Ishree was the one to keep an eye and ear next to the crack, but the first thing any of us perceived came from echoing gunfire in the direction the others had went. I’m sure all of us felt the instinct to head down there and give our support, but battle logic trumped undisciplined impulse.
Not a minute into the barrage, Ishree said, “I see a light coming. The passage is short, so they’re close.”
Peeking from behind the crates, I saw the lieutenant and krewen slip their rifles’ barrels into the slits.
“Shoot as soon as you see a finger or a hair,” said Lieutenant Gaos.
A few seconds later, they fired their guns. And holy shit did being in an enclosed space make those guns stupidly loud. Their cracking blasts sounded as though they gained strength bouncing off the walls before reaching my ears. Only four shots rang out, but it felt appreciable more with the rebounding effect.
“What was that?” the human rifleman asked the krewen one.
“I think it was a mirror. Something shiny, at le-”
They both fired again.
“Dynamite!”
They both retreated a couple of steps away from the slits. A sharp explosion sent dust pouring through them. I heard some of the barrier fracture, but the rock wall held fast.
The Vanguard members were readying to shoot again, but they and I noticed a feverish light appear from the other side. The duo were forced to back away as flames licked the openings. I reached out to the antagonistic fire with my corruption. It became dim again when the otherworldly blackness seized the flame. I shoved the unstable spell backward. Somebody screamed, then somebody else. There was a bit too much obstruction, distance, and inexperience to keep the flames going, so I had to let it go, turning the flames back into their natural hue. Those flames were easier to dispel by our opponent.
Our stone barrier cracked and shifted, but not from any explosion. A caster or casters not allied with the Vanguard took a hold of the rock. The lieutenant countered with his own spell and an order for Ishree to fire down the tunnel. However, the bullets failed to hit what must have been multiple casters, for the rock simply broke apart at a faster rate.
Going up to the lieutenant, I said, “Let them get in here.” I pointed at the tunnel leading to the depths. “Let them see you retreat. Alex and I will take care of the rest.”
After a second, he nodded and exclaimed, “Retreat! Regroup with the others!”
I went back to hide behind the crates as Ishree and his superior abandoned the barricade. Without resistance, the rock wall hastily crumbled. Gunfire sprayed into the hollow for several moments. Not taking any chances with projectiles I could not see, I kept my head behind my makeshift fortification. When the shooting stopped, and we heard footsteps approaching the cavern, Ishree fired his rifle twice while in the descending tunnel to let the enemy know where to focus on. Of course, we could still overhear the more distant gunfire that would have likely drawn the enemy to that direction anyway.
After a second enemy barrage, dozens of which harmlessly struck the crates, there was another moment of calm. Some feet shuffled closer and closer. A vertical finger to my mouth enforced the idea to keep even our thoughts silent. Alex merely rolled his eyes, eyes that, strangely, did not match his tense body. It was as if his ridged frame imitated a hungry, angry dog who wanted to be set loose on a rabbit just beyond the end of its rope, but his eyes did not appear so harsh and desperate.
There was no time to dissect what my brother’s contrasting features meant. The beam of a flashlight traversed our cavern. Voices whispered. From a tiny sliver between the crates and wall, a single eye of mine saw the first three turncoats enter the cavern proper. A woman with a shotgun type weapon fired its volley at the descending tunnel, presumably to get any adversaries there to react. I’m sure the duo Vanguard were still close enough to return fire, but that wasn’t the plan.
The man in the middle held the flashlight and a revolver. He shined the light on our crates, though the act revealed nothing to him given his position and the slight angle I put the crates in. As his turncoat comrades headed for the tunnel the Vanguards used, he headed for us. At the same time, a couple of new turncoats entered the space. Preferring his attention not be drawn to us, I ignited an explosive stone not far from the now unclogged opening.
As they twisted around to see the bits of shattered rock bouncing on the ground, I sent out a corrupted pulse to turn the flame in the lantern black and to pop the fragile flashlight’s bulb. The dark called forth my brother’s spell.
I felt my body immobilize, but concentrating prana to my head permitted my throat, tongue, and lips to move. I said, “Take away their guns. Get them all together. Be quick. I’m gonna brighten the flame again in a minute.”
He declined to answer me, but going by the guns clanging on the ground and the bodies being dragged toward the center of the cavern, he heeded my request. I also heard the lantern’s glass casing fissure from the constantly fluctuating high temperatures. I could have tried helping by resisting his spell as I had done before, except my prana was weaker than then, so I spent what prana I had keeping alive the little flame in the lantern.
“Okay, I think I got ‘em all,” said Alex, his voice arising out of the tunnel leading upward.
I gradually pulled the black fire toward me, which had it breaking completely through a glass pane. Liberated from its transparent shell, I removed the corruption from the fire, making it illume again. I didn’t want it too bright, so I kept the flame small and weak until it reached my spot behind the crates. A tad more prana got it bright enough so that I could break free of Alex’s spell.
