by Jamie Davis
As if his revelation caused it to come about, the doors burst open on the far side of the hall and a horde of fresh guardsmen rushed in to fall upon the already beleaguered Dragoons fighting in the audience hall.
The surge of the Duke’s guardsmen running into the audience hall moved forward and the Duke stepped back as a squad of five of his soldiers moved into place to protect their master.
Hal backed up, parrying attack after attack until he found himself fighting side by side with his daughter against the fresh troops. His daughter’s weapons and battle style melded in a strange way with his own to build a mutual defense against the overwhelming odds. Major Novachik had broken off fighting as well and rejoined the Duke, heading back towards the dais.
“Cari, we need to break one of us free. The Duke and the major are going to stop mom and Jaycee from getting to the throne.”
“Give me just a few more seconds, Dad, and I’ll power up and take out some of these guards. When I do that, you head back towards the dais.”
“Power up?” Hal asked as he parried another pair of sword thrusts. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t worry about that, you’ll see soon enough. Just be ready.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be right behind you.”
The two of them continued to fight side-by-side. A few attacks managed to slip through his armor and defenses.
Health damage — health -8
Health damage — health -5
Cari called out to her father. “Now, Dad, get ready. I am going to activate.”
It would help to know what she meant, but he assumed it was something that would somehow distract the guards allowing him to break free.
He glanced at the dais. Mona was engaged in a furious sword battle with Prince Timron. The Duke and his major headed that way as well. Helen fought a desperate fight against three opponents. Percy had backed Jaycee against the back of the Crystal Throne and stood before her with his cutlass out, fending off one of the guardsmen. The boy had a bloody gash on his forehead.
Hal needed to break away. Whatever Cari planned, she needed to do it now.
Then it happened.
Cari’s outline sort of blurred out as she made her move.
One second she was standing next to him, the next she became a whirling speed demon, moving impossibly fast, faster than the eye could follow, causing her to continually be out of focus.
She slashed and thrust again and again, attacking with both her sword and dagger darting out at impossible speeds.
All around her, the guardsmen who’d outnumbered them moments before started to fall to the ground, dead and dying from lethal precision strikes. The other guards around her began to back away from the spinning machine of death bearing down on them.
Hal took a step backward then turned and ran toward the dais. His heart sank as he saw Mona held by two guardsmen now with Prince Timron’s sword blade at her throat. Young Jaycee was held as well, a guardsman pinning her arms behind her. The little girl was crying. Percy lay unmoving at her feet.
The Duke and his major stood on the dais now. They both turned back to Hal with grins on their faces. They apparently believed they’d won the day.
Hal knew better. His slot machine was still whirling away meaning he still had a chance to bring his luck into play.
He just had to figure out how.
Chapter 42
Cari spun, thrust, and slashed faster than she’d ever attacked before. She had to finish the entire squad of the Duke’s guards before her power-up ended. In the corner of her vision, the clock ticked downward closer and closer to zero.
Her father had been freed up, though. That was important because she saw her mother and Jaycee get captured by the Duke’s men on the dais. She didn’t know if her father would make it there in time to stop the Duke, but she had to try and buy him that time.
The guards fell one at a time beneath her rapid attacks.
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
She twisted low and rolled by another cluster. Her deadly blades flashed and whirled. Four more guards fell.
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
2,500 experience awarded
The notifications spun past her until she lost count. She took wounds but ignored the flashing warnings about her health status. All she knew was she had to keep killing until she could kill no more.
Then she reached an open space. Most of the guards around the dais were down. Cari had two more remaining.
She had only five seconds left in her attack power-up, though. The two guardsmen backpedaled away from her, trying to fight their way backward through the rows of chairs behind them.
Cari bore down on them with relentless fury. A thrust with her rapier followed by a slash with her dagger killed one of the guardsmen.
2,500 experience awarded
The other guardsmen managed to land a slashing attack of his own when her back was turned.
Health damage — health -9
Cari ignored the burning pain of the new wound, just as she ignored the pain from all her injuries. She had to keep going.
With just two seconds remaining on her countdown, she thrust forward as she stepped over a fallen guard to reach his comrade.
The guard backed away, avoiding her thrust as he grabbed one of the wooden chairs, knocking it over in front of Cari forcing her to leap over it.
One second remaining on the clock.
Cari slashed out again, following up with the thrust of her dagger as the clock ran out.
Somehow the guard managed to block her last two attacks with a single downward sweeping parry. He continued backing away figuring she was still going to press the attack.
Pressing the attack wasn’t an option.
A new countdown clock appeared in Cari’s vision as exhaustion overwhelmed her. She sank to her knees. Thirty-five seconds counted down as she paid the price for using her power-up bonus.
As she looked toward the dais. She saw her father standing at the foot of the raised platform. He was talking to the Duke who stood next to Cari’s mom. Prince Timron held a sword at her throat and two guards gripped her arms. Jaycee was being held by another guard.
