by Lorna Reid
Russell remembered the dagger in his hand. He ripped off the sheath and slashed out in desperation. The man shrieked and let go, clutching at his face and backing away into two allied soldiers, who felled him with ease.
‘You okay?’ Poppy hauled Danny to his feet and Katrina helped Russell up, ducking a strand of yellow magic that whistled above them and blew the head off a statue on the far side of the room.
‘Yeah, just bloody aches,’ said Danny, touching his cheek.
‘If we can stay away from the main hall, but keep parallel to it, we’ve a better chance—’ Two balls of magic collided behind them, taking out half a wall and sending a cloud of dust and plaster billowing into the air amid pinging fragments.
They ran, pushed out into the hall with the force and panic. The fight was intensifying, swelling to fill every space. It was confusing, and Russell spun, not knowing what he was doing or where to go. A woman crashed over the back of a chair behind him, with a serrated dagger protruding from her chest, and hit the floor. Lifeless eyes stared up at him. Open-mouthed, they backed away. The woman’s assailant leapt the chair, half landed on the body, and, with a grin, raised his blade at them.
A shout from behind him made the attacker spin round. Peter was running along the length of the nearby dining table, dodging stray energy bolts, one of which took a chunk out of the table as it glanced by. He leapt off and tackled the man, crashing with him to the floor, and plunged his dagger into his chest.
He scrambled up and checked Russell was okay before quickly examining Danny’s bruised face. His eyes were serious and blood seeped from a cut on his head. His knuckles were bruised and bloody, and his top was ripped and bloodstained. Danny’s eyes nearly popped out of his head and he grabbed at his father.
‘What the fuck are you two doing here?’ Peter shouted, ducking a ball of flame and dragging them down to shelter by the table.
‘There was fighting near the room,’ lied Poppy. Peter looked unconvinced.
‘Isa needs to be warned before we run out of time,’ Poppy said. Russell stared at the body of the man and his victim nearby as Poppy spoke, and then at the blood covering Peter’s dagger.
Russell tried to snap himself out of it; the man was an enemy and would have done the same to them, or worse. He pushed the weird, sickly feeling away and tried to focus on Peter’s worried face.
‘You’re going to get yourselves killed. Why can’t any of you do as you’re sodding told? If we’re watching you, we aren’t focussed on what we’re doing. We could end up dead.’
Someone slid over the edge of the table and dropped to the floor beside them. ‘What did I tell you?’ shouted Jack, deflecting a ball of blue light, which shattered into sparkling fragments and melted away.
‘I saw it happen all over again, but it was clear this time.’ Russell grabbed his father’s ripped shirt, and Jack stared into his son’s desperate eyes. He hugged him close.
*
Danny also hung on to his father, wishing they were anywhere else. His dad’s injuries, as superficial as they might appear, terrified and upset him – it was, perhaps, the first time his father’s mortality had been made so painfully apparent.
‘You all need to get out of here,’ Jack said.
‘This is bad, Jack,’ said Peter over the cacophony of battle. ‘I swear I’ve just seen Kirin Frayne.’
‘And I’m pretty sure I’ve just seen one of the Ryzard twins – psychopathic little bastards. Everyone thought they were dead,’ said Jack, mirroring Peter’s dark, shocked look.
‘Hoped, you mean. There are some serious and high-ranked people here – and all Portal Mages. What the fuck is going on?’ said Peter.
Jack shook his head. ‘No idea. Why now? And why all these Portal Mages? They could have got in far more quietly, and with less help. And these particular ones …’
Danny felt the air chill around them, thickening somehow, sending the hairs on his arms prickling up. Jack and Peter exchanged looks and stood up and scanned the room. Everyone had felt the change and, aside from a few pockets, fighting slowly halted. Silence fell.
A rough circle had formed in the middle of the room, with enemies and swords bristling, facing outwards. Behind them, protected, a number of hooded Darklanders were surrounded by a glow of magic that spat and fizzed.
In the centre of the circle, light seemed to bend and shimmer, making Danny’s eyes water, while a breeze picked up and whisked round the room, snatching at the torn tapestries and wall hangings.
