No reply came. Haren was gone.
Igallik finally felt the sting of his fists against the door, and as he looked down at his swollen and bleeding hands, he had no choice but to acknowledge his failure. The motives of Haren’s deceit were unclear, and the head monk had become rapt in their implications: so much so that he had become oblivious to the battle below. As he cast his eyes over the battlefield, he was instantly snapped back into alertness. Forneus’s militia was overtaking a great majority of the Throne’s Eye monks. The Torches and Aerises were effectively employing their great battle strengths, but the Sights were out of their element. They were battered and falling to the wild attacks of Forneus’s devout. As Igallik observed from atop the staircase, he saw a sector of the militia breach the final defence line blocking the High Temple staircase. With only stairs in front of them, the Scale began a wild sprint up to the Temple door. A number of Aerises, including Raine, recognized the threat and leapt to the chase. Drawing from his dagger-laden belt, Raine ceased much of the militia’s progress with the devastatingly accurate pitches of his blades, but despite his efforts, there was still a number of snake-faced assailants advancing on Igallik. As they reached the top, Igallik tried to fend off their growing numbers with his staff, but he could not manage long. Understanding Igallik’s disadvantage, Raine rushed to the head monk’s aid. As he reached the summit, he exploded into action. With the powerful slashes of his sword, Raine mercilessly spilled the blood of Igallik’s attackers. Raine exploited the Scale’s weakness of war with the mastery of his blade, and he cut their numbers down to none. As the final Scale fell, Raine scanned the staircase for any other approaching menace, but he quickly saw that his fellow Aerises had destroyed the threat.
Assured of his safety, Raine turned to Igallik.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No,” Igallik said as he brushed the crimson spatter from his hands and face. After wiping the last of the blood from his brow, he turned back to the bronze doors.
“They’ll be fine,” Raine assured.
Igallik’s eyes fleeted back with tremendous worry.
“Haren’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone? She’s with the boys.”
“Not anymore,” the head monk informed. “She has left and she has taken the crown.”
“The crown?” Raine repeated. The old warrior was baffled.
“God damn it,” Igallik cursed. “I trusted her. I trusted her and she has burned us.”
Raine couldn’t understand. “Birdy?” he whispered. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Igallik replied.
Raine didn’t know how to react. “What’ll we do?” he asked.
Wrought with anxiety, Igallik could think of only one option.
“We win this battle,” he answered. “If any of our ground is lost this night, we can’t let it lead to this Temple.”
Just as Igallik finished his order, two more horse-drawn carriages barrelled through the broken gates of the Throne’s Eye. After the carts had entered completely into the monastery, the two Scale piloting the carriages careened into each other. As the six horses began to crash and trample over one another, the two weaving wagons flipped onto their sides and skidded across the courtyard’s stone and earth. The carriages quickly ground to a stop; however, as numerous monks approached the broken carts, suddenly the two wagons burst into flames, and within seconds, they erupted in a massive explosion.
In an instant, dozens more of the Throne’s Eye monks were dead.
Even atop the staircase, Igallik and Raine were rocked by the heat and impact of the blast. Raine quickly regained his wits and peered back over the battle, watching as dozens more of Forneus’s militia hauled a massive black trailer into the courtyard.
“Stay on the outside of the battle,” Raine said as he began to descend back into the courtyard. “We’ll sort this out.”
Igallik understood, and hoping to remove any and all attention from the High Temple, he too dashed down into the fray.
21
Inside the Temple, the thunderous blast had woken Odin. He was dazed in his first moments, and after realizing that there was a blanket draped over him, he pushed it off and stared blankly at his surroundings. He was in a small nook, and Galian was asleep beside him. As more wakefulness came, Odin examined the space, but as he leaned up, a sharp pain stung the left side of his face. Odin touched his hand to the pain, wincing as he traced a deep and bloody groove cut into his left cheek. After feeling out the length of the groove, Odin saw that Galian also had a scar, but Galian’s was on the right side of his forehead. The scars confused him, and with a tinge of panic, Odin brought his fist to his chin and tried to replay his last hour. There was haze. But soon, an order of events fell into place. The Scale were coming. He and Galian were sent to the High Temple. Haren had a blue sheet. They had attempted Vinculum Imletalis. More haze.
