Steel Victory (Steel Empire Book 1)

by J. L. Gribble

  A flash of light and rolling wave of sound announced the awaited explosion. Toria blinked away the negative images left by the sudden change, bolting to her feet and hauling Kane up beside her. Screams erupted around their tent, officers shouting conflicting orders and soldiers damning the Limani mercenaries.

  “Toria, a shield?” Asaron crouched by the tent entrance, peering out at the camp. He jerked his head in her direction when she did not respond right away. “Damn, I forgot.”

  She’d explained her situation to them when they’d settled to wait, with Syri filling in her grandfather Zerandan’s thoughts on the matter. Now helplessness struck her when she couldn’t fulfill Asaron’s request. A short-term external shield was a combat mage’s standard work, and Kane had no energy for anything unnecessary to his own immediate survival.

  “I’ve got it.” Syri placed a light hand on Asaron’s back, and a shimmer covered his features, making it hard to look right at him. “Be careful.”

  “Stay with them,” Asaron said. Syri nodded once.

  Before Toria could defend her remaining capabilities, her grandfather disappeared. He stopped long enough to strip an unsuspecting soldier of his weapons, then began his strike from within the camp.

  “Time to go,” Syri said. “Think you can find that bomb again, Kane?”

  “I’ve got a decent idea,” he said. Kane took the knife Toria handed him and strapped it to his belt. “Toria, have you actually tried using your powers?”

  Toria knew he’d been puzzling over her situation since he learned of it. Had even felt him probing at her mind, slipping past shields that could never keep him out. Since magic came to him as easily as swords did to her, maybe he would come up with a solution soon. “Yes, more than once,” she said. “And ended up with a splitting headache each time. Syri’s grandfather says I’ve been cursed, and he knew of no way to reverse it right away. We’ve been muddling through for now.”

  “Need I remind you the quick and dirty way to remove a curse?” Kane said, replacing Syri at the front of the tent and taking his own look outside.

  “I’d been trying not to think about that,” Toria said. War was one thing. Fighting for your life was one thing. What Kane meant belonged to another category entirely.

  Hearing her own hesitancy, Kane’s voice softened. “This is war, love. The mage is an enemy soldier. It wouldn’t be murder.”

  A week ago, those words would never have come from her partner’s mouth. Events had altered him as much as they’d forced their changes on her. But he spoke the truth. Coming up with no sufficient denial, Toria said, “Let’s get out of here. Syri, you’ve got point. I’ll take up the rear.”

  She prodded Kane out of the tent behind Syri. The elven girl paused long enough for a quick look around, then dashed across the path. Toria and Kane followed on her heels. Toria gripped her pistol but kept it pointed to the ground while she ran, eyeing their surroundings and ready for any possible trouble. The soldiers had cleared the area, racing toward the more immediate attack.

  As they ducked between two empty tents to take stock of their next direction, a second explosion ripped through the air on the other side of the camp. Now the Romans’ attentions would be divided.

  Toria took a split second to pity Octavian. The general’s carefully ordered attack plans for the morning had been destroyed, and he would be facing her mother. Then the image of his face hanging inches above hers, hands roaming her body, surfaced in her mind and all traces of sympathy disappeared. Mama would vent her fury, and the man would be lucky to bargain for his life.

  “That way,” Kane said, pointing toward another corner of the camp, away from the two previous explosions. “Octavian’s two pet mages had a temporary building made to hold the bomb, and they’re camped right outside of it.”

  “You can sense it?” Toria said, hoping jealousy didn’t tinge her voice.

  “I can sense the absence of it,” he said. “Mages have it shielded so tight that they made the earth itself invisible to me.”

  She trusted her partner on that one. Earth sense was his elemental gift, just as she could trace weather patterns within a dozen miles. “Then come on.”

  The trio ducked and wove through the Roman camp in the direction Kane indicated, staying between tents and vehicles, keeping out of sight of the scurrying troops. Two more explosions shattered the night, and they passed one pocket of fighting.

  “We can’t, Syri.” Toria grabbed her arm before the elven girl could start toward the fight.

  “But they’re my cousins!”

  The two elves fought back to back, flying blades keeping the Roman soldiers at bay. They had managed to get themselves surrounded, probably the sole reason no one risked shooting them down.

  Kane grabbed her other arm when she would have taken another step forward. “We have a job to do,” he said. “The clock is ticking.”

  When one of the elves let out a jubilant battle cry upon taking out a soldier, Syri stopped pulling toward them. Visibly steeling herself, she said, “Right. The mission.”

  The battle cries followed them away from the fight, to be joined by howls from the werewolves. An unfamiliar scream halted them again, feral and haunting, followed by yet another explosion.

  “Tersiguel,” Toria said, “or one of her pack.”

  “Must be. Whoa!” Kane snatched Syri back before she could take another step. “Shield. We’re there.”

  They took position by an empty tent, half-collapsed from its inhabitant’s mad dash to join the fight, and poked their heads around the side. A wide clearing surrounded a neat wooden hut and two large pavilions. The pavilions looked nicer than most of the officers’ quarters they’d passed. They’d found the mages, then. Toria scoffed at them in her head, always disgusted by the airs foreign magic users seemed to deem necessary around “normal” humans. Victory taught her better than that a long time ago.

