by C G Gaudet
A glance down reveals a slit through the boot and pant leg beneath. This is why I can’t have nice things.
Willow grabs my hand and yanks me in the opposite direction from the champions, weaving us through the crowd in the only direction they didn’t predict we’d take; up to the top of the auditorium. Probably they never thought we would be so stupid as to trap ourselves up so high.
I notice Freddie’s leading the way and once again wonder if he might be working for Olerra all along and this is his elaborate plan to get us caught. He trips on one of the steps and tumbles down to rest at the feet of one of the audience members. They don’t flinch at his sudden appearance, they’re too busy jumping up and down in excitement at the fight below.
The knight notices his fall and takes full advantage, raising his long sword up to skewer Freddie to the stair. Guess they aren’t working together. Or else they’re old friends who had a very serious falling out.
Talie dives into the path of the blade, taking the brunt of the attack in the chest. Her armor cracks on impact, and she’s clearly hurt, but she forces herself up to parry his next move.
“Keep running,” she shouts to the rest of us. “I’m right behind you.”
Frejha timidly ducks behind her to tug on Freddie’s arm and help the collector climb the last of the stairs to the stone wall that marks the end of the seating and acts as a back rest to the top row.
“What now?” I ask, though I don’t expect a response. We’re trapped. There’s nothing left for us to do but wait for Olerra’s champions to overwhelm us.
Freddie leans over the wall and presses his hand against an invisible barrier. The moment he touches it, a shimmering image of the city beyond reveals itself before flickering away to show nothing but blue sky when he removes his hand.
“We can get through the illusion here,” he says. “All we need to do is jump six stories onto the cobblestone road below.”
He must know as well as I do that none of us are strong enough to survive a drop like that. I might be able to get down if I can find a shadow to move through to lessen the fall, but the others aren’t even wearing armor to protect them.
The only one who stands a chance of surviving is currently fighting for her life against a knight at least as strong as her, and with the way she’s sweating, I wouldn’t put money on her either.
The knight slams his sword down on her shield and even with her solid defense she drops to one knee under the pressure.
“We have to jump,” Freddie says to the other two who look properly doubtful. “There is no other way.”
A collective “Boo” comes from the crowd followed by cheers as the clear favorite in the fight gets the upper hand. I glance down to see the crumpled body of a champion, crushed under the weight of an enormous war hammer.
The winner raises his weapons in triumph, eliciting shrieks from the crowd, which cover up Talie’s scream of pain as the knight slashes down on her shoulder with enough force it would likely have taken her whole arm off if she was a normal person.
Talie’s clearly losing, and with her goes our only real fighter. A dozen other champions are climbing the stairs to surround us, and the only plan we have is to jump to our deaths on the road below. There must be another solution.
If only I had my scythe. I can’t pretend I would be able to defeat these people alone if I had a weapon, but I did a pretty good job pushing back the skeletons with it and might have been able to do the same with the champions.
The skeletons! I glance back down to the pit where the dead champion has already disappeared. It wasn’t quite the same, but it was worth a try.
“How many people must have died here?”
I turn to Willow to see if she’s listening, but her entire attention is on Talie’s fight.
“The staff.” I grab Willow’s arm to force her to look at me and in doing so I shake loose a tear which she quickly wipes away. “Can the staff control spirits or just skeletons?”
“The staff of the undead is a tool of absolute control over anything beyond life,” she says as though quoting directly from her book. “So long as the spirit is no more than two levels above the wielder, they must answer the commands given through the staff.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say.
“There aren’t any undead here,” Freddie argues. “Remember what I said about the goddess keeping dead champions from returning to their old lives?”
Willow nods and a small smile forms on her lips unlike anything I’ve ever seen on her before. She’s still watching Talie as the knight fights for her life and to protect us, but I can see she’s using the upset from the experience to channel into anger.
“What do you think happens to the spirits who can’t leave this city?” She flips her book open and it automatically falls to the appropriate page. The sleek black staff forms in her hand and she lifts it above her head. “They become trapped with no reason for their existence. Let’s give them a purpose, shall we?”
I watch as a dark energy spreads from the flower petals at the tip of the staff and am nearly so distracted by Willow’s work I don’t hear her mutter, “I don’t need to be saved. I will be strong.”
Talie screams in pain and when I turn to see what’s happening, I discover Olerra’s knight has Talie on her back. He’s about to run her through just as he intended to do to Freddie before Talie stopped him. There’s blood gushing from various wounds on her, and she doesn’t appear to have the strength to lift her arm let alone protect herself. I shadow walk behind him, kicking at the back of his knee with all of my strength the moment I’m able.
As he dips down to catch his balance, moving his blade away from a kill position, I wrap my arms around his neck to choke him unconscious.
Apparently, my grip is not very strong as the next thing I know he's lifting himself to his full height with me still dangling from his back. It’s all I can do to hold on as he shakes himself to get rid of me and thumps at my aching arms.
