Diamantine (Weapons and Wielders Book 2)

by Andrew Rowe

  With a ‘tsk’, Lady Hartigan lifted her cane, shaking her head.

  Flamewing howled into the air, and then dove toward Hartigan. The air around Flamewing ignited, and her wings grew so hot that I could barely even look at them.

  Hartigan leveled her cane at the incoming bird, then spoke again.

  “You’re not quite hot enough.”

  A cone of golden fire exploded from the tip of Lady Hartigan’s cane, enveloping Flamewing in an instant. Hartigan maintained the inferno for several moments, then twirled her cane in place, cutting off the flow of the fire.

  When the smoke cleared from the air, one of my previous statements was proven to be a mistake.

  Sometimes, when the fire and smoke of your attack obscure an opponent from sight, it does work. In the aftermath of Lady Hartigan’s strike, only a cloud of embers remained.

  She’d obliterated a phoenix with fire.

  As she lowered her cane, she glanced around the molten remains of mountaintop, seemingly dissatisfied with something. Then she floated to the area around the nest, which remained intact, seemingly deliberately spared from the intensity of Flamewing’s earlier attack.

  She landed on a small remaining outcrop of rock next to the nest, then reached out toward the closest egg, only to pull her hand back with an expression of surprise.

  She narrowly avoided a spear of green stone that cut through the air where her hand had been, turning to face her new opponent.

  The Green Guardian had arrived. He leapt off a pillar of stone — presumably the same, now mountain-high pillar of stone — and flew toward Hartigan, landing on another part of the thin section of solid stone that remained safe to stand on near the eggs.

  There was a tense moment as they stood across from each other, surrounded by a lake of molten rock — and then they moved.

  Hartigan flicked her cane downward. A wave of lava erupted behind The Green Guardian, falling toward him.

  He snapped his fingers. A wall of crystal rose faster than the lava, forming a barrier behind him, the molten stone impacting harmlessly against the surface.

  Now that he literally had his back to a wall, The Green Guardian had nowhere to move when Hartigan struck again, raising a hand and calling a bolt of lightning from the skies. Most lightning magic was quick, but avoidable. Even with my Dawn-reinforced speed and senses, this was a mere flicker. So far as I could tell, she’d called down natural lightning from a cloudless sky.

  It hit the Green Guardian without causing the slightest harm. Then, it was his turn.

  Crystal began to rise from the ground beneath Hartigan, seeking to envelop her. For the first time, I saw a look of concern as she shot upward, air magic carrying her into the skies.

  She failed to notice the swarm of green crystals already hovering above her, conjured at the same time she’d made her own initial attack.

  The green crystals exploded, sending a wave of tiny shards in her direction, and producing a cloud of gas. I recognized the effect — it was the same thing that had incapacitated one of the heads of the hydra.

  She might have missed the trap at first, but she reacted the moment the shards exploded toward her. Her shroud burst into flame, melting the incoming fragments and igniting the gas. The gas exploded, causing a brilliant detonation, and leaving a heavy cloud of smoke that obscured her.

  Hartigan shot upward through the smoke cloud a moment later, just in time for a hail of crystal spears to arc toward her. Her burning shroud was gone. She flew evasively, but one of them grazed her side, drawing a trail of blood across her ribs. I frowned at the lack of a distinctive flash from her shroud, wondering why she’d disabled it.

  She flew right above the Green Guardian, gesturing toward the molten stone with her cane. A tidal wave lava rose up higher and higher, and simultaneously, spheres of golden flame appeared around the Green Guardian and began to press inward. One of the spheres began to melt straight through the Green Guardian’s wall.

  As the wall of lava threatened to crash down, and the spheres pressed inward, the Green Guardian rose on a pillar of solid crystal. Then, with a gesture from one hand, he broke away chunks from the crystal and hurled them at his flying opponent.

  Hartigan blasted the crystals aside with a burst of wind, then gestured with her other hand, bringing the golden spheres upward. They tore molten holes through the crystal pillar and surged upward through it.

