Burnton smiled, a smarmy little upturn of his lips. He surveyed them fondly, then began to descend the steps.
“Now,” he said, “clear off, children. There’s grown-up work to be done here.”
Heidi looked about fit to burst a blood vessel.
“Are you a Seeker?” Carson asked. “Because we’re Seekers too.”
Burnton said, “Then you’ve heard of me. I’m a legend among our kind.”
Okay, now that really rubbed me up the wrong way.
“Some legend,” I said. “I’ve never heard of you. You want a real legend, look no further.”
He paused on the staircase and tittered. “Real legend? You, a child?”
“I’m not a child,” I spat.
“We found the lost treasure of Ostiagard,” Carson said.
“Never heard of it,” Burnton replied, far too cool. His smirk hadn’t left his lips. He wouldn’t look at us, instead facing out over the rubble field that was the temple’s puzzle. He looked like someone trying to strike an Instagram pose.
“The Tide of Ages?” Carson suggested.
Burnton shrugged like it was nothing.
“What about the Chalice Gloria?” I said. “That little ticket mean anything to you?”
He looked at me now, pausing just a moment on his way down the steps. “Really?” He dragged it out, eyes shifting up and down over me, taking me in. Observing the Mira Brand that he’d heard about, a legend of her own right? Or entirely disbelieving?
In a fluid, grandiose motion that was all show, he unsheathed his sword. It flipped in the air, spinning twice. He caught it deftly by the handle.
The blade’s edge glinted against the burning light.
“I don’t want you kids getting hurt. You should clear out.”
I glared. “You have more chance of getting hurt than any of us. How old are you, exactly? Like fifty? Why, just think of what might happen if you were to trip on one of these rocks here and land on that chin of yours. It might develop even more clefts; then you’d end up looking more like a …”
I didn’t have an insult. Damn.
I fumbled, “A …”
“A skrull!” Carson belted.
We all looked at him blankly—except the superhero on the stairs, who gazed off into distance, like an airhead tried to look pensive and deep.
“What in the hell is a skrull?” asked Heidi.
“It’s true,” Burnton said, a note of feigned sadness in the way he spoke, slow and serious. “I wouldn’t want anything to damage my rugged good looks. But treasure is in my blood, and that one …” He whipped the sword around, pointing it deep into the temple, toward the blinding light at the center. “That one belongs to me.” A pause. “And my blood.”
Clay mouthed at me, “What?”
Burnton’s eyebrows lowered, pressing a comma in between them. His lips moved silently. Still staring into the distance, he didn’t appear to be seeing anything, having apparently gotten lost inside his own head. Which was impressive, considering that last moronic thing he’d said. Airhead indeed.
“Well,” I said, “in that case …” I glanced to my comrades, giving a slight nod.
A final look at Burnton:
“Last one there is a rotten egg!” I yelled.
And we were off, hurtling for the boulders strewn throughout the temple’s floor.
“After them!” Burnton roared, and his pirate crew ran down the steps behind us. I heard bodies landing on the floor with a series of thuds and knew they were jumping from the stairs as soon as they had reached a safe height. We didn’t have much lead on them, much less Burnton, but I trusted that catching them unaware was enough to leverage our advantage, outnumbered as we were.
Outnumbered didn’t matter, I told myself. We’d won against orcs and marachti under Borrick, and fought off the Order of Apdau how many times now? A gang of pansy pirates were no match for us—
Then my foot hit a pressure plate, edge so thin it was invisible, and the rock ahead of me opened to fire two pikes straight for me. I yelped, dodging sideways in just the nick of time—
“It’s trapped!” Carson warned.
Bub roared. I couldn’t see him from here—the rocks were too tall for much visibility across the battlefield—but I expected he’d reacted too slowly, catching a pike in the breastplate. I hoped it had been that, and not his head.
“No,” Burnton called from somewhere behind me, sounding almost jovial. “Pursue the others; the mouthy one is mine.”
