I couldn’t make sense of the way Neville changed whenever he was in a life-and-death situation. Outside of the battlefield, he was a petulant wimp. But now he carried himself with more confidence than the twins put together.
Nathan scoffed dryly, and he squared his shoulders a little. “Alright,” he said with a sigh. “Lead the way, Nick.”
I followed the corridor until it curved to the left. From what I could tell, the chamber the knights were fighting in was in the opposite direction, but there was no option to veer right.
We came to the intersection of five different passageways, and I tried to get my bearings. The longer I tarried, the more likely the squires might turn to despair. I needed to keep their morale up, but I didn’t want to get us lost within the maze either.
I turned to the others for some suggestion on which path to take. Their expressions were blank, and I could see they were relying on me to make the right decision.
“Let’s take the far right one,” I said after some thought. “It’ll lead us back to the knights.” I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed the best option. I really had no clue which direction to go, and I was worried I’d take the others further into the maze. It might take us hours to find a way out, and the knights could be dead by then.
Moses and the others had seemed so confident, but I knew basic math. Four against twelve weren’t good odds. I wasn’t sure how much help four more squires could be, but we had to count for something.
I was the first to enter the far-right passageway, and this particular section of the maze didn’t have skylights. The green light from my rapier shone like a torch, but the passageway curved and constantly bent so I could only see a few meters ahead at any one time.
The atmospheric readings on my visor showed a slight shift in temperature, and I stopped walking. I touched the button on my temple, and my visor retracted. A cool breeze tickled the left side of my face, so I pointed my rapier in the direction of the temperate air, and the light illuminated what seemed like a solid wall.
Then where was the air coming from?
“What is it?” Neville asked.
“I can feel a breeze coming through,” I said.
“Must be vented,” Nathan mused.
I closed my helmet visor and fired up the map. I smiled when I noticed the file also contained an overlay of the ventilation systems. My smile turned into a full-mouthed grin as I determined the vents here were lining up in the correct spots according to the map. The shafts in the ceiling ran in straight lines, parallel to one another, so we’d be able to navigate our way out from the labyrinth much easier inside the shafts than on the ground.
I explained my theory to the other squires.
Richard’s eyebrows rose after I finished. “Damn, that’s smart.”
I gave him a little smile and searched the wall for the origin of the air. After a little effort, I found the opening a few meters from the ground: a metal grate a meter from the corridor’s corner. The metal was painted the same color as the stone walls, and it had been difficult to spot in the low light conditions.
“Help me up,” I said to the squires, and they got beneath me so I could reach the vent.
Flanagan’s runesong had filled my muscles with strength, so I didn’t have too much trouble tearing the metal frame from the wall. I dropped the crumpled scrap onto the ground and then put my head through the shaft. Once I adjusted the angle of the two-handed axe on my magnetons, I was able to fit my whole body inside effortlessly. Although Richard and Nathan were larger than me, I figured they’d be able to get inside.
I held my rapier up through the vent and triggered its magic glow. With the light, I saw that this shaft ran straight for at least a hundred meters in what I estimated was the direction we needed to go.
“What do you see?” Nathan asked through the comms.
“From what I can tell, this shaft runs in a straight line to the west,” I replied. “I’ll move down a little, then Neville can enter. We’ll both shuffle along a bit, keeping our distance, then the twins can come in.”
The squires echoed their agreement and went about the task. After a few minutes, all four of us were inside the shaft. It creaked under our weight, and we were careful to spread out as far as we could so the whole thing didn’t come crashing down.
I crawled about thirty feet when the entire structure started to rumble.
“Uhh . . . that doesn’t sound good,” Neville said.
The bolts holding the duct up screamed, and my stomach dropped as the tube we were in tore free from the structure. We hit the ground, and the metal crumpled around me. I couldn’t crawl out from the duct because the fall had distorted its shape, and it was now tight around me like a grappling hold.
“Are you guys alright?” I called out.
“I think you’re sitting on my face,” Neville said, his voice muffled.
I could feel something underneath my ass, and I guessed it was him.
I stifled a chuckle. “Sorry, brother. You twins still alive?” I didn’t hear any response. “Nathan? Richard?”
The metal above me screeched as light flooded into the mangled duct, and Richard finished sawing through. Nathan gave me his hand, and I grabbed it so he could pull me out. Neville came out after me, and then we took stock of where we’d fallen.
The entire duct had collapsed into a chamber filled with Runetech armor. The room was at least twenty meters long and ten meters wide. There wasn’t a section without some kind of expensive-looking equipment stacked on a shelf or hanging from the ceiling.
Tiny bits of mortar filled my helmet’s filter, so I deactivated my visor while the system replenished itself. The other squires did the same, and their faces lit up as they inspected the armor and weapons inside the chamber.
“This must have been what the king was really hiding in the east wing,” Nathan said as he admired a pauldron with skulls embossed into its silver surface. “This stuff must be worth a fortune.”
“I bet this is Runetech the king has confiscated over the years,” I said, recalling the city-wide ban on the use of Triumvirate magical equipment.
“If the Tachionese are so poor, why didn’t he sell this stuff?” Richard asked as he scanned a falchion with is prot-belt.
