by Mark Albany
The whole of the wall shuddered with the first blast of power and I could hear the sound of the wood creaking under the strain of our attack, and as the second one came the woodwork was shattered to splinters, sending pieces flying out into the courtyard behind it.
It proved to be fortuitous, as a group of elves were standing there, waiting for us to get through while protected behind a shield wall. The blast was strong enough to dislodge their defensive positions, and almost a dozen of them dropped to the ground, clutching wounds caused by the massive chunks of wood that had been sent flying into their ranks.
I didn’t wait for them to recover their composure, quickly charging at their line, feeling the power rushing into the sword as I swung it at the elf nearest to me, cutting his head clean from his shoulders, raising my left hand with a shield to block a strike with a spear, quickly followed by a hard stab into the breastplate of another.
The power surged from the sword into the man, cutting smoothly through the steel of his armor, finding a way into his chest, and impaling him before a final blast knocked him backward, away from me and into the elves behind him.
I could already hear those that were near us calling for a retreat. Those on the wall were unable to stop the wolf and serpent from rampaging across them, leaving a trail of broken and bloodied bodies as the five women charged in behind me. Aliana in almost full flight, jumped over the line, cutting through the ranks with her daggers, using them to find the gaps in the elves’ armor and taking full advantage.
Braire was quickly joined by her beasts who helped with tearing through the numbers, while Lyth and Faye fought side-by-side. Norel was making sure to cover us from behind, both with the shields, and bolts of lightning that were raining down on them from above.
There were at least fifty of them by the time we were all inside the courtyard, and they never stood a chance.
Aliana had been right, none were mages, and it seemed like they had been warned, but not prepared for the fury of the attack that they were facing. They quickly tried to form up to fight back, but it soon became clear what they needed to do if they wanted to survive.
“Retreat!” one of the elves cried, and the rest were quick to follow in his footsteps, heading back towards the keep, whose doors were still open even as they streamed back into it.
A handful remained behind to try to hold us back, giving the rest of their comrades enough time to get away. It was a valiant and noble effort, for what it was, but it didn’t last long.
There was no surrender in these men. Either they truly did believe in what Abarat was doing, or they truly believed that he would kill them if they faltered in their duty to protect him.
It was interesting to see the hold that Abarat had on them, even if it made for the unfortunate end of them having to die so we could get past them.
The last one fell before I was able to get to the doors, watching the elves pulling the doors shut as I knocked the last one onto his back.
“Yield!” I roared at him, pressing my blade to his neck.
He looked utterly terrified, but he shook his head firmly, trying to reach for the sword that had escaped his grasp. He still wanted to fight.
Norel was there to finish him off for me, a lightning bolt escaping her fingers, jumping to the elf’s armor. He froze in place, his whole body contracting before falling silent.
“We don’t have time,” Norel explained the brutality of her action. “There are people dying for every second that we don’t remove Abarat from the fight.”
I nodded. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to,” Norel said, smiling and turning her attention back to the doors. “Fuck.”
“You feel it too?” Braire asked.
“They’ve warded the door,” Aliana said.
“We can’t get in?” I asked, looking around.
“Well, we could, if we had a battering ram,” Aliana said. “It’s protected against magic almost exclusively, and I don’t think we have the time to get around it.”
“It might be tough here, or dangerous, but do you think you can open us a portal into the keep?” Norel asked, looking back to Aliana.
She shrugged. “I can try.”
“That’s as good as we’re going to get,” I said, flicking the blood from my sword as Aliana went through the steps to bring the portal up. It was difficult for her, to the point where it was physically painful. Painful enough that it stretched across to all of us, and even though she still had a great deal of power from our bond, it was a trial.
She was gasping for breath as, almost a minute later, she turned to us all, indicating for us to join her in stepping through what we could only hope was a short trip to the other side of the keep’s doors.
22
Short portal though it was, it was a great deal more uncomfortable than the previous one, and I almost couldn’t wait for it to end. It also very uncomfortable, and left all of us struggling to breathe by the end.
But we were on the other side of the doors, to the surprise of the elves that had been starting to put braces up against the door to keep us from breaking in. I couldn’t tell whether they knew that the doors had been warded against us, or maybe they just didn’t trust them to hold, but either way, they quickly abandoned their work to try to attack us again. A last-ditch effort, but like the elf who Norel had dispatched outside, they weren’t just going to give up.
Opening the portal had taken its toll on Aliana, who was struggling to stay on her feet, eyes rolling to the back of her head as she fought to remain conscious.
“Ali!” Norel shouted, running over to her, pulling the djinn close and trying to revive her.
“Form up!” I called to the others, with Braire quickly rushing towards the door. Her beasts were still outside, waiting for her to bring them in as Faye, Lyth, and I formed a protective semicircle around Norel and Aliana, pushing the two back into the wall.