  The Green Guardian jumped. There was a crack in the air as he surged forward with incredible speed, moving to close the distance.

  Hartigan’s wave of flaming rock rose up right between them. The Green Guardian plunged into it without pause.

  There was a tense moment as he disappeared into the molten wall — then he burst straight through it and slammed into Hartigan, fist first.

  She doubled over from the force of the impact, flying backward. And, as she began to recover, The Green Guardian closed in and rained blows on her. Every time he struck, a layer of crystal began to spread at the point of impact.

  Hartigan brought her cane in for a counter-strike, but The Green Guardian batted the weapon aside, snapping it like a twig. For the briefest of moments, he slowed when that happened, but I couldn’t understand why.

  Then, half-covered in crystal, Hartigan flew forward rather than backward, and wrapped her arms around The Green Guardian’s chest.

  I couldn’t see The Green Guardian’s expression, but I understood the sudden swiftness in his movements as he grabbed her and sought without success to disentangle them.

  Panic.

  The reason became more apparent a moment later — Hartigan’s body ignited and began to burn brighter and brighter with every passing instant.

  The Green Guardian dove downward, toward the molten stone, carrying Hartigan along with him.

  As they approached the lava, Hartigan smiled.

  It was too late.

  The detonation came in phases. First, Hartigan’s flames turned brilliant gold, obscuring her entirely. And then, as I saw the first hints of damage to the Green Guardian’s impervious armor, there was a stillness in the air, as if time itself had frozen.

  Then the skies around them cracked, and the world vanished.

  What came next was like witnessing the last light of a dying star.

  Energy too hot to be called fire expanded outward in a sphere, obscuring the fighters and obliterating everything in its path. Half of the mountainside was obliterated in an instant, melted to nothingness. The nest itself remained untouched. Even with the devastation that she had wrought, Hartigan had maintained control.

  At first, I saw no sign of The Green Guardian or the Hartigan that had detonated against him.

  Tense moments passed before I caught sight of them.

  The Green Guardian, his crystalline armor half-melted, crashed like a meteor into a lower portion of the mountain, hundreds of meters below.

  There was no sign of the woman he had been fighting. The figure that had exploded had been utterly obliterated.

  ...But Lady Antonia Hartigan emerged a moment later regardless.

  She floated, uninjured and still surrounded by a shroud of fire, out of the cloud of smoke that had obscured her when she’d detonated The Green Guardian’s smoke.

  And in that moment, I understood.

  Hartigan had never left the cloud. The Green Guardian had been fighting a copy — a simulacrum. She’d sent it out of the cloud when she’d been hidden by it, then simply waited inside, using her shroud to protect herself from collateral damage. In all likelihood, she’d also used fire magic to continue spreading smoke around her, keeping herself concealed.

  She wasn’t invincible like The Green Guardian, but she’d won the fight without a scratch.

  But as she landed to claim her prize, her expression darkened. She must have realized that she’d been just as thoroughly beaten.

  The eggs were gone.

  In their place was a single, raven-dark feather.

  No one — not the fight
ers on the mountain, nor the audience — had seen when the Phantom Thief Ravenshade had struck.

  The mountainside scene faded as Hartigan stared at the nest, her free hand tightening into a fist.

  ***

  Reika stood at the doorway to a huge chamber lit by eight torches on the walls. It was circular, with no obvious threats, traps, or treasures. That was suspicious in itself.

  There were obvious doorways, but the one on the opposite side of the room from her was closed and locked.

  Shun stood in the same doorway, holding a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other. He hadn’t nocked the arrow just yet, but he was looking at Reika with a stern expression. As he spoke, I tried to read his lips as best I could. “Stop following me.”

  “I’m not, I’m just in the same place.” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture.

  “Be elsewhere.” He waved his arrow away from the doorway and toward what must have been the room they’d come from. “Now.”