Stepping out, I saw seven turncoats lying together in one huddled mass, three of them women. One of those women showed burnt clothes and a scalded, blistered wound on the right side of her face and neck. The light weakened their paralysis, but since their shadows stretched toward my brother, the best they could do was fidget and squeak out groans.
Stepping back into the cavern, Alex asked, “Do I tie them up?”
“Not yet. Can you keep your spell focused on the turncoats?”
“Yeah, mostly.”
To get light closer to the descending tunnel, I took a few steps closer to it. Alex had to move to follow the shadows. “Lieutenant Gaos!? Ishree!? You there?”
“We’re here!” answered Ishree. On making himself physically known, the krewen aimed his rifle at the turncoats and said, “Useful spell, but makes for an awkward situation when we should have shot them all.”
“We will not demean ourselves to their level,” said the lieutenant.
“What about a little friendly interrogation?”
“We are trained to hunt monsters, not pull the truth out of them.”
“The major trusted their words enough to send us back here.”
“When you are ranked above everyone in the room, then you can think. No, we will keep things uncomplicated for now. I’ll take a post by this tunnel. You take one by the other. You boys keep all your senses on the turncoats. Why aren’t they tied up?”
“In a bit.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
Either from distance or fewer enemies, there was a subsiding ruckus happening down below, meaning there wasn’t as much of a temptation to join the fight. Of course, that was presuming the battle was going our way.
“They resisting?” I asked the shadow caster.
“What do you think?”
“How long can you hold out?”
“…Fifteen, twenty minutes? I don’t know. Just shut up and let me handle it. You’ll know if they start to get difficult.”
“Fair enough. But if one or two break free, get them back to the ground any way you can. Don’t hold back. There’s no reason to be gentle here.”
I half-expected Alex to “accidentally” let a turncoat loose so he could punch something, but either he did not have the finesse to only free a single victim, or else he really was too preoccupied with his hex to entertain such a n
otion. Regardless, seven turncoats were eventually going to wear him out. And while most of them would have also exhausted their energy opposing their magical fetter, a few would no doubt endeavor to attack their oppressors. Alex only needed wait until then to get his chance at a brawl.
Chapter Nineteen
The audible evidence of conflict progressively faded. At the same time, the writhing and groaning of our enemy became increasingly pronounced. They coughed and mumbled, each of those actions taking laborious effort. As much as he tried not to show it, Alex’s heavier breaths, occasionally twitching fingers, and tightening facial muscles provided a clear indication of his faltering reserve.
My own energy reserves couldn’t have been much better. However, as far as I knew, nothing in my mien or body exposed it. Despite being completely in the power of the profane, my brother had obviously not been tested to his limits all that often. I relished tiring myself out in training sessions whenever possible, but it appeared he did not share the same sentiment. I also liked to think my friends were better suited to support my growth as a warrior than his cultist companions had been.
“I think it’s time you let them go,” I told Alex.
“What? I can keep going at least another five minutes.”
“Maybe so, but the point of this isn’t to drain your energy, it’s to drain theirs. And I’d prefer you have some prana left in case we have to fight later. So ease out of your spell and start tying them up.”
Over the next several moments, the turncoats grumbled louder and fidgeted their limbs with greater ease of movement. Some of them rolled into a new position. The man who had carried the flashlight worked to get on his hands and knees, but he fell back on his stomach when his shaking arms gave out. Thus, too stressed to fend him off, Alex experienced little trouble binding their wrists and ankles together with the rope he carried.
After getting the hands of the last turncoat together, he paused.
“What is it?” I asked.
“What’s under her shroud?”
I stepped closer and crouched to pull up the mantle-like piece of clothing. What I found were dynamite sticks encircling the middle-aged woman’s entire torso.
“Those are those exploding sticks, right?” asked Alex. “She was going to kill herself?”
“And take us with her, ideally.”
He resumed his roping. “Hmph. What a gutless way to fight.”
“Yes, I imagine no guts would be left after the explosion. It’s also quite a risk. If any fire or bullet reached her before the barrier came down, she would have only succeeded in taking out her own people.”
“That would’ve been easier.”
“No one I know has become strong by hoping everything is easy. If they all died in an explosion, then you wouldn’t have become stronger just now.”
“Huh? Wait, did you not have me tie them up sooner just so I could use my spell more?”
“That’s half the reason. Nothing beats life and death experience. Besides, I really did want to weaken them before letting the rope do the work, and your spell seems to do a fair job of it.”
“You should tell me your damn plans for me.”
“I will, and I did, but not in the heat of the moment… Lieutenant! Do you mind answering a question of mine?”
Entering the chamber, the Vanguard asked me, “What is it?”
I pointed at the dynamite woman. “Should we remove those?”
Raising an eyebrow, he answered, “Hmm, best keep them on. That way one round or one fireball can take them all out should they get unruly. I don’t like them in here, though. It’s too dark. Unless you believe you can keep a flame going all night?”
