The Dark Kingdom (Sage Trilogy, Book 2)

by St. Clair, Julius

  “I accept,” Chloe said reluctantly. “Lead on.”

  “Right this way,” the King chuckled. “While you’re inside the Kingdom and the game is underway, no harm will come to you. Of course, if you lose, they will all be executed, but let’s not deal on the negative.”

  “What about our friends in the forest?” Catherine asked.

  “Sorry,” the King replied. “But I only give orders within the Kingdom walls. My people can do what they want outside of them.”

  The four of them followed the King of Quietus as he glided towards the Kingdom doors, maintaining a far enough distance that they could talk.

  “You can’t do this!” Catherine stressed to Chloe. “This is suicide!”

  “We have better odds, Princess,” Chloe said. “I’m sorry, but if I refused, we would have been killed. The King is far stronger than I am. That I can tell you. At least we have a shot of not only survival, but getting the stone too.”

  “Do you think he’ll really give it up?”

  “He is said to be a man of his word,” Chloe sighed. “And the Quietus love battle. If I can do this, they will show us respect.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Catherine said. “And we’re not all about to be taken hostage and absorbed.”

  * * * * *

  Arimus grunted as he parried a blow to his neck. The Quietus were beginning to overwhelm him. Since he had cut down the fifty to half, a hundred more at joined their brothers and sisters. And they were trying to crowd him, forcing him to keep both hands on the eidolon and focused only on his personal space rather than use his wind to clear the field. Now that there were so many in the meadow, they greatly had the advantage.

  He had to get back to the forest, but there was a mob between him. And he couldn’t get through without taking big risks.

  Arimus shouted out as he swatted another Quietus away.

  “But I can’t fight forever.” He thought as he sighed and braced for the pain.

  Swinging his eidolon as fast as he could in front of him, he gave himself only one second to summon another tornado. Just one more to make a hole in the crowd.

  But he didn’t have enough time. As soon as he stretched out his right hand, he had managed to create the tornado, but now he was exposed. A Quietus jumped onto his arm and immediately started biting him ferociously. Arimus roared and tried to shake the Quietus off but he was persistent, and the extra time he used on the biting Quietus only exposed him further.

  He raised his eidolon in the air to catch them, but there were too many. Twenty jumped on his eidolon. The first ten disintegrated immediately, but the other ten were enough to weigh him down to one knee, giving the rest of the mob time to get their slashes in. Arimus swung his eidolon wildly as he fell to one knee, grunted as they pulled at his beard and that stupid Quietus kept gnawing at his arm.

  Arimus kept swinging but his vision was beginning to darken as the mass of warriors swarmed him like ants, and he was the wingless fly…

  “INCINERATE!” He heard someone bellow, and he was able to open his eyes just enough to see the flames engulf him.

  It hurt.

  Far more than the Quietus’ jabs and biting, but after the fire died down, he was free.

  Arimus fainted and fell face first into the grass as Scarlet rushed to his side. She flipped him over and examined him as she covered her mouth.

  “Oh, Arimus,” she whispered as she removed her cloak and covered most of his body. “I’m so sorry…it was the only way I could get them off of you…”

  She took out her eidolon and concentrated, despite her own stab wounds vying for her attention. She had never let out a little fire before. Usually she just let her anger take over and released as much as it desired. But this situation didn’t call for it.

  He was already burned by her fire so badly, and yet, that wasn’t even the most pressing issue.

  She had to cut off and cauterize his mangled arm before he went into shock.

  And if she was to succeed, there could not be one ounce of anger guiding her hand.

  * * * * *

  “Where is she?” Catherine demanded through her blindfolds. They didn’t get to see what anything in the Kingdom looked like, only the massive gate, formed into the shape of a giant Quietus man standing tall. Then the King had snapped his fingers, and they were blindfolded. Chloe had whispered caution, but it was hard to trust the very people that ruined her Kingdom.

  And then Catherine had called for Chloe, and they hadn’t realized when she had left. James had dared not to activate his Sage senses, less the Quietus saw it as a threat. He had to wait for the right moment to act. And the time was not now. At the least, he could be thankful they weren’t bound.

  “Remove them,” the King declared and their blindfolds were removed promptly.

  They were standing on top of a large crater, except bleachers that reached high into the air had been built around it on the east side. James, Catherine and Dominic were standing with the King next to his special VIP section on the west, a single block of marble that was about half a mile wide. There his throne was placed, made of rusted iron. The King sat down with a sigh and glanced over at his Allayan guests.

  “I trust you’ll behave?” he asked. The boys looked over to him and nodded. But Catherine was still angry with the situation.

  “Where are my friends?”

  “I don’t know,” the King sighed wearily, stretching his full body over the sides. “Still fighting probably.”

  “Where is Chloe?”

  “Being prepped for the main event,” he chuckled, pointing down below. The Crater was empty and worn from battles past. Dirty and barren, bones stuck out the ground and the soil itself had turned into a maroon color. On the northern side of the crater was a small room that the King kept pointing to.

  “She’s in there,” he assured them. “And my warriors are there.”

