Emerilia Series Box Set 3

by Michael Chatfield

  “Good. Now give Tortessin a fighting chance.” Josh dove into the shadows again and came out where Dwayne stood with Esa at the teleport pad.

  “Esa, secure this city. Dwayne, once our people are all through, I’ll head to Haugr with my stealth types. We’ll take out the guards at the next teleport pad and you lot come in right behind us. Esa, as soon as that barrier is down and that wall is opened up, we’re getting the hell outta Dodge!” Josh grinned. The last Stone Raider made it through the teleport pad.

  “Dial up Haugr!” Dwayne barked.

  Verlun disappeared as the event horizon collapsed. The circular pad started to move as new runes shifted into position and the circles rotated into place.

  ***

  Malsour ran with the rest of the party. There was no one on the streets except the few defenders running between positions. An alarm started up in the distance before spreading across the city like wildfire.

  A group of five guards came out ahead of them, two being caught in a fiery blast, another getting a spear from Steve, and the last two cut apart by Anna.

  “I’m surprised you’re not Mana exhausted,” Malsour yelled to Anna.

  “I have a rather high Intelligence, but my strength is my Willpower. I can regenerate Mana like no tomorrow, so I don’t get those long headaches like the rest of you schmucks.” Anna grinned.

  “Hey! As a refined schmuck, I take offense to that,” Steve said.

  “So, how’s Alkao?” Suzy asked.

  “Time and place?” Anna complained.

  “What? It’s not like we’ve got much chance to talk to you when you’re training all of the DCA how to fly and fight!” Induca added. “Sooo, how are things?”

  “Guards on the wall!” Dave called out.

  Malsour chuckled at Anna’s relieved expression. His darklings speared the guards on the wall before they could raise an alarm.

  They came to a halt at the base of the wall.

  “Dave, you deal with the runes. I can deal with the wall,” Malsour said.

  “Can do.”

  Malsour looked for weaknesses in the walls. They had been fused together rather well.

  Dave conjured items directly into the walls and then removed them, destroying runes quickly and effectively. Finally, he broke the ones that stopped people tampering with the wall.

  Malsour started creating weaknesses in the wall, destabilizing it.

  Dave continued destroying the runes that strengthened the wall.

  “Incoming!” Suzy called out, her Air creations acting as scouts.

  “Steve, stay here with Suzy. The rest of you, move out and intercept the ones charging at us. Malsour, is there anything we can do to speed this all up?”

  “A nice explosion would be good in a bit. Just need five minutes to break this thing apart enough so that it leaves a big enough opening,” Malsour said.

  There was a flash of light to their right a kilometer or two away, followed by a rumbling noise. Malsour looked up to see a section of the wall crumbling where the explosion came from.

  “What was that?” Induca moved farther down the street and found a good position to defend from.

  “Mana barrier buffer—looks like we got to it and destroyed it. That energy had to go somewhere. Unstable runes make great hand grenades,” Dave said.

  “Hand grenades? That took out a wall!” Suzy said.

  “You got any spare?” Lox asked Dave.

  “Oh, I could whip up a batch,” Dave said. Small spheres appeared in his hands, energy snaking from one of the floating soul gems into the creations. “Twist the two halves, then throw it. You’ve got five seconds until they go off.”

  “Thanks, Dave.” Lox walked away.

  “Always the coolest gear,” Malsour heard Gurren say as Lox handed him a few of the “grenades.” Suzy rubbed the bridge of her nose as the rest of the girls were asking Anna again about Alkao.

  “Somehow, doesn’t feel like we’re in the middle of a war zone,” Malsour muttered as he shifted a structural support just so, working cracks into the foundations and across to the rest of the wall. Parts started to crumble, falling from the wall and onto the ground outside.

  Lox and Gurren tested out their new weapons, throwing them into the middle of the arriving guards. The guards let out their war cries; fire and wind raced to meet them before the grenades went off.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic.” Anna scratched her head. The grenades had left craters a half foot deep and spread shrapnel out over thirty meters.