  “Go where, exactly? I’m pretty sure this is the last room, and I’m not just going to sit and wait in the mana fountain room behind us. Come on, we can just walk across together, then go our separate ways if you really want to.” She gestured toward the other doorway, then took a step further inside.

  “Wait, don’t—” Shun started.

  A huge wheel of a door rolled into place.

  Reika gave him a sheepish look. “...Oops? Oh well. It’s not like there’s a—”

  A huge shadow began to swirl in the center of the room, colossal in size.

  “—gigantic end-of-dungeon monster.” Reika winced.

  The smoke slowly solidified into the form of a monster I’d heard of, but never seen.

  He stood twenty feet tall, and might have been human-like if not for his colossal horns, claw-like hands, and impossibly muscular arms and chest. Oh, and he was made out of smoke and fire, so there’s that.

  Flamewing had burned with intense heat, but this...this creature was fire itself, distilled into a body. As he shifted into a more solid form, the stone below him melted, and a wave of visible heat permeated the entire room. Shun and Reika both had to squint their eyes just to look in his direction.

  I gawked along with the rest of audience when I realized what I was looking at.

  This was a legend. The master of the actual Fire Temple, hidden deep within the Unclaimed Lands.

  Ifrit, the Guardian of Fire.

  Uh, that’s an illusion, right?

  <...I don’t think so.>

  Then how...?

 

  I didn’t have time to worry about who possibly could have a contract with the master of the Fire Temple, because a moment later, the fight had begun.

  Shun raised his bow and fired an arrow immediately. The arrow burst into flame in mid-air, never getting close to his target.

  Reika cracked her neck, then slowly advanced toward her titanic opponent.

  Ifrit folded his arms, then rose from the ground, a sirocco forming beneath him. He folded his legs, sitting upon the tornado of flame, and waited.

  Shun pulled another arrow, concentrating. A green glow spread across the surface, and a familiar-looking green crystal formed over the metallic head. Then he fired.

  This time, the arrow endured the heat — at least for a moment. Ifrit separated his arms and stretched out a palm. The arrow impacted into it, melting without causing harm. Molten crystal dripped from the point of impact, mixing with the already melting stone below.

  Shun frowned.

  Reika advanced.

  Ifrit seemed content to ignore Reika. He flicked a finger in Shun’s direction. A tiny seed of flame flickered forward, the size of a pea.

  Shun took one look at it and ran.

  As Shun dove for cover, he slapped a wall, reshaping it to form a shell-like barrier around him. A moment later, the seed of fire detonated where he’d been originally standing.

  There was a twenty-foot deep crater when the smoke cleared. Shun’s wall was obliterated. It had protected him, but not enough. His entire back was covered in painful-looking burns. His quiver and arrows, at least, remained intact, likely through a powerful protective enchantment.

  He winced, pushing himself up on trembling arms. His bow lay a few feet away, just out of reach.

  Reika continued walking until she reached the center of the room, just ahead of where Ifrit floated. She turned her head upward, excited. “Hi! I’m Reika, Dawnbringer’s guardian! I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

  Ifrit turned his titanic head downward, furrowing eyebrows of flame. And then he spoke, slowly enough that I could follow it easily. “The guardian of one sword seeks another. It is a strange path that brings you to this place.”

  “Yeah, it’s not what I expected either, but here we are. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?” She shook out her arms, stretching. Getting ready to move.

  Shun fumbled for his bow, and with a pained expression, reached for another arrow.

  Ifrit inhaled a breath. “This will not be an easy road to walk, young one.”

  Reika snorted. “Easy? Nothing worth doing is easy. I mean, except reading. And eating. And—”

  “Enough.” Ifrit clapped his hands together. The entire room trembled, dust and rock falling from the ceiling. “Ready yourself, Child of the Radiant Dawn. I will be your opponent.”

  Reika shifted her stance, bringing up her fists. They seemed almost comically small compared to the hands of the titan floating above her, which were roughly the size of her entire torso. “Take the first shot, big guy.”

  There was a moment of silent tension, then Ifrit pulled back a tremendous blazing fist.

