Aila heard screams as she disabled the simple trap formation and stepped into the cave system. She moved through the tunnels, following the noises and then the person speaking. “Solomon, get ready.”
The darkness moved around her.
She snuck forward, taking time to listen to make sure that there was no one around the corners before she moved. In her right hand, she held her curved dagger; in her left, she had prepared a spell but hadn’t activated it so there was no light being given off.
“Solomon, tell Anthony,” she said as she saw the cultists kicking the people into order as one man walked up to a pedestal in the middle of the room.
Solomon disappeared in a second. There was no wind but his speed was like an arrow being released from a bow.
Aila studied the formation that held the people inside and the items that were on the pedestal to be used to activate it. “This is some kind of magical manipulation and there are elements of death magic mixed in.” She shuddered, looking at the people.
I need to do something before they’re able to use the formation. Bow—can maybe get off a few shots before they start fighting back. I can raise a few golem shells and then give them souls to increase their fighting abilities. The spell takes a lot more mana. I’ll have to take the risk of being found out. Anthony must be on his way.
There were people in tattered robes around the outside of the formation and those who were moving between the sections of the formation.
She took out items from her pouch that would accelerate her spell and increase the strength of the created creatures.
***
Su and Gus watched the master stepping up to the stage; he was preparing himself. Gus had been able to cut through one binding and was working on another, looking for an opportunity.
The master raised his arms as Gus’s tribal tattoos flared to life, giving him immense strength; he broke through his bonds and tore apart Su’s bindings. He charged forward as the cultists yelled in alarm, some pulling out their blades.
The master looked back as Gus crossed the formation.
“Come on.” Su had activated his tribal tattoos. Old power flooded into him as he increased in size. He used his hands and his horn to cut the bindings, freeing another who rushed forward as well, their tattoos flaring to life.
“Halt,” the master said as the formations activated.
Su’s hands were frozen, picking up another guard, as Gus’s charge was halted, frozen in mid-stride.
“Why must you fight your destiny!” the master yelled out. His body glowed with those multiple colors and his power seemed to be going crazy.
“Dadri!” The master waved forward the young beast kin.
He bowed to the master and pulled out a small blade; he walked freely into the formation and stood before Gus, turning his head to the side. “Don’t worry, I’ll take my time,” he said.
“Let him go or I’ll kill him!” A voice came from the other side of the room.
The cultists all looked over to see a woman in the shadows, holding a cultist. Her dagger shone against the flickering light of the underground ritual room.
“Chaos lives!” the master yelled, signaling to Dadri.
A cold look appeared in his eyes as he looked at the woman, locking eyes with her. He reached out with his dagger and slowly inserted it into Gus’s stomach; he cried out against the magical binding of the formation.
There was a flash of light between the chaos cultists and the woman.
Three gray spell formations rotated on the ground, making everyone look at them. Stones rose up from the ground, forming together into humanoid creatures.
“Destroy the golems and kill her!” the master said in a cold voice.
The cultists ran forward. Dadri joined them and left Gus, while the cultist in the woman’s grip twisted in her arms.
She drew her dagger across his neck and he dropped to the ground, screaming. Her hand was wrapped in purple, drawing out his soul and turning it into a tool. She closed her fist, destroying the consciousness within and turning it into fuel for her own spell.
Three threads of purple shot out from her hand and struck the golems.
Purple lines burned into their surface and filled their eyes as they reached down, grabbing stone spears from the ground.
The woman moved back. A golem stood in the way of the cultists. It threw a spear, piercing one and nailing another to the wall. It reached down with its opposite hand to grab another stone spear, throwing with both arms.
It only got two more before the enemy closed with them.
The master started chanting and returned to his position on the altar. The different reactants were consumed by the formation to power the ritual functions.
Su watched as power started to drain from the formation sections containing the women, children, and traders, routing back to the altar.
The people there started to look fatigued and tired, their very life force being dragged away. That pure energy was twisted with the power of the altar and routed toward the section with the guards.
That multicolored light of chaos started to reach out from the ground, entering their bodies.
They let out yells as they started to change and grow. A new twisted power entered their bodies, eroding their minds.
Two of the golems advanced toward the altar. Although they were smarter than other golems he had seen, they were still big and not agile. The cultists were being killed, but there had to be around fifty of them. They worked the golems, chipping away at their blind spots and weakening them. Even if a few of their numbers were killed, it didn’t matter to them.
She was being pushed back. Her main golem was fighting the good fight, but he was being worn down faster than the others. He’d lost one arm already and his side was being torn into.
The woman was fast and deadly, mixing in spells with her close-in fighting style. Two had already been claimed by her blade.
A roar shook the entire ritual room. A light, like a sun, appeared through one of the tunnels.
A dragon appeared and shot out of the tunnel. A man shot out from its body; he reached out and the dragon turned into a ray of light as it wrapped around the man’s armor.
