Brooke was still reeling from what had happened, she could barely take in her surroundings and what they had to do. “What Vanderain just did for us…” she mumbled to Evan. “I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t believe the council would do that to us,” Evan growled. “I knew it was a risk, but they were pretty damned quick to want to lock us up, weren’t they? If Belgun hates me that much already, I wish I’d given him something to hate me for.” He clenched his fist and Brooke felt the thrum of sorcery gathering.
“Evan, get yourself under control. We couldn’t have done anything. But we’ve escaped them now.”
“Yeah, emphasis on the now,” Evan replied bitterly, although he let his magic fade. “What about after we’re done on this dark elf world? Do we go on the run forever, or will we be forced into captivity?”
“Just calm down,” she said soothingly. Brooke was terrified herself, but she hated how much rage had risen in Evan lately. Being a demon spawn and all it brought seemed to be taking more of a toll on him than ever.
“You heard Glommish.” She brushed Evan’s arm gently. “He and the other Eternals will manage to convince the council of another method. We’ll be alright.”
“I-” Evan broke off as a thunderous explosion boomed in the distance, followed by the room shaking.
“What the hell was that?” she stammered after the mini-earthquake was over.
“Well, we can hear fighting,” Evan replied. “Maybe that was something hitting the castle walls?”
“Trust us to leave a potential disaster, only to land in a warzone,” she chuckled weakly.
Usually they would’ve been given a mission report to research all the necessary details. As it was, they were going in blind. All Brooke knew was that they needed the elves help in finding one of these Hell-Chasms. How the hell they could find one with what sounded like when it was an all-out battlefield outside, she didn’t know.
“We better meet these elves then,” said Evan, pulling two sets of armour out of the cloth bag before hooking it to his belt. “Let’s hope they’re only under siege and the Liskari haven’t breached the castle.”
After donning their armour, Evan unsheathed Ruaden too.
“Careful, we don’t want the drow to think we’re enemies and fill us with arrows before we can talk to them.”
“I know, but nor do we wanna’ get killed if any Liskari are running around.”
“Good point.” Brooke pulled out her own sword. “But we lower them as soon as we see the elves. Hopefully they’ll trust us.”
“The council sure didn’t,” Evan grunted as he moved toward the door.
The iron door creaked open as Evan pushed it, revealing a vast passageway outside. Although fifteen feet wide, the passage was bare, no decoration on the walls at all. When she looked to the ceiling, however, she let out a gasp of fear, before realising the massive shape wasn’t a threat. The dragon skeleton hung suspended, easily as large as a bus.
“Rueda,” said Evan, following her gaze. “Don’t the dark elves ride them?”
“I think dragons are extinct on this realm now,” she replied. “But recently, like in the last few decades.”
Another deafening crashed rocked the castle, and they both nearly slipped on the algae covering the stone floor as the castle shook. Sediment scattered to the ground around them and the dragon skeleton quivered where it hung.
“C’mon.” Evan turned to the wide flight of steps nearby. “Before this place gets blasted apart.”
The steps curled up and to the left. They didn’t see a single other person, but the sounds of battle grew louder as they ascended.
After a hundred or so steps, they emerged onto the castle battlements, which were a flurry of activity and a deafening orchestra of noise. The sound of thousands of voices buzzed below the castle out of sight, accompanied by the stress calls of horses and what appeared to be other beasts.
Dark elves ran across the ramparts, crying out to one another as they either shot arrows down below or carried large buckets in pairs. As she and Evan arrived, she saw two elves near them heave one bucket and pour a molten liquid off the side of the castle. She noticed how the dark elves moved as if gliding across the stone, which explained why they didn’t slip on the algae everywhere like she and Evan had.
Before they could get a look at the army on the other side of the wall, several dark elves noticed them, training their bows on them at once.
“Drop your weapons! Hands in the air! Now!” The nearest drow roared, his arrow pointing directly at her head.