The heavy air crackled and orange magic burst from the body of each cloaked figure and snaked over the floor, finding and linking them all before sweeping inwards to the centre of the circle. White energy flared around their guards and flowed from them, fuelling the mages.
Slowly, from a magical epicentre, the room ripped open and something else – somewhere else – appeared in the spreading circle of magic. Unlike the other portal magic he had seen, this created a curving half-bubble that flared and strained against existence.
In the dome of the new portal, Danny saw a dark place, half-lit by the magic, full of broken pillars and strange red flowers. It was familiar, somehow. And then he knew why.
Through the portal, Danny saw a man run into view before he was tackled to the ground by someone in a hooded cloak. The man scrabbled at the hooded figure, kicking and pushing to get them off. Succeeding, he leapt up, but his pursuer was too fast for him. A fist landed square in the man’s face and he was spun to the ground.
His attacker’s pale hands flipped down her hood and the woman lashed out again, this time sending a sliver of magic out through the arcing portal and blasting back an enemy mage in the hall who had stepped forward with a glowing crystal in his hands.
Danny’s heart skipped and stopped. The world around him faded to a hum. All he could see was her. ‘Mum!’ he screamed.
‘Danny, no!’ Peter ran after him, leaping furniture and dodging soldiers. The woman spun and, for a moment, a look of pure happiness lit her face. Danny’s eyes burned with tears as he drew closer, his sob catching in his throat – so close.
A dart of magic burst from one of the Darklanders in the hall and lanced toward her back. It was deflected by a purple bolt from somewhere else within the circle. It all happened in a blur; Danny struggled to process the terror at the attack and the consuming relief at its deflection. That the protection appeared to have come from one of the enemy mages added a layer of confusion to the emotions swamping him.
No sooner than it had happened, a thud knocked Niri from her feet. The man she had tackled had recovered enough to attack her, and pulled her to the ground. He punched down at her and she fought back. Danny screamed as he continued to run, slowed momentarily by two allied soldiers who were in the way.
One of the other mages in the circle snatched up the fallen crystal from the mage his mother had felled and hurled it into the portal. It exploded in a blaze of green and red magic.
Flame and energy rippled outwards from the epicentre, rocking the room. Peter tackled Danny to the floor as it swept over their heads and a roar that was half-scream split the room.
It was a sound both Danny and Russell had heard before, and it chilled them to the core.
They staggered up and stared at the shrinking bubble of magic, inside of which crouched a black shape. ‘Mum!’ Danny screamed as she kicked her attacker back and sprang to her feet. Magic whistled past his face, and Peter barely deflected it. He tried to keep one hand on Danny while staving off a Darklander with a serrated blade, slamming a fistful of green magic into his stomach and blasting him across the room. The battle seemed to be pulsing back into life.
A stray bolt of magic caught Niri on the shoulder and a second hit her in the back, spinning her to the ground. Her assailant ripped something from around her neck and ran.
In the penumbra, she stirred. Danny burst from his father’s grip. The portal was closing. ‘Danny!’ His father’s scream seemed fuzzy. Distant. The Reaper unfurled and
stepped from the circle, and the cloaked figure dove past it and slid across the floor.
Danny had reached the fringe of the dying portal, his father reaching to grab him, when a blast of purple magic swept them both away, sending them slamming past tables and chairs and into a heap in a far corner. The portal closed and the soldiers fuelling the mages dropped to the ground.
*
The Reaper flexed its arms and stood tall and monstrous. A collective hiss travelled the room. Russell felt his father’s grip crush his arm. The creature’s black scales glistened in the light, and grey pointed horns arced back from a heavy triangular head. Orange slitted eyes glared, and it flexed its arms and huge clawed hands, one of which gripped a black sword. Its tail lashed around, the barbed tip cutting the air like a whip, and it opened its mouth and screamed through dripping needle-like teeth. The scream was torn from Russell’s nightmares.