The tighter quarters were less conducive to our particular style of combat, and I quickly found myself on the defensive, pushing the elves back as they tried to press what they saw as an advantage. Faye’s sword had morphed into a spear now, and she was keeping the elves back with sharp stabs, cutting through a handful of them before the rest realized their danger. Lyth was using her sword instead of her bow, working together with me to keep the rest at bay as Braire worked to clear the door.
As had been said on the other side of the door, it only appeared to be warded against magical attack, and so all she needed to do was lift the barrier that was keeping the door shut. I could hear the wood shuddering as the wolf and serpent attempted to break through to reach her again.
There were enough of them around us to make for the fighting to get complicated for us, especially as we were working harder to keep them away from Aliana and Norel, as the latter tried to help heal the former, but it wasn’t long before Braire found a way to pull the door open.
Once again, the wolf and serpent charged in to protect us. Those elves that were feeling a lot braver about attacking a smaller number of us in tighter quarters were suddenly being overrun by a pair of monstrously-sized creatures.
Seeing them falter gave me the opening that I needed. I raised a shield with my left hand and used the sword in my right to cut through the section of the elves standing in front of me, trying to push me back into the wall with their shields. The blast cut through the shields, their armor and into the soft flesh underneath.
I was suddenly blinded by a pair of bright blasts lighting up the hall, crashing into the walls above us. They had tried to strike at us without hitting the elves that were standing between us and the pair of mages that had shown up to support the quickly dwindling numbers of the protectors of the fortress.
Lyth quickly dropped down to a knee as Faye and Braire made swift work of the remaining elves.
I jumped in to join the elf queen, raising a magical barrier for her as she hastily pulled her bow from her shoulder, nocking an arrow to the string, pulli
ng back, and letting loose all in one smooth motion.
The first of the two mages that had come to help fell to the ground with an arrow punched through his chest, as the air left his chest in a whoosh.
The second quickly realized the danger that he was in as Lyth pulled another arrow from her quiver and tried to turn and run away, attempting unsuccessfully to find some cover on the way.
Lyth didn’t even need to pause before loosing another arrow. It sang smoothly through the silence of the hall, and the second mage tripped and fell to the ground, a white feathered arrow sticking out of his back.
“Nice shooting,” I said, helping Lyth up from her kneeling position.
“It wasn’t that difficult of a shot, especially with you protecting me,” she replied, standing on her tiptoes to place a light kiss to my cheek. “But thank you.”
We turned our attention back around to where Norel was still helping Aliana stay on her feet. The Djinn was conscious and appeared to be fully in possession of her senses. It seemed as though the only real problem that she was facing was a lack of energy, since opening two portals in the same day through such difficult circumstances did tend to sap one’s strength.
I assumed, anyways.
“How are you feeling?” Norel asked, looking into the woman’s eyes.
“I’m all right, I promise,” Aliana said, laughing weakly. “Just a little drained, is all.”
“It was a brave thing that you did,” I said, stroking her cheek tenderly.
“Dangerous too,” Braire said, collecting her beasts back into their stones.
“Yes, it was, wasn’t it?” Aliana replied, grinning cheekily as she leaned into my touch. “But we can’t just stand around here all day, waiting for someone to do our jobs for us.”
“Agreed,” I said, looking around the place. “Does anyone have any idea where to find Abarat in this place, though?”
“I do,” Lyth said. “I spent a great many of my younger years here. Chances are, Abarat will be settled in the throne room. The place has been established as a focal point for magical energy and will assist him in whatever the hell he’s going to be doing next.”
“Fucking sacrilege that he’s sitting in that seat,” Faye said, sounding genuinely upset by the thought. “But I agree. That would be where he would have set himself up.”
“And we need to remove him from it,” Norel said. “Lyth, would you lead the way?”
“It would be my pleasure,” the elf queen said, guiding us down the hallway.
She led us deeper into the keep, pausing only to collect the arrows that she had shot at the mages along the way. As we made our way through the twisting hallways, I realized that I had vastly underestimated the sheer size of this place, making it seem like it was going to keep going on forever. The deeper we entered, however, the more the place seemed rundown. Like nobody had inhabited it in hundreds of years, and it was starting to go to waste.
It was a commentary on the skill of the architects that it had stood this long, but as the years went by and none had stepped forward to care for it, the building was starting to crumble in on itself. A couple of rooms were covered in dust, while others were missing walls, and had vines climbing in through the cracks and the windows.
The place was still gorgeous, but in an older, decrepit sort of way that made me a little sad. Maybe once all this was done, we could return and maybe try to rebuild it?
Or maybe Faye meant that anyone being here was sacrilege, not just Abarat, and this whole place needed to be crumbled into dust. I couldn’t say that I blamed her for thinking it, considering that she had been held trapped in this place for centuries. Her real self, anyways, as her body had continued on, used as a puppet to further Abarat’s ambitions. It was an unpleasant thing, and if she never wanted to be reminded of it, that was a valid reason to just let this place turn to dust.
