern floor a moment later, paralyzed from an arrowhead in her spine.
We moved forward, stopping only to move the bodies into shadows and remove arrows from corpses. It was darker here, near the center of the city. Fungi did not grow as often from the walls of buildings, and when it did it was mostly in tiny patches. I enhanced my vision using the illusion spell to make up for it. The streets around us were smaller, the buildings closer together. Part of the reason was because we had moved west of the main street which connected the tunnels of the city on its eastern side. We were coming across more and more foes that needed to be taken out in the streets, now. To the northeast, I could hear the murmuring of the city's service district, and the muted roaring of an underground river. Between the cracks of some of the buildings, the bioluminescent glow shone through, the light strongest from the fungi near the water.
Minutes later, Azazel and I were at the base of the tower. It was about forty feet in width, and square in design. A steel door sat solidly in the stone's embrace, and I kept a look out for enemies as Azazel unlocked it. The door was opened, and we went through, closing and locking it behind us. It was pitch black in here, so even though my vision was enhanced, it was still hard to differentiate shadows from shadows.
Azazel had no problems navigating in the dark. He walked to the far wall, where bundles of arrows were kept on a table. He grabbed a few stacks, before turning and handing them to me. I took them without question, until my arms ached with the weight. After grabbing as many as he could carry, he went to the right-hand side of the tower, where a stone staircase awaited. With a glance upward, I noticed the staircase ascended along the sides of all four walls, spiraling around the structure until the top. None of the staircases had railings, and I could barely see. I found I had a new fear of heights.
My partner stopped at the bottom of the staircase, looking back in my direction. “Vision?” he whispered.
A wave of relief passed through me at his concern. I wouldn't have said anything about it if he hadn't asked. “Not good,” I murmured back.
Azazel nodded in the dark, before backing up a step and waving a hand to the stairs. “Go first.”
I did so, ascending the staircase as slowly as I needed to in order to be comfortable, with Azazel right behind me. I knew he was prepared to keep me from falling if it became a danger, because a few times I swayed with imbalance, and I felt a hand keep me from the center of the tower by my side. I had to stop completely a few times, overwhelmed with dizziness, but Azazel did not rush me, waiting patiently for me to gather my bearings.
Moving a little bit at a time, I finally neared the top of the tower, pushing the arrow bundles gratefully over onto the floor, getting them out of my hands. I gingerly pulled myself up onto solid rock, exhaling in a wave of relief. The city's glow made it easier to see up here. Sprawled across the rock landing in two areas were the archers who had guarded this tower, puddles of blood cooling over stone.
I didn't yet stand to look over the stone wall and into the city. I waited to catch my breath and my nerves from the climb, sitting on the cold stone and watching as Azazel pulled his ammo from the corpses. Next, he came to squat beside me, untying the bundles of arrows we'd brought, and building a pile. He clearly had plans to stay up on this tower for as long as he had ammo.
“Will you be ready to defend this tower from here?” He questioned, his voice a low murmur.
I nodded, though I asked, “You think they w
ill risk running all the way up here?”
“When their archers fail to hit us, some of them might,” he reasoned. He glanced up over the half-wall, and added, “I'm going to take out as many tower archers as I can now, while they expect nothing. Otherwise, your soldiers will be vulnerable to their arrows.”
“Thank you,” I offered.
Azazel moved over to the southern wall first, raising his bow just above it. One arrow at a time, he loosed them from our tower and into the darkness. I assumed his phenomenal aim continued to be accurate, because he didn't give any indication of running across difficulties.
I finally stood up after my heart had slowed its racing, and gazed over the wall into the city. Gods, was it gorgeous, even more so from above. I could see little detail of the southern half of the city, because it was the darkest, and the buildings were so close to each other, keeping most of the glow hidden from my view. In the other half of Hazarmaveth, however, I could see quite a bit of detail, because plant-life grew thick along the river, which flowed from a natural tunnel in the northwest, before it split off into various smaller forks toward the southeast. Far off in the distance to the north, the buildings grew larger. I supposed those were the assassin's guilds, since they would be closest to the exit, as Azazel had explained previously. Near the rivers, it was very open in Hazarmaveth's marketplace. It reminded me of Comercio, because many of the traders were simply set up behind stalls carved from stone. Most of those trading here were Alderi, of course, but I caught a glimpse of one or two Vhiri elves from the land above our heads. One of them headed into a building along the northern wall, perhaps to request an assassination contract from a guild.
The rivers which flowed through Hazarmaveth glowed a light neon blue, and helped to light up the service and market districts all on its own. It glowed from algae, I'd been told, which gave off light in much the same way as the fungi. Bridges made from steel arched over the waterways, bolted down to the stone on either side. Each time someone would walk across one, I could hear the clomping of their footsteps over the metal, even from this distance. Whatever was made out of wood in the surface cities seemed to always be made of metal here, if it couldn't be made of stone. It gave the entirety of the underground a cold feeling, even when considering the already cooler temperature.
To the northwest, from our location to the far western wall, the buildings were almost as tall as the towers. Though the glow from the east shone blue and turquoise over the dark stone of walls and streets, the effects appeared to be mostly external. Very little light illuminated from the area itself. I searched the area for the storage building Azazel would be targeting, and I couldn't find it on my own, so I turned my attention back to him.
The archer was still taking out the guards on the other towers with brutal precision. I counted seven other towers from what I could see. Azazel kept shooting until all of the towers within view were empty. Then, with one job complete, Azazel filled his quiver to the brim with more arrows from the pile, before he walked to the southern wall of the tower once more, and peered over into the streets we'd come from. He was still and silent for a few minutes, as if waiting for something. Finally, he turned, walking over to me.
“Is everything all right?” I questioned, softly.