Please, oh please let the mouthy one be Heidi. Not that I was absolutely against a fight with Burnton—I would love to swipe the crypt key out from under him, see that self-satisfied grin dissolve from his face—but this was not the sort of arena where I wanted to engage him. Firstly, space was at a premium, and he had a sword versus my spear … and second—
My foot touched the invisible pressure plate again. Another pair of pikes erupted through the air like bullets. I yelped, throwing myself backward, saving myself from an impaling.
—that was the second reason I didn’t especially fancy a soiree with Burnton at this precise moment in time.
I dared a backward look. Burnton’s men were pushing forward, sliding in and out of the line of sight between rocks. As for Burnton himself …
“Come out, little Seeker girl!” he called. “It’d be absolutely tragic if you got hurt. Let the big boys tackle this quest, hm? And go back to something a little more your size. There’s probably a kiddie playground on this planet somewhere …”
“We definitely won’t be battling your ego any time soon, then!” I hollered back.
He chortled. “Oh ho, she makes quips. You are a feisty one. I like that. Stealing my treasure, though? I like that less.”
If he was hoping for a longer exchange, I didn’t plan on giving him it. Testing the pressure plate one last time, I jerked back as another pair of pikes shot out at damn near a hundred miles an hour. Then I leapt over, hoping it would be enough to carry me clear; last thing I needed right now was to clip it with my heel and get speared through the chest and face—
I landed hard, but no pikes shot at me.
No time to savor this victory. Leaping forward again, I barreled deeper into the field of rock. Never before had something felt so stressful. My eyes were peeled for three things: a route inward, pressure plates I could not see, and failing to find those (which I did, stepping on another and having to throw myself backward as the boulder ahead of me spat two spears at my face), any identifying markings that would give away where projectiles would fire from.
Two pressure plates later, and the arena was alive with the sound of them. Somewhere between a main road and a shooting range, the air was rent with the cracks of pikes firing, bouncing off rocks, impacting Burbondrer’s armor. Voices cried out—mostly yells from Carson, which were good, because every panicked shout meant he hadn’t been split asunder.
I slammed my foot down hard on another invisible plate. This time pikes shot past me, right to left. I gasped, too late to jerk backward. Luckily my momentum wasn’t enough to put me into their path—but it was close. Very, very close.
I backtracked—
“Aha!”
Spun—
There was Burnton. Looking none the worse for wear, he appeared through the gap I had just run through a moment ago. Eyes dancing, he grinned, and pointed his sword at me with an elaborate flourish.
“So sorry, young one,” he said. “If you insist on getting into the path of danger, I’ve no choice but to remove you forcibly.”
“You sound so genuine,” I said.
And before he could say another word, I snapped the flashlight off my belt. Tapping the pressure plate once to get another volley fired off, I waited half a second and then jumped through the gap. Then, turning, I lobbed the flashlight so it landed exactly where my foot had landed on the way through.
A pair of pikes shot past me, whipping my hair from my forehead—then another pair, and another, and anot
her, slamming into adjacent rocks and rebounding like massive, stabby toothpicks.
“See ya!” I yelled and surged onward.
Burnton just laughed. “Resourceful, girl! But you can’t slow me down forever!”
“I don’t need to,” I muttered. “I just need to keep you off my back for long enough to—Clay!”
My rocky path spat me out into a circular cavity within the arena. Kind of like being in the middle of a much less visually appealing Stonehenge, I came through one gap at the same time as Clay fell in from another. He stumbled, looking not very put together with his eyes bugging out and his hair unkempt.
Then Heidi squeezed through on the left of me, Feruiduin’s Cutlass extended—
“Take that!!” Carson yelled from somewhere on the right—then he, too, was through, coming backward, brandishing a pair of scavenged pikes. “I will go so Vader on you if you get close!”
“Great,” said Heidi. “The nerd found weapons, and it is everything I thought it would be.”
Carson pivoted our way. His eyes widened, seeing us for the first time. Then his cheeks, already red, turned to scarlet. Awkwardly, he lowered his pikes.