  He pointed to the southern end of the crater which extended into the Quietus village, the particulars of it closed off by a steel dome. They couldn’t see a thing from where they stood.

  “It will start soon,” the King mused as he waved his hands out. “Look at my subjects. Never one to miss a show.”

  The Quietus citizens began pouring into the stands in mobs, crowding for good seats and fighting each other for front row. The King laughed as he looked over at his guests. Catherine was still glaring at him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Why are we not chained?”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “No, but I’m surprised that you’re acting so casually considering what’s happening in your Kingdom.”

  “I’m not worried about you three,” he yawned. “You’re weaklings. I can sense every atom in your pathetic little bodies.”

  “Don’t underestimate us,” she said, and he laughed again.

  “Oh I won’t. I can sense you have the stone for example. That’s pretty impressive. You must be the Princess of Allay.”

  “I am,” she said boldly. “And I need to ask you something. Do you know where my mother and father are? I ask only because you took them with you when you laid siege on my Kingdom. What did you do with them?”

  “I promised to spare their lives,” the King yawned again. “So I sold them.”

  “To whom?”

  “Some strange man that visited Quietus one day. Very strange. He referred to himself as a jester. Though nothing he said was funny.”

  Jester? James and Dominic looked at one another as Catherine kept her silence on his location. If she wanted to find her parents, they would have to talk with this strange man.

  “Did he say why he wanted my parents specifically?”

  “No…just that he wanted them. He beat me in an arm wrestling contest too, so I had to give them up.”

  “Arm wrestling?”

  “I demanded more knowledge of his origins. He said he would disclose all if he lost in an arm wrestling competition. I agreed, and he won fair and square. I’ll
never forget his strength. If he was the one in the arena today, I’m sure he would win hands down.”

  “And what of Chloe? How will she fare?”

  “Oh, her?” the king perked up. “She’s a dead woman.”

  “But if she wins, we get the stone,” Catherine said, trying not to dwell on a negative outcome.

  “That’s the idea,” the King said. “Now shush, it’s about to start.”

  The three young Sages looked out over the crater and watched as Chloe emerged from her prison, the bars descending into the ground and allowing her onto the field. She was still wearing her green sundress and in her right hand was her long sword, glowing its vibrant green aura.

  “Release the challengers,” the King stated, and the sound of doors bursting open was heard below. Both Quietus and Allay watched as a thousand warriors scattered all over the field, surrounding Chloe with jagged swords of their own. Chloe stood there and sighed, closing her eyes and feeling out her enemies.

  The King smiled, sat up, and leaned forward.

  “BEGIN!” he shouted, and then Chloe let out a blood-curdling scream.

  Chapter 14 - All’s Well that Ends…well….

  The light didn’t come from her. It shot out from the sky in a cylindrical form and covered her entire body. It then spread out in a fan like fashion from the soles of her feet and blanketed the entire crater until it hit the edge, splashing against the sides like an oceanic wave.

  When the aura stopped glowing from Chloe’s body, she had been completely transformed.

  Her hair stuck out in all directions and was a shamrock green. Her sundress had been replaced by a long, billowing robe that was two sizes too big. It covered her arms and hands completely and flowed in the breeze past her feet. The robe was dark green with golden stripes running along each of her limbs, which met at the center and then extended in two lines down to the bottom.

  Her face had hardened. Her lips had gotten thinner. And even stranger, a separate collar from the robe appeared around her neck, completely black. Chloe opened her eyes and her retinas were completely gone.

  The crowd watched in awe as the long sword she had been carrying earlier extended out from her left sleeve, until it gently scraped against the ground. The warriors that had surrounded her had lost themselves for a moment, but now they remembered their purpose. Growling they ran forward, and Chloe…vanished.

  Moving faster than they could blink, she systematically executed her attackers at the head one at a time, each with one swing of her sword. Moving faster and faster, it took barely a minute to reach each one, the Quietus barely breathing compared to her breathtaking speed.

  It was over before the audience could finish holding their breath.

  Chloe sped back to the center and then looked up at the King, still sitting lazily in his chair. James couldn’t believe this man. How could he witness such a spectacle and be so relaxed?

  “Bravo,” the King called out to her, and then she was gone again. The King got up from his seat just as fast and unsheathed the scythe from his right arm. James, Dominic and Catherine were knocked off their feet as he clashed with Chloe, the shockwave booming through the Kingdom. But Chloe hadn’t expected to be parried, and the second of surprise she felt was just enough for the King to remove his scythe from their clash and insert it into her right side. Chloe winced as the King kicked her back down to the crater, laughing as she tumbled at first and then jumped back into the air, gliding gently to the ground floor.

  Though her resolve was as cool as ever, her right hand was now clutching her side as it continued to bleed out.

  “We had a deal!” Catherine screamed at him, but the King shook his head.

  “The deal was that she kill them all. None of them are dead.”

  They all looked to the crater in horror as the warriors began regenerating, new heads emerging from their necks, and their limbs growing as if they had never been lost.

  “These are warriors of Quietus,” the King said. “The same that destroyed your Kingdom. Do you think Lakrymos would have failed so easily if this Chloe could destroy us all with little effort? He was far stronger than she.”

