My shoulder and back hurt, but I had still come out far better than he had, and I could feel my vital guard working to repair me. I sheathed the combat dagger and picked up his longsword, watching his corpse fade out.
A sergeant-ranked officer has been lost to Stellar War.
Challenger Wes Malcolm has gained more Infamy. New rank has been recognized as lance corporal and may now lead a squad of four to conduct further Stellar War.
Oh really? I thought sarcastically. I needed someone else's permission to do that? Well thank God I waited to get help until just now! I can't wait until I'm allowed to accept surrenders, or maybe set camp for the night on my own!
Pre-recorded Message:
Wes, don't snap at your mind-screen so much. It won't change anything, and it could distract you during a Challenge. Just talk to one of us about it afterwards.
-Stell
I sighed and took my lesson. Then I chose to believe that if I'm still getting these messages, then she must be okay.
Back to work, I told myself. Refresh your spells, get the right weapons out and finish this.
I marched toward the door, hearing signs of a fight as I grew close. I took a moment to listen carefully, hating the delay but knowing charging in without knowing anything could get the girls killed just as easily. As soon I could understand the voices, I began to move.
“Just kill them before they get the others free!” The first one said.
I ran faster.
“Shit! Black Gandalf's loose too-” the second voice cut off with a scream and some strange crackling noises.
“I told you that was not my name,” the last voice said.
At that point I had reached the open door.
I saw the girls immediately as I walked in. They were to my left, and my vision reddened a little when I saw the first three huddled in front of Little Gabby. Two men looked like they had been trying to get to them, but they were struggling with a short, stout, hairy man in front of them, that kept throwing one of them off every time they grappled him together. His unkempt beard looked like bloody-brown steel wool, and I saw snapped manacles covering his wrists.
Further down the left wall was a huddled mass of people that had a similar guardian standing in front of them. This man was also short, with dirty unkempt hair hanging over his face. He was much thinner than the man protecting the four girls, but he was armed with a shiv he must have found somewhere, and he would swing it out whenever one of the guards came close. His weapon had the shorter reach, but he still somehow kept them all at bay.
The sight closest to me, however, was the one that took my breath away.
Two men were facing each other. One of them, the one farthest from me was a tall black man whose stern gaze initially took my attention away from his tattered robes and a shaved head. His unwavering visage contrasted with his constantly moving arms, creating symbols around himself out of thin air. Whatever magic he was using was a type Breena hadn't shown me yet.
Facing him was a figure in a black hooded robe that covered everything but his face and hands. Unlike the black man in front of him, he was constantly chanting. Blood-red fire formed around one of his hands, and he somehow managed to laugh maniacally from time to time without disrupting his chant.
“Impressive, wanderer,” the robed man intoned, and I recognized the voice. Not Barnes, but another voice from church.
Mr. Shepherd.
One of the foster parents.
“Impressive that your magic works at all without your tools,” the robed man cackled in an odd pitch. “I was expecting my little girls to have seen you die by now.”
A litany of raging expletives swept over my mind as I looked at yet another man who had betrayed my trust and harmed people I cared about.
“Let these people go,” The ebon man spoke as his hands worked. A blue shield manifested in front of his left hand's symbols, washing away a burst of fire from the dark robed man. As the man's right hand flashed about, blue bolts shot toward the foster parent-turned-cultist, which he caught with the ball of fire in his hand.
“Let them go? Let them go?” My robed neighbor cackled again. “Did we not make it clear what happens to men who help little girls? Did you not see the other one die, over and over? Do you think you will fare better? Do you think he was still trying to save anyone in the end?”
“Buddy Wes! Buddy Wes!” Little Gabby called out excitedly, pointing out to me from behind the other girls. “Hi Buddy Wes!”
“Hi Gabby,” I said. “Hi Val. Hi Kayla. Hi Sam... Hi Mr. Shepherd. How it's going with the whole framing my Dad and abusing girls and joining a weird demonic cult?”
Deep inside my head, I was murdering him, over and over again, with my bare hands and teeth. But I couldn't lash out just now. Not yet.
Mr. Shepherd was less than pleased to see me.
“How?” he asked shrilly. “How? You're dead! You're supposed to be dead!”
“Yeah, I've been getting that a lot today,” I replied calmly, restraining my anger like it was a dog that knew it would get a treat if it behaved. “That and the old 'you're supposed to be crippled' or 'you're supposed to be broken.' Some things just don't keep, Mr. Shepherd.”
I looked back over to the girls that had been through hell just so that someone else had a cover for murdering Dad.
“These men are bad, Buddy Wes!” Little Gabby shouted again. “And... and they want to do weird things!”
“I know Gabby, I've heard about that,” I said softly. “I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner. I need you girls to all close your eyes so that I can make the bad men go away.”
“Okay Buddy Wes.”
Little Gabby reached for the other three girls and pulled at them, closing her eyes as she did so.
