Sindra stared at Bannor with silver eyes.
He drew a deep breath and smashed his fist into his palm.
Bannor followed, noting that Drucilla and the gold twins were right behind them.
Sindra thought to him as they flew.
The five of them hissed around several corners and up a stairwell to come at the third level from a different direction.
They turned a corner and Sindra came to a stop so suddenly that Bannor ended up wrapped around her from behind.
A figure filled the passage ahead, the torchlight glinting off gold metallic skin.
“Ahhh spit,” Sindra let out, backing up.
Bannor grabbed the huge woman’s shoulders, and swung her behind him. He dropped as the monster charged with a roar. He snatched up the beast’s threads and snapped them as though he was whipping the kinks out of a boat hawser.
The behemoth flipped up into the air, crashed into the ceiling then smashed down to the floor. Eternity’s energies crackled around him as he willed himself into battleshape, the strength of the stars filling his body. The stone underfoot crunched.
The juggernaut regained its feet and rushed but he was already prepared, bringing both of the mystically fortified axes home into the creature’s head with a crash.
He kicked the monster back as it thrashed and spewed blood on the corridor floor. It would not be getting back up.
Bannor flicked the blood off his axes and sheathed them. He drew and breath and shimmered back to his normal flesh then turned back to Sindra. “Proceed?”
Aarlen’s dark-haired daughter stared at him starry-eyed. “Oh—my—lord,” she breathed and glanced back at her sister. The woman vibrated as she spoke, her deep voice going up a full octave. “Bannor, you are my new hero. That was—amazing.”
“Sindra,” Cassin said. “Calm down. We knew he kicked arse. Next you’ll be offering to have his children.”
The elder laced her fingers at her mouth blinked at him with enticing silver eyes. “Can I?”
He snorted. “Lady Sindra—rescue—remember?”
“Right!” She nodded like she was addlebrained. “Right! Rescue.” She hovered off the ground and leaned forward to start out again.
“Wait.” He held out a hand to forestall her.
She stopped and looked at him.
“You’re good at this telepathy stuff, could you get me in contact with Senalloy?”
The big woman smiled. “Absolutely, but I have to touch you.”
He sighed. “Go ahead.”
She came over and put a hand on his shoulder. He felt a tickle in his mind as the elder’s psyche brushed up against his. She sent a thought clear and crystal hard. Bannor heard it in his own head the way he might hear someone call across a street.
Bannor felt a burst of confusion.
Bannor could feel Senalloy now, feel the way that Sindra had opened the telepathic channel. It really wasn’t that much different than how savants communicated with one another. It appeared that savants and pantheon lords had their own private pathways that made it easier and faster.
He felt her immediate unease. Apparently, she’d already sensed something amiss.
He felt Senalloy receive his words, but all he heard in response was static.
“Good thinking,” Sindra said. “Now, go?”
“Fast,” he said.
The four of them leaned up the corridor at good speed. He thought over his shoulder to Cassin.
Telepathy certainly was a powerful tool in situations like this. It underscored to him the disparity between an elite family like the Felspars and the T’Evagdurans. The King and Queen possessed vast resources and powerful magic. However, those extra little things like the ability to freely teleport around the universe and communicate with all your peers at a whim… they took on giant significance when the family was threatened.
They zipped up some stairs passed a team of defenders, one without a Baronian escort. There being only twelve of the allied lady elites there were several teams that could not have them. For this team to be in this back hall seemed a bit odd, especially with them moving toward the vault and not in any kind of patrol formation. Bannor didn’t slow to study them, and the team didn’t challenge them as they flashed by. He saw that Sindra and Drucilla glanced back as well, everything even slightly out of the ordinary was suspicious now.
They were getting close to the ghost vault. He needed to do his part in the dissemination of information. He accelerated and caught up with Sindra and took hold of her belt. He relaxed his concentration on steering and let her pull him along as he focused his concentration inward. He found the links to all the other savants that he knew and their links to eternity. He concentrated on broadcasting his message directly into that central connection they would all hear it at once.
He signed off and focused back on flying. He had done everything he could think to do. He had taken the responsibility on himself, but he had not gambled everything on his own personal success. He blinked, realizing how much he had changed in ju
st a short time.
Bannor felt the agitation of his brothers and sisters. They had definitely received the message. He hoped it helped. It certainly couldn’t have hurt. Whatever happened now, at least he couldn’t be called an idiot for keeping it to himself.