“Okay, okay.” Brooke stammered, letting her sword clatter to the ground. “We’re here to help you, just don’t shoot.”
Evan reluctantly threw Ruaden to the ground too, although she could feel him gathering sorcery in his other hand. She hoped he was conjuring a shield spell, in case the elves fired at them suddenly. A dozen drow moved away from the far wall and surrounded them in a circle. They wore mottled green and brown armour, likely to camouflage themselves in the swamps much of this world was made of. The drow had either dark or light blue skin. Unlike the forest elves who had hair in every colour imaginiable the drow had only black or unnaturally white manes. They were taller than the forest elves Brooke was accustomed too, but less muscled. Arantay would’ve been a head shorter than all of them. Every single one of them had yellow, cat-slit eyes and none looked friendly as they surrounded her and Evan. The weapons pointed toward her were all either spears or bows.
“Do we shoot them Shyr?” one elf asked the female elf beside him.
“You have only moments before we open fire and throw your corpses over the castle walls,” Shyr said. “Tell us why we shouldn’t kill you for entering our domain?”
“I’m Brooke, this is Evan,” she said hastily. “We’re Venators, come to help you. A team of us helped you before.”
“I remember,” Shyr replied icily. “That team abandoned us shortly afterwards. If you Venators were ever allies to us, you are fickle friends. Either that, or you’re Liskari spies.”
“Yes, they told us,” Brooke replied. “Our other team of Venators only left because your war showed no signs of stopping and our forces were needed to deal with more pressing threats.”
“More pressing threats?” Shyr’s large yellow eyes smouldered in anger. “The lives of drow aren’t significant enough for you?”
“What my companion means,” said Evan, “is that the last Venators who helped you likely had to leave to take care of demon hordes about to invade other worlds. Nothing personal.”
“Yes,” Brooke said. “And Venators aren’t supposed to interject ourselves into every war. Yours was deemed a matter between drow and Liskari.”
“Then why do you come back here now?” Shyr snapped, edging closer to them, her arrow in line with Brooke’s heart.
“Because we’ve learned that demons may have allied with the Liskari,” Evan replied. “Which makes it our duty to help you.”
“If you are who you claim to be, who says we need Venator’s help?” Saravi stood proudly.
“Usually you wouldn’t,” she said. “But there’s a chance the demons aiding the Liskari could get their hands on a weapon that would destroy all elves in this world.”
Many of the drow surrounding them looked at one another in shock or fear at this. Brooke carried on. “There’s much we have to tell you, if you were to lower your weapons and take us to your Duke, we-”
“Enough, the duke will indeed decide you fate. For now, we have a battle to finish. Do not resist and you will not come to harm.”
Brooke flashed Evan a warning look not to use his sorcery as half the elves around them put their weapons away to take hold of their hands instead. Brooke silently let the elf behind her hold her wrists behind her back and lead her forward. Evan did the same, yet his expression was murderous.
As they were marched further across the battlements, Brooke got her first glimpse of the battlefield beyond the walls. Several feet below d
ozens of elves were rebuilding and enforcing the walls from the destruction the catapults had wrought. Beyond the castle stretched acres and acres of marshland, although not much of the terrain could be seen since the Liskari army swarmed the region.
Brooke had only seen Liskari in pictures before, in the flesh they were even more unnerving. Their bodies were identical to humans, apart from the fact they were covered in scales, and had the heads of lizards or snakes. They walked with knees bent, their oversized feet similar to that of a bird’s and their tails sweeping behind them like a crocodile’s. The Liskari wore no armour, they didn’t need too, but their very human hands could wield a variety of weapons.
The drow’s castle was over a hundred feet high, and the trench full of stakes stopped the Liskari from getting close enough to attempt ramming down the drawbridge. Brooke was horrified to see the reptiles had another method of attack, however.
