Dusk Gate (Soul Bound Book 1)

by Benjamin Medrano

  No other light sources were in the room, and the light from her potion wasn’t enough to allow her to see anything definite. That irritated Xandra, and she took a deep breath, mostly annoyed that she’d lost her light spell at some point, probably in that void, and spoke the words to conjure it once more.

  Purple light filled the room, and at the sight Xandra’s lips pressed together unhappily for a moment, then she cursed under her breath. “Well, it appears that I’ve thrown myself into a magical oubliette. Wonderful, I’m a complete idiot.”

  Around Xandra were numerous moldering bodies. While some were dwarven skeletons and their equipment, not all were. There was a more recent body of a human woman, along with older corpses as well. At least Xandra assumed the rotting corpse was human. She’d cut her hand on a snapped dagger resting on the floor, and from the looks of the equipment of the dwarves as well as the walls, those trapped in here before had done their best to escape… though it hadn’t done them much good.

  The chamber was about thirty feet across and roughly circular, with a ceiling about twenty feet high. The walls were made up of large blocks of rough-cut quarried stone, with a large number of strange, fungal ‘roots’ covering them in a pale filigree. The wall that people had tried to break through was obvious, as Xandra’s predecessors had managed to cut and chip their way through almost half a foot of stone. Unfortunately for them, there was no sign of them breaking through, and several lanterns lay abandoned on the ground. Xandra suspected their oil reservoirs were all empty.

  It was a depressing scene practically designed to sap the will of anyone who ended up here. It was also just about the most useless trap possible for containing Xandra, though she’d have had more trouble if she’d run herself dry on mana. As she considered that, Xandra realized that she wasn’t absorbing mana from her surroundings, and she blinked, then smiled grimly.

  “Ah, very clever. Drain the mana from magi or those who use magical techniques, then isolate them so they can’t recover their mana. Even most magical items will run dry after a short while, since they can’t draw on ambient mana,” Xandra murmured, unhooking her potion from her belt. The cut on her hand didn’t look too bad, but she didn’t want to risk an infection.

  She took a sip of the potion, and heat spread from her stomach, then twisted and surged down her arm to the cut. There was a slight burning sensation as it reached the cut, but Xandra didn’t even grimace, watching as the wound healed without a trace, leaving new skin behind. Only the blood on her hand revealed that she’d been injured, and Xandra glowered at it, then shrugged, putting the potion back on her belt. It hadn’t hurt that much, but it was a sign of fallibility… though she’d already shown that when she got herself teleported away.

  “Very well, time to escape. Hopefully one of those who were digging had something more than worms in their heads when they chose the direction,” Xandra murmured, raising her bloody hand as she pointed at the wall, and for the first time in months she started to cast a spell that was truly potent.

  The air felt like it rippled as each word left her lips, like stones cast into a still pond, and mana surged, pouring out of her hands and into the shape that she wanted. A vortex slowly took form in Xandra’s hand, and she took a deep breath, holding it for a moment… and released the magic.

  No sound accompanied the spell, as ink-black absence of light lanced across the room in a broad beam, then hit the wall. The stone trembled, then collapsed into dust, like chalk in the wind, and even most of the dust vanished as it fell. The beam only lasted for a moment, but when it ended, it left a perfect, five-foot-across hole through the wall… and through the base of what looked like a building on the other side of the wall.

  Xandra’s eyebrows rose, and she quickly covered her face as the building creaked, then collapsed with an immense crash that echoed loudly in the small room, while the impact sent the dust her spell had created blasting into her face.

  Lowering her arm, Xandra blinked a couple of times, sneezed, then smiled wryly as she murmured, “Oops.”

  Dozens of skeletons had turned toward her, and they started moving as she watched. After a moment Xandra shrugged and moved to meet them, beginning another spell.

  At least now she didn’t have to worry about accidentally catching any of her allies in her spells.

  Chapter 40

  Crak paused on catching up with the lead elements of his pack, briefly confused as to why they’d stopped, then his gaze rose a little more and he understood. The words etched into the stone above the passageway were almost imperceptible, but they had a power that he couldn’t ignore.