As they approached the front hall, they came across corpses of a couple dozen Baronian regulars and three elites lay in a smoking pile. A pair of bloody craters and the heavy marring of the walls indicated where the defenders had managed to bring down two dreadnaughts. Idun’s valkyries had certainly come to the rescue.
The area was obviously not under control yet because they could hear the bellows of more dreadnoughts, blasts of battle magic, and the clash of swords.
Feeling the tremors of power, Bannor braced himself as they dove into the mêlée. Two tight halls opened into a broad vestibule that housed the outer set of doors that guarded the vault. Dreads, elites, and regulars were crammed into the space lashing out at everything that moved. It was clear from the formation that the Baronians were trying to push the defenders out of the halls leading to the vestibule. However, the narrowness of the entrances were both help and hindrance. The awesome power of the dreads could only be brought to bear one at a time.
As it happened, they were approaching from the opposite hall. The Baronians were obviously prepared for a flanking action and a dread greeted them with a bellow.
“Here we go again,” Sindra said. A long black sword flickered into being in her hand. A runed staff also flared into reality, violet flames licking and sparking around its surface. Drucilla armed herself similarly and the twins came down shoulder to shoulder, black light flashing around their bodies. The two leaped on the dreadnought, swords shrieking.
Bannor heard a familiar clack behind him. Energy blasts shrieked past him, tearing into the knot of Baronians. The bolts deflected from shielded elites, but the regulars, hemmed in by their own people could do little more than fight defensively and throw out a few offensive spells that glanced off some kind of protection the girls were employing.
Sindra and Drucilla possessed amazing speed, and whittled away at the dread in the tiny space, avoiding its grabs and hurricane force punches. Bannor knew instinctively it was simply to give him time to set himself.
He called down his battleform, feeling the energy course through him. The feel of it was beginning to be intoxicating; the sense of strength and near invincibility. He barely even needed to use his nola powers.
Bannor waded in, the stone cracking underfoot as he plowed into the monster with a punch that drove it backward out of the entry. Whipping out his axes, he pounded his way into the heart of the press. Sharp slashes of pain cut into him as three regulars leaped on him, their magic weapons tearing into the vulnerable spots between the plates of Kriar armor. They were fast, strong and far more skilled at fighting than him but there simply wasn’t room for them to maneuver and it gave them no place to go when his axes came whistling around with the force of a tempest behind them.
An elite sent a spell at him, he batted away the threads of the magic diverting them in flight so they struck another Baronian who screamed and clutched his eyes. He hooked the elite’s battle staff with his axe and brought his other axe across down on it, willing the weapon’s edge to sever the main material ties of the enchantments around the staff.
Sindra screamed behind him. “Hit the floor!”
On the far side of the room, he saw the combatants diving into niches and prostrating themselves.
The staff detonated, sending flames and smoke roaring through the chamber and splashing the lesser creatures in the center of the room against the walls.
The blast roared over his body, the flames feeling like the bellows gust from a blacksmith’s forge.
The elite to whom the staff belonged weathered the explosion but looked barely able to stand, his hair and clothes mostly burned away, and his body scored with cuts caused by flying debris.
The dreads staggered around as though confused waving ineffectually as if they were blind.
The room froze in tableau. He could see the defenders on the far side picking themselves up. Corim, and others he knew stared at him with wide eyes.
The Baronian war mage staggered back pulling out a sword and pointing it at Bannor. The other two elites who had withstood the blast stepped forward to guard him, their weapons ready. Their wounds wept blood, and they were blackened by burns. These guys sure were tough, any other creature would be writhing on the ground after getting hit like that.
He spun his axes and dropped them into the sheaths at his side. He drew a breath, his heart pounded. He summoned more energy, feeling the room shudder with potential that crackled and flashed on his skin. “Get off my world,” he thundered, his voice echoing with the essence of a first one. “Stay away from my family. Leave in peace, or leave in pieces. Choose.”
One of the dreads recovered its sight, focused on him, and lunged. Gaze locked on the Baronian commander, he caught the juggernaut’s face in his left hand, gouging its eyes with his fingers. The monster howled and thrashed, clawing and pounding at Bannor’s face and shoulder.
