Though my light had gone out long ago, a soft purple glow from the crystals still illuminated the space. Claire and Leon stood a few paces away, but there was no sign of Bella or McKenna. Leon was dripping wet from the waist down.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You’re back!” Claire said, smiling. She hugged me, then caught sight of the amulet around my neck. She lifted it slightly to get a better look. “What’s this?”
“‘The Amulet of Life,’” I said. “Ranera gave it to me because I won.”
“You—you really did it?” she asked, with the largest grin I’d ever seen. “I knew you could! I’m so happy for you!”
I held up my arm and showed her the stone slotted where it belonged in the leftmost gauntlet that Alton had attached to my body.
“What’s it do?” Claire asked. “The amulet—”
“That’s great, I’m happy for you,” Leon interjected, quite agitated. “But can we talk about this later? There’s no time.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, alarmed. “Where are Bella and McKenna?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you both. They’ve been taken,” Leon replied.
“What?” Claire said, instantly concerned. “Taken by who?”
“Balgyra. They—”
“Balgyrians are here in the caves?” I asked.
“No, I—”
“Then—”
“Let me finish!” Leon shouted.
I recoiled at his abrasiveness. “All right, my apologies. Continue.”
“You were gone a long time. We know you said two hours, but we waited three and then left without you, presuming you were dead. We followed your directions through the sewers, but by the time we arrived in Winkerk, it was already a war zone. Air cruisers engaged in battle in the sky, explosions were erupting all around us. We did our best to stay hidden, but a patrol caught us.”
“Wait, if you were caught, how did you get free?” Claire asked.
“I managed to engage my Stealth stone at the last minute and slipped out of their grasp, but there were too many of them. I panicked and ran. By the time I’d gone back to help the others, they were gone. I saw them being taken inside the Capitol building. I didn’t know what else to do so I came back to the caves, hoping you’d show up eventually. When I arrived, Claire was already here.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked.
“Maybe twenty minutes, the city’s not far,” Leon answered.
To accentuate his point, an explosion from the city above rocked the caves, knocking bits of dust and stone down around us.
Panic flooded through my veins and fear caught in my chest. “You can take us to them?”
Leon nodded vigorously.
“Then what are we doing standing here? Let’s go!” I yelled.
Leon spun and raced down the stairs back to the cave floor with Claire and me hot on his heels. We followed the underground stream to a place in the wall where it entered the cavern.
“Is there supposed to be a door here or something?” I asked, but as I looked at Leon’s damp clothes, I realized the answer.
“Hope you don’t mind getting wet,” he said with a smile as he hopped into the stream.
Seeing that the water only went up to his knees, Claire and I jumped down into the stream with him. A biting cold instantly numbed my legs. The only saving grace was that it helped mitigate some of the phantom pain I’d still been experiencing from the rats.
Leon sloshed forward and ducked down under the cavern wall and led us through a tunnel of sorts. After that agility trial, tight spaces made me nervous, and I started to hyperventilate.
About halfway through, the water got deeper, penetrating all the way up to my waist. Based on how wet Leon was, I didn’t think it would get much deeper, a fact of which I was thankful for. Temperatures as cold as the stream could cause trouble breathing, and I was already experiencing enough difficulty as it was.
The farther we traveled, the darker it got.
I called forth the power of my Light stone and was greeted with a glorious sight. We’d left the tunnel behind and had entered another cavern a little smaller than the last. Much of my anxiety faded away, but not all of it.
We finally climbed out of the water and walked up a natural stairway beside the stream that took us on a steep incline, wending its way left and right as we went.
At the top, the space widened considerably, relinquishing the rest of my fears. We were still underground, but the way out seemed clear enough.
Directly ahead lay another tunnel, but light flashed against the wall, and the sounds of explosions echoed in the caves. We were nearly free of the weight of the mountain.
I couldn’t get out soon enough, so I surged forward and followed the final tunnel to the cave’s exit.
When I finally emerged into the open air, I froze, stunned by the sight that lay before me.
A set of marble stairs lay straight ahead with a clear view of what I presumed to be Winkerk’s Capitol building in the distance. A mixture of steel and stone rose up all around me on every side as buildings both great and small filled every available space.
Many of the tallest structures were missing their tops or had massive craters in the sides of them. Nearly all of them were burned or still smoldered from recent destruction.
In the skies above, air cruisers of all shapes and sizes raced back and forth, firing blast after blast at each other. My eyes focused on one particular craft that wended its way through the air traffic, rolling left and right then spinning above to avoid a collision and flipping back around to fire upon the enemy.
It launched a salvo down at a ship below, but the cruiser dodged. The blast of magic continued right on by, uninhibited, headed straight for us.
“Run!” I shouted as we raced up the stairs.
With six steps still to go, I threw myself into the air and crashed hard into the street above.
Twin balls of green energy trailing light sped down the trench and hit the ground.
