Immortal Swordslinger 3

by Dante King

  With half the guards temporarily out of action, Vesma and Kumi rushed to join the main fray. We were still outnumbered, but the odds looked more favorable than they had a moment before.

  Kegohr stopped swinging his mace and closed his eyes. There was a flash as the Spirit of the Wildfire ran through him. A fiery aura spread out around his body and created a glowing halo.

  A guard attacked Kegohr just as he opened his eyes. Kegohr brought his weapon up with a flame-fueled swing. His mace collided with the guard’s great-ax and knocked it out of the man’s hands. The ax shot off the road, followed a moment later by its owner.

  I took a moment to imitate my friend and strengthen myself. This time, I drew upon the power of water to coat me in Frozen Armor. Water Vigor flowed out through my flesh and formed protective plates across my body.

  I blocked an opportunistic strike with my newly protected arm. The armor shattered beneath the impact but left my arm intact, and I used my other hand to bring the Sundered Heart around. Steel rent armor and pierced flesh as I chopped down the guard.

  “Hey Kegohr!” Vesma shouted. “One for you!”

  Vesma shot an Untamed Torch at the ground and propelled herself upward. She used another fireball to adjust her trajectory so that she vaulted over Kumi’s head and hit a guard feet first. He stumbled back straight into a swing from Kegohr that knocked him into the dirt with a crunch.

  My Ash Clouds were clearing, but I didn’t want to give the guards time to regroup. While Kegohr covered me, I directed a stream of Vigor down through my body, into the ground, and back up to form Plank Pillars. A rough palisade of wooden boards exploded from the dirt and blocked the furthest guards from getting back to us while we dealt with their comrades.

  Kegohr sent another guard flying as his body blazed with ancestral power. Vesma held out her hand to launch a blast of fire at a guard. The enemy screamed and fell to the ground as his hair and clothes were smothered in flames. The man beside him turned and raised his mace to attack Vesma, but he gurgled when Kumi appeared behind him and drove a knife up into his armpit. He let out a gasp as his club fell from his hands. Vesma’s spear ignited, and his flesh sizzled as she impaled him.

  I turned to the stream beside the walls and used Crashing Wave to collect the water into an aquatic sphere. With a wave of my hands, the water slammed into the guard captain and crushed him beneath its weight. The liquid spread out over the ground and left puddles and patches of mud.

  I spotted a group of guards atop the battlements nock arrows to their bows.

  “Archers!” I yelled.

  I pulled at my Vigor and created a Smothering Mist to block their vision. Their aim was affected by the fog cloud, but they still sent arrows screaming into me and my friends. Before the projectiles could hit home, Vesma and Kegohr jumped in front of me and raised their Flame Shields. The arrows burned up on their fiery defenses, and I expanded their shields with Flame Empowerment until they were at least three feet wide.

  “Enough of this,” I said. “We’re not going to get out of here alive unless I do something.”

  With grim determination, I sent Vigor coursing through the fire and water combination channels inside me. A sickly feeling boiled in my chest as I activated the acid element. The Smothering Mist that had shrouded the guards on the battlements turned a noxious green, and the sound of them choking filled my ears. Bodies topped from the city walls and crashed to the ground 20 feet below.

  The rest of the guards on the ground level found their way around my wooden barriers and trudged through the mire I’d created. I summoned two lines of Plank Pillars so that the remaining guards were boxed in and could only move in single-file. I lifted one hand and produced a vortex of fire in the center of my hand, the Burning Wheel. I released it, and the flaming sphere expanded before it careened down the corridor of Plank Pillars and tore into the guards. Those who weren’t incinerated fled, leaving their roasted comrades to writhe on the stone path behind them.

  A surviving knot of soldiers peeked around the edge of the flaming wall of wood. There were four of them and four of us. They froze when we advanced over the smoldering remains of the other guards.

  “We came to Hyng’ohr to meet with Lord Ganyir. If he is no friend of yours, then it’s clear the cult has already won over your hearts. You drew first blood, and we are only defending ourselves.”