  Rithevahn wasn’t a city he’d ever heard of before and it smelled abandoned, but the words contained the essence of the beliefs of the fair folk who once lived here, and their nature made his fur stand on end as he bared his teeth. Even with His Lady’s occasional capricious whims, she was nothing like these fair folk. Crak didn’t kill for the sheer pleasure of it, or cause others to die in horrible pain and fear. It wasn’t in his nature, yet it was these fair folk’s. Their cruelty permeated every jagged curve of the carving, and even if they were gone, it made him hesitate to enter their city.

  The sound of battle from within was what changed Crak’s mind. The faint crackle of flames, the smell of moldering bones… it told a tale that was only to be expected. If a city of this type of fair folk was abandoned, the unquiet dead were sure to follow. But their quarry had entered the city, so they had little choice but to follow.

  Crak gave a single, firm yip, then led by example, rushing through the entrance of the cave with his pack following behind him.

  The immense crash in the distance echoed loudly, and was followed by several smaller sounds of something collapsing. Jasmine flinched, but finished her spell. “…let light reign!”

  Light flooded out of her hand and over the skeletons that’d been flanking them, which sizzled, most of them falling to pieces as their red eyes winked out. The eyes of three simply dimmed, though, and Jasmine fell back just as Naomi rushed forward, swinging her staff as it glittered with light that exploded as she struck the first of them, blasting the last of its unlife out of it and another beside it, leaving one on its own.

  “Well, that’s a good sign,” Nef said, pleasure in her voice. Then the woman almost flickered out of existence, transforming into a blur that crossed the room to appear next to the last of the skeletons, then cut its head off cleanly.

  When Jasmine glanced back, she saw most of the main host of skeletons that’d been chasing them were in pieces, which startled her. She knew that skeletons generally weren’t that powerful, but the armor should have made them more difficult to destroy. Yet ever since she’d started fighting, Nef had been moving at that same lightning speed, dispatching the monsters with ruthless efficiency. Jasmine felt regret twist her gut, as she realized she shouldn’t have doubted Xandra. Let alone after she’d thrown herself in the way of a trap Jasmine had triggered.

  “What’s a good sign?” Jasmine asked, then nodded toward the skeletons still following them through the city streets. “And aren’t we supposed to be leaving them to slow down the fair folk?”

  “There’re plenty of them for that,” Nef replied casually, flicking her sword as if to remove blood from it, and nodded deeper into the caverns. “As to the other, that means that Xandra’s alright. At least she’ll make finding her easy! We just have to follow the explosions.”

  Almost as if to punctuate her comment, a dull boom echoed through the cavern, and some of Jasmine’s guilt faded. If Xandra was alright, she could at least apologize.

  “Hmm… though I suppose this also means the portal is in danger from her. We’d best hurry,” Nef added, a flicker of worry crossing her face. “I am concerned about what might be behind all of this. The city was dead the last time I was here. None of these traps, undead, or anything else. We may have a problem.”

  “We may have a problem?” Naomi demanded. “We’re under siege by the undead!”

>   “It could be worse,” Nef replied absently, frowning. “I swear the buildings have moved, too. We’d best go.”

  “Right,” Jasmine replied, taking a deep breath, then followed as the elf led the way, with Naomi’s staff providing light.

  The streets of the city would have been unnerving at the best of times. There was what looked like a gigantic spider nest suspended over the city, with webbing connecting it to other structures along the walls of the cavern, and parts of it also pierced deep into the stalactites and stalagmites that extended from the roof and floor. The roads were stone, much as one might expect, but they weren’t as smooth as Jasmine might have expected, and she kept having to be careful not to trip on the jagged edges.

  The buildings also ranged in styles, with the strange mushroom one she’d almost been struck by being rather common, and something about the buildings themselves felt alien and unnatural, mostly in the strange curves that didn’t quite seem to align properly, but also in other aspects like one structure which had a series of immaculately polished skulls hanging on spikes above a building that had been almost entirely demolished, the remains of it looking like the jaws of some horrible creature just hanging there.