  The guards might be buffed, but high-velocity shrapnel tore through their barriers and bodies.

  “I’m done. Let’s get out of here.” Malsour stepped away from the wall.

  Deia started to cast a spell.

  “Let’s get a bit farther away before we do that.” Malsour started to jog while the others followed.

  “Blow it up now,” Malsour said when he guessed they were far enough away.

  Deia looked back and pointed her hand at the wall.

  A ball of burning fury raced at the wall. It hit with what sounded like a thunderclap.

  The wall buckled; parts were blown outward as it set off a chain reaction. For a hundred meters in every direction, the wall came apart as if it were made of dominos.

  “Hey look, it’s the southern army! Hey guys!” Steve said as if greeting a nursery class, waving at the southern army waiting on the other side of the wall.

  “Maybe they need an incentive?” Dave asked.

  “The damn wall’s opened more than a well-used Mithril vein!” Gurren complained.

  “I’ve got it!” Induca cast a spell into the sky.

  Malsour looked up as it blossomed into words.

  Welcome to Emaren, southern army!

  Malsour and Suzy shared a look with Deia. The rest fell into laughter. Malsour couldn’t keep up his unimpressed expression anymore and snorted at Induca’s antics.

  “Next stop—Haugr! Wonder what the capital is like.” Steve sounded genuinely interested.

  ***

  Overseer Rendar looked down over Haugr. It was the mage’s guild’s duty to watch over battles. They made sure that war followed the rules decreed by the goddess Fire and reinforced by the mage’s guild.

  The guild and college within Haugr had been closed. Those who lived in the town were allowed to leave, or bring their families to the guild for protection. No one dared to attack the mage’s guild or college buildings directly. Here and there, they were hit by errant magic or debris moving through the skies.

  The Mana barriers took care of the weak secondary effects.

  Rendar watched as groups of mages dropped out of illusion spells to deal with those who decided to do as they wanted in times of war. Rendar glanced at their actions, looking away after a few minutes, moving over the city, unseen by those below. There were few who could actually harm him in the city below.

  He yawned and looked at the royal palace. Spells were barely making it out of the palace’s Mana barriers. Esamael’s mages weren’t as strong as the palace’s, but there were a lot of them, enough to encircle the royal palace and work together to break spells apart before they reached Esamael’s people.

  The few who did make it through landed on the mobile barriers that covered the ground troops securing all avenues of approach to the palace.

  The final attack was about to begin.

  “I wonder what will happen to Per’ush if Esamael wins? Probably increase the taxes again. The man loves his taxes.” Rendar stretched in mid-air.

  He had been alive through Sigaird’s brother, father, and great-uncle’s rule. He’d watched over Ashal for a time. Now, those people were one hell of a pain to watch. War was nothing new to him; it was just another way to alter the balance of Emerilia.

  The teleport pad flickered off for a few minutes. Rendar glanced over to it. “Can’t even control a teleport pad correctly. Well, this is probably not going to be better than it was.” Rendar sighed.

  He turned
to look back at the palace. The teleport pad opened and shadowy figures leaped out of it. In minutes, there was not a living guard around the teleport pad.

  “This is new,” Rendar said with interest, looking at the ragtag-looking group headed through the teleport pad. Their gear seemed almost random but Rendar used Appraisal. His eyebrow rose in interest. He extended out his senses, his bored expression becoming alarmed.

  Their gear was strong, much stronger than he’d seen on any other fighting force in Gudalo. It wasn’t only that, but their auras. Nearly every single person had an aura comparable to his own.

  He opened up a voice chat. It took a few moments before it was accepted.

  “Overseer Edwin, this is Overseer Rendar. I have a situation.”

  “Better be important. I don’t like being woken up.” Edwin yawned.

  “I have a group entering the battle between Sigaird and Esamael. Most of them have an aura as powerful as my own,” Rendar said.