“Unlikely.”
“Then I’ll see if the tunnel has cooled enough to move them outside.”
On returning from the short-lived expedition, he confirmed only getting close to certain spots on the walls and floor would prove dangerous. Therefore, he and Alex carried the turncoats outside. After taking the last one out, the lieutenant returned with a lit lighter, prompting me to extinguish my flame. He bade me to join my brother in watching over the turncoats.
Considering we stood within the crooked shadows of several shabby peaks, the evening around us proved even duskier than the rest of the dark purple sky overhead. However, I doubted it was dark enough for Alex to cast an effective paralysis spell unless he sidled quite close to his target.
As for those targets, they had been lined up face down against the wall by the entrance. I was tempted to interrogate them while they were weakened, maybe find out if any of them were the parents of the kids we took, but without being able to summon a dragon or a great deal of his fire, I didn’t feel too persuasive at the moment. Hence, I simply let myself relax to get my prana recovery going. I found a seat on the flattest edge of the fallen stone door and watched both my brother and the apprehended enemy.
The gusts of wind which broke through the hurdles of ascending rock became cooler and colder as the elongated time of this realm drifted by. As was typical of him, my brother could not settle himself in one spot for long, so he paced from one place to another, tapping a finger or foot when he did reach a stationary position.
When he veered near me, I asked, “Were you always fidgety, or is the change because of your corruption?”
“What does it matter?”
“Well, if it is your corruption, then it might be a good way to tell how much trouble it’s giving you.”
“How many times do I gotta say this? I have my corruption under control!”
“So it’s an old habit?”
Walking away, he said, “I’m not fidgety. You’re imagining things.”
“Then I guess I have a good imagination.”
Without a definitive answer, I simply resigned myself to continue taking note of his twitchiness. The thing about corruption, it was easy to tell when one started to spiral into madness, so any change wasn’t going to be subtle.
Being unfamiliar with Dretkeshna’s conception of time, it was tricky to get a sense of how much of it passed. In Orda, I could use my prana reserve’s recovery rate to get an idea of time’s passage even when underground or in a windowless room, but with Dretkeshna somehow altering that rate, I couldn’t use such a method until I spent more time getting accustomed to this place. I really did not want that to happen.
The swath of true night replaced the dusk’s wine color with a starry pageantry. Under this freckled ceiling, the turncoats were largely docile. Once in a while one whispered something to another or adjusted their position, but nothing suggested they were regaining the energy to fight out of their bindings and the brothers guarding them. Indeed, I wasn’t threatened enough by the prisoners to stop them from talking and moving with greater liberty if they chose to do so. Not that I was going to tell them such a thing.
Some hasty footsteps in the tunnel got my attention. They came from Svren and Bregman.
“Everything here all right, dragon knight?” asked Svren.
“Aye. How’d it go on your end?”
“A mite less effortlessly if you ask the major and a couple others. Well, the major can’t currently hear anything you ask him. A dynamite explosion has got him and Steffen deaf for who knows how long. And the ricochet of a bullet got Xavier right on the thigh. No deaths, so that’s a success right there. Not too much resistance.”
“Really? Isn’t that strange?”
“We assume the rest are defending the other exit,” replied Bregman. “Or maybe they’re with the submarine. Not that we were looking too hard for either one right this second. The major first wanted to take the men’s camp and set up our own base there before we go out exploring.”
“Could also be some of the turncoats left,” said Svren. “They might have taken our first coming as a portent of their doom.”
“Whatever the case may be, the major wants you to join him below.”
“May I ask what for? I haven’t exactly recovered most of my prana yet.”
“Aye, that might be easier. Very well, lead the way.”
“And your brother?”
To Alex, I asked, “Do you want to stay here or go with me?”
“It’s boring here.”
“Then Svren and I will stay,” said Bregman. “Isabel will lead you down. She’s back in the cavern.”
“Uh, the lieutenant mentioned someone wearing a dynamite vest?” said the krewen.
“The woman at the end there,” I said. “Anyone gets rebellious and a single bullet will take care of them all.”
Alex and I met Isabel in the cavern in a few moments, a small fireball above her open palm.
“Hello there, boys. Thanks for covering our asses, and sorry for forcing you to prove yourselves in these godsforsaken mountains. I believed your preposterous story as soon as I saw the dragon.”
“It’s understandable that anyone would be wary. Anyway, dragon knight or not, I pretty much expect to fight anywhere I go. In fact, it’s my presence that has forced you to fight here. I should be apologizing to you.”
“Bah! How stupid. None of us should apologize. We do what we have to. I have to chase around monsters and crazy people because… Ah, forget it. Let’s get going.”
Commencing our descending walk, I asked, “Were you about to mention your sister?”
“What do you like to say? Aye? Aye, I was about to mention her.”
“She doesn’t seem the type to pressure anyone to follow her into the heat of battle.”
The Dragon Knight and the Steam World Page 24