by Logan Jacobs
“Shit, it’s real,” the man with the daggers said, and he took a few steps back. “It’s the Guardian, it’s coming.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ren demanded.
“We already lost Dora,” the mage girl with the injured arm said. “We can’t fight that thing without a healer.”
“It’s not worth it, Ren,” one of the swordsmen agreed. He glanced to his twin. “We have to get out of here while we can.”
“If you leave now, your time with this guild is over,” Ren hissed.
The other five Stewards exchanged glances, and the cavern shuddered again. Bits of rock broke off from the ceiling and rained down on us.
“Heads up,” Lavinia warned as she drew an arrow from her quiver. “We’ve got company.”
We all turned at once toward the pool that was about fifty feet away from where we stood. As the Guardian began to rise up, I took a few more steps back automatically to get a better look at the thing. At first, it was just a large shape slightly darker than the surrounding water, nothing I could properly make out, but as the Guardian slithered out of the pool onto the cavern floor, I understood the Stewards’ fear.
The first thing that came into my mind when I saw it in full was that the pool must have been either incredibly deep or connected to other bodies of water within the Shadow Delves because the monster that stood before us was humongous.
The second thing that came to mind was a vague memory of reading about the Shadow Delves in one of my books in a note from a researcher who had written about salamanders in the pools here. If I made it out of these caves alive, I was going to have a talk with him about the line between ‘salamander’ and ‘dragon from the depths of hell.’
The Guardian had to be close to sixty feet in length from the tip of its blunt nose to the end of its long, frilled tail. Its skin appeared to be smooth and glistened even in the low light of the cavern, but it was patterned a mottled gray that might have allowed the creature to blend in with the surrounding stone, that was, it might have if the Guardian wasn’t so huge.
Its belly hung low to the ground because for its size, the monster’s eight legs were fairly small, but the claws on the tips of its webbed toes were anything but. Overgrown and viciously curved, they were hard to look away from, but the rest of the creature’s body was no more encouraging.
Its nostrils sprouted up from its face, but its eyes were so small that I almost mistook them for lighter patches on its skin. I remembered having read about cave-dwelling fish in my world, about how they were blind, and wondered if that was true of the Guardian as well. I wondered if it would even matter. Something like this probably didn’t need to see you in order to kill you.
Frilled appendages that resembled external gills fanned out on either side of the Guardian’s wide head, and by the way that they twitched slightly in the still air, I suspected they had something to do with the creature’s senses, like the way a snake could taste the air by flicking out its tongue.
“I’m not going to die down here for a bounty,” the girl with the crossbow said firmly, her eyes wide as she stared at the monster. “I’ll join another fucking guild, one that isn’t run by a maniac.”
Ren stared at her as she ran past us to the tunnel we had just come from, but the Guardian reacted to the movement faster than I would have thought possible. The monster lunged with open jaws and closed the distance between us in a single leap.
The Stewards scrambled as the Guardian landed with a heavy thump, and I heard someone scream.
The Guardian had caught one of the warriors beneath its huge webbed foot, and the rest of us could only stare in horror as it tore into his body, and his scream cut off. Blood smeared across the Guardian’s wide mouth as it bit down and rent the warrior’s heavy armor as easily as if it had been made of tissue paper, and as the smell hit me, I felt a wave of nausea.
Maruk, Aerin, Lavinia, and I staggered back behind the cover of the boulders and the rubble, but even as the rest of the Stewards ran past us to the safety of the tunnels, I knew we weren’t going to leave here without the chest.
Then Ren was the only one of his guild left alive in the cavern.
He’d had enough sense to get out of the Guardian’s way, and he sputtered something about cowardice and loyalty as he watched his guild flee, but a moment later he whirled around to face us again, and the fury on his face was incredible. He threw up his hand again, and the light of his mana flared in his chest with the building sound of rushing wind, but before the mana had even reached his hand, I had my own hand up.