As much as Odin tried, he couldn’t recall how the ritual had ended. With a gingerly tap, Odin tried to wake Galian, but the quiet monk did not respond. As the tap graduated to a shake, Odin suddenly remembered that Haren had said Galian would be greatly drained by the ritual. Accordingly, Odin decided to let his brother rest and began to investigate the nook. Of the four sides of the nook, one had a golden drape covering it. Odin lightly swatted his hand into the drape, and after finding nothing behind, he drew the cloth to the side and exposed a small set of stairs that led up.
With a slight stagger, Odin followed the steps back into the main room of the High Temple.
“Haren,” he called out as he reached the top. “Haren, I’m up.”
There was no answer.
The Temple was in complete disarray. The pews and windows were smashed to pieces, and their fragments were sprawled over every inch of the Temple floor. The only items left untouched by the blast were the Order thrones and the Temple altar.
Through the broken windows, Odin could hear the clash of battle resounding from the Throne’s Eye courtyard.
With slow steps, he approached one of the windows and peered down into the fray.
His hands turned to fists as he looked down. With a tight throat, he swallowed, sorry for the many dead monks he could see lying on the courtyard floor.
Odin scanned the Temple again.
“Haren!” he yelled.
Without Haren, Odin became increasingly tempted to unlock the Temple doors. He knew he could help in the battle. He knew he could prevent more deaths.
“For Symin,” he whispered.
As the sounds of war sang to him, Odin put his back to the entrance wall and began to move towards the door, looking back into the Temple as he scanned for any sign of his violet-eyed minder. However, as his fingers reached the door’s latch and he began to pull, his eyes suddenly fixed on something behind the altar.
There was a rope – a rope with one end bound to the altar and the other end hanging out of a Temple window. As his head tilted, analyzing the rope, Odin knew that the altar-end must have been tied first. As a series of thoughts and theories began to rush into his head, Odin’s hand fell from the door latch.
Something was very wrong.
In quick seconds, Odin’s training forced him to capture his nerves, and with fast and silent steps, Odin rushed to the back of the Temple. As he hung partway out of the window and looked down, he saw that the rope hung all the way to the ground behind the Temple. There was no one at the base, but as the moonlight crossed over the earth floor, Odin could see another rope hanging over the monastery’s wall
In a flash, the rope, Haren’s absence, and the fact that no one else could have entered the Temple, collided.
Haren had fled.
“Why?” Odin whispered.
It didn’t make sense.
As the truth unsettled him, Odin rushed back into the heart of the Temple, and just as Raine had taught him, he began to take inventory of not just the events that had passed, but also of the items in the Temple.
As he stood at the
Temple’s center, scanning, surveying, and scrutinizing his memory, suddenly, at one object, Odin’s mind halted.
“The crown…” he gasped.
Odin needed to prove himself wrong, and with wild paces he tore through the Temple, throwing and tossing the broken pews aside as he hunted for the golden relic. But minutes passed with no success. After scavenging the wrecked pews completely, Odin fell backwards against the wall, defeated by an inarguable truth.
The crown, and Haren, were gone.
As he pushed both of his hands backwards through his blonde hair, he let out a series of quick exhalations, his breath and mind taken by the moment.
“Why?” he repeated again and again. “Why?”
As his eyes burned forward, suddenly, a mass of broken debris caught his attention. Peeking out from the bottom of the pile was a corner of blue paper. It was Haren’s page. It was the incantation.
Odin leapt up, stumbling forward as he rushed to the blue sheet. As he neared, he slid on his knees, skidding to the debris, until he hung over it. Quickly, he snatched the page, un-crumpled its corners, and began to read the golden scribble:
“Vinculum Imletalis: This sacred art belongs not to one. Nor does it belong to the weak. It belongs to two: two of the same blood, two of the highest measure. Vinculum Imletalis is a test of two, and if one fails, both do. Daios is round one corner, but Death is round the other. Beware brave souls: Death will claim the unworthy.”
