by Sam Ryder
The armor cracked down the middle.
The demon shoved me back with one hand and I tripped, landing on my backside. Damaged but not truly injured, the Morgoss pressed its advantage once more, striding forward and kicking at me. I scrambled away, but not fast enough to avoid the blow completely. Its metal boot caught me in the thigh, giving me a Charlie horse the likes of which I’d never felt in my life. My entire leg felt numb.
I fought to my feet again, hobbling on one foot. I needed to land another blow but wouldn’t be able to surprise the knight again. That was a one-time trick.
Luckily, Lace and Beat were back in the game. And they were madder than a hatter in a place called Wonderland. They leapt onto the Morgoss’s back with reckless abandon. Lace clawed at it while Beat rained down blows with her bare fists.
Yeah. You ain’t seen badassery yet until you’ve seen these two in action.
The Morgoss twisted to try to dislodge them. That was just the opening I needed. I limped forward, raising my hammer.
The Morgoss whipped back around, backhanding me in the mouth. Blood flew and I almost bit off my tongue. So much for my opening.
I knew this was THE moment. The demon knight had used the blow to keep me away long enough finish off my friends. If I took those few moments to compose myself, to wipe the blood from my lips, they’d be dead and then it would come for me again.
I ignored the pain and charged. Sure enough, its attention was truly focused away from me. I swung my hammer hard enough to break through a tree trunk, landing a powerful smash directly on the crack in its plate.
White crackling energy like lightning. A noise like thunder. My own personal storm.
The strength of the hit rattled through me, chattering my teeth.
The armor glowed bright white. And then shattered.
Blue, pulsating light coursed out and I was forced to shield my eyes. Airiel’s heart was revealed, the color of a perfect sky but lit from within.
Beat flew over the Morgoss’s back as it got a grip on her. Lace followed next, still biting and clawing at the knight’s arms. I hurdled them both and jabbed my hammer into its ribs.
For the first time since the fight began, it released what sounded like a cry of pain.
It stabbed me with its sword. I was within close range, so there wasn’t much force behind the jab, but its weapon was razor sharp and I felt it slide through my body, scraping ribs and tearing muscles and treating my organs like sushi-grade ahi about to be turned into sashimi.
It fucking hurt.
But I was on a mission, and I was not to be denied. Skewered on a demon knight’s blade, I continued to whack at its chest with my hammer. Its bones broke. Black shadows leaked out of its chest, swirling around the incandescent sky-blue glow from that stolen heart.
It twisted its sword and I screamed.
Not. To. Be. Denied.
Still screaming against the pain, I reached through its broken bones, which scraped the back of my hand, drawing blood.
And I pulled out Airiel’s heart.
~~~
The Morgoss picked me up on its sword, its head tilted to the side. Its dark eyes glittering through its faceplate, it seemed to inspect me like a strange bug. A curiosity. I’d done something it didn’t believe was possible.
And though my victory would likely be short-lived, I’d proven to the demon that it wasn’t invincible, that the Three could rise again and retake all that had been stripped from them so many years ago.
The world was fading now, because I was dying. Still I gripped the heart, refusing to let go. This bastard would have to pry it from my dead fingers.
I heard Beat’s voice. So soft and distant she surely must’ve been speaking through water. Water. Ahh. I could go for some water to wash away the coppery taste in my mouth.
Beat’s shout cut through the fog in my brain. “Give me the heart!” she said.
I trusted her with my life. And I trusted her with the thing we’d come here for. Even if I died, it could still count for something. I rolled my head back to find her beneath me, her hands outstretched.
I dropped the heart. It pulsated as it fell, a beautiful, immortal thing, throbbing with life.
Beat caught it, turned, and ran.
Out of nowhere, a massive gargat dove from the sky, clawing at her head.
No.
I fell as the Morgoss slid its sword out of my body. I landed hard, seeing stars. Lace was beside me, watching the same thing I was watching:
Beat, still gripping the throbbing heart of a goddess, being carried into the dark sky.
