The first soldier stepped past her cover less than a metre from her, staring ahead into the alley. She was wrapped in Shadow, of course, but she could still be seen this close, if he gave her any more than a cursory glance. He kept staring ahead, though, and she was immediately relieved; they weren't actively looking for an enemy, which meant her previous kills hadn't been spotted. She'd hidden the bodies, of course, up on rooftops mostly, but there may have been some evidence she'd overlooked in her rush to remain unseen and unheard.
The second and third soldiers entered her sight at the same time, the one furthest from her scanning the alley with a bored but dutiful look. His eyes passed over her, and a momentary frown creased his face, but there was no recognition or alert, and they kept walking. The second their backs were to her, she moved to the centre of the alley. She cast the shadow cushioning spell just in front of them, and immediately drew three throwing knives from her wrist tattoo.
All three soldiers noticed the shadow bloom in front of them immediately. Assuming the obvious, they looked straight up, expecting some large object blocking the light of the moon and the small, single street light in the alley. Their confusion gave her ample time. Her left hand flashed forward, and the throwing knives found their targets, as they always did. Guided by magic, the knives thumped home in the base of each man's skull, buried to the hilt instantly. She rushed at them, ready to catch them if they fell in the wrong direction. Two of the men fell straight onto her spell, making absolutely no sound. The third crumpled almost straight down as his knees gave way, and she dropped to her own knees and half caught him before he made too much noise.
Not silent, she thought, but hopefully not loud enough to get caught. Standing with the soldier in her arms, she struggled over to the large bin, lifting the lid and dumping the corpse in. Luck finally touched her; the bin was mostly empty. Once the other two soldiers were hidden inside, she shuffled the rubbish around to cover them, then closed the lid again. Seven down, a thousand to go.
Half the night had gone by, and Elana was still no closer to finding a way down to the slaves. She'd taken down another fourteen soldiers, though, and still hadn't been caught or raised any alarms. She kept moving constantly, watching every soldier's movements to find any patterns. Surely they would be guarding any entrances to their slave workforce even more diligently than the streets and alleys they patrolled? There was no area that seemed to draw their attention, however, and Elana found herself wandering around in circles trying to spot something she wasn't even sure would be there.
Then, all at once, the pattern became clear. After hours of watching, she saw what had been right in front of her. She thought they'd been patrolling at random, picking odd spots to stand watch based on nothing but habit or routine. But as she crouched on a low rooftop, staring at the soldiers as they moved in neat patterns, she finally saw it. Their patrols weren't based on what was happening on the surface; they stopped at points where they could clearly see the heavy metal plates which covered holes running up every street.
They must have had a proper entrance, but these holes apparently joined to tunnels that accessed the slaves. Immediately, she felt a huge wave of relief. They can escape after all, she thought, or they would have no reason to guard the holes like this.
She'd seen the metal plates all through the city. Maybe there were extensive tunnels underneath all of Ermoor, all joining each other. Escape in that case would be much easier than she first thought; she could get in through the military district, free the slaves, and escape through the tunnels to a safe distance before coming back up to the surface. With a target now, Elana focused on getting into one of the holes in the street without being seen.
She ducked behind a bin, squeezing her eyes shut. Dammit, they're watching every single one. In her search for a way down, she'd taken down a few more soldiers, but she was getting dangerously close to being discovered. A few of the soldier's absences had been noticed, and the ones who were still alive were beginning to get nervous. Every point of entry that lead underneath the city was being watched. She would simply go to any one of the other districts, where the military presence was almost nil, but she would get lost before she found the slaves.
Ermoor was already difficult enough to navigate; every building looked more or less the same, and was organised neatly row by row so that every street looked the same too. Elana was used to navigating by the sun, and by landmarks in the forest. The shapes of certain trees, certain Shenza buildings that were shaped differently depending on their purpose. If she had to go underground, she would be at a total loss. No sunlight or moonlight, no landmarks, no map. If she at least found the slaves first, she could just move in any direction for as long as possible and emerge when it felt like she'd put enough distance between them and Dreadhold.
A metal plate sat in the centre of an alley; almost all the rest were right in the street. Behind her bin, she waited until two soldiers crossed paths over the plate, one heading away and the other heading towards her. Her back to the bin, she was facing the street, and if it wasn't for the fog she would have been spotted for certain. With her magic active and her Kaizuun drawn, she saw three soldiers in her line of sight. Every now and then, a soft breeze rippled the fog, and the street opposite briefly melted into view. Wrapped in Shadow, she waited.
Steps echoed next to her, and she swept up, slashing her blade through the soldier's neck faster than he could react. A dry clicking sound escaped his mouth as he tried to swallow. She grabbed him, opened the bin with one hand, and threw him in. As she closed the bin, he started gurgling and choking. When the lid was closed, almost no sound escaped.
She sprinted to the metal plate, activating a strength spell in her left arm. More steps approached around the alley's corner, where the other soldier had gone. Close. She reached the plate, wrenched it out of the ground with a short metallic scrape, and dove in, shoving it back into place with magic. As the total darkness enfolded her, she heard the heavy clang of a soldier's boot hitting the metal plate as he continued his patrol.