“Death?” Odin repeated in alarm.
His senses clenched. “Galian!”
With his heart pulsing like a metal drum, Odin threw the page to the floor, and sprinted back down into the nook. His feet slid down the steps, stumbling forward, as he catapulted to his brother. As he reached Galian, Odin gripped his shoulders, shaking him wildly as his voice shrilled throughout the nook.
“No, no, no,” he stammered and begged. “Galian!” he shrieked. “Wake up!”
With a quick hand, Odin put his fingers to Galian’s neck.
There was no pulse.
“Please, Galian,” Odin cried. “Wake up! Galian, wake up!”
His brother was still.
Heavily, Odin fell backwards into the wall, rocking, as his hand covered his mouth and long throaty sounds expelled from his mouth.
“Got to be a way,” he started rambling. “Got to be a way. Got to be a way.”
Odin fearfully clasped his hands together, watching his motionless brother with horror in his heart. Suddenly, his eyes lit up with thought.
“Igallik!” he cried.
Odin turned on a heel and bolted out of the nook, leaping up the stairs with huge and flurried strides. In seconds, he was at the bronze doors. The sound of war was drowned out by Odin’s panic, and ignoring Raine’s first rule, Odin unlocked the latch and ripped the bronze doors open.
As the doors drew completely open, a wave of searing heat funnelled into the Temple, forcing Odin to guard his face. Peering from under his sleeve, Odin could see that pockets of flame burned in nearly every corner of the courtyard, and countless monks and Scale were strewn dead across the burning earth and stone. Amid the scene of death, the war was still raging. With the clashing sounds of steel blades, the monks and militia were trading blows, fighting fearlessly for the other’s death.
Worrying about his brother, Odin slammed the bronze doors behind him, and then rushed to the edge of the staircase, scanning the war zone for any sign of Igallik.
It was Raine, however, who first detected Odin. After noticing Odin, Raine began to slash a brutal path through Forneus’s militia, screaming wildly at his Lyran apprentice.
“Odin!” he screamed through the chaos. “Get back inside!”
Odin had to refuse.
With fervent slashes, Raine continued to fight to the staircase, but it would not be soon enough. Odin’s eyes had found the head monk, and with frantic leaps and bounds, Odin flew down the stairway into the courtyard.
“Odin!” Raine cried again. “Get back!”
It was to no avail.
Before Raine could reach him, Odin hit the courtyard floor and took off in pursuit of the head monk.
With war spread out in front of him, Odin sprinted and weaved through the courtyard, tracking the head monk with perilous vigour.
Unaware that Odin was out of the Temple, Igallik stood at a corner wall, thrashing his staff against Forneus’s devout. With a vicious arc, Igallik cracked a Scale into death; however, as the head monk turned emphatically to his next attacker, he did so too hastily. Igallik stumbled into a hoard of Forneus’s militia, and as the whole of their numbers turned on him, the Scale claimed the battle advantage.
Seeing the head monk’s blunder, Odin set his great skills into motion.
With a burst of strides, Odin exploded into an even faster sprint. As he ran, he leapt and hurdled over a series of fallen monks, retrieving idle daggers from their inert hands. After stocking himself with weapons, Odin’s eyes narrowed on Igallik’s attackers, planning their deaths before he would deal them. As he grew within range, Odin let go two precise and lethal whips of his hands, piercing the daggers into the necks of two Scale. Two were down, but three more were still hunting Igallik. Fearlessly, Odin tore even deeper into the fray, dodging and weaving around the monks and Scale; however, his strides had caught the attention of a tall and skinny Scale. As Odin sprinted, the Scale stalked him with slow steps, eying his prey, twisting his axe and timing his attack. With Odin’s attention locked onto the head monk, the Lyran sped up, but as he began to call to Igallik, the Scale leapt out and swung his weapon into Odin’s path. Odin’s senses flushed – there was not enough time to defend. As Odin flinched and the axe careened inwards, suddenly, a monk leapt into the assault, accepting the axe blade into his own back. Odin and the Scale halted. As Odin looked down, Palis looked painfully up, the axe buried deep into his upper back. To Odin’s surprise, Palis was not dead. Instead, the badly wounded monk tossed up a dagger, and as the Scale attempted to throw his fist at Odin, he parried it away and then thrust the blade into the attacker’s throat. A burst of blood splashed from the Scale’s neck, and with bulging eyes, Forneus’s follower fell frantically to the floor, gasping and wheezing as his life bled out in front of him.
