“Secure them!” Ascher shouted.
The soldiers began fastening the nets to metal loops in the floor.
“Electrify!”
The soldiers stepped back. One flipped a switch, and a moment later, a low electric hum filled the room. Blue tendrils of electricity danced over the metal bars for a moment, and then disappeared. The orphans could feel the current in the air.
“Wow,” Owen said, staring down at his arms. The hairs were all standing up.
Gunner swallowed. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Oscar’s tail swished through the air faster than normal. He turned to address the other orphans. “I hear a sound. Bum bum—bum bum, like a heart beating…”
The orphans were silent. Then Owen spoke.
“Elki. They synchronize their steps in large groups.”
A series of loud concussions made the orphans fall into crouches. Ascher swore under his breath. The creatures were throwing themselves against the outer walls.
Emma, Calista, and Lily stood in a tight huddle, letting out occasional squeals of terror as the room was filled with the deafening thunder of attack.
Gunner and Owen nodded at each other. Owen pulled out his Tiberian dagger and held it down by his waist, blade sticking out.
He spoke in a throaty whisper. “Come and get it.”
And then it began.
Chapter 66
A young man walked beside an older one down a shadowy corridor lit by magical flames in wall sconces. Both wore white suits with many pockets that gave them the look of naval officers. The young man was almost as tall as the older man, and walked with the anxious confidence of someone who has just been promoted. Nervous sweat covered his face. His arms swung from well-proportioned shoulders, the hands balled into fists. Every now and then the fists tightened with anticipation.
The young man was Milo.
“I can’t believe it’s been two years,” he said.
“Two and half,” came the low, measured voice of the uncle he’d come to love over the years. “You’ve been in this vault for about thirty months now.”
Emmanuel’s hair was now gray at the temples. The past two and a half years of training for twelve to fifteen hours a day had taken their toll on him—especially all the spellcasting necessary to keep the shrouding and time dilation spells going at the same time. He’d never put so much effort into a project before.
The years had been kinder to Milo. He was now a full four inches taller than when he had left the other orphans behind on the frozen pond. His body had been shorn of baby fat and was now covered in a layer of muscle from all the rigorous physical exercises Emmanuel had assigned him. A battlemage had to be physically fit to have the stamina necessary for advanced spellcasting, and he had trained his body to an impressive level.
Milo wore a brown bag over one shoulder. As they walked, he reached into it and pulled out something as long as his forearm, and perfectly straight, with elaborate carvings running up its wooden sides. It was a short staff, and there was a blue luminether crystal, fully charged, built into one end.
“She’s going to love it,” Emmanuel said.
Milo nodded. “She’s going to need it.”
“By the way,” his uncle said as they reached a massive metal door. “Congratulations.”
“For what?”
“It’s your birthday. You’re seventeen years old. Biologically, you are now two and half years older than your twin sister.”
Milo slipped the short staff back into the bag and took a deep breath. He was seventeen now—older than Lily. He wondered how she would react upon seeing him like this, taller and with more weight on him and longer hair that fell around his forehead and ears. He was no longer the little boy with the high-pitched voice and nervous habits.
Of course, that wouldn’t matter if they all died in the upcoming battle. He tried not to think about it as he watched his uncle dial a number into a keypad with glowing red buttons. If he could have one small gift for his birthday, what would it be?
An answer popped into his mind as the keypad turned green and the metal door slid open.
Sunlight.
Chapter 67
Broken glass splashed into the dining room as the windows burst inward.
A wave of Elki slid down, trapped between the metal net and the wall, bodies shaking and sizzling as electricity cut through them. The orphans coughed as a thin, greasy smoke filled the room. It was the smell of a summer barbecue, which made all of this even more traumatizing.
Something big exploded with a muffled boom behind the ranch, causing the floor to tremble. The buzzing of electricity was cut off. The room went dark. A burst of orange light washed over them as a soldier lit a torch.
“They destroyed the generators,” Ascher said, making a fist and pressing it to his forehead. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Gods help us.”