  Shun nocked another arrow, concentrating. A green glow formed around his arrow, and as he breathed in and out, the light around the tip began to swirl in place like a vortex.

  Ifrit swung his fist downward with surprising speed. Reika beat her wings, a burst of momentum carrying her out of the way of the swing. Ifrit’s hand smashed into the ground, his aura beginning to melt stone before his knuckles reached it.

  “Can’t get hit by that,” Reika muttered. “Not like this.”

  She put her hands together, concentrating as she flew backward. Mist manifested in the air around her. Then, as she took a breath, the mist flowed into her.

  Is she using her breath weapon in her humanoid form?

 

  As Reika dodged a swing from Ifrit’s other fist, she exhaled, then breathed in more of the spreading mist. And after her second breath, I saw it — a thin layer of white mist rising from the surface of her skin, growing more pronounced with each breath.

  Ifrit swept a hand upward, and a column of flame erupted beneath Reika. She floated aside again, only narrowly avoiding the attack.

  Still more mist rose from Reika’s skin with every passing moment, and I began to understand what she was doing. It was, after all, a variation on one of my own techniques.

  She’s reinforcing her body with spirit mana. She made something like a Body of Spirit technique.

  I felt a little proud that she’d felt my technique was worth stealing, but a greater sense of concern. Even with an extra layer of mana to strengthen and protect her, I didn’t think she’d survive contact with flames that burned as hot as Ifrit’s.

  As Reika continued to dodge and weave around Ifrit’s swings, Shun released his arrow, the tip now swirling with a vortex of green energy. As it approached Ifrit, the arrow itself melted — but the vortex remained, stretching in shape as it advanced, forming a gigantic green drill.

  Ifrit raised his arms before the arrow struck. And, for the first time, I saw a burst of smoke from his arm on the impact, and something molten dripping from the impact. He howled upward, shaking the entire room.

  For the first time, Shun had managed to wound his opponent. That was a victory, but as the next moment proved, it may have also been a terrible mistake.

  I
frit pointed a finger. Smoke spread across the entire room in the span of a heartbeat, save for the small section around Reika that was bathed in white mist.

  Then in the next moment, the smoke collapsed inward around Shun, forming a snake of solid smoke. It coiled around him, twisting and tightening, and his skin began to smoke and blister on contact.

  Shun screamed and dropped his bow.

  Ifrit stretched out his legs and arms, standing at his full height. Then he settled down on the ground, leaving molten footsteps with each huge stride. It only took a few steps to cross the room to Shun, who was still struggling ineffectively against the restraints of smoke. “You should have left this fight to your betters, weakling.”

  He pulled back a colossal fist, preparing to strike.

  Reika drew in one final breath. White scales spread across every exposed inch of her skin.

  Ifrit struck, his monstrous fist burning the very air around it.

  And Reika flew in the way, her outstretched hands catching his colossal hand and stopping it dead. “I won’t let you hurt him!”

  Shun, still trapped and literally on fire, probably appreciated the sentiment, even if it came a little late.

  Ifrit’s burning eyes widened, then he grunted and pushed.

  Reika slid backward, forming burning tracks as the ground beneath her feet melted from sheer proximity to the burning aura.

  Then her tail, glowing with white light, slapped the smoke snake behind her and ripped it in twain.

  Shun, suddenly freed, gasped for air and collapsed against the back wall.

  “Get safe. I’ll handle this.” Reika looked brave and heroic, and I felt a sense of pride for the single moment before Ifrit’s other hand smashed her so hard that she flew into the nearest wall with enough force to crack the stone.

  She hit the ground a moment later, dazed and shaking her head.

  Shun, sweating like mad and barely able to breathe in the spark-filled air, snagged his bow and ran out of Ifrit’s path, heading for the entrance door.

  I didn’t exactly blame him for fleeing.

  No, I’m lying. I absolutely blamed the coward for abandoning Reika after she’d saved him. No matter how awful of shape he was in, I expected him to fight. Perhaps that was unfair of me.