Lace growled and stood. The Morgoss swiped at her, but the attempt was slower, weaker. Removing the stolen heart had done something to the demon knight. Lace calmly sidestepped and positioned her bow, stringing an arrow.
Another strike from the demon knight, but Lace dodged again, making it look slower than a turtle. She took aim.
“Do it,” I rasped, blood bubbling from my lips.
The explosion would take us both out, but at least it might give Beat a chance to bully the gargat and get her to the ground. In my last breaths, all I wanted was half a hope.
Lace did it. She shot the Morgoss right in the empty chasm where the stolen heart had been.
The arrow vanished as if swallowed.
The knight made a gasping sound, like it had been punched in the gut.
Nothing happened.
It raised its sword once more.
And then stopped.
The blast erupted like a red-orange flower blooming. Flames roiled from the slits in the knight’s faceplate. Balls of fire shot from its chest. Wait. It was moving in slow-motion. We should be incinerated already, floating in whatever nothingness bodiless souls are forced to endure until the end of time. (Well, that was the worst-case scenario. If I was lucky, my deeds would land me in the place where gorgeous angels feed you grapes and fan you with palm fronds.)
Regardless, I wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway.
The Black was fading. No, wait. Not fading. Being forced back by a light as bright as the dueling suns of this world.
Something was coming.
A gargat shrieked, careening toward the tower. Just before it hit the stone, it stopped. Beat, who was dangling from its claws, dropped, landing softly. Still gripping the heart.
The light came closer, and I realized it was coming from within a goddess. Airiel, her wings fully extended, glowed like the sun. Her sheer dress was radiant, sparkling as if crusted with diamonds. Her arms were extended toward Lace and me.
She’s holding back the explosion.
Until now, I’d never really appreciated the power the goddesses had once wielded. I’d only seen them in a weakened state, dying day by day.
But Airiel had unleashed whatever she had left in the tank. She was running on fumes, but her fumes were like a normal being’s full tank. Times a million.
She landed softly beside Beat, but then dropped to a knee. She was in significant distress. The flight from the gully to here would’ve sapped most of the life she had left. I wished I could see her life meter. I needed to know:
Was it too late?
Did I care? She was one of the Three, those ultimately responsible for bringing hundreds, maybe thousands, to this horrible place to fight and die. But she was saving us right now.
Her face was laced with pain. She should be grabbing her heart right now, not holding back the explosion to save our pitiful lives. But she wasn’t like that. Maybe she once was, but not anymore. And I knew as well as anyone that people—even goddesses—could change.
She hadn’t come here for her heart.
She’d come here for us.
I felt a tightening in my gut. Muscles stitching themselves back together. Organs being made whole. Skin healing.
My life being restored while hers was taken away.
“No!” I screamed, kicking to my feet and charging toward her. I could feel Lace close on my heels, but this was one race I would win.
Airiel fell.
The moment the goddess collapsed, the explosion was unchained, rocking the night, slamming into us from behind like a troll’s punch. I landed hard, right beneath where Airiel was collapsing. I caught her, feeling the heat of the flames rushing over us, the acrid sting of smoke in my eyes.
Lying on my chest, Airiel’s eyes were closed. She wasn’t breathing.
“Beat!” I cried. “The heart!”
Beat was already there, cupping the heart in her hands. The heart that was flickering now. Faltering. Dying along with the goddess.
Beat pressed it to Airiel’s chest. The heart blazed slightly as it burned through her skin, which sealed around it. Beneath the new skin, the heart glowed dull blue. Fading. Fading.
Winking out.
EIGHTEEN
LIFE POINTS
Beat freaking wrestled the gargat into submission. She had it in a semi-chokehold, steering it like a horsewoman working her steed’s reins. The gargat carried us lower and lower, the Black turning to gray. The rest of the winged demons had already flown away to hide before the daylight arrived and burned them to ash.
We didn’t give our gargat a choice.