“Claire!” I shouted, frantically looking in every direction.
“I’m here,” she said behind me.
“Oh, thank the gods!” I said, scrambling over to her and helping her to her feet.
“I’m fine, too, not that anybody’s asking,” Leon said off to the right.
I was about to respond when my attention was drawn to the crater that now stood where the stairs had been only a moment before. The city street above the tunnels had collapsed, completely cutting off any escape.
“Well, I guess there’s no going back,” Claire said beside me.
“Would you have anyway?” I asked.
Without hesitation she said, “No.”
“We’re not safe here,” Leon said. “Come on.”
My eyes lingered on the carnage just a moment longer as I thought about how close we’d come to being buried alive or at the very least, trapped below having to spend hours or days backtracking through the caves.
Claire took hold of my hand and pulled me along.
My attention turned back to the streets as Leon once again led the way.
Despite the battle in the skies and the ever-present explosions, the streets were far from empty. Families raced about, trying to get to safety as fathers yelled for their children to stick close and mothers cried out every time an errant blast slammed into a nearby structure.
Not so far away, guards commanded people to remain calm and walk in an orderly fashion—a directive that almost everyone ignored. Above the din, I heard a steady, electronic voice on a public broadcast system, providing instructions for a safe evacuation.
Unlike the people of Winkerk, who were mostly dressed in their pajamas or nightgowns, our little group stood out in stark contrast. With our weapons and armor, it was easy to see how our friends had been caught.
We crouched down low and moved as quickly as we dared through the alleys.
Leon started to emerge onto a street when he immedi
ately pulled back and pressed himself against the wall. “Back, back!” he whispered as loud as he dared.
I pressed into the darkness as much as I could and made myself small.
The thundering of boots drew near until the guards wearing them came into view. They ran in formation, holding rifles as they raced past the entrance to our alley.
When the last man was out of sight and the sound of their steps had faded away, I let out a breath and stood.
Leon leaned his head slowly out into the street and looked in either direction, then waved for us to move forward.
Whichever route Leon was taking us, I could no longer see the Capitol building for the height of the other structures around us.
“You’re sure this is the right way?” I asked.
“It’s the path I took during my escape, it might be a bit circuitous, but we’ll get there.”
As we passed from one alley to the next, I glanced down the street to my right and saw the Capitol building for the brief moment we were exposed. We were indeed getting closer, though it was very slow going.
We were about to enter the next alley, when a stray blast from an AGIS-Arrow slammed into the building in front of us. Claire jumped back and cried out in fright as the thunder of the explosion reverberated throughout the street.
Glass rained down onto the ground and steel groaned above as the whole structure threatened to collapse.
“This way!” I shouted, turning right toward the Capitol and running with everything that I had.
Ahead of us, a line of guards stepped out into the street and yelled for us to stop, but there was no way that was going to happen.
They opened fire, sending bright green bursts of magic shooting into the darkness. We all subsequently activated our shields and kept running. Neither situation was ideal, but I would take my chances with the guards over being crushed to death.
Steel smashed into the street as the building imploded on itself, and still we ran, doing our best to dodge rifle blasts in the process. A huge gust of wind roared past us, filling the air with a thick layer of smoke and debris.
“Over here!” Leon shouted from somewhere off to my left. It was almost impossible to see him through the smoke in the dark of the night.
I crashed into Claire and almost fell down, but we caught hold of each other and steadied ourselves as we exited the street and entered yet another alley.
“Quickly,” Leon said, waving us on. “We need to put some distance between us and them.”
No argument here.
We set aside stealth and ran through the city with abandon. Only once we were reasonably sure we weren’t being pursued, did we slow down.
I put my back against the wall and placed my hands on my knees. “Give me a minute, will you?”
“All right, I need to figure out where we are anyway,” Leon said. “Mind if I scout around?”
I waved him off. “Go, but be careful.”
He was gone before the words had left my mouth.
“Are you okay?” Claire asked.
“It’s just a side stitch,” I replied, placing my hand on my ribs. I felt something wet and pulled my hand away.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, her voice filled with concern. “Are you hit?”
“I—I don’t know.”
I examined my armor and discovered a chunk of it had been burned away, and my skin was exposed and bloody beneath it. It seemed to be just a surface wound.
“How is that possible?” Claire asked. “These are supposed to be military grade.”
“The rats,” I said.
“What rats?”
“In the battle against Ranera. I had to fight my way through a swarm of rats.”
“Chet,” she said. “Mine was spiders, but what does that have to do with your armor?”
“I don’t understand it, but their teeth were like razor sharp. They totally ignored my shield and armor and bit right through them. They must have compromised the integrity of my gear.”
“That’s not good, here,” Claire said, placing her hand on my side. She tapped a stone on her gauntlet, and blue light ran across my body, mending the burns and stopping the flow of blood. “Be more careful from here on out, all right?”
