by Greg Curtis
“So, you think I'm just toying with you. Playing with your feelings. You're thinking that everything I know about you means nothing. He smiled cruelly at them. “But here's what you pathetic little children don't realise. I also know where your families are!”
There was a gasp. From everyone. And Fylarne's heart leapt into his throat as he finally understood what the Master was threatening them with. He wasn't a soldier at all. He might have an army, but he was no general. And he didn't want to fight a war. So he was just going to try and break them all here and now. Force them to do his bidding. And Fylarne knew only too well that he would cheerfully slaughter all their loved ones if it would get him what he wanted. He would probably do it anyway – just to amuse himself.
“Vermin!” Elodie finally yelled at him, speaking for them all. “We will hunt you to the ends of the last world!”
“Really my Dear?” He smiled even more broadly than before. “You think you have that sort of power? You think all your preparations will save you? That your attempt to lock the Heartfire away from me will work?” He laughed at her. “Children!”
“Well children, let me show you what true power is. And what all your hopes and dreams will come to.”
He gestured with his fingers and the image of him widened out so that that they could see the land around him. See the figures beside them. The ones standing there looking completely calm. And the ones behind them with the axes. And of course the chopping blocks.
“No!” Fylarne leapt to his feet in terror as he saw his family. All of them. Standing there, looking completely at ease. Completely untroubled by the thought of having their heads chopped off. And then he screamed it some more, with only a single thought on his mind – this couldn't be happening!
But as his heart broke inside his chest he knew it was. And all the anger and hatred and denials in the world wouldn't change it. Nor would all the prayers. And yet he prayed to the gods. To all the Ladies and Gentlemen there were. Begging them not to allow this. To stop the monster.
“Now, my friend,” the Master began, finally choosing to stare straight at Fylarn, “where shall we begin?”
“No!” Fylarne screamed some more. It was the only thing he could think to say. So he kept screaming it.
“So would you like to choose? Or shall I? Or will you take down your pathetic defences instead!” The smile became a grin of pure triumph as the Master knew he had him.
And Fylarne knew the same thing. He knew it with every fibre of his being. He had to choose. Choose between his family's lives and the lives of everyone all around him and maybe the freedom of the entire world. And how could he choose? How could anyone choose?
He stood there, racked with pain and fear, desperately trying to think of something to do. Anything. But there was nothing. All those sessions on the throne couldn't give him an answer. Everything he'd learned was useless. And the only thing he could understand was that he was trapped. Helpless.
“I'm not hearing anything,” the Master told him as the terrible seconds crept by. “So maybe I should give you a little hand. Let's start with your mother.”
“No!” Fylarne screamed some more as the terror exploded in his chest. As he watched his mother calmly and easily walk up to the block, kneel down and lay her head on it, without a care in the world.
All around him the others were yelling at him, telling him not to do what the Master was demanding of them. And he knew they were right to do that. He couldn't betray them like that. Not again. He couldn't let them all be slaughtered. But he couldn't let his family be murdered either. Not his mother. Not when she'd already lost one hand for him.
And then it came to him. The only answer he had.
Fylarne screamed incoherently and ran, while all around him people were yelling at him. They didn't understand. They thought he was going to undo all the effort he and Elodie had put in to protecting the Heartfire. The Master did too – he was laughing with triumph as he saw his victory approaching. But they were all wrong.
Because as Fylarne ran for the Heartfire he understood the simplicity of the answer. The only solution to his problem. And it was bubbling furiously in front of him.
And then as the world turned to chaos all around him he reached the edge of the caldera's lip and leapt off it, diving into the lava. There had only ever been one solution to his problem. And as he touched the lava with his fingertips and then felt it flowing right over him, he felt the fire burning him and he knew that truth. He welcomed that truth to him.
No more pain.
Chapter Fifty Eight
There was silence on the edge of the volcano. No one was saying anything. They were all too busy dealing with the shock of Fylarne's death. In some cases the grief. But for Elodie it was different. It wasn't just shock and grief that held her. It was the horror. The outrage. Not just for what the Master had forced Fylarne to do. But for what she'd thought of him. How she'd judged him.
That was something Chy had told her long ago. That many others had also told her. They simply didn't know how to judge him. He had been in an impossible situation. But she'd let her grief for her friends blind her to that. Now she understood. He had tried. He had done his best. And at the end he had given his life to escape the trap he was in.
And her friend was dead. How could she have forgotten that he was her friend?! Her dear friend?! Elodie just couldn't understand that. But just then she couldn't think of him as anything but. And he was gone!
She wanted to weep. But it was too soon. The tears just wouldn't come. Instead the firm hand of shock held her tight, and all she could do was stand there silently, waiting. But waiting for what? She didn't know.