Amidst the exhaustion that overcame her, Cari felt an overwhelming sense of failure. All around her the returned members of the Dragoons were going down under the onslaught of the Duke’s guardsmen. They were simply outnumbered.
Cari wanted to cry. They’d come so close. They’d come so far. The final thing that broke her down was the site of Helen clutched between two of the guards. She was being held upright despite being sorely wounded. At Helen’s feet lay Percy. The boy moved a little, but his wounds were severe and he would surely die without medical attention.
All was lost.
And yet, Cari heard something in the background. It was that strange whirring mechanical sound in her head again. Just as she’d heard when she thought about needing some luck back in the Palace Square when she tried to rescue the three Dragoons.
She still didn’t know what it was, but it had to have something to do with her parents. Did she possess some other ability that helped her when she was close to her family?
The guardsman she’d been attacking at the end realized Cari had somehow become injured or debilitated. He was joined by four of his comrades and they advanced on her with their swords drawn.
Cari struggled to bring up her blade fend them off. If that mechanical sound in her head was going to come into play and help her, it had better do so soon. She didn’t have much time.
Behind her a crash sounded, followed by the crackle of musket and pistol fire. Cari couldn’t turn around to see who or what caused it. She assumed it was more of the Duke’s guardsmen coming to put down the rebellion. She had fifteen more seconds to go in her power down as the f
ive guardsmen advanced on her.
A pair of pistol shots sounded from directly behind her.
Two of the guardsmen spun away as bullets struck them in the chest. Then two figures charged past her, running into the three remaining guardsmen, swords flashing in a coordinated attack, coming to her defense.
Cari smiled.
Rodrigo had managed to hold off the attackers back in the corridor, he’d met up with Stefan somewhere along the way. Now they were here, once again coming to her rescue. The sound of fighting behind her told her the Tandon and City Guard forces had arrived from outside. Maybe things weren’t as bad as she thought.
With the cooldown clock down to ten seconds, Cari looked over to the dais once again. Her father was still talking. Why wasn’t he doing something? Talking wasn’t going to do anything.
Cari’s eyes caught movement behind the Duke. It was her mother. Mona met her daughter’s gaze and smiled.
What?
Her mom’s hands hovered at her sides. In a single motion, she reached around with her right hand yanking free from the guard holding that arm and tapped the large jewel in the center of her utility belt’s buckle.
The guardsmen grabbed her arm again and pulled it back behind her. As he did, silvery arcs of lightning spun around her mother in a cyclone of electricity. It circled her body from her feet all the way up to her head.
The two guardsmen gripping her arms jolted into frozen positions of agony as the electricity coursed through their bodies. Their hair began to smoke and char.
When the silver swirls of electricity dissipated, the two guardsmen slammed to the ground, their charred bodies smoking a little from the powerful electrical charge that had run through them.
At the same instant, the guards fell, Cari’s clock ran to zero. Her strength had returned and she stood as the strange whirling sound in her head stopped, followed by the same bell chime she’d heard in the Palace Square days before.
Hal took advantage of the distraction of his wife’s electrical display to leap forward at the Duke, leading with a dagger in one hand.
Her mother bent down and picked up one of the guardsman’s swords from the ground and slashed at a startled Prince Timron, backing him away from the throne. As her father advanced on the Duke, batting away the nobleman’s sword attacks, one of his hands flipped out, throwing two knives in rapid succession. His final remaining throwing knives hit the guardsman holding Jaycee.
The man cried out and fell backward, one of the knives embedded in his throat, the other in his shoulder.
Jaycee was free, but Cari saw Major Novachik move towards the little girl.
“No!” Cari shouted.
Her strength was back and Cari charged at the dais. Unable to reactivate her burst of speed again today, Cari still focused on forcing herself forward faster than she’d ever run before. The Major stood over Jaycee, his sword raised over his head.
Cari’s heart was in her throat. If he killed her, the battle was over.
She raced forward, moving faster than ever before and dove at the Major. She flicked her wrist, extending her arms and her sword blade whipped out, catching the Major behind the knees. She didn’t completely sever his hamstrings, however, it did cause his legs to buckle a bit, stopping his downward stroke at the young princess.
Cari slid by on the smooth marble floor and rolled to her feet with Jaycee at her back and the major in front of her. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size, you bastard.”
“Gladly, my dear. What took you so long?”
If things had been moving quickly before, everything happened now in what seemed like a single second. Cari, her mother, and her father were all locked in desperate, one on one combat with adversaries of equal or greater ability.
All was not lost, however. Across the hall Harley Denne led a group of twenty-five city watchmen into the hall, falling upon the rear of the Duke’s guardsmen with vicious attacks.
At the same moment Liam, Chance, and Thad ran in with a large group of Merrick’s canal workers at their back led by the underground leader himself. The reinforcements evened the odds inside the hall and things started to shift in the audience hall once again.