The treasures outside this armory wouldn’t make for profitable interstellar trade; this Runetech, however, could probably be exchanged for enough food to feed the entire planet for years.
I could only think of one reason why the king might store the equipment in this cramped armory rather than sell it off.
“The goddess frowns upon Runetech, right?” I asked the other squires, hoping they’d follow my train of thought. “The king seemed like a jerk, but he appeared to care about his religion a lot. I think he hasn’t sold any of it because it would be evil or something.”
“Riiiight,” Richard said. “Does that mean we can have it? He’s not using it, after all.”
I looked at the armor all around me. We could take something, and the king would never know. He’d stolen it from others, after all. My stomach churned, and I realized I was trying to justify robbery.
“We’re squires in the Royal Trident Forces,” I said with more authority than I’d intended. “We work for our equipment by either defeating enemies in combat or paying for it with KPs. We don’t steal it.”
“Yeah, Nick’s right,” Nathan said as he slapped his brother over the head and snatched the pauldrons from him. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Richard rubbed the back of his head. “I was only asking. It was a theoretical question. I wasn’t actually going to take anything.”
Nathan rolled his eyes, and then something caught his attention. He frowned and walked over to a spiked mace. I watched him remove a small square of fabric from where it had caught on a point, and my heart slammed in my chest.
Nathan held up the red and blue pinstriped cloth. “This is Rutheni, right?”
“Shit!” I yelled as my visor slid over my face. “Visors
on! Weapons out!”
We’d been so enraptured by the priceless equipment we’d forgotten all about the dangers within the labyrinth. It looked like a Rutheni had snagged themselves on the weapon and torn the fabric from their tabard.
I scanned the room for any heat signatures, but remembered Olav saying the Rutheni knights were capable of hiding them. My heart pounded as I realized we’d gotten ourselves trapped inside this armory with cloaked enemies.
But I was determined not to let any of my friends die.
Chapter 20
“Anyone see anything?” I whispered as I circled the palace armory with the three squires beside me.
The equipment dangling from cables drilled into the ceiling didn’t move at all, but they made it difficult to see any hiding Rutheni. My gut knotted as I realized looking for enemies was futile since even my thermal recognition system wasn’t getting any hits.
“Negative,” Neville muttered. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t have company.”
All it would take would be a slight tremor from one of the items suspended in mid-air to let me know the location of an enemy. After a few seconds, I cursed in frustration. The knights in this armory knew they would only need to stay perfectly still to remain unseen.
My mouth went dry as my thermal detector showed an orange blotch behind the armory’s door. The life form on the other side was either leaning against the door, or it emitted a heat signature strong enough for my systems to pick it up through five-inch titanium.
“You guys see that?” I asked with a nod to the door, and the other squires grunted their acknowledgment.
“It’s huge,” Nathan gasped with disbelief. “Way too big to be a knight.”
“Then what the fuck is it?” Richard asked from beside me, his sword raised to strike and his shield clutched to his side. His equipment trembled a little in his hands, and I could understand his fear.
The fallen ventilation shaft separated us from the armory’s entry, so if something managed to breach the door, the obstruction might slow it down a little.
The red blotch grew larger, and I could only hope whatever was on the other side would be incapable of breaching the door. The entire chamber shook as the thing pounded on the steel. Equipment rattled in the shelves, and items suspended in midair spun on their wires. If Rutheni were hiding elsewhere in the room, now was the perfect time for them to attack us.
Sweat poured all over my body, and a slight buzz washed over my legs and arms as the recycling systems went to work. I shuffled on my feet as the banging grew louder, and my gaze flickered across the armory for any movement from cloaked enemies.
I heard a thunderous sound and turned to see the door implode into a shower of granite pebbles and chunks of steel.
A monstrous creature bounded inside, covered in debris from the destroyed door. Silver fur covered its hulking body, and it rose from all fours to stand on its hind legs. The monster was at least three meters tall, bulging muscles roped around its frame, and its twin eyes glowed.
I knew now what the bears on the Rutheni knights’ shields represented. This was one of their summoned monsters. The artistic rendition I remembered couldn’t encapsulate the sheer size and monstrous appearance of this bear.
“Anyone got a plan of attack?” Richard asked.
The color of the monster’s eyes shifted from shades of orange and red, as though a fire writhed within the orbs. The bear’s body shuddered, and the veins beneath its fur ignited like coursing rivers of molten lava.
“That doesn’t look good,” Nathan said.
I swallowed back my fear. “I’ll distract it while you three hack the ever-living shit out of it.”
As I moved toward the monster, it opened its mouth and let out a massive roar. A ball of molten liquid exploded from its maw, and I dodged it with a quick sidestep. The fiery ball slammed into a Runetech sword, and the item melted like an upside-down candle when the substance touched it.
Uh oh.
“Don’t let that stuff hit you!” I yelled to the others. “We’ll need to work as a team to take the bear down.”
The creature bounded after me as I waved my rapier and my left arm. I skirted around the fallen ventilation shaft, keeping the object between the bear and me. Although the creature was huge, it’d take a decent leap to clear the obstruction. The other squires stayed outside the bear’s line of sight, trailing behind it while it focused its attention on me.