  Lanterns lit one of the tents from within, the red one with obnoxious yellow and blue trim. The light remained steady though, with no indication of who or how many people were inside.

  But she couldn’t sense this shield. A new bolt of frustration raged through her.

  Kane jumped as if he’d been shocked, giving her a penetrating look. “Calm, love,” he said.

  Well, their link still worked at least. If anything, it must be more open now that Toria had no way to control any emotions leaking through to her partner. “Sorry.”

  She was grateful when he did not patronize her with a response. “The area in the shield is a dead zone to me,” Kane said instead. “I can’t tell what we’re up against in there. Syri?”

  “One human mage,” she answered without hesitation. “Who obviously did not take nonhuman magic into account when he crafted this overpowered beast. But they think they’re setting a trap. He’s got two others—nonmagical—with him in the dark tent. The red one’s empty.”

  Now they were back in Toria’s domain. “Probably ready to spring once anyone comes along. And I doubt our armor is good enough to take some concentrated blasts against whatever distance weapons they’ve got in there, not while we’re also fending off magical attacks.”

  While the sounds of fighting in one half of the camp continued strong, the other half began to die down. They needed to make their move, and make it soon.

  Kane wasn’t going to like this. “I’ve got an idea,” Toria said. She’d buckled on the belt holding her magical aids out of habit that morning. Now it looked like they might come in handy. She dug out her quartz crystal focus and held it out to Kane.

  He cradled it in the palm of his hand, raising an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

  “Can you guys tell whether that shield is self-contained?”

  Both of them eyed the invisible structure with their inner sights while she waited with impatience. She wo
uld never get used to not being able to do such simple tasks herself. She needed her magic back.

  “Looks like it to me,” Syri said.

  “So whatever goes in, stays in,” Kane said. “Got it.”

  Perfect. Now for the next step. “Is the shack shielded separately?”

  “Yep,” Syri said. “Gonna share with the class?”

  “I’m thinking improvised flash-bomb,” Toria said. “Disrupt their defenses. I can’t create electricity for you guys, but I’ve still got all my passive defenses. Kane, I want you to leech the energy from my shields and channel it into the crystal. Then we throw it at the tent, and—”

  “Poof,” Kane said. “Leaving you completely defenseless. Screw that.”

  “Minor detail. Makes me less of a target,” she said, “if I look like a regular fighter.”

  “I don’t like it, but we’re running out of time.” Kane gripped the stone in one hand and placed the fingers of his other on her cheek.

  The world dropped out from beneath her feet, and Syri grabbed her arms from behind before she could stagger away from the pressure building behind her eyes. A few seconds merged with eternity, and she shut her eyes to hide from the mingled look of pain and love on Kane’s face.

  An internal “pop” relieved the tightness in her skull, although the world around her still felt detached. Kane removed his hand from her face. Opening her eyes once again, she met Kane’s still concerned expression. The airy feeling around her body intensified, and she resisted the urge to look down and check that she still wore clothing.

  That was it. No more magic. She had nothing left to convince herself that life would go back to normal. Now she was just a regular fighter. And Kane became the only warrior-mage in Limani.

  A different type of pressure built behind her eyes again, but Toria forced back the threatening tears. “Did it work?”

  Kane unclenched his fingers, and the crystal he held vibrated with sparkling amethyst light. “It tingles,” he said. Without further ado, he drew his arm back and sent the stone hurtling toward the dark tent. It shot through the air like a miniature shooting star, hitting the top of the pavilion with a burst of sparks and crack of lightning. A second loud shock followed the first, as the electricity found the metal tent poles and sent power surging through the entire structure.

  Silence followed the short fireworks show. The odor of singed fabric drifted across the clearing to meet their noses.

  “Think we pulled it off?” Kane said. “The bomb saturated the tent. I can’t tell anything with my magesight.”

  “I’ll go check.” Before either could stop her, Toria crept forward from their hiding spot, drawing her sword.

  She met no resistance passing the area where the shield’s edge should be, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still there. Feeling her partners’ eyes boring into her back and ready to rush to the rescue, she kept up a steady pace until she reached the pavilion entrance. There were still no sounds of movement from within, so she drew a corner of the deep blue fabric back with a finger.

  The interior was surprisingly spare—a camp cot and a few chests lined the edges, not the lavish display of creature comforts she expected. But she had expected the bodies of the two soldiers sprawled unmoving in the center of the tent. Longbows lay within reach of their lifeless fingers, reaffirming the decision Toria had made not to charge right in.

  Fingers snapped once, and a putrid green light illuminated the back corner. It encompassed a gaunt young man dressed only in breeches in the tent’s oppressive unmoving air. He lounged on a few pillows in the corner, apparently at ease despite the dead bodies at his feet. Spiraling tattoos decorated his naked torso, one particularly intricate knot on his lower abdomen glowing with a yellow tinge.

  “And she keeps coming for me,” the mage said, a touch of legitimate surprise in his voice. “How charming.”