He summoned his nola power, concentrating the power of eternity in his other fist. He yanked his hand free and smashed the blow home. The gold creature’s face crushed with a sound of tearing metal as it hammered into the vestibule wall with a room-shaking impact. The creature stumbled out of the cratered wall and fell to the stone floor with a mushy thud.
He focused on the commander again and leaned his head to one side. “Do I have to kill every one of you?”
The Baronian commander blinked. His gaze tracked unobtrusively to the slain dread.
One of the other elites rushed Bannor with a battle cry. He dodged out of the path of the flashing blade, but this creature was every bit as good as Senalloy, a mystic blade went hard between his ribs in a piercing shriek of pain.
The Baronian shoved the sword in to the hilt with a cry of effort. The pain made Bannor snarl. He caught the man’s hand and locked it down. He backhanded the brute across the face with a crunch. The lieutenant collapsed to the floor and twitched.
Grimacing, Bannor pulled the sword out of his body. Feeling the pain, but also feeling the hardened metal of his battle form partially seal the wound.
He took the magic weapon, wrapped the power of the garmtur around it, and brought the flat of the blade down over his knee. The weapon snapped in rasp of magic.
The Baronian commander’s eyes widened. The other lieutenant stared openly.
Bannor tossed the weapon shards at the man’s feet. He drew a breath. “I’m losing my patience.”
The commander raised his chin and narrowed his eyes. “I do not have a choice in this.”
“Yes, you do,” Bannor growled, boring his gaze into the man. “Fight for me.”
The Baronian swayed back.
“Fight for me,” he repeated. “I free you from your masters.”
The commander and his lieutenant exchanged glances. He saw them look at the slain dread, and the other elite. Around him, Bannor felt the defenders holding their breath.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
He cast a slow deliberate look to the smashed dreadnought then looked back at the Baronian. “Don’t I?” He laced his fingers and cracked his knuckles with a clunking sound that made people in the room wince. He folded his arms.
The Baronian scowled. “We cannot join you.”
He put force and anger in his voice. “Then get the frell out.”
The commander pulled something from his belt. He glanced around the room, and all the living Baronians including the dreadnaughts, vanished in a clap of collapsing air.
Bannor stared at the spot where they’d been only instants before making sure they had truly left the area. He let out a breath, dropped to one knee and gripped his stomach. “Urgh.”
“Are you okay?” Sindra asked, putting a hand on his back.
“No, I’m not frelling okay, he ran me
through with a sword. Ummm.” He let out a shuddering breath. “Watch for Sarai.”
Sindra rose and watched the corridor and went to the entranceway to watch the corridor.
The people in the further hall filed in. He recognized Corim, Beia, and the valkyrie Kylie. They also had two valkyries of a new kind that he had never seen, instead of white feathers, their wings shined in a rainbow of different colors that changed and sparkled. He felt the presences of several shaladen weapons. Valkyries with shaladens? The huge white-haired Myrmigyne and the bearded warrior near her also held shaladens in their fists. Behind the Shael Dal were three or four Kriar warriors, both males and females among them. Any of them could be the Baronian moles waiting to snatch the T’Evagdurans.
“Friend, that was truly awe inspiring,” Corim said.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “It was great right up to the part where he stuck me with the sword.”
Cassin’s sister Annawen came and wrapped herself around burly Corim. The man looked down at the gold girl’s embracing arms and rolled his eyes. He didn’t attempt to dissuade her though.
Cassin knelt by Bannor. “I can stop the bleeding, but you can’t be doing—whatever that is.”
“Better hurry up,” Corim said. “Sen and the others are just down the hall.”
Cassin unbuckled Bannor’s chestplate and tossed it aside, then pulled up the skin tight Kriar cloth revealing his silvery metallic skin. “I’m ready,” Cassin told him.
Yes, but was he? He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He willed himself back to normal, the crackle of energy changing living alloy back to flesh. Pain shrieked through his abdomen, and the groan forced itself through his gritted teeth. “Rrrrgh.”
Cassin pressed her palms over the wound that had immediately began pumping blood. She closed her eyes and white illumination flooded down her arms. Heat pressed into Bannor’s abdomen and the fierce pain lessened.
The girl rocked her head back. The power in her hands swept through him touching organs and vital nerves, and the intense discomfort lessened to a manageable level.
Reality's Plaything 4: Savants Ascendant Page 20