That was how I felt about it, of course. Lyth might have something else to say, especially since she had spent a good deal of time running through these halls. If she wanted to rebuild this place and make it her home, who was I to say no? She was the damn queen. Even the emperor appeared to respect her royal bloodline.
Issues for later.
The deeper we moved into the keep, the more signs I could find that the place was inhabited. Tables had been set up, embers still burning in fireplaces. Spots had been cleaned and prepared for use, and those few bedrooms that we encountered looked like they had been slept in recently.
It made sense, since the elves that we had just gotten through were living in this place. Abarat would have accustomed himself to a certain standard of living as well and would likely have certain comforts furnished for him.
Odd as it was to find a lived-in quality for the people that we were here to stop, it also calmed the nerves that I had felt building in the back of my mind ever since we stepped through the portal that brought us to here.
I was still anxious, of course.
We finally reached a pair of massive doors, made from the same wood that the outer gates had been hewn from, or at least were made by the same craftsmen, women or... hell if I knew. There were no wards and nothing blocking the doors this time, but even so, I could feel some hesitation from the rest of the group as we approached them.
There was no denying the massive amount of power that could be sensed from the other side of the door. It was breathtaking. Awe inspiring. Terrifying.
And we were going in there to put a stop to it. I nodded, looking around at the rest before reaching up for the handle on the door and pushing it open.
It moved slowly on its hinges, but without making a sound, opening up into a large chamber, matched only in size by the throne room back at the imperial palace. A series of columns circled around the center of the room, which dipped a bit only to build up to a throne that was placed out in the open, clearly visible to anyone that was in the room, no matter where they were.
We had entered through the main door, heading deeper into the chamber that was illuminated by the stained-glass windows that spread across the entirety of the room, including one across the ceiling. It showered the oaken throne in rainbow of colors, illustrating a history that I didn’t yet know but wanted to be informed of.
It was hard to tell, but there were patterns in the stained glass that appeared to be some kind of magical rune, and yet none that I had ever seen before, all enhancing the view of the throne room.
And we weren’t alone in the chamber, of course. The throne was surrounded by a group of elves that looked to be deep in meditation, all joined together as familiars, working together for the man seated on the throne. He was looking up through the window above him, and yet didn’t appear to be seeing much of anything, gripping a tall, staff-like scepter in his hands.
I gulped out of reflex as Abarat’s head shifted downward, his focus turning from the sky above to what was standing below him. Even as his attention shifted, that of his underlings didn’t, like they were still focused on fighting the battle for him even as he turned to deal with something that was a little closer.
“Well, I knew this was going to happen,” Abarat said, his voice booming unnaturally through the room. “Hoped, really. I never could tell what the six of you would do, even if I could make a few educated guesses.”
He hoped that we would come here to face him?
The question played out clearly in my features, or so it seemed as Abarat smiled, shaking his head and pushing himself up from his seat on the throne, walking down the steps to our level, the scepter in his hand lightly tapping at each step, leaving his followers in their trance behind him.
“Even though we have found ourselves on opposing sides, I have never ceased in my admiration for all of you,” Abarat continued. “Yes, even you, human, although I speak more of the Sisters Three, the Faye, and of course, her Grace, Kaelyfth Avenalfhiant, Lady of the Silver Forest and Queen of the Aes Si.”
I hadn’t heard most of that and struggled to remember Lyth’s full name.
She seemed to forgive me, all things considered, but it still felt like Abarat held some kind of reverence for her.
“Of course, having you all here means that my horde will not have to kill you, and I can have all of you at my side when I take my rightful place as ruler of this land,” Abarat continued. “Well, all except you, Grant.”
“I know, Aliana already told me,” I replied. “Back when she was still your servant.”
“She never served me,” Abarat said, shaking his head. “Her darker form allowed her to see to the truth of what I have planned for these lands, and while she did not agree with my means, she did seem to agree with the ends. It was why I kept her away from the fighting, even sent her to help keep her sisters safe from the battle that was to come. You had to go and ruin that, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
“You must understand that I wouldn’t have just let her be turned back into her... less understanding self, without any sort of contingency in place,” Abarat said. “I always knew that there was the possibility, however remote, that finding you all again would bring her more annoyingly moral side to light, but I never expected you to be the agent for that. Odd little human, you are.”
“Your time here is finished, Abarat,” Lyth said, quickly stepping in before I could respond. “You have to realize that.”
“I don’t think so,” Abarat hissed in response. “You can’t see the importance of my work here, and that’s fine. I never needed people to understand what was being done for their own good. I just needed you to stop getting in my way.”
He raised his hand, pointing it at Aliana and mumbled a few words in elfish that I couldn’t understand. The effects were clear, however, as I could feel pain suddenly arcing through her body, a scream of agony being drawn from her as she dropped to the ground.