  “One second.” Edwin sounded much more serious and less tired from his ordeal. A few minutes later, he was back. The group had now advanced through the city; stealth types moved ahead to take out sentries, the main body not breaking their pace as they charged onward.

  “It’s the Stone Raiders. Seems that Esamael attacked them earlier today. They won their battle, took out Emaren’s walls to let General Tortessin in, and now they’re taking out Esamael and his main army. They don’t mess around, it looks like.” Edwin muttered the last part. “I’m going to wake some people and send support your way if they act up. Though till then, find a Josh Giles. He’s their leader. Make sure he knows the rules. It seems like he does, but we haven’t had any actual overseers watching them in battle.”

  Oh joy.

  “I’ll do my best to find him.” Rendar’s eyes flicked from one person to the next, or the shadows, trying to find the man.

  “Good luck,” Edwin said.

  “I have a feeling I’ll need it.”

  “Yeah, and I feel like I won’t be getting much sleep tonight!” Edwin said, joining him in his thoughts.

  The chat closed as Rendar continued to look for Josh.

  ***

  “Look, fireworks!” Steve said as they came out of the teleport pad, leaving Emaren behind and entering Haugr.

  “Seriously, what did you upload into him?” Suzy asked Anna.

  Anna just shrugged. “Some of the Internet, some random videos and pictures and commonly used sayings. Then I don’t know—one-hit wonder songs and memes, whatever they are. A lot of people viewed them so I thought that they might be useful.”

  Suzy paled as she looked at Anna as if she had just killed her cat. “You uploaded memes into his head! What the hell is wrong with you!” Suzy yelled. She looked at Steve in horror.

  Anna was stunned as she thought she saw tears growing in Suzy’s eyes. She moved away a bit and looked at Suzy with a worried expression.

  They continued on their way, passing dead soldiers as well as guards and civilians.

  Dave was using his Touch to look through the city; he updated his map on his interface at the same time, pointing out where sentries were and major groups of soldiers and mages.

  He stopped marking his map when he found something odd. “Malsour, I need you to take me to the city rune,” Dave said suddenly.

  “Sure.” Malsour prepared a spell.

  “Wait, why?” Deia asked.

  “There are some mages messing around with the runes there. They look like they’re altering it and there are dead bodies in there, so I don’t think that they’re Sigaird’s people,” Dave said.

  “They’re going to change the rune to buff themselves instead of Sigaird’s forces?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah,” Dave said.

  “Okay, then we’re coming with you,” Deia said firmly.

  “Fine with me.” Dave looked to Malsour.

  “I can do that,” he said.

  Dave hid his relief. Having Deia out on the battlefield was seriously playing with his nerves. Although he was keeping up appearances of not worrying, he had a couple of invisible spheres rotating around Deia to protect her and their child.

  He knew that she wouldn’t have stayed behind, but it played on his nerves and diverted his attention. All he wanted to do was take her somewhere far away and safe. Seeing as she wouldn’t let that happen, staying right by her side was his next best option.

  The ground around them started to descend, slowly at first, picking up speed as dirt was pushed to the side and other materials under Malsour’s control pulled and pushed them onward and toward their destination.

  Suzy put power into her staff, turning it into a light as they descended.

  Dave shared a map with them, adding in where he sensed the mages and their protection detail around the rune.

  It was a large circular room with a massive magical circle in the center. Around it were other circular rooms with Magical Circuits embedded into the ground there, turning the whole thing into one massive magical formation.

  Earth mages and artificers were altering the different Magical Circuits that came together, changing the formation to their needs.

  Soldiers watched one stairwell that ran up into the city guard’s barracks. There were more soldiers up above. It had been some time since they saw combat and they were walking around, growing increasingly bored.

  Dave conjured some of the grenades; they added to his floating devices.

  “Dave, what is with all of the spheres?” Lox asked.

  “Different tools. They’re rather inexpensive, running off my soul gem, and they’d take a few minutes to make. Keep them just in case as my backup plans,” Dave said.

  “How are you feeling?” Deia’s hand found his in the darkness. Dave sensed the fear in her voice.