  “But you wounded her!”

  “Because the event wasn’t over, and she attacked me. If she had stayed in the crater, she would’ve realized her folly. Now watch your friend die.”

  They looked over as Chloe blinked, a simple crack in her impressive armor. Looking at the warriors climb to their feet, she quickly sped around the arena and executed them all again. Coming back to her original position, she sighed as once again, the warriors regenerated immediately after.

  Frustrated, Chloe cocked her eidolon back and then swung it forward, unleashing a wave of green light at the horde of warriors. Most of them dodged it, but the ones that didn’t were suddenly reduced to ash. Chloe dodged and parried several sword attacks as she continued staring at the ones reduced to ash. They didn’t regenerate.

  The King laughed up above.

  “That last move of hers takes up a great deal of energy but it does the job. Those warriors are certainly dead. Unfortunately, the move is slow. You Sages are so weak compared to those of old. She hasn’t had to fight in her full transformative state yet, so she thought it would be enough. Not so. My warriors have faced many transformed Sages.”

  “It has to be,” Catherine said under her breath as she saw Chloe navigate the mob, releasing the wave of destructive light whenever she could defeat the most warriors compared to what she had to put out. But there was still so many, and they were beginning to crowd her now. She was forced to start using her long sword again, wasting precious energy at swatting Quietus away, cutting them down knowing that they would just regenerate.

  “Stop this,” Catherine pleaded with the King as Chloe received her first blow from the fight: a punch to the face that reeled her backwards. She was able to recover from it and resume her impressive speed, but the fact that she had been hit at all was too much for the Princess to handle.

  “Let’s make a deal,” Catherine said. The King perked up as James grabbed her arm.

  “No, Catherine,” he said. “We have to trust her. Look, she’s already taken down three hundred warriors!”

  “But there’s so much more,” the King said.

  “Catherine,” James said. “Believe in her. She took on the deal. She can do this. And if she can’t, then we’ll take down this place with everything we’ve got.”

  “Even if I have to use the stone?”

  “Wipe them off this planet,” James said through a smile. “Even if we fail, I’m sure Arimus, Scarlet and Kyran are still alive. They’re more than enough to finish the job.”

  “You’re right,” Catherine said as the King chuckled.

  “I’m not going to let that happen.”

  “We’ll see,” James smiled at him. “We’re just full of surprises.”

  The King narrowed his eyes at him in contemplation but a shout from the audience interrupted his thoughts. Chloe was now gaining momentum, unleashing waves of consuming light at regular intervals now, taking out warriors ten at a time.

  “Nothing to be impressed about,” the King muttered. “She’s desperate now.”

  Chloe’s hair suddenly dropped as she missed a scythe toward her head. Her left arm suddenly lost its sleeve as it disintegrated into the air. She took a cut on her bare arm immediately, but she ignored it and kicked the Quietus in the face before turning him to ash with a wave of light from her long sword. The Quietus warriors picked up their efforts, throwing swords and jumping in groups but Chloe was still moving as fast as she could, dodging as pieces of her robe began to shred and tear, disappearing into the air.

  With only a hundred warriors left, she suddenly fell to all four limbs in exhaustion. The last of her robe evaporated into the air, and only her sundress and long sword remained. She grunted as she narrowly climbed to one knee and clashed with a downward blow from a lunging Quietus. Parrying it to the side, another Quietus nicked her s
houlder and she wheeled back to her feet, sending one last wave of light. It took only a few out, but it gave her the reprieve she needed to redouble her efforts.

  She continued swinging her sword with all her strength and might, but the Quietus were wearing her down. It was only a matter of time now.

  “She’s going to lose,” Catherine whispered. “We have to do something!”

  “You’re right,” an ominous voice said as the King of Quietus suddenly gasped. They looked over to see Kyran shimmer into view, having stuck his eidolon well into the King’s heart.

  “Kyran!” Catherine shouted in joy as the King jumped forward off Kyran’s eidolon, pivoted around and then punched him square in the face. Kyran fell to the ground fast but the King grabbed him in mid-air, putting him immediately into a choke hold.

  “You have to do better than that,” the King seethed as he tightened his grip. Kyran strained against him as the King forced him to look down to the crater. “Watch her die.”

  Kyran growled as Dominic lunged forward to help. The King immediately pushed him back with the light of his stone, a solid beam shooting out from his eyes and sending the Sage sprawling back into the marble.

  “STOP!!!” Chloe shouted out from the crater below. The warriors stopped their assault in surprise as the King put up a hand to signal it was okay.

  “What is it?”

  “You said,” she heaved through her bruised and bloodied face. “If I kill all these warriors, my friends go free?”

  “I did,” the King said. “It is my word.”

  “Your…word,” Chloe breathed heavily, clutching her side. Her hair was matted with grime and her left eye was swollen. Even from where he stood, James could see a crack the size of a pencil in the middle of her eidolon.

  “I promise,” the King affirmed.

  “Okay, then,” she chuckled. “Hold on.”

  She turned back to the warriors she was facing and waved them on. They charged and she grunted and heaved, mustering up the strength to parry their blows as she gave out the last of her energy.