“You're going to regret this cripple-head!” Mr. Shepherd shouted. “They're going to kill you for good when they come back through the portal!”
“He's right,” The ebon man said through gritted teeth. “You need to get these people out of here while we still have time.”
“One sec,” I said, reaching into my weapons belt and turning to the dwarf-like man defending my girls. Heck, he probably was a dwarf, but I didn't know how he'd react to being called that.
A third man had come over to try and help hold him down, and between the three of them they finally got the stout man on his back. The third man was actually armed and stabbing at him with a combat dagger. The stocky man grunted but maintained his hold on the other two men, usually getting them in the way of the third man's swings, and finally knocking the third man away by throwing the second man into him. For a long moment he had a second hand free. Long enough for me to slide the warhammer I had across the floor and close to his hand. I saw him reach out and grab it and then swing the spiked end into his fellow grappler's head.
Feeling pretty confident about his chances, I turned to look at the long-haired man holding back three other men, each a foot taller than him and with longer weapons. This seemed to be a much closer fight because the long-haired man's foes were all armed, and because he had more people behind him to protect.
He was also harder to help, because he was much further away from me and I didn't have an easy way of getting him a real weapon.
But I had already refreshed my finger-bolt spell, so I put all ten bolts into the head of the man on his left. The sizzle and pop sounds told me his vital guard was overcome. Then I reached into my belt and began to awkwardly chuck long combat daggers at the other two. They dodged them easily, and curiously, because they both knew those knives weren't balanced for throwing. That was the point, because eventually a knife landed near the shiv-wielding prisoner and he finally had a decent weapon to fight with. In fact, he was agile enough that he actually managed to get a hold of two. Less than half a minute later another one of his enemies was limp and bleeding on the ground. A quick glance to the left told me my new hammer-wielding friend had his last opponent pinned under him and was about to be on his third kill.
&
nbsp; Now that they were finally armed, the ease these two men had at tearing through their foes made me wonder how they had become prisoners in the first place.
I turned to face the last group, my demonic neighbor facing off against the dark-skinned man that didn't look to be much older than me. Shepherd was growling in frustration, and the desperate look in his eyes told me he had also seen his men cut through like cream cheese.
“They're going to kill them all,” he growled at us. “As soon as the reinforcements come in I'm going to tell them to kill every person you had just tried to save, cripple-head.”
This time his speech had interrupted his chanting, and he stumbled backward under a blast of blue energy from the other magic-user.
“Why do you call him cripple-head?” the black man said calmly as he kept scrawling symbols through the air. There was some sweat on his face but otherwise he seemed to be holding his own in this duel perfectly.
I sent another look to make sure the four girls were okay. Both of the former prisoners had pinned down their remaining foes and were striking their way through the last of their vital guards.
“A better question would be to ask why the reinforcements he keeps bragging about hasn't shown up from the portal room,” I said calmly. “Or, where is he supposed get help from if the portal is already destroyed?”
“The portal can't be destroyed!” Shepherd said as he flung another blast of fire at the other mage, who grunted as he created another blue shield out of thin air to take the blast. “Stop bluffing!”
“Sound like you put all of your eggs in that one basket,” I noted. “That's a relief.” I looked back over at the mage whose name I didn't know. “You guys aren't having some kind of private duel, are you? Because I'd really like to be lethal without being rude here.”
“Be my guest,” the man said with gritted teeth. I began working my next spell.
“Don't even think about it cripple-head,” Shepherd spat as he created another blast of dirty flame. “I don't care how many of our guards you've killed. You're not a match for my magic and after I kill this little-”
Spark Bolt.
Excluding the spell I cast at Cavus and the portal, my single-bolt lightning spell was my most powerful attack. I haven't had much of a chance to use it because the casting time was so long, so I haven't really seen it in action until now. The result was immensely satisfying.
Blood-red force shields immediately appeared and just as immediately winked out under the force of my spell as it struck the cultist. Shepherd flew through the air and landed against the wall in a groaning, smoking heap. He tried to get up, jerked oddly, and then collapsed back onto the floor. The other wizard grunted in wide-eyed surprise, then quickly began writing new symbols into the air. Glowing blue bands began to wrap around the Malus cultist.
My mind-screen beeped at me with more murder-messages. I ignored them for now.
“Everyone okay?” I called out. “Gabby? Val? Other folks?”
I got a lot of excited nods, and Gabby piped up cheerfully:
“I told you he'd come to save us!”
Then I turned to face the three possibly friendly, but definitely dangerous men.
Reading their wary glances, I realized then and there that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend after my enemy dies.
“I'm Wes,” I said, offering my name.
“Eadric,” The short man with the warhammer said.
“Weylin Fellas,” The lean duel-wielding man said, and I finally noticed his slanted ears. I vaguely recognized his race from Breena, and realized he was a type of elf- and yes, they called themselves elves. They're probably owed royalty fees for the use of the name.