  Now that dozens of dwarven skeletons were meandering around the streets, the entire scene was given an even more chilling air. Especially when the skeletons were trying to kill them. Then the first howl echoed through the cavern, followed by another, then another, until an entire chorus seemed to come from every direction at once as they reverberated, hammering into Jasmine.

  “Ugh, what was that?” Jasmine demanded, regaining her balance after a moment. She was helped by another explosion in the distance which disrupted some of the sound.

  “Wolf-caste war cry, used to befuddle their enemies briefly, and apparently amplified by the cavern,” Nef replied calmly, cutting down a skeleton blocking their path as she did so. “Unfortunately for them, it relies on creatures being intelligent, as these skeletons obviously aren’t.”

  “I thought you didn’t know much about fair folk abilities,” Naomi protested, regaining her poise.

  Jasmine righted herself as well, quickly scurrying after Nef, her gaze flicking up toward the cavern ceiling nervously. She kept having the horrible premonition that some titanic spider was going to come out of the nest and descend on them, especially after the echoing howls filled the cavern. If there was anything horrible sleeping here, she suspected that would have woken it, and she really didn’t want to think about what might dwell here.

  “I don’t know many specifics, but some things you just pick up after a while,” Nef told Naomi, grinning back at her. “Now, come along quickly! We’ve got a swarm ahead!”

  Jasmine swallowed a curse as she saw no less than twenty skeletons along the road, milling toward them in an ungainly mob. She was just thankful that there didn’t seem to be any intelligent undead among them, as otherwise they’d be facing an organized army of undead, which would likely be disastrous. On the other hand, the skeletons were far enough away she might be able to deal with them.

  “Let me? I can get rid of them,” Jasmine offered, and Nef stopped suddenly, nodding.

  “Go right ahead! I’m sure I could take care them, but I’d prefer to save my mana. I don’t have as much as a dedicated mage,” the Karakar said, examining the group critically. “I wonder why they haven’t destroyed any buildings…”

  Jasmine did her best to ignore the elf’s musings, even as she had to admit Xandra had a significant point about Nef. The more they associated, the stranger the woman showed herself to be.

  “Fires of dawn, heed my call. Come to my voice, and bring My Lady’s light to the world!” Jasmine chanted, drawing the sigils she needed in the air, and mana rushed out into the spell. Only belatedly did Jasmine try to control it more precisely, and her lips pressed together as she felt how much mana she’d used. Despite her dismay, fire danced around Jasmine, the flames brilliant with light. The fire surged forward, like a flood of light that banished the darkness around them, and drowned the undead. There was a sizzling sound as strange, dark smoke seeped out of the skeletons, then the fire passed, fading slowly from the world.

  Where the fire had been were piles of armor, much of the tarnish burned from their surface to leave them gleaming, but the skeletons were entirely gone, turned to fine ash by the holy power contained in Jasmine’s spell. She let out a breath of relief, smiling as she said, “There we go. Let’s—ack!”

  A faint crack and hissing sound split the air, and an instant later a crossbow quarrel from behind whipped by Jasmine’s face at an uncomfortably close distance, drifting to the left as it did so, and she spun around, pale and with her heart pounding from how close she’d come to taking the bolt in the back of her head.

  Coming down a side street were still more undead, and among them were several with crossbows, including one that was in the process of lowering its weapon to winch back the string. Several quarrels could be seen in a quiver at its side, while a few others had ammunition of their own, and were taking aim at them.

  Jasmine nearly froze in place. Fortunately, her subconscious had a better idea of what to do, and before she realized what she was doing, Jasmine bolted over to a spot behind a wall, flinching as a couple of bolts skipped off the stonework with harsh whines, and Nef stopped next to Jasmine, barely seeming to be breathing hard.

  “How many of these skeletons are there?” Naomi demanded, sounding outraged as she cowered behind a convenient stalagmite on the other side of the road. “I thought that this place was supposed to be safer than Loth!”

  “It was, and is,” Nef replied, glancing between Naomi and Jasmin, then jerked her chin at Naomi. “Come on, cross the road. I’ll make sure they don’t hit you.”