None of us said anything. Airiel lay across our laps. Eyes closed. Lips too. As beautiful in death as she was in life. I remembered all the bad things she’d done as one of the Three and that tarnished some of that beauty. We could dump her body and return to camp and pretend like we’d not seen her fall. Did the Three deserve any better? Because of them, Vrill had been taken, enslaved. Because of them, my Warriors were dying.
Which was exactly why I needed to return to camp and do whatever it took to protect them.
Plus, Airiel had saved us. In the end, she’d done the right thing. She’d put the lives of mere Warriors above her own goddess life. I had to make that count for something.
The ground loomed closer, the wind rushing through my ears.
The Bronze time arrived, blazing over the horizon. The gargat made a gargled screaming sound. Its wings burned away first, sending us into a freefall. We were still pretty high, but I knew my body could handle it. I let my hammer fall, focusing on protecting Airiel’s body.
I landed with slightly bent knees, using our momentum to jog forward a few steps. The gargat had carried us all the way to the plains, well away from the jagged mountains and the godsforsaken fortress of Annakor.
I shifted Airiel to one arm and stooped to collect my hammer. Looked back.
Lace on one side, Beat on the other.
The gargat was a mound of ash.
The fortress was crumbling away, teetering. The twin explosions from Lace’s arrows had caused irreparable damage. Teeter, teeter.
The tower’s apex swung back to the opposite side, hung for a moment, and then fell. The distant crash came a few moments later, causing the earth to rumble beneath our feet.
Destroying the tower of death known as the Thousand should’ve given me a swell of joy. Instead, it made me feel even emptier.
It had all been for naught. Trading one Morgoss for Airiel didn’t feel like a victory at all. It felt like the bitterest defeat.
We walked back in silence.
~~~
Despite how drained I felt, I was relieved to find the ward shields in pristine condition. Apparently the Morgoss had kept all their monsters chained to Annakor to deal with us.
I didn’t know where Vrill and the dragon were, however. That worried me a little. Not for us—for her.
The Warriors we’d left behind lined the way as we walked into camp. The gravity of the situation must’ve struck them, because none of them said anything, their heads bowed, their lips closed. There were new faces, which meant Eve must’ve brought more Warriors back while we were away. Soon I would need to introduce myself, to give them a speech to ensure they understood how important they were to our cause, but that was a task for later.
Eve stood at the end of the line, fighting back tears.
“Is she…” The question trailed away. I didn’t blame her for not being able to finish the sentence.
“She saved our lives. We recovered her heart,” I said. “It’s inside her. We were too late.”
Eve shook her head, unwilling to believe. The ugly gesture of denial. Or at least that’s what I thought the motion meant.
“C’mon,” she said. “Hurry!”
Dumbfounded, I followed her up the hill. What was she saying? What was the point of all this?
Beat, Lace, Eve and I descended into the gully.
Minertha and Persepheus met us at the bottom. Minertha said, “Oh, sister,” her voice full of tenderness.
“We tried to stop her,” Persepheus said. “But she was…determined.” It wasn’t an excuse. For the first time since I’d met the sea goddess, she sounded guilty.
“I know,” I said. This was no time for blame. If not for Airiel’s actions, we would all be dead anyway.
Eve said, “What is her reading?”
Persepheus blinked. “I didn’t look. I can’t see her aura. She couldn’t possibly have survi—”
She stopped in mid-word. “One,” Persepheus and Minertha said at the same time, wonder in their eyes.
“One?” I confirmed.
They nodded.
“I don’t understand. Beat replaced her heart. It stopped glowing. She’s not breathing.”
“She’s immortal,” Eve said. “You are looking for human signs of life. She’s still alive. For now.”
“What do you mean for now?” Beat asked. “Will she live or not?”
Eve turned toward the two goddesses. Even she didn’t know the answer. Persepheus shook her head and my breath caught. But it wasn’t a no. It was an I don’t know. “This has never happened before. She’s not dead. That’s all I know. But like you said, her heart isn’t beating either. She’s stuck in a place between life and death.”