  Toria stepped into the tent and pointed the tip of her sword at the mage. “Who the hell are you?” She didn’t have time for niceties.

  “Your puppet master.”

  Before she could make a snarky inquiry, he snapped his fingers a second time. Toria felt every muscle in her body tense beyond her control. The hilt of her sword dug into her palm, and she worried the sudden slickness she felt was blood rather than sweat. Pain ran through every joint in her body, and her teeth ached with the pressure of her jaw clamping together.

  The pain wasn’t good. On the plus side, she’d found the mage who’d cursed her.

  He was silent for a beat, but the strain on his face told Toria he was attempting something she wasn’t going to like.

  She relaxed as much as possible, but every muscle screamed with cramps. Despite her best efforts, a high-pitched whimper escaped her gritted teeth.

  After a second whimper, as she desperately wished for her shields back, the pressure lessened. The mage’s eyes opened, and he studied her through narrow slits.

  “Someone else has been draining your power,” he said. “Not quite what I’d intended.”

  The rest of her muscles remained rigid, but her teeth stopped grinding together. An overwhelming urge to call out to Kane for help washed over her. The mage’s yellow tattoo flickered under his silver shields.

  No way would she be used to lure her partner into a trap. Manipulating the mage’s mental control, the words that finally slipped from her were, “Nalamas! I’ve got him!” Then every muscle in her body seized, and it became an effort just to breathe.

  She never called Kane by his last name. It took her two years to learn how to pronounce it right.

  Feet pounded across the clearing toward the tent, Kane’s boots followed by Syri’s lighter steps. Her teeth snapped shut again, and she began to curl in on herself, the weight of the pain pushing her to the ground.

  The tent flap snapped open behind her, but she had no way to give them further warning. The mage lunged to his feet, a mocking smile spreading on his face.

  “Right then,” Kane said. He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, but his other secretly pulled her pistol from the holster at her lower back. Relief, both physical and mental, spread through her.

  The mage’s grin transformed to horror, and a pistol cracked inches from Toria’s head. The yellow tattoo disappeared in a spread of crimson when the bullet buried itself in his stomach and disrupted the magical energy with his own blood.

  He fell back on the pillows with a howl of agony, clamping both hands over the wound. Toria stood up straight, muscles still aching but under her own control. With her shields gone, magesight flooded her field of vision as her magic poured back into her, turning the dark tent into a miasma of corrupt magical energy.

  Kane, keeping her pistol squared toward the mage, stalked across the tent toward him. “I would kill you,” he said, “or challenge you to a duel. But you’re the one tied to the bomb.” He hauled the mage to his feet by the arm as the man kept his hands pressed over his wound.

  A glimmer of clean violet caught Toria’s eye in the corner of the tent. She stalked over and pulled aside the cloth covering a low trunk. Lying on top of the trunk was her rapier, still neatly sheathed. The blade might be new and untouched by her magic, but the hilt of the sword contained years of her imbued magical signature.

  She sheathed her replacement sword, then clutched her rapier with both hands, a single tear tracing its way down her cheek. Things had to get better from here on out. Now she was whole again.

  “This is mine,” she said to the mage, a snarl in her voice that vented all the stress of the past days of trauma.

  Syri covered Kane while they followed Toria out of the tent and to the small wooden structure. Giddy with power flowing through her veins once again, she pointed to the padlocked door and blew it open with a focused bolt of energy. They didn’t need the mage to disarm this nuclear warhead. She could ta
ke anything—

  “Steady, girl.” Syri’s fingers intertwined with her own, reeling her back before she could become drunk on her reborn power.

  They entered the shack together. Upon the bare dirt ground sat a metal cradle holding the cylindrical object she recalled from Kane’s memories. He hadn’t exaggerated the nauseous aura the weapon produced, waves of roiling ochre contained by a gunmetal shield the same color as the Roman mage’s.

  But the electronic keypad lay dead. No conveniently ticking numbers marked how much time they had left to prevent the utter devastation of her beloved home. “You wired it to yourself,” Toria said, whirling on the mage who had collapsed at Kane’s feet upon entering.

  He nodded, once. “The power itself was easier to work with, so I bypassed the control system.” He gasped out through the pain. Kane heaved an exasperated sigh and ripped another strip from his tattered shirt. He wadded the cloth and pressed it to the gunshot wound, folding the mage’s hands back over it.

  Toria’s scientific tendencies briefly overtook her hatred of the man. “Idiot. You could have killed yourself. There’s a good chance you would have died anyway when it blew if you tied it to yourself too deeply.”

  “I know,” he said. “You think I had any choice?”

  “Well, you’ve got a choice now,” Kane said. He drew his dagger and idly flipped it from hand to hand. “Tell us which of your little tattoos is tied to the bomb, or I’ll start cutting them out at random.”

  Before the mage could begin gibbering or Syri could protest, Toria said, “No need.” His pants had ridden up when he’d hit the floor, revealing a tattoo on his right calf glimmering with the same swirling mass enveloping the bomb. She slid the pants leg up a few more inches with the tip of her sword. “That one.”