My mana coursed down my arm like electricity and as I closed my fingers into a fist, I could feel Ren’s mana shrink beneath my control. At that moment, I got an idea or else had some sort of instinctive insight, and I opened my hand again. At once, the sound of wind raged up again as my mana pushed back against Ren’s and redirected the power of his spell back into him.
The air mage’s eyes bulged, and he let out a strangled cough as though he’d had the breath knocked out of him. He staggered back and looked just as bewildered as the first time I’d blocked his attack.
I turned to Lavinia, Aerin, and Maruk. “Distract the Guardian,” I ordered. “I’ll deal with him.”
Lavinia nodded and she, Aerin, and Maruk moved past the stunned air mage to face the creature just as it began to turn on us again.
Ren regained some of his wits and began to launch an attack in their direction, but I suppressed his mana just as I had before, and he staggered back as though he’d been bitch slapped in the face.
We might have had a better time getting through the Shadow Delves than Ren and the Stewards, but that didn’t mean the last days had been easy for us. I used my magic a lot while we were down here with little rest in between, and I was beginning to feel it. I wasn’t quite quick enough to stop Ren’s next spell, a strong gust of wind slammed into my chest and knocked me back into a collapsed column.
I gritted my teeth as the air was knocked out of my chest. Still, I pushed myself back to my feet in time to see Ren begin another incantation. I could only manage shallow breaths, much less focus my mana to stop him again, but suddenly, a streak of black fur shot seemingly out of nowhere and plummeted into the air mage hard enough to knock him off his feet.
I coughed out a laugh as Merlin wrestled with Ren, and I was grateful to the little puca for buying me some time. Ren’s surprised and angry shouts mingled with the puca’s furious chattering as the pair rolled in the mud, but then Ren managed to aim a strong blast of wind at his assailant and threw Merlin across the floor.
Ren got to his feet again, albeit with a few new scratches and held his arms out horizontally across his chest and moved his hands as though he was shaping a ball of air between them. I could see the mana flow down Ren’s arms into his palms and collect in the space between like liquid silver, and I heard the sound like a low, howling wind that accompanied the air mage’s magic.
My chest ached as I desperately tried to draw the air back into my lungs, and my hand trembled slightly as I held it out toward Ren and summoned forth my own magic.
The space between Ren’s hands was completely filled with silvery mana and swirling air, and he threw his arms out at the same moment that I began to close my hand into a fist.
Ren faltered as the light of his mana flickered like a candle flame, but I wasn’t able to interrupt his spell entirely.
There was a sharp whistling shriek as Ren’s attack sliced through the still air between us. As it collided with my chest, I wondered for a moment if he had somehow been able to summon hail. Dozens of pinpricks of bitingly cold wind struck me at once, hard enough to bruise my skin even through my armor, and they might have done worse had I not cut off Ren’s spell halfway through his casting.
I grunted and clutched at my chest as I fell to one knee, and I heard Aerin shout my name.
“I’m fine!” I called back through gritted teeth. “Just worry about the Guardian!”
My frie
nds were holding their own against the monster, but even a quick glance told me that it was taking all they had to keep the creature at bay. If the air mage tried to attack them instead of me, they were in no position to defend themselves against him as well.
Ren must have noticed that, too, and his eyes went to the redheaded elf as he began to conjure up a new wind spell. A sudden rage bloomed in my chest and gave me the strength I needed to stand.
My muscles screamed in protest as I threw my hand up again. If it was an effect of Ren’s last attack or from the draw on my mana, I couldn’t tell, and more than likely it was a combination of both, but the energy of my will carried my spell out, and the dark cloud of my illusion unfurled as it enveloped my rival.
In my haste to stop him, I hadn’t entirely planned what I would make Ren see, but the images of the skeletal revenants and Allowen’s reanimated corpses suddenly merged in my mind with the other members of the Stewards, and I held the thought in my mind as I focused on the mage.
Ren’s reaction was immediate, and he abandoned his spell and staggered back with terror-filled eyes. He mouthed something, a name maybe, before he tripped over his own feet and fell back.