He drew his sword as the shadows distorted around him, his left side armor covered in brilliant golden flames, while shadows writhed around on the right side of his armor.
When he looked up, his right eye glowed black, while the left was golden. Black and Golden mana wrapped together around his body.
The master looked over at the knight. “Don’t let them interrupt the ritual!” He went back to chanting, speeding it up.
The human knight rushed forward. He turned into a ghostly specter of shadow, flashing past the cultists. His blade extended out; the cultist, unable to stop their momentum, struck the blade.
The man tore the blade out of their chest; he deflected one blade, kicking a man’s shin. His blade lashed out, cutting their neck. They dropped to the ground as he spun, striking a man in the face with his elbow and kicking another in the side.
His blade stabbed out, piercing the second in the neck as his knee crumbled. He reversed his blade with such speed that it sung in the air; he slammed it under his arm and it pierced through armor and the elbowed cultist’s chest.
He seemed to evaporate and reappear with an arrow in his hand. He turned and threw it back at the archer. It was covered in golden flames, a streak of light as it struck the archer.
Su looked back and two more were lying on the ground, dead.
The other cultists looked over at the fighting, giving the woman the opening she needed.
She dropped low. Her dagger shot out, piercing underneath a man’s armpit; she grabbed his other shoulder, turning his back as he turned forward into the new wound in his shoulder.
Her blade went through the opposite side of his neck and came out with a spray of blood. She kicked him into another attacker near her golem.
The attacker stumbled into the golem�
��s range as he kicked the cultist, breaking their body. He threw a spear, passing the woman by inches; she shot out a water spell, catching a cultist in the face. The water formed around their face and they clawed at it, trying to pull it off.
The other golems didn’t try to advance anymore, instead using their bodies to draw and hold in as many cultists as possible so they couldn’t stop the ranger woman and the knight.
Dadri appeared in front of the man. He let out a breath on the powder in his hand, a powerful poison that covered the man’s body.
Dadri had a gloating smile on his face as the man shot forward a flickering shadow that resolved into a man right before Dadri, before he had time to react a golden light pierced Dadri’s throat and came out of his spine.
His gloating smile turned into one of confusion.
Su took a violent appreciation to seeing the man’s world turned around, seeing him the victim instead of the attacker. He didn’t know how to deal with it.
The man’s blade slid out as he ran forward, turning into a blur of flames and shadows before slamming into a barrier around the altar.
“You’ll never be able to break through in time.” The master sneered as the last of the materials on the altar were being consumed.
Su would have bent over in pain if he could move. Instead, he cried out in his head and between his teeth, feeling that foreign and alien power invading his body, changing him.
The knight lashed out, threads of black and gold around his sword as he slammed it against the barrier, throwing up a gale that made it hard for any of the cultists to get close to him.
“Bruce! Give me your strength!” the man yelled out.
A earthly power that resonated with Su seemed to awaken within the man. It stilled one’s fear and gripped their stomach, causing one to feel the blood rushing through their veins, the vitality and power held within their bodies.
A silhouette of an ox appeared behind the knight as the green section of the tree on his back seemed to turn into real tree bark instead of just an elegant carving.
Threads of deep-green power spread through the knight’s legs and joined the power on his sword.
The knight drew in power from the room and struck out: one man’s and three familiars’ power concentrated and working together.
The power rippled through the mana barrier and cut into it. It shattered down in a line like glass, ripples of destruction radiating off the strike.
“You!” The master’s body fluctuated wildly as chaotic power rippled through his body. Unable to contain it in his emotional state, he grew rapidly, reaching nine foot in height. His eyes blazed with chaotic power as tears across his body leaked out power.
The knight was thrown back by the force of the shield breaking.
He dug his feet into the ground as he slammed into several cultists.
The golden light and the black shadows evaporated outside of his body, turning into the dragon and a devil-like mask.
They shot out: the mask sent them into their nightmares and distracted them as the dragon, in its smaller form, tore them apart.
“You good, Aila?”
“Yeah!” the woman yelled back.
The knight turned and yelled as he threw his sword like a lightning bolt. The underhanded sword was covered in green energy as a bull silhouette appeared around it, its horns in line with the blade. It sunk into the altar. The convergence of power sent green energy through the cracking altar, causing it to explode and rain down.
The energy that had been invading Su was released, rushing back to the altar and then back to the others. Their appearances started to recover but they dropped to the ground, drained and unable to move.
Su dropped to the ground, feeling his strength had been sucked out of him.
“For the clans!” Gus said weakly as he tried to force himself to stand.
The others stood, their tattoos blazing with power as they let out a yell.
“Half protect the others!” Su yelled as he checked on Gus.
“Go!” Gus said, pushing him aside angrily.
Su nodded and ran forward, grabbing a hammer from a cultist’s body.