The Liskari’s trebuchets held giant rocks, but their smaller catapults were used to lurch the monsters themselves at the castle. She watched in amazement as several Liskari were flung through the air to crash against the castle walls halfway up. The Liskari uses the long spikes in their hands to stick into the walls as they landed and began to climb. Not all soldiers were successful. One Liskari dashed against the stone wall with sickening impact, whilst another got his spikes to stick but couldn’t stop his momentum in time to avoid splitting his skull apart on impact. Those who managed to land on the walls then used the spikes to scuttle up the castles like scaly spiders. That’s where the elves buckets of molten fire came in, washing the Liskari invaders away before they could reach the top. In no time at all, Brooke realised the Liskari cared nothing for their own lives.
“Are they all suicidal?” Evan asked, witnessing what she had.
“Today’s attack is almost over,” Shyr said casually. “They do this for an hour once or twice a day. The few who do manage to reach the top of our halves are killed before they can gain any ground.”
“So this is less of a battle,” she said, “and more a slaughter.”
“Indeed,” Shyr replied, her face expressionless. “Unfortunately, a single Liskari female produces dozens of fresh eggs a week and baby Liskari take only a month to reach maturity. There’s no shortage of these monsters.”
“And the trebuchets are new?” Evan asked. “If they create big enough holes in your castles, many Liskari could catapult themselves in and surround your castle. Liskari aren’t intelligent, I’d wager someone helped them build the trebuchets.”
“Demons aren’t smart either,” Shyr countered. “Are you suggesting they gave Liskari battle ideas.”
“No, but a demon Disciple might have,” Brooke said.
Shyr’s eyes widened momentarily and Brooke could tell she was concerned now. “Take them down to the antechamber,” Shyr ordered her men. “I’ll inform the Duke of their arrival.” The dark elf woman strode back across the wall as the guards holding Brooke and Evan’s arms continued to march them across the battlements.
She tried to ignore the screams of the dying and the stench war brought with it as she passed such destruction below. They were led to the door at the very end of the battlements, where Brooke glimpsed the view to the east of the castle.
Here, a great sea stretched out in place of marshland, although it was unlike any sea she’d ever seen before. The water was thick and dark green, so gelatinous is was practically a swamp that was merely the size of a sea.
The elvish armada of longships sailed across this sea, shooting their cannons across the water. At first, she couldn’t see what the ships were firing at, until she saw Liskari rise from the water to cling onto the ships and crawl up them. She followed the trajectory of one cannonball and spotted the rise between trees where Liskari were diving into the swamp sea to swim incredibly fast toward the armada. Here too, the Liskari were failing badly, but those that weren’t blasted apart by cannons did manage to crawl onto the ships to assault the elves on board.
Before Brooke could see more, she was led back into the gloom of the castle. This time she could hear running water in the walls and spotted several leaks above them where drops trickled down. All in all, the drow lived in near-squalor compared to the castles of Veneseron, yet she knew this was probably the effects of the war.
The guards refused to loosen the tight grip on hers and Evan’s wrists and were silent as they led them down a dozen set of steps.
Brooke didn’t realise something was wrong until she saw the cells in front of them.
“Wait, what are you doing. I thought we were meeting the Duke?” she asked.
“You are,” the dark elf grunted, “but you will await them inside our dungeons.”
“No, we need to-” Evan began, struggling against his captor.
“Evan,” she hissed. “It’s okay, our reinforcements should be here soon, we won’t be imprisoned for long.”
Evan aquiesced and allowed himself to be shoved toward the dungeons after her.
“We better hope help arrives,” he muttered. “Or we’ve just escaped one prison for another.”
*
The Crimson Collosus was a monument, and one of the largest towers in Veneseron city. The gargantuan statue, carved out of red stone, housed many shops and a terrific arcade. Sintian had loved coming here when he was a child, he’d spend hours on the arcade games, able to forget the deaths of his parents that were so fresh back then.
Sypher had never liked the arcade though, and had asked to meet Sintian at the very top of the Collosus instead. The statue’s giant eyes housed a restaurant in the left eye and a coffee shop on the right.