“Karim, of the Bright Towers,” The dark man said with a nod. “You seem to be from Earth like these other men,” Karim said carefully. “May we know your motives for aiding us?”
“Texan,” I corrected. “I'm from Texas. I was a prisoner too. And I want to get everyone out.”
“Don't listen to him!” Shepherd croaked in a voice full of pain and hate. “He's a pervert and a cripple-head! He'll betray you!”
Karim and I both looked at him for a moment, then resumed our conversation.
“The portal room's destroyed,” I continued. “There were three guards there that are down. There were two more in the halls, and three more that left this room that I took care of. Then there is this clown and the six others we all slew in here. Do you know if there are any more?”
The dark-skinned wizard shook his head.
“There have been fewer and fewer people here recently, but we haven't left our cells until today. I would be surprised if there were any more, though.
Eadric was staring at me, working out something in his mind.
“You're him, aren't you?”
“Him who?” I asked.
“You're right,” Weylin said. “We'd have to hear him scream to be sure, but he's the only human down here with red hair.”
“That's a rather roundabout way of confirming if I'm the guy they've been killing over and over.” I said dryly.
“He's broken!” Shepherd snarled from the floor. “You should be broken! Freak!”
I turned down and looked at him.
“You're currently bound on the floor,” I began. “Unable to move. Anyone who was going to help you would have shown up by now, with all the shouting, fighting and magic thrown around. At least one us, chiefly me, is already angry enough to tear you into tiny pieces, and I'm not being figurative at all when I say that. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask yourself: am I really getting something out of what I'm doing right now?”
He bared his teeth at me again.
“It's the magic,” Karim said, his dark eyes examining the cultist as he thrashed against his magic. “Their magic changes them. The stronger they get, the more hateful they become. Some handle it worse than others.”
“You don't know anything!” The hooded man said as he thrashed. “You wouldn't have become our prisoner if you did!”
“Huh,” I said, looking down at his enchanted restraints. “Irony.” I looked back up at the three men. “I'm going to go on a limb and trust you guys because you were protecting people I was trying to save. If you're willing to do the same thing, then we can work together to get everyone out of here. Then we can talk about long-term plans.”
Karim shook his head.
“There is no way back home. These people took us using some kind of magic craft that lets them jump between worlds.”
“You mean portals?” I asked, confused. We had just finished talking about their portal room. “Are those really that rare?”
“They were far more common fifty years or so ago,” Karim continued, giving me a look that said he found my ignorance suspicious. “Back when the Last Challenger was alive.”
“Last Challenger?” I asked. “What do you mean 'Last Challenger'? And what do you mean fifty years?”
“He wouldn't know,” Eadric said calmly. “He's from Earth, Karim. This is probably all new to him.”
“Up until fifty years ago,” Weylin began. “It was said that heroes called Challengers once came from the world of mists, Avalon, to aid our worlds in times of trouble. Calamities would befall, the Challengers would appear, and the disaster would be averted in a way that let us all grow in many ways. But in this last century dark clouds formed in the minds of every mighty dreamer. Signs of famine, plague, storm, strife and monsters. Across every land, and all at the same time. The Tumults were so severe, and so numerous that no man or woman of any race would be able to rally to the aid of another. Legends foretold that unparalleled disasters would happen across every land, all at once, and no man would be able to rally to the aid of another. It was also said that these disasters would fall far sooner than the earlier tribulations, and so the Lady of the Mists could not use the ancient laws to call forth a Challenger.”
His voice had changed from explanation to recitation, like a story teller speaking t
o children. He continued speaking, and it was almost as if he couldn't help it.
“The Lady of the Mists knew these disasters would be the end of us all, and in her grief she wept great tears, tears made all the greater by knowing no one else would hear or see them, on faraway Avalon. But someone did.
“A young man, battle-bred from the broken-ness of Earth and chief among Challengers. It was said that he heard her tears fall all the way from Earth. And because his heart was so great, and so puissant, he came out of the silent planet under his own power, to comfort her and to meet her need for a hero. It was said that she began to train him in the weapons and ways of our lands, but that she could not finish, for our worlds had already began to cry out with need. Yet whenever he strode forth he still rescued, because he was familiar with victory, though not yet with sword and spell. He made sea-storms halt at the edge of his feet, and turned ravenous monsters into bounties for those who starved. Even the then-rare Horde was powerless to keep him pulling captives out of their Pits, a feat that had never been done before nor after. His legend was already growing long before his appointed time, for the mighty one found no monster strong enough to make him flee, no task too complex for his mind for his mend, no person too small for his mighty heart to ignore. Where there was fear, he was fearless, where there were troubles, he was wise, and where there was need, he was compassionate. Therefore he was the first of his kind to gain songs and renown before his appointed Trials and Challenges.”
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