My skull pounded with the effort of maintaining the illusion, and after only a few more seconds, I was forced to let it go as black spots began to cloud my vision. Then I leaned forward with my hands on my knees as I caught my breath and willed the pulsing in my temples to subside.
Ren recovered quicker than I’d bargained for, and before I’d straightened up again, another gust of wind slammed into my chest, strong enough to send me flying back into a pile of rubble. I gasped as I fell, and dirt and rock rained down over me from above.
But I didn’t feel hurt, and I realized that my opponent was losing steam.
“Gabriel!” Aerin cried, and she began to edge toward me as she looked between me and the monster that Lavinia and Maruk were fighting.
“I’m alright,” I grunted back as I pulled myself to my feet. The Guardian was the bigger threat, and I wanted Aerin to focus on taking care of Maruk and Lavinia. I could handle Ren. Besides, the air mage wasn’t just going to sit back while Aerin healed me, and I didn’t want her making a target of herself.
I’d been lucky, and as far as I could tell, I’d only earned a few new scrapes and bruises for Ren’s trouble. A bit of blood trickled down into my left eye from a cut on my forehead, and I dashed it away with a swipe of my hand. My ribs on my right side burned with sharp pain, but I could breathe and walk, and anything else could be dealt with after Ren was out of the picture.
The air mage was breathing heavily, and the light of his mana was significantly dimmer than it had been just minutes before. He’d be able to cast one more spell, I guessed, before it would be depleted entirely. I knew I wasn’t much better off.
This was going to end soon, one way or another.
My hand was slippery with blood as I grasped at the hilt of my dagger and moved toward Ren. He had struggled to his knees from where he’d fallen back, but he got to his feet as I approached, his bright blue eyes locked on mine.
“I always knew there was something wrong about you,” he spat. “I should have guessed, you’re a fucking manipulator. What kind of mage would join the Foxes except one who had something to hide?”
I didn’t respond and focused my energy on channeling my mana into the blade.
Ren’s gaze flicked to the weapon and something in his expression changed, but the look in his eyes was so crazed I couldn’t tell if it was fear or something else that passed over his features.
I gripped the hilt of the dagger tight as I closed the remaining distance between us. Ten feet. Five. I would have to kill him. I knew that. He knew what I was, and I couldn’t let him walk away now, but he’d chosen this when he didn’t leave with his guild.
I could tell he knew it too, and he knew that he had just one move left. I could see the gears turning in his head as he worked out the odds and figured the best time to strike. As it happened, I saw the decision in his eyes before he even raised his hand, so I lunged forward and drove the blade between his ribs as he threw his arm out, not at me, but at Aerin, Lavinia, and Maruk behind me.
Ren’s mana didn’t even reach his hand before the tip of my blade met the spot at his solar plexus where the silvery light burned. The magical energy in the air mage’s body seemed to burst. It traced out along every vessel in his body, not in the controlled flow of casting, but like an explosion contained within his flesh.
His eyes went wide, and he gave a strangled cough that left a few specks of blood on his lips before he sank to his knees and fell back.
“You’re... an abomination,” he choked out, “and they will... find you.” Then the air mage shuddered and was still, and his bright blue eyes stared blankly at me.
I didn’t have a chance to consider Ren’s dying words, however, as a wave of fatigue rocked through my body. The light faded from my dagger, I staggered back, and my vision began to cloud over. I had never used that much magic in such a short time, and I could feel the emptiness inside myself in the space that my mana usually occupied. It was almost like hunger, but worse, as if part of my soul had been sucked out. I dropped down to my knees and tried to steady myself, but the world kept spinning. A moment later I heard footsteps behind me, and then Aerin’s arms were around me.
“Hey, hang in there,” she told me, “you’re going to be okay.”
Her hands were warm against my arms, and I heard the soft chiming of bells as an undercurrent to the elf’s murmured prayers as she began to work her healing magic. Aerin’s power flowed over me like sunlight, reassuring and strengthening, and gradually the ache in my chest from Ren’s wind blasts evaporated completely. Then, even the hollowness of my drained mana began to hurt less, and I put my hand on Aerin’s arm to stop her.