The monster’s every step left a flaming footprint in the granite bricks. The squires charged the bear, but their weapons missed completely as the summoned creature vaulted over the fallen shaft with a roar.
I’d done too good a job of making the bear want to chase me. Its claws extended as it swiped at me. An instinctual backward step got me out of range, thus preventing my insides from spilling out of my stomach like a gutted fish.
I couldn’t see myself keeping it at bay with only a rapier, so I spun behind a robust looking stone equipment rack. The bear swatted the shelf aside like it was made of plastic. The equipment inside skittered across the ground, and I quickly tumbled away before the monster could attack me.
I rolled to my feet as Neville jumped behind the bear and thrust his rapier into the monster’s furry hind leg. The creature let out a howl as soon as the squire’s blade pierced its body, but the howl sounded more like it was filled with annoyance rather than agony.
The bear spun to its side and made a swipe at Neville, but the squire was half a moment quicker, and he managed to yank out his blade before the monster’s claws tore him into hamburger meat. Relief filled me as my fellow squire made it out of harm’s way.
Nathan came around the monster’s left while Richard took its right. The beast shook its head in fury and swatted the squires aside like they were gnats. They slammed into another stone equipment shelf with an explosive thud. I ran over to Richard since he was closest to me, and helped him up. Nathan was a few meters away, and I saw him stagger to his feet.
We’d all taken refuge behind cases of Runetech gear, and I could see the bear’s thermal image on my visor. Equipment clattered, and shelves exploded into chunks of rock as the frustrated monster searched for its prey.
“The fucker is too strong,” Nathan said over comms.
“How the hell do we take it down?” Richard said.
“It’s futile,” Neville said. “I buried the length of my blade in its back, and it didn’t bat an eye.”
The creature lumbered out from behind a shelf in front of me. Its neck was turned away so it couldn’t see me, and I poked my head out to get a look at it. Blood-like lava dripped from the bear’s wound and hit the ground with a hiss.
We’d injured it.
“It’s not invulnerable!” I screamed to the others.
My limbs tingled with excitement as I realized the bear could actually be killed. As long as we avoided its molten blood, we could take it down without too much trouble.
I jumped out from cover and sprinted toward the bear. It turned to face me with its massive head. I was about to plunge my rapier into its ribs, but it roared again, and an oozing ball of fire belched from its mouth. I dove hard to the ground in front of the bear before rolling across the tile to avoid getting hit by a second projectile. As I slid between the monster’s legs, I heard the twins scream as they hacked the bear with their swords. Lava cascaded from the wounds, and smoke rose from the ground where the molten blood landed.
After rolling to stand on the left side of the monster, I lunged forward to pierce the bear’s tough hide with the end of my rapier. I pulled the blade out and skewered it five more times. With each jab, the creature spun in an attempt to get to me, but I evaded the monster while the other squires harassed it with their weapons.
The monster screamed as its blazing veins shifted color, illuminating a sickly green beneath its fur as the rapier’s poison flooded the creature’s bloodstream. It snapped its head back and forth in agony. With a deafening roar that spouted a massive explosi
on of fire, it collapsed.
I scrambled behind a shelf of gauntlets to avoid the molten rain, and the other squires took cover where they could. My back heated up and I rolled away as the shelf behind me melted with a hissing sound. The lava ate the metal rack and the Runetech equipment inside it. The items sparked as the Arcane Dust used to craft their runes ignited like a firecracker, and the smell of charred metal stung my nostrils.
“Ahh!” Nathan screamed from a few meters left of me as he stripped off his left boot. A glob of the fiery sludge had eaten a hole through the boot’s heel, but he’d gotten it off before the lava reached his flesh.
Nathan exhaled with relief. “That was close.”
“Intense,” Richard added.
Neville grunted as he removed his rapier from the dead bear’s hide. The surface of the blade was singed, but it looked to be mostly unharmed. The weapon’s active runes had probably protected it from the full-force of the bear’s molten blood.
A slow clap sounded from the far end of the armory, and a Rutheni knight suddenly materialized as he walked toward us. It was the short knight who had addressed Moses, and he wore a smile even though we’d just killed his summoned beast.
I gripped my rapier, and we fanned out in preparation of facing our new enemy. A small section of the man’s tabard was torn, and he held a glowing poleaxe in his right hand. The knight stopped five meters away and leaned on his weapon lazily.
“An excellent display of teamwork and fighting prowess!” he said in the tone of a theater director. “I was inspecting the king’s armory and managed to lock myself inside. This labyrinth set has some interesting tricks. Unfortunately, the knights under my command didn’t respond to my comms, and then you four dropped from the ceiling. I thought perhaps you might be knights, so I summoned my Bane Bear. Due to an oversight on my part, the creature appeared outside this room.”
I shared looks with the other squires, and they seemed just as confused by this knight as I was. We thought him to be a deadly foe leading an ensemble of knights and soldiers inside the palace to kill us. But now, he seemed like a petulant nobleman, one who thought he was directing a play rather than fighting a battle.
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