“The southern streets are eerily quiet,” Azazel murmured. “We have no way of knowing whether the others have made it this far into the city yet, but the lack of life suggests they have.” He hesitated. “Do you suggest we wait a little while longer and keep checking, or go ahead with the explosives?”
I pondered this a moment. If I was fatigued, I knew everyone in our group had to have been as well. I didn't want to wait longer than I needed to. At the same time, we needed as much of the city scoured as possible to reap the most benefits for our assault.
An idea leapt into my mind. “You wield alteration magic. Have you tried your detect life spell?”
Azazel's eyes sparkled with realization. “No. Come with me, and block the glow of the energy.”
I did so, standing to his left as he raised a hand beside me. He must have recited the spell in his head, because a glowing red energy developed over his palm a moment later in silence. He moved his hand from left to right, lining up the energy with the buildings below. From what I could tell from my angle, the red magic was in clumps.
“It appears the others have succeeded,” Azazel murmured, before dispelling the magic. “Your new recruits lie in wait.”
“How can you tell?” I whispered back.
“The energy is in groups,” he replied. “I have tried the spell from here in the past. Since these are all apartments, the energy would be separated into slivers and dots across the landscape, showing the shapes of individuals. The energy mimics the forms of the life if the user could actually see it. From here, each person is but a dot. An army waiting as a group in a room or hallway show up as clumps of solid energy, since it's many people huddled together.”
I nodded, looking off over the buildings ahead, wishing I knew how many new soldiers we had access to. “Okay.”
Azazel smiled over at me, his teeth glinting with the soft glow from below. “Time for chaos?” He asked.
My own smile rose to meet his, amused by his enthusiasm. “Time for chaos,” I agreed.
Azazel turned to the northwest, and walked over to the corner of the wall, making sure not to slip into the opening of the stairway just a foot or two away. His eyes searched over the wall, before he found his target. An arrow was pulled from his quiver.
“Wait until it is ready to shoot,” he told me, before tapping the arrowhead, showing me just where to use the magic. I nodded in response, waiting patiently.
Ades in fiers, I thought, an orange glow shining off of the inside wall beside my palm.
Azazel readied his arrow, adjusting his bow carefully before a commanding eye. He pulled the string back until it trembled with power, and whispered, “Now.”
I reached past the half-wall, directing the fire energy to the arrowhead. The flames encapsulated the steel, licking upward from the ammo like souls reaching for a chance at escaping hell. I pulled my arm back to safety, and the arrow was unleashed.
My eyes followed its arc, made easier in this darkness given the light of the fire. The arrow zipped through the air, passing by an entire building, then two, as it raced to its target. The arrow seemingly disappeared into a wall of the third building down the street.
I turned to Azazel, frowning. “You missed.”
His eyes were stuck where he'd aimed. “No, I didn't.”
I turned my attention back to where the arrow flew. I repeated the spell to enhance my vision, because I could see nothing from here. Sure enough, right where Azazel's arrow had disappeared, the tiniest slit of a window facing south began to glow with orange light. The window wasn't even facing us. He'd had to aim awkwardly between the two sides of it at such an angle that gave him mere inches to work with.
My heart began to pound harder as the slit grew brighter and brighter.
“I'd cover your ears if I were you,” Azazel murmured, waiting another second before following his own advice.
I reached up to my head, holding my palms over my ears so hard that I could hear my own pulse against them. My eyes were glued to the glowing light, and my nerves danced with anticipation of the upcoming noise and battle.
BOOM! The explosion cracked the storage building's roof right in half, sending chunks of stone flying through the air in all directions. The resulting vibrations were violent, rippling outward from the explosion in waves of destruction. It shook our tower, and I fell back to the stone, my hands ripped from my head and grasping for support. My right hand was sticky with blood as I tried to pick myself up from a puddle of one of Azazel's prior victims.
BOOM! Another explosion, this time causing a piercing ring through my head from the intensity of its decibel. I heard the cracks of stone, and when our tower swayed once again, I started to panic.
“We will die her
e!” I exclaimed to Azazel, who still watched the explosion from over the wall.
“The tower will hold,” he insisted, before he threw hands over his ears again.
BOOM! I hurried to a stand, just in time to see the taller building beside the explosion start to crumble. Now that the initial target was missing its roof and most of its walls, the flaming explosives were visible. There were piles and piles of what appeared to be white powder packed in parchment, and the fire ate through the packs one by one, left to right.
BOOM! The next explosion erupted outward in a cloud of fire, so strong that it gave the neighboring building enough encouragement to finally fall. Stone broke apart and crumbled before the entire structure began to tumble to the cavern floor below, collapsing in a heap of material and dust.
Down the street, women were fleeing, rushing out of doors nearby to run away from the chaos. With a glance to the northeast, I saw the marketplace had devolved into pandemonium. Screaming from various voices rang out over the crowds, some of it relaying directions. A few Alderi pointed west, having seen proof of the explosion's location. Many more ran. Some fled to the northern tunnel, while others hurried into buildings they deemed to be safe. Still others stood, rock solid, unsure of what to do or how to help.
I hurried to the southern wall. Masses of Alderi rushed through the streets to the north, hurrying to battle. With a glance farther south, I found I could see little of the southern tunnel from here, though I couldn't expect the beastmen to show up for a few minutes yet. After all, they needed time to transform, and were minutes away from the entrance as it was.
BOOM! This explosion caught me off guard, and I grasped onto the half-wall to support myself. I had expected one explosion, not five or more. Then again, I supposed the more the better, because the distraction was working.
Azazel waited at the northern wall, his eyes watching over the disorder. He was waiting to start shooting, probably until the freed slaves breached into the oncoming mass of foes, which would allow him to pick them off without drawing attention to himself.