The pain of each hit is extraordinary as the light in my eyes keeps ticking down my health.
Current Health - 18
The knight stops for a moment when he spins to grab me off his back and sees the black mist spreading from Willow at an alarming rate. At this pace, the entire coliseum will be dowsed in her magic in only a couple of minutes.
While the knight gives Willow’s staff a curious look, Talie uses the opportunity to run him through with her own blade. Only because I’m so small does she miss stabbing me as well.
The knight drops to the ground and I kick him a few times to make sure he’s not about to get back up.
“Thank you.”
Talie gasps at the words as she tries to stand and fails. Her body is bloody and her shield magic has faded to a flicker. She must be close to death from the look of her, while the man she stabbed has only the one wound to show for the fight.
I grab for the sword he dropped, but it’s too big for me to be able to do anything more with than drag behind me. Useless.
After dropping my only hope at having a weapon before we get swarmed by champions, I help Talie to her feet and wonder how much longer we have before we’re all as beaten as her.
A scream unlike any the audience has given so far bellows out from the crowd like a wave. Suddenly the people around us are on their feet, their eyes filled will fear as they push their way down the narrow steps, knocking each other over to get to the bottom first.
It takes me a moment to understand what has them so scared when our fight inches from them had hardly made them blink, when a transparent figure lifts up through the seat directly in front of me. It turns to stare at Talie and I for a moment, a look of sadness on its lifeless eyes, when in a sudden shift the face contorts. The mouth twists, opening wide as though it might swallow us whole. The eyes spiral into swirling dark portals.
It screams but no sound emerges from its throat. The intense energy the act emits is enough to make me quiver. The ghost turns around, leaving
us alone to terrorize some of the other people, giving Talie and I a chance to take a deep breath.
“What?” Talie asks.
I point to Willow, who’s now so clouded in the dark energy surrounding her, she’s barely recognizable. Talie’s eyes widen though I’m not sure if it’s from fear or pride, or maybe a combination of both.
Hundreds of shimmering spirits turn toward the shadow of Willow’s staff, connecting to her by thin, nearly invisible threads. I don't know what command Willow gives them, but all at once the spirits attack. They rush at everyone they see. Their shadows knocking people over when they slam into living bodies, and occasionally draining life from others, knocking them unconscious.
The hand of the man Talie had just skewered twitches. I do my best to drag her up the stairs, but I'm too slow. The knight lurches to his feet and then bends over in several jerky motions to reach for his dropped weapon. Talie’s trembling blade rises to continue her fight while I desperately look for a way to get us both out of reach of his blade. The only way I can survive is to leave Talie behind. Something I wouldn't hesitate to do a few days ago, yet here I am, holding her arm and preparing for my death.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Walk Down Memory Lane
The knight lifts his blade as Talie attempts to bring her shield up in defense, but the magic flickers then fades. Her arm collapses to her side. The knight pays no attention to the failed attempt to defend and lumbers past us without a glance in our direction.
Our relief is shortlived as we see it head straight for Willow. Talie tries to push her way toward the scholar, but I hold her back. There’s nothing either of us can do against this guy. Right now, she has a better chance of survival on her own.
“Willow!”
Talie tries to warn our friend, but it’s lost in the screams of people running from the ghosts.
We watch the knight turn away from Willow and smash his blade down on a reaper who must have been trying to sneak up on them through the shadows.
Olerra’s champions fight each other while the reaper shouts at the undead knight, demanding to know what he thinks he’s doing. Our new defender proves to be more than a match for the three closest champions and blocks the stairs from the others reaching our group.
Using their distraction, I help Talie up to the others where she settles down and starts slowly healing her own wounds.
“This is exciting,” I say to the others in a way that reminds me of Kesarre’s misplaced enthusiasm. They’re too busy with their spells and attacks to respond, but I'm sure they feel the same. “I'm not sure we're going to be able to sneak out of here anymore. I'm pretty sure one or two people have noticed us.”
Frejha blasts a group of three champions that are climbing toward us on the opposite side of our battling knight. Hopefully all the people who were on that section of the stadium watching the fight are safely elsewhere, or they just got a chunk of colosseum slammed on top of them.
“Then again.” I brace myself as the entire seating shutters at the impact of a large stone from the stands a few feet from us and threatens to collapse our entire section. “We have been very subtle, so maybe we haven't been noticed yet after all.”
Before us, merely a handful of feet away, Olerra appears. Her hair and thin dress whip around as her gold eyes scan over each of us in turn.
“You.” Her voice is like thunder and leaves my ears ringing with the single word. “I will destroy you for what you’ve done.”
She lunges forward, reaching for Willow. Her hand touches the thickest part of the mist and she’s lifted off her feet and thrown down into the pit. I can feel the impact as her back slams against the dirt, causing a tremor I’m sure must reach all the way to Vassrally.
“We will no longer play your games.”
The words come from everywhere and nowhere at once. I look around to find a source, but I realize there’s not one but thousands. The ghosts all turn toward the goddess, swarming the center of the pit and forming a swirling, lightning-filled cloud. Debris and dust from the damaged colosseum swirl out, spreading over the entire building.