Sintian sat in the corner of the cofee shop, his table right beside the green glass eye, looking out at the city in all its glory. He sipped his Ruresin drink idly whislt Sypher’s coffee sat across from him, left undrank as its owner took his phonecall feet away.
Green-tinged snow swirled quietly, peppering the glass and making the glistening towers sparkle further. The city skyline had an emerald hue now.
An Airship, carrying tourists visiting from off-world, drifted passed the window, whilst a vast crowd of civilians gathered below the great monument, watching gnomish acrobats perform a show.
One of the city’s other monuments, Humungus Harry, stood directly in Sintian’s viewpoint. He was mildly amused to see a wyvern had decided to curl himself around the top of the blue tower and slept soundly.
Korey and Ivor were in the arcades below. Sintian would’ve loved to join them, but Sypher had sounded urgent in the voice message on his phone. Besides, Sintian knew Korey and Ivor enjoyed bullying other Venators into giving them money so they didn’t spend to mcuh on the games, and Sintian didn’t feel like taking money from kids.
Sypher snapped his phone shut and returned to the seat opposite him, a faint smile playing across his lips. “What are you thinking about, brother?”
“Not much, mainly wondering why we had to meet in the city?”
“We didn’t have to meet here specifically, I just like the coffee. We do have to meet a contact over at the Midnight Behemoth in ten minutes though.”
“What for?”
“We’re going to meet a vampire.” Sypher’s black eyes flashed. “An old vampy who was part of a gang that used to live in the catacombs deep beneath DragonRock castle.”
“That’s fascinating,” he drawled, “but I don’t see your point?”
“The catacombs of DragonRock have long ago been blocked off from Venators, the lock spells impossible to break. But this vampire we’re meeting has a key from when his coven holed up there.”
Sintian still didn’t understand, but before he could ask more Sypher changed the subject.
“They’re all gone, by the way. Evan, Jed and Brooke. They’ve all left Veneseron on missions.”
He was smiling, but Sintian thought his brother would’ve been furious Evan was gone. “Which means now is the time for us to act on Taija.” Menace glittered in his brother’s eyes.
“Taija, what do you mean?”
“You saw her at the Arengi game. She vanquished my Oni to another world.” Sypher whispered urgently. “That’s seriously powerful magic, especially for a rookie. Are we supposed to believe that she’s Evan’s sister who suddenly gained powers of her own and was brought here, just like that?”
“Younger siblings of Venators are brought to Veneseron all the time.” Sintian shrugged.
“Perhaps she is his sister,” said Sypher. “But I think it’s something more than that. When they recruited Evan from Earth they would have taken her also, in case the Rakarn captured her first? My guess is that it’s a lie. Taija isn’t Evan’s sister, but she is just as…different.”
“So you want me to keep an eye on her, like Masune was spying on Evan?” Sintian guessed.
“No. I want you to get to know her. Become her friend.”
Sintian sat up straight. “What would that achieve?”
“Quite a lot I think, you could either discover Evan’s secret from her or discover her own.”
“Evan will have poisoned her against me already,” he disagreed.
“She seems different to him,” Sypher continued, “I think that his friend Jed is more likely to have poisoned her against us, but I am sure you could…change her mind. Besides, that’s just the first part of my plan, the second is where it’s necessary for Taija to trust you.”
“I’m not sure-”
“Quiet!” Sypher slammed his hand on the table. “You need to understand the stakes, brother. With what I’m planning, we’ll both be exiled from Veneseron if we’re caught. I’ll have to ensure I’m not the one who gets in trouble.”
His stomach clenched uncomfortably. He didn’t like where Sypher was going with this at all.
“As I said,” Sypher continued. “You will gain Taija’s trust, and then lead her into my trap. I’ve found a location deep in the Fortress where no one else goes.”
The realisation his him like a torrent of icy water. “That’s why you’re meeting the vampire, why you want access to the catacombs?”
Angels and Elves- Act I Page 32