“Don’t use all your mana up on me,” I said. “The Guardian…”
At that moment, the Guardian let out a terrible shriek, and I turned my head to see one of Lavinia’s arrows punched through its jaw as Maruk danced in and out of the Guardian’s range with surprising grace.
I pulled myself to my feet. My depleted mana had partially begun to restore, and the ache in my chest wasn’t as consuming as it had been minutes before, but I wasn’t sure if I had recovered enough energy yet for a worthwhile spell. Even if I could have cast something, I knew it was better to save my energy for a more critical moment.
Fortunately, I had lived my whole life up to about a week ago without relying on magic, and I wasn’t completely helpless without it. We hadn’t had time to come up with any sort of plan, but then the light bulb went on, and I came up with one.
Well, it was more like a desperate endeavor, but it was all I had.
“Guys!” I shouted as I bent down to pick up a rock. “I need you to let it attack me.”
“You need us to what?” Lavinia gasped as she turned her red eyes to me, but it was too late.
I had already thrown the stone.
Chapter 18
My aim was true, and the rock hit the wall behind the monster and skipped against the cavern floor with an echoing clatter.
I added a bit of my illusion magic to make the creature think the stone was one of us.
The Guardian’s head whipped around after it, and the frills on either side of its face flared up and shivered. Then the Guardian lunged for the stone, and its massive jaws snapped at the rock and took out a chunk of the ground beneath it as well. Dust and pebbles trickled from the creature’s jaws as it chewed, but it didn’t seem to have an aversion to gnawing on solid stone.
My stomach twisted and I forced myself to look away from those teeth and think through the rest of my plan. We would have to spread out and attack the Guardian from all sides and constantly redirect its attention until we were able to kill it.
“Maruk! Move to its left!” I shouted.
“Got it!” the orc said as he dashed into position. He would draw the Guardian’s attention th
e most and from the closest range, and thus he would be in the most danger, but he would be able to retreat into the tunnel if things got too heated.
“Aerin, Stand over there.” I directed her to a spot a few yards back from where I stood where a few broken columns leaned together. The position provided was as much shelter as there was in this place, but it wasn’t too far from Maruk, and it wouldn’t prevent Aerin from moving freely if the situation called for it.
“Yes, Gabriel.” She squeezed my hand before she sprinted away.
I looked over to Lavinia. She had already chosen a good spot on top of a hill of rubble that put her out of the Guardian’s reach and gave her a better angle from which to shoot.
She looked down at me, and I nodded.
Then she let loose with her arrow.
The Guardian tossed its head back and let out a terrible shriek when the arrow pierced its flesh. The sound was like someone was trying to use a chainsaw to cut through steel, but a hundred times louder, and I clapped my hands over my ears.
As the Guardian made to lunge for Lavinia’s hill, Maruk charged forward with a bellow and slammed his shield against the monster’s side. The Guardian reacted to this new threat with astonishing speed, but the rest of us were prepared. Aerin and I each threw a rock at the same time, I focused what small amount of magic I could to make them look like duplicates of us, and the Guardian screeched and clawed at the ground as it tried to figure out which attacker it should respond to.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of black and white as a magpie dove past, and I realized it must be Merlin. He understood our strategy as well as any of us, and he cawed as he flew around the Guardian’s head and dove to peck at it.
In that manner, we staged our assault against the Guardian and attacked repeatedly with arrows, shields, rocks-turned-illusions, and in Merlin’s case, beak, and for a while, it looked like it was working. Every time the Guardian would try to go for one of us, the others were there to distract it, and though most of our attacks did little more than pester the monster, Lavinia aimed her shots well. Arrows sprouted from the Guardian’s massive head like stiff whiskers and with each shot Lavinia took, the monster’s reaction was a little slower. It wouldn’t last forever, we just had to wear it down enough to land a killing blow.