  Our mission was to meet with Lord Ganyir inside the city, but he obviously wasn’t here. For now, we needed to retreat with our lives; there was no telling how many more soldiers would reinforce the remnants outside the wall. There weren’t any Augmenters among them, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some inside the city, racing toward us now.

  Fire flared along the blade of the Sundered Heart. Vesma and Kegohr imitated the move, sending Vigor through their weapons to engulf them in fire. Kumi simply ran her daggers across each other and drew out a metallic note.

  The guards looked at us, each other, and back to us again.

  Then they turned and, as a single group, ran back toward the city gates.

  I let the flames fade from my sword. The burning Plank Pillars fell away, but I maintained the remains of my Frozen Armor. No harm in a little extra protection, after all.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kegohr said. “That’s what I’m after.” He kicked one of the injured guards groaning on the floor. “That’s what happens when you take on the Immortal Swordslinger and his buddies.”

  I produced a grim smile. I hadn’t liked killing all these guards, but they’d given us no choice.

  The gates creaked open as we approached them again.

  There was a thud that shook the earth, then another, and another as footsteps heavier than an elephant pounded the ground. A colossal figure emerged from the town. It was a bipedal giant, 10 feet tall and made entirely out of stone. Boulder-like fists tightened as dark pits stared out at us from a craggy mess of a face. It halted in front of us, a towering mass of menace, while the gates slammed shut behind it.

  I stared up at the vast elemental creature and recalled the Fire Golem that had decimated the Wysaro Clan members all those weeks ago. I could deal with powerless guards, but this was on another level entirely. My knuckles went white around my weapon as the vast elemental blocked out the sun above us.

  A woman appeared on the battlements above and waved down at us.

  “Do you like my friend?” she called out. “I summoned him just for you.”

  Chapter Two

  The female Augmenter on the walls looked down at us with an arrogant smirk as more guards joined her. She was shorter than the soldiers, petite and slender, with a girlishly beautiful face. Her red-brown hair was cut in a short, practical bob, and she wore a silver bodice that showed her ample breasts. A short skirt barely covered her underwear, and leather boots reached halfway up her thighs. A dagger was strapped to her upper left arm, and she carried a hefty staff that ended in a spiked crescent moon.

  The golem turned its head, producing the noise of stone scraping over stone.

  The woman smiled. “You got through the first round so quickly, I didn’t want you to feel like you were missing out on the fun.”

  “That’s kind of you,” I replied. “But I can think of other ways you could welcome us that would be more fun.”

  “I bet you can.” She smiled and bit her lower lip. “And I’d be all for that, in different circumstances. But life is what it is. You can’t take a fire Augmenter and make a water technique. Well, maybe that isn’t exactly correct. What are you?”

  “Ethan Murphy of the Clan Pashat. Elementalist. Immortal Swordslinger. Radiant Dragon Outer Disciple.” I glared up at her.

  “The Immortal Swordslinger?” Mahrai touched a finger to her lips. “Well, now, I’m interested. Think of all our power coming together, yours and mine. The things we could do with each other. The things we could do to each other…”

  “So, you’ll let us in?”

  “Does it look like that’s going to happen?�
� She leaned on her staff and giggled. “I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Mahrai.” She snapped her fingers, and the golem turned its head again, bringing its attention to me.

  “Seems like your pet likes me,” I said.

  “He has dubious taste,” she replied. “But I won’t hold it against him.”

  The woman radiated magical power. Even from this far away, standing back from the city gates while she was perched high on their walls, I could feel it. This was the sort of power that Cadrin, the murderous manipulator I’d fought at the Resplendent Tears Guild, could only dream of.

  “What did you do with Lord Ganyir?” I figured the man was either dead or cast out from the city.

  “Me? I did nothing. I’m just here for the fun and the vengeance.”

  “I don’t like her,” Vesma snarled.

  “She could use some manners,” Kumi commented.

  “I want to fight her golem,” Kegohr added.

  Mahrai flexed her hand. I could sense the Vigor flowing between her and the golem, the bond between master and monstrous servant, the element of earth running through the air. But sensing it was one thing, being able to break that tie was another thing altogether.