“I was just … there were pirates, and …”
“You thought you’d go Star Wars on them,” she finished. “God, you’re so cool, Carson.”
Carson cleared his throat. “Where’s, err, Bub?”
“Too narrow,” Clay said. “He got stuck a ways back. He’s fighting them off there. But they’ll redirect quickly, once they realize he’s a sitting duck.”
“Excellent,” I said flatly. “More friends for us.”
From behind me came a smug voice: “More friends indeed.”
We turned as one to see Burnton come through the gap behind me—plus a string of pirates, expressions blank as they filed into our small respite area. More than a couple looked a little worse for wear, their garb askew or torn open by a pike surging past—or perhaps a nerd wielding one like a lightsaber.
“Oh,” I said.
Burnton crooked a smile. “Smart tactic. But I’m not the fool you take me for.” He dropped my flashlight at my feet. Small, and not very heavy (I was surprised it had activated the pressure plate in the first place, to be totally honest), the impact was enough to cause the battery case to spring open and a pair of triple-As to fall out.
“I’ll give you one last chance,” he said. “Recuse yourselves so as not to get hurt. I’ll even have some of my men escort you out. My lieutenant would be more than happy to; isn’t that right, Barnes?”
A man down the line nodded. If there was a difference between him and the other pirates by which he could be identified, I couldn’t see it. “Perfectly happy to escort these children to safety, sir.”
“Children?” My nostrils flared. “We are not children. And we will not be taking you up on your offer to lead us out of here. My friends,” I turned and looked pointedly at Carson and Clay, giving them a hard nod, “are going to complete this quest.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
Carson began, “But—”
“Go,” I said without looking back. “Take your pikes and find the center with Clay.”
Burnton had a sideways smile still painted on his lips. Very celebrity-esque, even more so with that ridiculous chin of his. “And you?”
“Easy,” I said, glancing to Heidi. “We’re going to fight you off.”
And I yanked the umbrella from my pocket, swinging it out and around to full length, revealing Decidian’s Spear—bracing myself to do battle once again.
7
Clay and Carson bolted deeper into the arena, Clay leading.
“Get after them,” Burnton ordered his men. Swinging his sword about with another ridiculous flourish, nothing but show, he grinned cheerfully at me and Heidi.
I was going to wipe that smirk off of his face.
I brought Decidian’s Spear around. Held port arms, I pointed at the pirate posse arrayed before us, daring any to try to pass in pursuit of Clay and Carson. At my side, Heidi gripped Feruiduin’s Cutlass, primed and ready to swing at a moment’s notice.
“Come on then,” I said. “Do your worst.”
Burnton’s grin only grew wider. “Dear girl. Talk like that to the wrong person and you’ll end up wearing your guts for garters. Do please let’s be reasonable about this, hm?”
“I tried,” I said. “You wouldn’t leave when I gave you the chance.”
“Hah. Likewise. Well, if it’s a sword fight you wish to have …” he waved his sword again, blade glinting under the blindingly bright sun overhead, “… then it is a sword fight you will get!”
And with that, he lunged forward.
I met the blade with Decidian’s Spear. Burnton rebounded, spinning on a foot, then clanging in again with another strike that reverberated hard on the tip of the spear.
Heidi engaged Burnton’s lieutenant, who stepped forward and thrust for her. His strikes were more workmanlike, quick and efficient. Heidi parried back with the cutlass, metal on metal ringing.
The other pirates … just stood back and watched.
“Umm …”
Burnton caught my confused look. “I hope you aren’t surprised that I haven’t ordered my men to rush you all at once. That’d be a very despicable act of me, don’t you think?”
He swung for me again.
“Well, you are a pirate.” I jabbed out with the spear, catching the blade—then I dodged back, replanting on my feet, bringing it around again—
Burnton’s next swipe caught the tip of the spear just hard enough to whip me around. I jerked, sidestepping—but there was an opening, one he could’ve easily slipped into—
Yet he did not take it. Prime opportunity to close the gap and slide the sword up under my ribs … and he had paused, holding back until I brought Decidian’s Spear to bear again, tried to direct a stabbing strike to his midriff—
He calmly deflected it and gave his sword another stupid bloody wave around, like the conductor of an orchestra or choir.