Mara
Shortly after her fortune was revealed, the guards had come back in, and Uncle Lewis sat with her for the rest of the night as they stood watching in silence. They talked about everything, like they always did. Uncle Lewis was full of interesting facts, things she'd never even think to think about.
Halfway through a rant about the stars and the shapes they made when linked together, a scuffle sounded from somewhere in the mansion. Mara saw the guards glance at each other. When Uncle Lewis stopped talking, Mara knew for certain that something was wrong. Still smiling, he placed a hand on Mara's shoulder, but looked at the guards and cleared his throat. One of them immediately left the room, and the one who stayed pulled his gun out of its holster.
Her breath became ragged, and tears leapt into her eyes without warning. He's here, she thought, her chest tightening. He's going to kill us all. Taranos spoke at almost the same time.
He is here. You need to run.
A crash echoed through the mansion, and screams followed. Mara felt a surge of the energy flowing through her; the pulling feeling again, pulling her towards the door. Towards Riffolk. She felt it shift, pushing instead of pulling for a brief moment, and she was suddenly certain that he could feel her presence.
Outside the bedroom, the two guards shouted something. There were gunshots, deafening despite the closed door, then an even louder buzzing sound. It filled her ears, drowned her thoughts, and shook the floor beneath her feet. The air itself became electric, her skin buzzing almost as much as the wound on her shoulder.
He'd used her so many times, and she could never fight back. She belonged to him, legally and emotionally. In the hallway beyond the door, footsteps approached, and Mara's mind swirled with a chaos of panic and horrible memories. She couldn't move, she couldn't think, and all that existed in that moment was Riffolk. The loving man he'd been during her courtship and the wedding. The iconic genius who changed Ermoor for the better. The
abusive husband who discarded her after he'd taken his pleasure. The evil scientist who killed an innocent girl.
He was on the other side of the door, and Mara's heart beat so fast she thought she might die. His face swam into her mind's eye, the cold eyes boring into her soul. Pera's destroyed corpse appeared again. The room blurred, and she tried to disappear, screwing her eyes shut and trying to blot out the world.
The door exploded inward, shattering into a cloud of dark wooden pieces and filling the room with scratchy dust. Her eyes flew open again, of their own accord. The guard in the bedroom with them exploded too, into a sudden drift of ash. Mara couldn't tell if she was screaming.
"What the bloody hell is happening?" Uncle Lewis shouted through the din.
Riffolk stepped into the room, saw them, and she felt the shift again. The power, Taranos' energy, swirled around them like a storm, and she felt it move with his mind. Panicking, reaching out with her own mind, she grabbed hold of the energy too; that magic was the only true comfort left to her, other than Uncle Lewis. She wasn't in control, couldn't think at all; but reaching for the power was automatic now. A look of horrified confusion splashed across Riffolk's face.
"You... You don't deserve this power!" He screamed.
She felt the arc of lightning before she saw it; felt it before it started towards her. They were connected now, both using the same magic. Connected to Taranos. It told her what to do, but not with words; with feelings. It reached beyond her terror, through her panic and touched her with the same feeling of completeness she'd felt in the street when she used magic for the first time. A slight nudge pushed her left side, and the arc of lightning was there a second later, but she met it with her own, throwing her left hand up and forcing an explosion of pure power.
Riffolk's lightning scattered like fog in the wind, and she brought her right hand up and unleashed an avalanche of sparks directly at his face. He grunted, bringing his hands to his eyes, and in that moment she felt the change; all the magic in the room flowed to her mind, under her control.
She pushed, with everything she had, and the magic around her reacted. Riffolk was thrown backwards, slamming into the wall behind him. She pushed again, this time gathering as much magic as she could and focusing it into a single bolt of lightning.
It hit Riffolk so hard that Mara heard a physical thump, then a crack, and then the entire wall behind him exploded out into the night. His presence was weak, but still there, and she knew it wouldn't be long before he recovered and came back for her. She felt him retreating, and dropped to her knees, exhausted. Her own energy was weak too.
After a while, she wasn't sure how long exactly, the silence pressed a little too heavily down on her. Looking around, she realised the room was empty.
"Uncle Lewis?"
She looked at the foot of the bed, where they'd been sitting. A pile of ashes lay there, half on the bed and half on the floor. It was messy and spread around from the magical hurricane her and Riffolk had caused. Sitting on the bed upside down was a pair of small round glasses, the lenses shattered.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway, getting louder. Mara didn't care; barely heard them. It could have been Riffolk coming back, and she wouldn't have moved. Uncle Lewis was dead. He'd died while he was right next to her, and she hadn't even noticed. Even worse, he'd died because of her magic. It might have even been the lightning she'd thrown that did it.
His glasses were in her hands. They felt so small, so fragile; she hadn't held them since she was a baby. When she last held them, they were far too big for her face, and slipped down constantly. In her mind it replayed, but what was previously a beautiful memory now felt sharp and cold. Vaguely, she heard the footsteps reach the destroyed bedroom door.
"Mara... you're okay."