I can’t see what’s happening beyond the flashes of lightning that appear to strike down on the goddess.
“It's up to you,” Talie says.
Her hand presses against a wound at her side, and a soft glow of magic surrounds both in a healing spell, all making me think she's talking to herself. When she looks directly at me, I get an uncomfortable shiver down my back.
“We’ll hold here,” she practically screams to get her voice to carry over the thunder and the goddess’ shouts at the attacking ghosts. “You need to get to the statue. You're the only one who can.”
Freddie throws out an insult to one of the attacking champions that implies his teeth are that of a donkey and his head that of an ass, which caused the man to stumble in despair.
Willow nods at me, though I’m not entirely sure if she's indicating her approval of the insult or saying she thinks Talie is right and I should go. Frejha adds ice pellets to the lightning strikes which occasionally spray out to land on us. When one slides down the neck of my shirt I lurch forward and eagerly nod.
“You know, you're right. I should go.”
I hurry to what’s left of the stone wall and try to peer past the illusion to the street below. I can only make out blurry shapes and can’t focus on any shadows I can travel too. I’ll have to jump and hope I can shadow walk before I hit the ground.
“You guys have this.” I try to sound confident, but I know I’m not fooling anyone.
“Be careful.”
Frejha’s quiet voice surprises me. She sounds genuinely concerned, which causes my chest to tighten. Doesn’t she understand I’m leaving them to deal with a goddess on their own? Doesn’t any of them know they’re more likely to die than me.
I want to dismiss the concerned looks they all give me as worry for their own lives, but I can feel in my gut that isn’t true. Just as I know deep down I’m not really worried about the chance I might die from this jump. I’m worried I’ll never see them again.
I take a final glance at Willow and find she’s completely wrapped within the fog and no longer visible. I can only hope she and the others will be okay.
“I’ll see you all soon,” I say with my back already turned so I don’t have to see their faces any longer.
I take a deep breath and hope I don't break anything important.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Blast from the Past
There's chaos on the streets as a mix of people running from the colosseum ghosts and those still entranced with the need to go inside to watch the fights mash together. The only way to avoid the clash of bodies and not get crushed is to use my shadow walk every chance I can. If there were shadows on the roofs, I would stick to them, but instead I have to rely on scrawny trees, the occasional barrel, and the edges of buildings.
Even with the judicial use of magic, it takes what feels like a lifetime to reach the statue, likely because the damn thing is so big it never seems to get any closer.
Also, this uncomfortable feeling keeps forcing me turn back to the colosseum. I feel the desire to go back even though I know I wouldn’t be helping anyone by doing so. I need to destroy the statue if there’s any hope of anyone surviving the day. Still, it feels as though I'm abandoning them. How odd to feel responsibility for anyone other than myself.
Finally, the edge of the shadow from the enormous statue is in sight. I shadow walk as far as I can see but when I open my eyes, I’m not looking at the base of the statue, I'm staring at the sky and a sharp pain is in my chest and the back of the head.
Damage - 4
Health - 14
I blink away the symbols and try to reorient myself, sitting up from the filthy road. Rubbing the back of my head absently, it takes me a moment to recognize the person standing over me, her blades pointed at my chest.
Heather – Champion of Olerra
Level 5 Reaper
&
nbsp; Abilities
Attack: Dash
Movement: Quick Step
Movement: Shadow Walk
Defence: Block
“Oh, hello.” I use my fake cheerful retail voice on her, the one she clearly had never learned in her time pretending to run the spice shop. “Have a day off? Always nice to get out of the shop, enjoy the sun, fight on behalf of an evil goddess.”
She dash attacks me, her blade piercing my skin through my leather shirt before I can react. I grunt at the pain.
Damage – 6
Health - 8
“Probably shouldn't have said the last bit about the goddess,” I grunt.
As much as I’m trying to show a calm exterior, I’m desperately trying to figure a way out of here. Nowhere I look am I able to find an escape. She’s faster than I am and was able to block me from using shadow walk once. I have to assume she’ll be able to do it again.
“Your friends are dead,” she tells me with no emotion in her voice.
I flinch at the words more than I did the blade even though part of me know she's lying. We may be several blocks from the colosseum, but the sounds of thunder bounce off the walls of the stucco building surrounding us.
“Or they will be soon,” Heather says when she sees I don't believe her. “You won't succeed in whatever plan you have.”
I stare into her cold eyes for a moment and realise she doesn't recognise me. Not because her brain is mesmerized by the goddess’ magic. She’s giving me the same look I get when an uninteresting customer comes into the shop, calls me by name and claims they've come back for however many times. I couldn't care less about them the first time we meet, and they don’t become more interesting their sixth visit.
Heather thinks I’m not worth remembering. That hurts more than her attack. It brings back memories of growing up with no one. Of being ignored on the streets and being considered less than human.