Eventually someone had to break the silence. But it wasn't her. And it wasn't anybody she wanted to hear from. It was the Master. He too had been quiet – probably because his plans had fallen apart and he simply hadn't expected it. But now it seemed he had accepted the situation.
“Alright then,” he announced unexpectedly, not looking quite as smug as he had before, “I guess we do this the hard way.”
With that he was gone. There was nothing but empty air in front of them. And all she could think was that she was glad for his absence. But there was an army below them. And almost immediately after the Master had vanished, they started marching for the volcano's slopes.
After that there was no time for either shock or grief. The battle had begun.
Elodie and the others walked to the edge of the lip to look down. And to watch the first advance fail almost immediately. The soldiers walked to the slope, began marching up it still in formation, and then swiftly fell down. Hundreds of them. Line after line, beginning the climb only to fall down within the first few steps. And because it took the Master some time to realise what was happening, many more of his soldiers actually marched right over the bodies of their fallen comrades before they too collapsed in a heap.
Probably half a dozen lines of soldiers found the rock at the foot of the volcano before their master finally stopped them. And she thought it was a pity. If he'd kept them going for long enough, he wouldn't have had an army left. But maybe that had been too much to hope for. He couldn't be that stupid. Still it was a drop of cheer in an ocean of pain and shock. It was something.
The soldiers weren't dead, Elodie knew. They had simply walked in to the first enchantment. One that summoned the stone from them. And without it, they were no longer under the Master's control. Or any control at all.
In time she knew, they would get up, discover that everything they had just been through had been chaos and confusion just as their wings fell off, and then wonder what they were supposed to do. Because then they would find themselves trapped on the lower slopes of the volcano, unable to climb because of the sheets of ice above, and not willing to risk going back through the ranks of their former comrades who were still under the Master's control. They might even find themselves sucked under the Master's enchantment once again.
But for the moment, things wer
en't going the Master's way. And that made her happy. She would be happier though if she could find the Master and kill him! That was a strange feeling to her. She'd never hated anyone to the point of wanting to kill them. But she wanted to kill him. So many times. She could almost see the moment her knife plunged into his heart, and know the savage joy of watching the life leave his eyes.
The Master though was quick to regroup. To realise what was happening and then to understand that he had a very obvious way through their defences. His soldiers had wings! They could fly over them. So only a few minutes later he had the first of his ranks take to the sky. And when there were enough of them airborne, he sent them flying into the fray.
But he'd forgotten one thing. His enchanted soldiers could fly but they weren't good fliers. And so as the first few thousand of them crossed the lower slopes, Chy and a dozen others with the right magic, stood up and started casting wind at them. Not to blow them away. Just to make the air unstable. Cause it to gust in all directions. And shortly after they began she watched the winged soldiers start tumbling out of control, only to crash hard onto the ground and then of course, be freed from their enchantment by their defences.
It was hard watching them fall like that. Elodie actually felt guilty for what they were doing. These weren't terrible people. They were victims. Enslaved by magic. They had no free will. No choice in what they were doing. But they had to be stopped, and she simply had to hope that not too many of them were killed. And by the end, when the Master had recalled what remained of his attackers and she could see at least several thousand of his soldiers down, she celebrated. It was early. The battle had barely begun. But they were winning.
After that there was silence on the battlefield. The Master didn't know quite what to do next, and his soldiers didn't talk. But she didn't like silence. Silence gave her a chance to think, to remember, and she didn't want to do that. But like the others Elodie had to stand there and watch and wait until the Master made his next move. That was simply the nature of siege warfare.
Elodie hated waiting. Every minute seemed like an eternity. And it wasn't out of nervousness. It was because she wanted to be out there, hunting down the Master, and killing him. But of course she couldn't do that. For a start she didn't even know where among his army he was – assuming he was even there. So she had to stand there and wait. And listen to the lava behind her, bubbling away, reminding her of what had happened. That her friend, a man she had misjudged terribly, was dead.
It was a long wait. Even with Chy beside her, holding her, comforting her. Clearly the Master had some thinking to do as thousands of his soldiers lay all but motionless on the lower slopes. Probably a tenth of his army was gone. And he hadn't advanced even a single foot.
But finally, just as she was starting to yield to her grief and tears were starting to flow, he struck. But it wasn't as she expected. As anyone could have expected. And there was no warning.
The first she knew of it was when the thunder hit. A massive blast of it that shook the ground out from under her and sent her tumbling. And then there was fire. An explosion of dirt and flame. Bodies flying in all directions. Taking to the skies and tumbling down in pieces. But it wasn't them who had been hit she realised as she did her best to hold on to the ground. It was the Master's entire army. Tens of thousands of them, caught up in a terrifying blast that had torn the ground underneath them apart and broken the foothills of the volcano. That had sent vast streams of yellow dust streaking for the heavens. That had left the ground trembling with terror.