  “I’m okay, just a whole whack of knowledge running around my cranium, and plenty of ideas to test out.” Dave pulled her close to him and squeezed her hand.

  “When you collapsed, I didn’t know what happened...” Deia trailed off, looking at the base of Malsour’s magical lift.

  “I’m fine, don’t worry,” Dave said, side hugging her and kissing her.

  She hugged him tightly. Dave could almost sense the sea of emotions under Deia’s tough exterior. He squeezed her tighter to reassure her.

  “Be there in twenty seconds,” Malsour announced.

  Deia and Dave untangled themselves, pushing their emotions away for the time being. They had people to fight.

  Everyone readied their weapons and their spells. Dave squeezed Deia’s hand before she made sure everyone was in position and started to glow brighter. Dave pulled out his conjuring rods, changing into a shield and sword by default.

  “Three, two, one!” Malsour said as they came out the opposite side of the stairs, right into the middle of the magical formation.

  The artificers, soldiers, and mages looked at them in shock.

  Fireballs, blades of cutting air, Mana spearheads, metal spears, and Dave’s spheres rushed outward.

  Esamael’s people snapped out of their shock, but it was too late for many of them, as they died trying to pull up barriers or protect themselves with their arms.

  Soldiers rushed to fight them; their supporting mages called on their Mana to form spells. Dave’s grenades went off among the soldiers. Steve, Gurren, and Lox had been running as soon as they entered the room. They cut through those who faced them and in minutes the fighting was all over.

  Malsour coughed weakly, looking pale as sweat covered his face.

  “You okay?” Deia asked.

  “Yeah, just getting close to Mana exhaustion,” Malsour said.

  “All right, everyone move to the stairs. More of Esamael’s goons are bound to show up sooner rather than later!” Her words got them moving to the stairs.

  “Malsour, if you change forms, will you recover faster?” Dave asked.

  “Yes.” Malsour nodded.

  “Good. I think we have enough room in here for y
ou. I can think of a way to alter these runes, but I can’t do all the heavy lifting of moving all the metals and carving out the new runes.” Dave moved to the different rooms around the main Magical Circuit, memorizing each of the different interlinking Magical Circuits to understand the magical formation. He stabbed his sword into the floor in places, breaking runes here and there.

  Malsour let out a relieved sound as his body grew and elongated; his tail and wings moved outward as his face changed and scales covered his body. He curled up in the middle formation.

  “It will take me a few minutes to recover.” Malsour lay down his head.

  “No worries,” Dave said.

  “Suzy, get some drones up the stairs. We need to know what’s up there,” Deia said.

  “On it,” Suzy said.

  “This is a mess,” Dave muttered, focused on the magical formation in front of him. The different parts were all in states of change. The mages were having a terrible time dealing with the anti-tampering magic.

  Dave conjured and destroyed, used his sword and broke magical spells that had been overlaying the circuits, softening them up for Malsour as a new Magical Circuit and formation filled his mind.

  “Oh, hmm, if I did that, then I could counteract their symbol. It only needs a common object with the same or similar Mana signature to connect to. This is pretty simple; reminds me of the amulets that take power from people and put it in the soul gems. Could I?” Dave looked up.

  “Looks like they heard us. We’ve got soldiers coming down!” Suzy said.

  “Dave, hurry up with whatever you’re doing!” Deia added.

  “It’ll take some time and I need to talk to Josh.”

  ***

  “What is it?” Queen Selhi said as a messenger stepped onto her balcony where she was having lunch overlooking her capital.

  “My queen, you said that you wanted to know whenever something happened with the Stone Raiders?” The aide looked nervous.

  “Go on.” Queen Selhi turned her full attention to the messenger.

  “We have had reports of them in Verlun and Emaren. It seems a Lord Esamael of Emaren and his allies are trying to overthrow the king of Gudalo.”

  “Verlun, the city where they have some traders and they bought their own teleport pad?” The queen sipped fruit juice.