I smiled. “No promises.”
Leon returned a moment later. “We’re almost there. It’s just a couple of blocks from here.”
“Almost where?” I asked. “The Capitol is still on the other side of the city.”
“A shortcut, I know where I’m going, just trust me.”
“How would you know where a shortcut is?” I asked. “Have you been here before?”
“A time or two, though the city wasn’t falling apart the last time I visited.”
I shrugged. We didn’t have much choice. “Lead on.”
We passed three streets and emerged into an open square in the middle of the city. Gone were the tall buildings and concrete jungle, making way for a long stretch of greenery. Trees rose up on all sides with a path leading through the middle.
“In here,” Leon said. “This park will take us straight to the Capitol.”
We followed Leon into the forest in the middle of the city, racing along a stone path. As we neared the center of the park, we turned to the right and continued along for several minutes.
In the distance, I could make out a stone structure of some kind in the middle of our path, but it was hard to tell for certain what it was. The closer we got, the more it began to take form.
It was a large circular fountain in what appeared to be the center of the forest with paths branching off in all directions.
“This is it,” Leon said.
“This is what?” I asked. “I don’t see anything.”
Before he could answer, the pounding of boots on stone drew my attention to the path ahead.
“They’re here!” someone shouted as soldiers filed in and leveled their rifles at us. I turned to leave the way we’d come in, but more soldiers appeared to cut off our escape.
All around the fountain, Balgyran soldiers blocked us.
We were completely surrounded.
Forty-Four
I slung my bow off my shoulder and nocked an arrow. As I turned back, I saw Leon kneeling on the ground with his hands behind his head.
“What are you doing? Get up! We have to fight!” I shouted.
“There’s too many. Don’t be stupid,” Leon answered.
I spun around and took a quick count. There were at least two-dozen of them, all with their rifles at the ready. But why hadn’t they fired already? It was like they were waiting for something.
I looked at Claire expectantly.
She sighed and dropped to her knees. “We’re no use to anyone if we’re dead.”
As much as I hated it, Claire was right. For some unknown reason, they hadn’t engaged, and if they intended to take us prisoner like they had Bella and McKenna, then there was still a chance for us to rescue them.
I dropped my bow and sank to my knees.
The soldiers closed in on us—most of them keeping their rifles pointed at my chest while one moved forward and bound my hands behind my back.
When he was done, the soldier yanked me to my feet.
A familiar female voice said, “Well, well, what do we have here?”
The soldier turned me around toward the woman.
It was Dr. Alton.
I narrowed my eyes. What was she doing here?
“Aren Halland, you are a remarkably tough person to kill,” she said.
“That might be true, if you had actually been trying to kill me.”
Alton puckered her lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I know all about your plan to use me,” I said, my tone accusatory and flat.
“Oh, look who thinks he’s important,” she said with a laugh. “You’re just one tool out of many at my disposal. Nothing more.”
“If that were true, I’d be dead already.”
“I neve
r said I was done with you,” Alton said coyly. “But now that we have Elsie, I suppose your services are no longer required.”
I gasped.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t know? Your little hair-brained scheme to stop me has failed, and soon we’ll all be—what was it Leon said you called them—oh, yes, ‘Sovereigns.’”
I snorted. “You’ll never get to the wells. I won’t let you!” I tried to shake free from my captor, but he shoved the muzzle of his rifle hard into the center of my back. I stopped struggling.
“What do you know of the forbidden magics?” Alton snapped. She seemed genuinely surprised by my awareness of them. Then her expression softened as her eyes fell on Claire. “Oh, yes, that’s right: The sister from the future. Leon’s told me so much about you.”
“What?” Claire and I asked at the same time.
She turned to Leon. “A commendable performance and you came through in the end. I was a bit disappointed when these two weren’t with you the first time. That royal guard and the soldier were fine catches, but the princess was who I really wanted.”
“Leon, what’s she talking about?” I asked.
The soldier holding Leon captive released him, and he stepped up beside Alton. “Thank you, Mother. It wasn’t easy, considering that they ignored me most of the time.”
Mother? Leon is Alton’s son? “Traitor,” I spat.
“Don’t worry, darling, they’ll have to listen to you when you’re vice president,” Alton said, laughing. “Or was it supreme commander? Isn’t that the title they said you’ll have in the future?”
“You?” Claire asked, confusion in her voice. Then she cracked and burst into laughter. “I think you’re mistaken. You couldn’t possibly be the supreme commander.”
Leon glared at her. “And why is that?”
“Well, for one, the supreme commander was the strongest fighter I’d ever seen, and you’re clearly a coward,” Claire answered.
“Show them,” Alton ordered.
“Show us what?” I asked.
“Turn it on,” Alton said, nodding to the guard at my back.
The soldier tapped my neural link. The device scanned Leon and brought up his stats.
Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1) Page 33