  A fresh gust of wind down the valley blew sand into our faces, and I had to close my eyes to keep it out. When I opened them again, Mahrai and the guards had been joined on the battlements by half a dozen men and women in dark brown robes, their faces hidden in the shadows of deep hoods.

  “Well, they couldn’t look more like cultists if they tried,” I muttered.

  “Quite the observation,” Nydarth murmured.

  “Our master is rather perceptive,” Yono purred inside my mind.

  Not only had we discovered that Lord Ganyir wasn’t in the city, but the cultists had a foothold behind the walls..

  “If you’re with the Cult of Unswerving Shadows, then you should know that we’re coming for you,” I said. “We saw what you did in Qihin, almost tearing the province apart. We’re not going to let that happen again.”

  “Such bold words,” Mahrai replied. “I’d like to put them to the test. Golem, crush these people.”

  With a flick of her hand, the golem advanced, and the ground trembled beneath its footfalls.

  “We’ll fight them only so that we can flee,” I said to my friends.

  “You want to run?” Vesma asked.

  “No,” I said. “But there’s no use hanging around here. Our mission is to find Lord Ganyir. He’s not here, so we’ll go elsewhere to find him.”

  “He could be dead,” Kumi said.

  “I doubt it. This woman would have been boasting if they’d killed the city’s former ruler.”

  Following instincts honed by months of shared experience, my friends and I spread out as the golem advanced. Vesma moved over to the left and Kumi to the right. Then, they circled around so that they could come at it from the flanks and the rear.

  Kegohr and I held our ground. His skin was still glowing with Spirit of the Wildfire, and I produced a thicker set of Frozen Armor. Spikes rose up from bulky pauldrons, and a chestplate formed over my torso. My boots became hardened greaves of ice, and gauntlets covered my hands. I felt no chill over my body, only determination to get out of here alive.

  At my nod, we all charged the golem. Kegohr swung his mace straight into the golem’s knee. Despite the force of the blow, it barely chipped the stone, and Kegohr gritted his teeth as the impact sent a shudder up his arms. I took the hilt of the Sundered Heart in both hands and started slashing at the other leg. Sparks flew as ancient steel hammered against the immovable mass of stone. If the golem even felt the shallow scratches across its surface, then it didn’t show it. I sheathed the Sundered Heart and pulled the Depthless Dream Trident from over my shoulder. The water channels within my body filled to the brim as Yono’s weapon enhanced them.

  “I knew you preferred my prongs to the fire dragon’s blade,” she whispered.

  I thrust the trident into the golem’s chest, but the prongs glanced off its stony hide. Kumi and Vesma were having an even tougher time. Stabbing weapons slid off the surface to no appreciable effect.

  The golem turned, stooped, and swung a fist at Vesma. She jumped back, but then darted in again to stab at the creature’s body while it was leaning over. She hit it in the belly, but this time, it hit her too. There was a crunch, and she went flying before landing in the dirt by the side of the road.

  Kumi ran to help Vesma. She pulled out a water skin and poured some of its contents into her hand. The water took the form of a ball, then tendrils that knitted together into a sheet that Kumi laid across Vesma’s injured shoulder and used to channel the healing power of her instinctive Augmenting.

  “Throw me the water skin!” I yelled at Kumi.

  She tossed the object to me, and I stabbed it with the trident while it was in mid-air. Water poured from the skin, and I thrust my weapon forward while channeling. There wasn’t much liquid inside the water skin, but I used it all to slam a Crashing Wave into the stone giant. The water rolled off its hulking form, but it appeared to have decreased a little in size.

  “Hey, that’s no fair!” Mahrai yelled from the battlements. She reached out a hand, and the air between her and the golem shimmered. In a matter of seconds, the golem had returned to its former size. “That’s better,” the woman said as she folded her arms across her chest.

  The golem ignored me and descended upon Kumi and Vesma.

  “Hey!” I shouted at the golem. “Down here!”