  “How’re you going to do that?” Naomi asked, looking at the elf skeptically, and Jasmine felt a mad giggle trying to well up inside her. This really wasn’t the time for arguing, she realized, but there was something amusing about the entire thing, at least if you asked her.

  “I’ll take the bolts myself if I have to,” Nef said, a confident smile on her face as she added, “I doubt I’ll need to, though. Their sights seem to be out of true, and I’m pretty good at dodging. Now go.”

  “Naomi!” Jasmine demanded, glowering at the younger priestess, who looked like she’d been about to argue, and gestured for Naomi to come to her.

  Naomi paled, then gritted her teeth and lunged out into the street again. Nef jumped out from beside Jasmine, placing herself between Naomi and the approaching skeletons. More cracking sounds came in response, and Jasmine nearly flinched as the missiles flicked into view, several of them far more accurate than she cared for… then she gaped as Nef burst into motion.

  The Karakar knocked a quarrel aside with her sword, neatly causing it to change course away from both of them, and adroitly ducked between two more bolts, while the others were far enough off-course that they missed completely. Then the two were across the street, and Jasmine stared at Nef.

  “How did you do that? You knocked a bolt out of the air!” Jasmine demanded.

  “Lots of practice,” Nef replied calmly, nodding down the street. “Shall we? I’d rather not get pinned down by the skeletons.”

  There was a dull thump in the distance, like a large object had been dropped, and the cavern grew a little brighter rather abruptly, accompanied by a faint crackling sound.

  Jasmine paled a little, asking, “Is that…?”

  “Xandra, unless I miss my guess. We’d best catch up with her,” Nef said, frowning as she added, finally sounding concerned, “I’d say I’m worried about missing the fun, but anything that causes her to do that is concerning. Let’s go back her up, hm? I don’t want her to lose that pretty tush of hers!”

  Jasmine almost laughed despite herself, but she nodded, moving to follow as the woman led the way. At least they were significantly faster than the skeletons, who were slowed by their heavy armor.

  Chapter 41


  “Damn it!” Xandra spat, pain searing through her as the bolt punched into her side, then out her back to bounce off the cavern wall. She ducked another attack and hissed, then spat the words of a spell, bracing herself.

  Momentary fire blazed out of the hole in her side, the pain growing even worse for an instant as she cauterized the wound, then the fire ended, adding another throbbing injury to the handful that she’d taken so far. Xandra had no one to blame but herself, though.

  The first thirty or so skeletons had been easy to destroy. At that point the first ones with both ammunition and crossbows had shown up, which meant that Xandra had to take cover more, but they weren’t intelligent, so they kept clumping up and making themselves easy targets to take out en masse. Which was why she’d gotten overconfident.

  Xandra conjured an orb of fire and tossed it down into the courtyard from behind the archway, which gave her at least some cover. The orb exploded into another swirling whirlwind of fire that chased down the skeleton which had shot her, while Xandra scowled vindictively, glancing around warily for the real threat.

  She’d made it to the location with the portal. At least, that’s what she assumed the archway was, with how it was made of stone inlaid with hundreds of bones, each of which was carved with dozens of tiny runes. It wasn’t the sort of portal Xandra would want to use under most circumstances, but she didn’t have time to examine it, not when the pile of moldering bones in the middle of the portal had animated quite abruptly.

  The bones had swirled into the air violently, not taking the shape of a figure or anything else, instead whipping around in a rough sphere with three major clusters of bones moving here and there. Worse, they didn’t seem to be entirely material, as they were translucent. They also had shot several bone shards at her without seeming to lose any mass, and they’d been accompanied by the faint sound of screams. Xandra was mostly irritated that the thing seemed to be completely fireproof, as her last attempt to attack it had resulted in the bolt of fire flashing through it, though Xandra had thought that a cluster of bones toward the middle had dodged out of the way. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to figure out if that was a weak point, not with all the other skeletons that were after her. She had spells that could deal with spirits, but they weren’t as easy to use.