With the Scale dead, Odin tried to lift Palis to his feet, but the Mercy totem threw away Odin’s hands.
“Just go,” the Mercy totem begged.
Still shocked by the close call, Odin managed to nod his head, and with dagger in hand, he sprang back into action. The three remaining Scale that were battling with Igallik had cornered the disadvantaged head monk against the monastery’s log wall. Igallik swung his staff in defence, but the onslaught of Scale attacks had pushed him flush against the wood. As one powerful attack removed Igallik of his weapon and a pending attack threatened his life, Odin arrived. He whipped his dagger into the closest Scale’s heart, collapsing him to the earth. He then leapt at the Scale on Igallik’s left, driving his right knee powerfully up into his jaw. As the Scale staggered back and fell, Odin snatched the head monk’s staff from the ground, spun at the last Scale, and used his momentum to swing the wooden staff powerfully into his neck.
The immediate threat had been quelled.
When Igallik recognized Odin, his mind flurried in panic. Odin’s presence, combined with Haren’s deceit, spelled only disaster.
“Odin!” he cried. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Galian!” Odin yelled back. “He needs you now!”
Igallik’s eyes grew wide.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted.
“Galian’s dead!” Odin cried. “He needs you!”
The words cut like a hot blade. As Igallik’s greatest fear constricted his breath, he did his best to feign composure.
“Let’s go!” he ordered.
Immediately, the two set off back to the Temple.
As they ran, Odin swung the staff forward, bowling through the battle as he stormed a path directly to the Temple stairs. As the
militia’s growing numbers continued to tilt the battle to the Scale’s favour, many of the militia began to track Odin and Igallik.
Raine was first to detect the hunters, and as Odin and Igallik ran to the staircase, the old warrior called out orders to the remaining monks.
“Brothers!” he bawled. “Hold the stairs!”
Immediately, the monks of the Throne’s Eye retreated from the core of the courtyard and began to form a phalanx at the base of the Temple’s stairway. As Odin and Igallik grew near to the stairs, Raine cut behind them, driving a powerful shoulder into three of the stalking Scale. The militia members were tossed airborne, and as they crashed back to the earth, Raine swiftly executed each of them with his blade. With blood staining his sword, the old warrior’s eyes fleeted back to the stairs, his pulse raging like one hundred drums. Nimbly, Odin and Igallik had cut behind the last line of monks, sliding past them as they assembled their phalanx. After cutting another flurry of his blade into the Scale, Raine sprinted over to join the formation, but strangely, only some of Forneus’s militia were challenging the human wall. Most of the Scale had retreated to the massive trailer that been had hauled in after the two carts had exploded.
As the monks assumed the final stage of their phalanx, Raine was wary of the militia’s sudden change in strategy. With authority, he yelled back to Igallik and Odin.
“Get him inside!” he cried. “Lock the doors!”
With panic ringing through his soul, Igallik tried his best to comply.
Raine quickly settled into the formation, but as he looked back over the courtyard, he could see increased movement at the militia’s trailer.
“Steady, boys!” he called to his brothers. “Impulse breaks us!”
However, in one moment, Raine realized his battle flaw. Storming out from behind their giant trailer came one hundred Scale, each armed with a bow. As Raine’s gut turned, the militia ignited their arrow tips and drew them back.
“Take cover!” Raine screamed.
With a unified yell, the militia released their flaming arrows. Odin and Igallik had just reached the giant bronze doors. As Igallik turned back and recognized the threat, he knew that there was no time. The fiery arrows lit up the dark sky like a hellish rain, and as they began to arc down, Igallik quickly pulled Odin to the ground and then threw himself over Odin’s body.
The Sons of Animus Letum Page 22