“What are you playing at?” I demanded. “Why aren’t you going for the kill?”
“What an appalling suggestion!” He swung again, meeting Decidian’s Spear, dancing back as I overbalanced instead of driving another strike at me. “We’re pirates, not murderers, dear girl. We have a disagreement here, and we will settle it by swordplay—may the best pirate win.” I stabbed at his midsection with Decidian’s Spear again. He arced his blade low, catching the spear’s tip and pushing it up, toward the arena’s ceiling. Held there, blades caught, he leaned forward, grinning down at me. “That’s me, by the way. I’m the best pirate.”
“You’re the only pirate in this dance,” I snarled, shoving him backward.
I struck again—and Burnton refused to be felled. He met the thrust of my spear with casual blows that diverted me. With such an unwieldy weapon (not for the first time, I lamented that I’d got the spear and Heidi had the cutlass, a million times more practical than my glorified stabbing pole), I was slower to recover than he might have been. So many opportunities for strikes, even just to disarm me … and Burnton took none of them.
Heidi’s fury grew. She had managed to fell Barnes—sort of. One particularly violent swipe of the cutlass had nicked him on a finger—a finger—and he had howled, dropping to the floor. The over-dramatic yell drew my attention for a moment, yet another opening that Burnton could have capitalized on had he truly wanted to. I thought, momentarily, that Barnes was all show, that maybe all of these pirates were style without substance, and the tiniest little cut would be sufficient to drop them—yet as the next pirate in line stepped in, filling the gap left by his lieutenant, Barnes lifted his head and began calling advice to new attacking pirate—and Heidi.
“No, swing harder than that. Your form is all wrong. How can you ever hope to land a strike on him if you’re all over the place like that? You’re all emotion, all fiery energy. Swordfighting calls for careful poise. Stop u
sing anger to guide your hand, and calm your mind.”
“Stop—telling me—how to fight!” Heidi shouted. Her swings grew more frenzied.
“And you,” Barnes went on, “bring your elbows in more. Pivot on your feet, rotate on your heels, and you’ll dodge her strikes more cleanly. That’s it—yes, that’s it! Much more impressive!”
“What is this ridiculous display?” I growled at Burnton. “What are you and your men playing at?”
“We have a code of honor,” Burnton answered. “One which you seemingly lack.”
“I’m perfectly honorable.”
“I would disagree, after watching you send your companions in search of the prize we seek.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a Seeker,” I said, landing another blow against Burnton’s blade. “That’s what we do.”
And to illustrate, I shoved him back with all the force I could muster—
“Heidi, let’s move!”
—and turned and fled through the other side of the respite area.
Heidi shouted something profane at me about not giving her much warning, but a moment later her feet beat behind mine on the rock floor.
Burnton sighed like a tired parent. “Get back here, knaves!”
“Jog on!” I yelled over my shoulder.
They did—right behind us.
The frenetic dash resumed. Heidi and I stuck close by each other’s sides, pushing deeper into the maze of rock. The fat, glowing orb overhead gave a good enough indication of the centerpoint, so I used that to orient us as we forked through turn after turn. Pikes erupted as our feet hit pressure plates, exploding out with the force of a freight train—two freight trains, some sixteen inches apart—but we ducked back—and for every second we were slowed as we dodged, thrust ourselves aside, jerked frantically clear of danger, Burnton and his men were held up by the same obstacles.
“You can’t run forever!” Burnton called.
“I don’t intend to,” I snapped back—then hissed as a pike shot by my face, missing me by maybe half a foot. It clattered off another rock out of sight, rebounding and nearly taking my nose off a second time as it spun past. “I only have to beat you to the middle!”
The King of the Skies Page 6