Elodie didn't understand that at first. She was too busy hanging on to the slope of the volcano's summit and trying not to slide down into the ice traps they'd built. And she could hardly see anything. She certainly couldn't hear anything. The only thing she really knew was the need to hang on. To not let go and slide down the slope to her death.
But eventually she managed to find a secure grip and to blink away the dust in her eyes enough to look up. To realise that she was on the top of the slope, maybe twenty feet from the crest, and above her people were fighting.
“Piss!” She gaped as she realised the terrible truth. The Master was behind them. While they'd been staring at his army forming up and then losing the attacks, he'd been creeping up the far side of the volcano behind them. How could he do that? The far side of the volcano was almost a vertical wall. That was why they hadn't guarded it. And that was their failure!
Now the others were in a battle for their lives as the Master – a dozen feet of armour clad nightmare – was lashing out at them with impossible strength. He was sending ogres flying in all directions and shaking off the most powerful attacks.
Magnus had a concentrated stream of fire blasting into his middle. Something so hot and terrible that she couldn't even look at it, but the Master didn't even seem to notice it. One of the ogres brought down a tree trunk like staff on his head, and he didn't notice that either.
Then Chy struck him with a brutal attack of ice and fire. Hitting him with both and finally doing some damage. Cracking the armour with thermal shock.
The Master noticed that alright. But as bits of metal fell off him he leapt into the air, the ground under his armoured feet breaking, and landed behind Chy somehow, before he hit him and sent him flying off into the distance. He'd never had a chance!
“Chy!” She screamed in terror as she realised that a blow like that could easily kill a man. Even one as strong as he was. He could be dead! But she couldn't see what happened to him. Only that he was gone. Lost in the smoke and dust.
And the battle raged on as she clawed her way back up the side of the volcano. Ogres rushed in, striking the Master with all the strength and power they had. But they were like children against him. Every time they hit him they too went flying. Dah tried blinding him with light, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Neither did the terrible incendiary bullets. They just bounced off. And the Master didn't allow the riflemen too many shots as he simply swatted them away.
He was indestructible! A walking mountain of metal that they could barely even touch! And yet they had to touch him! They had to destroy him, and when she finally reached the top of the volcano, she suddenly knew how, melting the stone underneath him and watching him sink into it. At least up to his knees.
The Master roared in anger when that happened. But it didn't stop him. Not even when she stole the heat from the lava and it turned back to stone around them. He just kicked his way clear, sending chunks of rock flying everywhere and smashing the ground.
But it did slow him down. Enough that Dah was able to scream at Magnus to find a different target, just as she sent a blast of freezing cold right into where he had been burning the Master.
This time the armour cracked like thunder as the shock of the cold on the burning hot metal broke it. But it didn't stop him. Not even when more metal came spilling out of the fractures. He just kept going, and then smashed the sylph, sending her flying away.
How could he be so powerful?! Elodie almost despaired as she turned the ground underneath him into lava once more and tried to sink him. And this time she managed to bury him up to his thighs, before she hardened the lava. It took him longer to rip himself free of the ground, and when he did finally get loose he was slower with untold tons of stone weighing his legs down.
But it wasn't enough. He was winning. So many of them were down. Not enough were left. And still the armour, cracked and broken, missing pieces here and there, wouldn't break completely.
And then a pig, squealing with fury, came flying down from out of nowhere, and slashed him with her tusks as she swooped by. And for some reason her tusk somehow tore a six inch deep furrow right through the metal of his shoulder. And she was too fast for him to hit. She was already gaining height and banking away as he was turning. And by the time he'd completed his turn, she was striking him from behind again.
This time it was his other shoulder that she ripped into, and a huge chunk of silvery metal fell to the ground as he
roared his fury.
“You should be dead!” The Master yelled at the pig as she rolled and wheeled through the sky. Just before Magnus smashed his damaged shoulder with another intense blast of fire.
This time the Master screamed. And he came stomping for the dwarf as fast as he could before another pair of ogres came tearing into his thighs with their tree trunks, and almost took him to the ground.
He shook them off, but Elodie knew he was finally hurting. So she turned the ground to lava underneath him once again and watched him sink a little deeper, while the Bacon streaked out of the sky once more to take out the back of his helm with her tusk.
“Bitch!” He screamed at the pig as he belatedly grabbed for her. “I thought I killed you!” He grabbed a chunk of rock and hurled it at her.
But that was a mistake. Because even as he was yelling angrily at Bacon he wasn't looking behind him. He didn't see the cat sprint out from nowhere, leap through the air, and land on the middle of his back. But when she started yowling and screeching, and then began tearing the metal of his back plate apart as if it was soggy paper, he knew she was there.