Like a coma. It was bad, but not as bad as her being dead. On Earth, people came out of comas all the time. Sometimes, I knew, it took months. Or even years. And sometimes they never woke up. I tried not to think about the last part.
“Eve, return her to the cavern,” Minertha said. “She needs to rest.” Eve nodded and took Airiel from my arms. I barely felt the weight leave me.
“The rest of you—back to camp,” Persepheus said. She used the tone that brooked no argument. Unfortunately, I was dumb enough to argue.
“I want to stay with her—with Airiel.”
Her ice-cold eyes burned into me. For a second, I thought she was going to bite my head off—literally—but then her gaze softened. Seeing her sister’s motionless body had wrought a change in her. She stepped forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for all you’ve done.” Her gaze skated across Beat and Lace next. “All of you. But this is a family matter now. You need to be there for the other Warriors, especially the new ones. They will be scared. They will need leaders.”
She was right. We’d done all we could do for Airiel. Now we needed to fulfill our roles. Me as Protector. Beat and Lace as experienced Warriors. I nodded. Maybe protecting the Three wasn’t what mattered, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t protect each other. “Send Eve for me if anything changes.”
“We will,” Minertha said. She stepped forward and kissed me lightly on the cheek. Then she did the same to Beat and Lace.
We climbed out of the gully.
~~~
Eve’s latest Finding trip had been successful. Apparently, she’d arrived back shortly after we left, which meant the latest recruits had already experienced a couple of Blacks. None of them had fought in one, mind you, as both nights had been quiet and uneventful. Not for us, but for them. But still…just experiencing that impenetrable darkness was all part of the deal.
There was one human, a woman named Uva. She was tall with dark eyes and darker hair, long lashes and too-white teeth. The ooze had been kind to her. Her loin-bikini fit like a second skin, showcasing symmetrical curves that normally would’ve
caused my Leveled-up body to course with desire.
Not now. Not with Airiel on her deathbed.
The other newbs included a rhino dude that was half again as big as our last Protector had been. He looked formidable as hell. There was also another Lri Ay, a dark-skinned woman who said little but spoke volumes with dangerous eyes. I liked her immediately.
And there was another giant. A guy this time. His lips were as big as my fingers. His eyes the size of pool balls. His fists were hammers.
Yeah, I was liking the additions, even without seeing them in action.
Millania, always dependable, was running them through some weapons training. To my surprise, Floot and Jak were helping her. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They weren’t newbs anymore, replaced by the new crop of Warriors. It was crazy how time was magnified on Tor.
Lace was blowing off steam in one of the shelters with Asfandiar. I didn’t blame her. Anything to take our minds off what we’d been through and what might still happen. Beat and I sat across from each other around the fire, eating. Drinking water. Talking.
“That demon fuck is dead, right?” Beat said.
“Pretty sure,” I said. Before we’d wrangled the gargat and leapt off the side of the fortress, we’d checked the spot where the demon knight had been. There were chunks of armor and sear-marks, but no other signs of the creature. “Nothing could’ve survived that blast.”
She nodded. “Makes my heart smile.”
“That thing was tough,” I agreed. “Thanks for the backup. You and Lace were ridonkulous up there.”
“You did all right yourself, Protector,” she said.
“I try,” I said. It still felt weird, like we were in a waking dream. That’s when I realized I hadn’t really expected to return from the mission. I hadn’t really expected we’d be able to defeat one of the Morgoss and retrieve Airiel’s heart. But I went anyway. I wondered if Beat and Lace had felt the same way.
“What if we’re really just trapped in some awesome video game?” Beat asked, which vanquished my serious thoughts.
I snorted. “Could be. If so, I don’t ever want to leave.” Despite all the horrors and near-death experiences, it was true. I was someone here. Back on Earth I was a nobody, a number, as expendable as the last few drops of milk in the carton.