Su felt his old power coming back. His instincts to fight increased as the weakness in his body was left behind. He was a warrior of the clans!
They rushed forward. The cultists had pale faces, seeing everything come apart around them. They weren’t trained fighters; if they were, they wouldn’t have needed to resort to poisons and sleeping powders.
The beast kin ran together. Their bodies blazed with power as their tattoos enhanced their abilities and drew out their bloodline more.
The ground shook as Su let out a war cry and lowered his head. He smashed a spear to the side with his hammer and hit the cultist’s shield, sending them flying on their back. He struck out with his hammer, cracking another’s skull their body being tossed to the side.
Su got a cut on the shoulder as he tried to dodge a blade. The cultist beast kin swung their blade back, aiming to cut Su’s ribs.
Another guard hacked at the cultist’s neck and cut him down.
The guards were cut and wounded, but they fought on, relying on their tattoos to gain the power they needed to keep on fighting.
The majority of the cultists were human. Their familiars were twisted and corrupted; their attacks were confused and erratic, allowing them to get in hits.
The knight had charged forward and met with the chaotic-altered master.
The devil mask and the dragon raced through the cultists, landing hits and helping out as they could.
The knight’s sword met the man’s fist, cutting through it.
The master let out a surprised scream.
“Stronger doesn’t mean invulnerable!” The knight pulled out his sword. He dropped down and forward; his blade cut clean through the master’s leg.
He screamed out as he tilted forward. He landed on the floor and rolled to the side, sending blasts of chaotic power at the knight. His sword moved like the shadows: flickering, deflecting the blasts with golden fire, and supported with the strength of the green almost emerald outline of a bull covered in glowing emerald Tattoos.
Blasts struck the ground, leaving smoking craters as he advanced and the glow of the master started to decline.
The master raised both of his fists and a spell formation appeared.
The knight shot forward and pierced that formation with his sword. A golden light consumed the power of the spell.
His sword flashed, smacking the man’s arms into the ground. The ground came up, moving like a snake, wrapping around the master and his body, drawing him into the ground slightly.
Su looked up from his fighting. He had blood in his eye and there were bruises and cuts all over his body, but as long as he didn’t get an infection, he should be fine.
Two guards had died in the fighting, but no more cultists remained.
The light dimmed around the knight. As it did, one could see a faint purple symbol of an eye on a shield on his chest.
“Y-you—how? You all died!”
“Ah, you don’t know the half of it,” the knight said with a cold laugh. “It’s good to be remembered, though—seems that not all of the memories of us have faded.”
“Guardian, you might have come back from the dead but the chaos has been here this entire time!” the master spat back.
“Then I have a lot of work to do. I had a fear I would get bored.” The knight reached out and put his hand on the master’s head. Golden flames spread through the man’s body, consuming his chaotic power and destroying him from the inside.
The knight turned toward where the altar was and reached out his hand. A spell formation appeared there. As he moved his hand, its complexity increased and the formation changed. The formation used for the ritual drew in power from the cultists’ bodies, turning them into dust that disappeared with the slightest wind.
Their energy congealed into the formation that glowed green and blue.
Su couldn’t help but feel relaxed seeing it, even with the immense power that was building up.
The knight placed his hand on the formation. A powerful life force energy spread out. Motes of light spread out, like seeds of a flower being released upon a strong summer breeze.
Su felt it entering his body. His wounds healed at a visible rate; the aches, the fatigue of his body recovered. The strength and life force he had lost was returned and increased; even his horn started to regrow.
He looked around and saw the rest of the traders recovering. The dead didn’t rise, but the wounded recovered quickly.
Su turned and rushed over to Gus, who was looking at his side, wiping away the blood to show his side had recovered completely.
Su dropped to his knee and examined him.
He didn’t know what to do; relief rushed through his body.
They didn’t need to say anything as Gus held out a hand. Su took it; the two of them embraced and slapped each other’s backs.
The golem’s purple light went out as they collapsed into piles of rocks.
The woman’s clothes were torn, but she stood up straight, her minor wounds recovered.
“Solomon, make sure none of them escape. Dave, destroy them.”
Like wraiths, the two familiars rushed off in opposite directions, charging through the tunnels of the hidden underground base.
“Who is your leader?” the knight asked.
“I am,” Su said, standing straighter.
“I suggest that we make sure that everyone has recovered, get some food into them and then we leave at first light. My companions and I are heading to Skalafell and to the northeast,” the knight said.
“We’re intending to go to Skalafell as well,” Su said. His eyes caught Carrie’s body.
The knight saw her body and walked over to her. He placed his hands on her. Magic power entered her body; her body became whole again, a peaceful look on her face.
“Thank you,” Su said, choking on his words.
“Everyone deserves to be treated with respect,” the knight said. “See to your people.” The man cocked his head to the side. “We found your carriages.”
Death Knight Box Set Page 16