Chapter 25
◊
DANNY SOBBED GENTLY, CURLED in a ball amid the wreckage of the room. Beside him, his father lay unconscious, bleeding from his shoulder where a piece of wood was jutting out. She had been so close, and now she was gone. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, even to beg his father to wake up. Her face, her hair, her smile, her joy at seeing them … ripped away. The taunting fragment swirled in his head until it felt as though it would split.
‘You couldn’t have saved her, not this time.’
Danny rolled onto his back and looked up, expecting Jack. A black hood twitched down and a tall blonde-haired man gave a small smile and crouched. Danny blinked, and then his eyes swept down through the folds of the cloak and saw the red-and-black uniform.
He gurgled in terror and rolled to protect his father, but the man didn’t move. Danny cast a look over his shoulder; the room was largely obscured by two upturned tables and a huge smashed dresser.
‘Been a long time.’ The tone of his words was almost conversational. The man leaned over and yanked the piece of wood from Peter’s shoulder. His father howled and writhed, lunging up as he exploded awake. His fist was caught by the man, who looked down at him. There was no malice, no anger. Danny’s fluxing mind struggled to understand.
There was a faint burst of orange magic, and two identical figures slipped out of the newly made portal, which snapped shut behind them, and crouched in front of Danny. He jerked back at the sight of their uniforms and they lunged forward, pinning him to the ground. Black hair framed cherubic twin faces with deceptively innocent smiles. The eyes. The purple eyes seared into his own.
‘Long time no see, Reaper Boy,’ one said, seeming excited.
‘No, stay the fuck away from my son, you psychos,’ Peter snarled, ripping his fist from the blonde man’s hand and lunging to protect Danny, despite his injury. The twins melted back at a look from the blonde man and, as one, cocked their heads to one side, like childlike birds.
‘Hurt him after we just saved him?’ said one.
‘Can we play, Kirin?’ said the other, talking to the blonde man with barely a glance, his eyes fixed on Danny.
‘No, leave him alone. He doesn’t understand yet. Our past is not yet his present.’ Kirin turned to Peter and held out a hand to help him up. Peter looked at it and then into the man’s eyes.
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing.’ The man took Peter’s arm and pulled him into a sitting position. Peter jerked back and grabbed Danny, holding him tight.
‘She’s in the Darklands, below Denas Forth.’ He stood to go and Peter seized his arm. The twins’ hands leapt to their blades but Kirin shook his head at them.
‘Why? I don’t know you. I don’t understand. Why help me? How do you know me?’
‘Because I owe your son. And I know everything about you. And your life, your happiness, deserves to be preserved, because there are those who would fight bitterly for the peace you have. And because I’m not a monster; I’m viewed as one due to the company I’m forced to keep. One day you’ll understand.’ His soft voice reflected the sadness in his eyes.
A faint glow of magic surrounded him before a portal opened around the trio and they were gone. Peter slumped back and stared upwards, and Danny pawed at his father’s shoulder wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.
Tears flowed down his father’s cheeks. Happiness, confusion, relief, and desperate fear shone in his eyes, and Danny realised that he, too, was crying.
*
Movement at the creature’s feet dragged at Russell’s gaze; the man who had dived through the portal staggered up. The Reaper swung its head to watch and then slashed idly with its hand, as if it were batting away a fly. The man spun to the floor and, with little more than a brief glance, the creature plunged its pockmarked, serrated blade into the twitching body before turning its malevolent eyes on the room.
From one of the distant doorways, a brave soul flung an energy ball, which shattered into its back. It roared and lashed out, unleashing a stream of flame at the mage, who collapsed, ablaze and screaming.
With that, it was as though the room unfroze, and the small, scrappy fights that had been breaking out were swiftly absorbed into the larger chaos. Swords clashed, people fought, and magic once more arced and spat through the air.
A cluster of guards advanced on the Reaper, who felled three with one sweep of its sword and sent flame bursting over two more. Russell looked at his father and his stomach lurched. Jack’s face was pale and he was transfixed. His hands trembled and Russell grabbed his arm.
‘Dad?’ His voice seemed to jolt his father free of whatever had taken hold for a moment and he blinked at his son.