Mathys. She couldn't look at him. If he'd been around, or if he'd allowed more soldiers to guard her, Uncle Lewis might still be alive. A heavy, painful silence stretched between them; Mara didn't take her eyes off the ruined glasses.
"Mara, we need to go," Mathys said, "this place isn't safe any more."
"Nowhere is safe." Her voice sounded strange even to herself, flat and dead.
"I can get us to safety Mara, you just need to come with me."
Still not looking up from the glasses, she stood and followed Mathys out of the mansion.
Elana
The darkness was complete. Elana crouched low, ready for anything. A few moments passed before she remembered herself and traced the spell at her eye; shadows became as transparent as daylight, and a long, slightly curved tunnel materialised in front of her. It stretched out in both directions, and she saw points where intersecting tunnels joined it on both sides. She froze for a moment; as well as she could navigate the forests of Shanaken, her sense of direction wasn't great. There were absolutely no markers to indicate where she was or where anything else was. Every tunnel looked identical.
Then she drew her Kaizuun, and a faint mess of auras bloomed in the distance. She strode through the tunnel, gathering as much magic as she could. The darkness helped; naturally dark places, even those without much life, were a source of Shadow Magic. It was much more difficult taking energy from pure darkness than from a life-filled forest at night, but it still felt good to embrace the utter blackness underneath the city. Above ground, Ermoor was not only devoid of natural life, but was constantly lit by colourful street lights, which made drawing Shadow Magic almost impossible.
Silence filled the tunnels. Surrounded by black stone and metal, with no light but the auras of thousands of slaves and no life other than the slaves themselves, Elana grew suddenly weary. She had found nothing but pain in Ermoor, and she found herself wishing the Duulshen had sent someone else on this mission. She wasn't even sure she'd made enough of a difference to be able to report back to the Duulshen. She'd never failed them before, but being in Ermoor was like trying to run underwater. Not only did she feel as though her potential couldn't be reached, she also felt like she was slowly drowning, deprived of air and with no view of the surface.
Eventually, she reached a dead end. The tunnel simply stopped, and she was still several hundred metres from the closest of the slaves. As she watched the figures moving, exhausted and faint, she noticed several dozen much stronger auras patrolling. So the slaves are guarded from below too, she thought. None of the slaves reacted to the soldiers. She didn't think much of it, until it occurred to her that the soldiers weren't reacting to the slaves either; there was literally no interaction between them.
They're in the walls. It hit her suddenly, and she took a closer look at the wall in front of her. The tunnel lead straight here, with nowhere else to go; hidden doors. The soldiers could guard entrances without having to manage the slaves directly. But if that was the case, what kept the slaves working in the first place? If no one was there, cracking a whip or punishing those who slacked in their work, why did they continue working so efficiently?
After half an hour of examining the wall, she finally found a trigger, and the wall slid open to reveal a brightly lit, warm tunnel, which resembled the corridors in the scientific laboratory she'd sabotaged. Dropping the Shadow Eye spell and sheathing her blade, she stepped into the corridor as the wall slid closed again behind her.
Elana sprinted through the brightly lit tunnels under Ermoor. Her Shadow spell wouldn't do much to hide her in the relentless light; there were no shadows at all. She'd counted at least thirty soldiers patrolling through the halls before she'd sheathed her Kaizuun. She sprinted around a corner and came face to face with a soldier. He wore red and orange armour, a kind she'd never seen before. It had a full-faced helmet in the shape of a demonic face. Taken aback, she paused for a few seconds, staring at the odd armour. The soldier was just as shocked as she was, and paused too. They both stared, transfixed, until the shock wore off and the soldier reached for his gun. Elana swept her blade straight from its sheath through his neck before his hand touched the gun's handle.
Cursing at her
self, she glanced around as her Kaizuun made the auras of dozens of soldiers and thousands of slaves reappear before her. Why did I sheath it in the first place? She thought as she kept moving. The soldier behind her fell to the floor, his armour making a heavy clack as it connected with the smooth surface. She wouldn't remain unnoticed for long. With the soldier's auras showing their locations, she was able to take them down before they could see her, but it was only a matter of time before a patrolling soldier saw one of his fellows dead on the floor.
She moved as quickly as possible. She'd killed over a dozen soldiers by the time an alarm rang; it clanged through the corridors along with a yellow flashing light, making her wince as she approached another target. He turned as the alarm rang out, and his eyes went wide as she sliced his throat. Another soldier ran into the corridor ahead, too far for her to get to. He drew his gun, but she'd drawn and thrown a blade first. It hit him in the face as his arm brought up the gun, and it fired as his hand twitched. An explosion echoed through the small space from the soldier's gun, overtaking the alarm for a brief moment and making her ears ring. The actual projectile went nowhere near her; his arm had twitched to the side, and the gun fired straight into the wall next to him. But the sound was more than enough to pinpoint her location to the others.
Soon enough, under the constant wailing of the alarm, footsteps started thudding towards her. She sprinted for the corner where the soldier who'd fired his gun had come from. Auras were moving either side of her, rushing to the source of the sound along the adjacent corridors. They'd already drawn their weapons.
Mattias
Daughter of War Page 22