  I struck a particularly hard blow, determined to draw its attention away from my vulnerable friends. The golem responded by turning back around and looking down at me with the cave-like hollows that passed for its eyes. It brought a fist down and darted back while Kegohr stepped up and smashed his mace into its wrist. A few chips of stone flew away, but it remained intact.

  “This ain’t working,” Kegohr said as he too stepped back. He was a little too slow, and the creature caught him with the tips of its fingers. Even that edge of a blow was enough to send him flying with blood streaming from his nose.

  If the golem could so easily lay low someone of Kegohr’s size and strength, the rest of us would be well and truly screwed if it got a good hit in.

  Vesma was back on her feet. Beside her, Kumi put away the water skin. They both looked at me expectantly.

  “Water weakens it,” I said. “I can use Smothering Mist by gathering the water in the air, but it won’t be enough to really hurt it.” I figured the golem had a tough outer shell, and whatever was underneath would be more vulnerable. “Shoot Untamed Torch at any sections that look weak.”

  I pointed my trident toward the golem and brought all my Vigor to the center of my chest. I flooded my water channels with power and directed it through my arms before ending it in the trident’s prongs. Vapor clouds formed around the golem and smothered it. Mud dripped from its limbs and spattered to the ground.

  Vesma and Kegohr put away their weapons and raised their hands. Fire formed between their outstretched fingers, and they launched it at the golem. Blasts hit it in the face, the body, the arms, the legs. The water from my mist made its tough outer shell drip away, and the fire from my friends caused what was beneath to become brittle.

  As fire rained upon the golem, it lumbered toward me. It kicked, but I rolled clear, came up, and drove my trident into a muddy spot on its upper thigh. The golem roared before it dropped to one knee. I pulled out my trident and plunged the weapon into a soft spot a little higher up. I used the trident to vault myself higher and flipped onto its chest. Before it could snatch me away with its hands, I aimed both palms over its eyes and released a volley of Stinging Palm thorns. Wooden spikes skewered the stone giant’s eyes, and it toppled over.

  Kegohr raced over to the monster and pulverized its skull with his hammer. The monster broke apart like brittle chalk until all that was left was a collection of rubble and mud.

  The cultist on the battlements didn’
t move, nor did Mahrai. She simply pouted, arms folded over her chest.

  “They’re letting us go?” Kumi asked.

  “I don’t understand it either,” I said. “But I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Kegohr gave me a confused look. “A what?”

  “I think he wants horses,” Vesma said.

  “Come on.” I gestured for my friends to follow me.

  “Perhaps you need more training before your next battle,” Mahrai called out from behind us. “You should try making offerings at the Sunstone Temple and see if the gods will train you in person. I would very much like to show you what my Greater Golem can do.”

  I turned to look at the woman. She was still pouting among the silent cultists, but it appeared she had just given us information. But why? Was she genuinely trying to help us? Would we find Lord Ganyir at the Sunstone Temple?

  I doubted it was a trap because she and the cultists could have swarmed us outside the gates. From the way she nodded back and the mutual understanding that passed her face, I figured she was giving us a little tip. The Sunstone Temple would provide us with more information, I was almost sure of it.

  We trudged down the road away from the city gates.

  “Where to now?” Kegohr asked.

  “We should go to the Steadfast Horn Guild House,” Vesma said.

  “No,” I countered. “The last guild we visited was infiltrated by cultists. This one could be the same. I think we need to find Lord Ganyir, and I suspect he’ll be in the temple Mahrai mentioned.”

  Vesma seemed unconvinced, but she sighed after a second. “The temple is up the valley. Across the local Vigorous Zone. Only good if we want to fight monsters.”

  I smiled. “I wouldn’t mind learning some earth techniques.”

  “Look at us all,” Kumi said. “Battered, dirty, exhausted, running low on Vigor. Surely, we should rest first.”

  “We’re strangers in a hostile land,” I said. “Our boat left the minute we stepped off at the dock. Right now, we don’t know anywhere that’s safe for us to stay. At least, if we put a Vigorous Zone behind us, that might give our enemies second thoughts about pursuing.”