‘What the fuck am I doing? You need to go, now. I need to get Pete and Danny.’ Russell, Poppy, and Katrina followed Jack as he picked his way around the periphery of the hall, shielding them in a sphere of earth magic whose green glow gave them a ghoulish appearance.
‘Pete, fuck, are you okay? We need to get them out!’ shouted Jack, shoving furniture aside and pulling his friend to his feet. Russell and the others scrambled to help Danny up. They both looked dazed, but Peter shook himself as a metal sphere hit their magic shield and glanced off; spikes burst to its surface as it rolled away. Russell shuddered.
‘Getting out will be interesting,’ said Peter, holding his shoulder. But once again, Russell’s father’s attention was on the Reaper, which was ploughing through a cluster of soldiers, sending them crashing to the floor.
‘We won’t get through this lot. The fight’s spread over the entire floor,’ Peter said, punching down a Darklander who had strayed too close and blasting another in the face with a handful of magic, sending him into the blades of two guards. Russell saw him wince and paw at his injured shoulder. Danny had noticed the same and looked terrified.
Peter and Jack pushed them underneath the remains of a table, which had been crunched into a wall. A man charged them, and Jack deflected the swinging sword and sent him reeling with a fierce punch. Peter parried a thrust from someone else and both of them plunged into vicious duels.
‘What can we do?’ shouted Katrina, flinching away as a blast gouged a trench in the floor nearby, spewing dust and shrapnel.
‘How about not die?’ said Poppy, scanning the room.
Russell had a good view, but apart from watching Jack and Peter fight while his heart shuddered, his eyes – and those of his friends – were inexorably drawn to the Reaper. It swept away all resistance, bodies falling in its wake as it swatted away a hurled spear and strode through an archway, cutting down a mage as it went.
‘It’s heading for the fragment!’ shouted Jack. He yelled an order to fall back and defend the crystal.
‘Thom!’ yelled Danny. Russell followed his trembling finger and saw Thom and Jen back into the room, both embroiled in fights. He glanced at Katrina and saw her staring open-mouthed and bright-eyed at her mother.
Jen and Thom were dressed in a more casual version of Jack’s uniform, and both were sporting bloodied noses and cut heads or faces.
&n
bsp; ‘What the fuck are they doing here?’ Thom shouted, taking down his opponent a moment after Jen floored hers and racing to join the group, ducking a wave of blue magic on the way, which exploded against a nearby wall, half burying two fighting soldiers in rubble.
‘We need them out of here. Thom, can you escort them to safety?’ Jack said, eyes searching constantly for immediate danger.
‘There is nowhere safe, that’s the problem,’ Thom said, managing a small grin as Danny popped up and flung his arms around him. ‘They’re spread over half of this floor; the fighting was almost to the main entrance when we got here. Reinforcements are on the way, but they’ll be too late. Jack, did I see the fucking Ryzard twins?’
‘Yes. And there’s worse.’
The Reaper howled from somewhere in the distance and Thom and Jen shared a petrified look.
‘We could get them out the way we came in, through the old tunnels,’ said Peter.
‘Where’s Isa? Is she here?’ Russell persisted. Every part of him wanted to stay and cling to his father, but there was a huge pull in the flow of the battle and it caught and tugged him, despite his brain screaming at him. Isa was somewhere in there. Any moment, what he saw would finally happen – unless he stopped it.
An energy bolt slammed into the wall above them, showering them with sparks and chunks of plaster. Jen hurled what looked like a tiny mirror back in the direction of the bolt. It smashed on the floor in front of two mages and then the fragments – so many more than there should have been – whirled upwards, folding over and devouring the mages before the mirror returned to its original state. Russell gasped as much as Katrina did.
The guards who hadn’t raced off to prevent the Reaper reaching the fragment were struggling to hold back the Darklanders, and Thom and Jen were drawn in to help while Jack and Pete staved off magic attacks and protected Russell and the others as they moved slowly across the room.
Thom extricated himself and grabbed Danny. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’ A magical explosion near the ceiling caused a rushing sound and a section collapsed. Thom dragged Danny and Poppy out of the way while Katrina and Russell skidded off in the opposite direction.