Of course, all of it would mean nothing if she didn’t defeat Novachik and keep him from killing the princess.
Cari activated her regeneration ability after seeing her health status reach the twenty-five percent level. She was going to need those points back in the coming fight. As if to add punctuation to that, the major’s sword flipped out, sneaking past a parry that was just a second too late. The slashing thrust cut across her waist. More health damage appeared in her display.
Health damage — health -12
Snarling through the pain as her regeneration ability continued for the next sixty seconds, Cari drove forward with her own series of attacks and drew blood from both the Major’s chest and his forearm.
Behind her, Hal pressed in with attacks on the Duke of Charon. The Duke backed away, feinting retreat, then charged forward with a desperate ploy of his own. It looked like it could go either way based on the single glance Cari was able to spare in that direction.
She heard more clashes of steel on steel behind her and knew Prince Timron and her mother were similarly engaged.
Cari cried out as the Major’s sword slashed across her left shoulder. Despite the ongoing regeneration, her arm went limp and her blade fell clattering to the stone floor.
Novachik didn’t waste time waiting for her to get her bearings. He pressed forward to finish her off.
Cari had to perform a double acrobatic dodge to avoid the follow-up attacks from her opponent.
Both were successful.
He seemed not to care, and he laughed as he drove his attacks in at her.
His laughter infuriated Cari.
Snarling, she rolled through another acrobatic move towards her laughing opponent, successfully dodging another of his attacks.
Cari’s roll put her where she’d wanted to be and she dropped her dagger, picking up her sword with her right hand. She’d practiced often using her ambidexterity skill, but this was the first time in a while she’d had an opportunity to use it in actual combat. She hoped she would be able to slip past the Major’s formidable defenses with her off-hand.
She bounced up to her feet and blocked the next incoming attack, catching it on her blade and sliding forward until the guards of their weapons met. It brought Cari and Novachik face-to-face, barely inches apart.
“You know, my dear, it’s going to be a shame to kill such a pretty thing as you. It would be nice to keep you around for some more personal entertainment. If only you weren’t so dangerous.”
Cari resisted the taunt meant to make her anger lead to a mistake. Instead, she retorted with a taunt of her own. “You couldn’t handle me, Major. I am a better woman than you’ve ever seen. Especially since I can do things like this.”
Punctuating the final sentence, Cari brought her knee up into the Major’s groin with enough force to lift him off the ground a half inch or so.
The strength of the Major’s arm slackened as he reached down with his free hand to cup his injured genitals. He backed away, hunched over. Cari slashed out with a sword once, twice, and again a third time, opening broad cuts on Novachik’s chest and shoulders.
He managed to beat away a few other attacks and somehow kept her blade from finding his throat. He forced himself to stand up straight, despite the pain in his groin. Anger flashed in his eyes. “I’ll get you for that, Cari Dix.”
“Come and get me, Major. We’ve both had a chance to fight to a draw, now it’s time to finish this.”
Novachik ran forward, charging at Cari.
She did the same from the opposite direction.
The major ducked under her sweeping slash at his head and lunged forward under her guard to try to run her through with his sword to her midsection.
Cari twisted aside causing him to only slash at her hip with the edge of his blade.<
br />
Health damage — health -7
Cari cut downward with her recovery stroke, hacking deep into the major’s extended forearm.
His hand spasmed as his blade fell from the wounded arm.
Cari pushed onward as the major backpedaled to get away from her. His hand fumbled for his dagger to try an attempt at defense but Cari was too quick for him.
With a final lunging thrust, she drove the point of her sword through his chest, piercing his heart.
The Major stared at the blade in his chest and back up at Cari for a moment, then he nodded as if to salute her. His eyes glazed over and he slid off her blade to fall to the floor.
10,000 experience awarded
Cari spun around to search for another target. Her father stood over the lifeless body of the Duke of Charon, his eyes wide in surprise with one of Hal’s daggers jutting up from his chest.
Cari’s mother stood next to Jaycee, holding the girl close to her side. There was no sign of Prince Timron. She didn’t see his body anywhere.
They’d done it.
The fighting was mostly finished, though a few clashing blades still sounded in other parts of the hall. Cari accessed her comm chip and reconnected with her holoprojector, using it to amplify her voice once again. “People of the Crystal City, guardsmen of the Duke of Charon, Dragoons, Soldiers of Tandon, and city watchmen, cease your fighting. The Duke is dead and the princess bids you to stop. Turn and behold the crowning of your new Empress.”
The clash of blades stopped and a hush fell over the room. All eyes turned to face the dais as the Archbishop lowered the heavy crown on the little girl’s head. Balancing the bejeweled, golden circlet, Jaycee crossed over and sat down on the Crystal Throne.
It was done.
Quest completed — infiltrate the palace and crown a new Empress
60,000 experience awarded