Elki poured through the windows like hairless gray bats. The orphans shrieked and huddled more tightly together. Coral tried to keep the smaller ones from getting stepped on.
“They can’t get past the bars,” Ascher shouted. “Don’t panic!”
One of his men ran forward to stab an Elki with his sword. The blade was useless. He tried again and again. The Elki caught the man’s hand in its jaws and bit down. With an agonized roar, the man pulled away, leaving a trail of blood from his ruined fingers.
Owen raised the Tiberian-steel dagger. “This can kill them!”
He tried to push his way through the group, toward a section of wall where two Elki were pawing at the metal net.
Ascher grabbed the boy and stopped him.
“Give me that.” He snatched the dagger from Owen’s hand and looked around. “Sevarin.”
“Here.”
He tossed the dagger to Sevarin, who caught it by the blade. Sevarin looked down at his hand. His eyes widened.
“It—it cut me,” he said, showing Ascher his palm. There was a line of blood drawn across it.
“No time for that,” Ascher shouted. “The creatures are getting through!”
Three of the beasts were gnashing at the metal net and had succeeded in pulling a few of the bars apart. Soon there would be a hole big enough for them to pass. Sevarin glanced at Emma before stepping toward the creatures.
He took slow steps, moving like someone with a fear of heights approaching the edge of a cliff. He held the dagger straight out. Its blade shone with a chaotic luster.
Emma spoke. “I believe in you, Sev.”
And through all the yipping, keening, and tearing sounds of the enraged Elki…
Sevarin heard her voice.
He heard it the way one hears a small bell during an earthquake. It strengthened him. He bared his teeth at the Elki and rushed forward.
He took one in the throat. The creature backed into the wall and slid down, twitching and sputtering. The red glow in its eyes dimmed as it settled into a slack-jawed death. He stabbed another Elki but could barely penetrate the muscle over its ribs. Gods, they were strong.
But he was a Sargonaut, and his people were the strongest of all.
“Go for the neck, armpits, or mouth!” Owen shouted.
Sevarin silently thanked the gods for Owen and his weird hobbies. He approached another of the creatures, waited for it to bark—a crazed, whiny yowlp—then stabbed upward, cutting past its jaw into the roof of its mouth. It fell back with a gurgling sound. The third one caught Sevarin’s arm with its teeth and tried to pull him toward it. Sevarin punched at its skull again and again—loud leathery thumps. The creature finally let go. Sevarin stabbed through one of its eyes. With a loud yelp, the creature collapsed to the ground and was still.
He ran around the room, stabbing and slashing at the monsters. They died in succession as the blade sent them thrashing to the ground.
When the last Elki had been killed, Sevarin rejoined the group. He struggled to catch his breath. He handed the dagger back to Owen, who made a No, keep it motion with
his hands.
“You’re better with it,” he told Sevarin.
“Thanks, O. I won’t forget this. And no one’s gonna forget you were the one who saved our butts by bringing it in the first place.”
Owen looked away, no hint of satisfaction on his face. Sevarin put a hand on his shoulder.
“I believe you, you know.”
“About what?” Owen looked up at him.
“About those two Elki you killed. I always knew it was true, even when I was making jokes about it. I guess I was just jealous.”
Owen smiled a little at that. He kept smiling as Sevarin stood by his side, twirling the dagger in one of his strong, brown hands.
They heard clashing sounds outside. A noise like swords banging against wood.
“My men,” Ascher said. “They’re being overwhelmed.”
One of his soldiers spoke. “How can you tell?”
“Trust me. We need to get out of here somehow.”
Lily stepped forward. “I could cast a cloaking spell. It would make us invisible in the night as long as we stay in the bubble.”
“Not yet,” Ascher said. “We need to get out of this room first.”
Ascher’s wish was granted, but with a violent explosion that shattered the walls of the dining room. Strangely, the walls—along with the metal nets and Elki corpses—flew outward, as if the explosion had come from within. And yet the orphans were unharmed.
Someone very powerful had demolished the ranch, and as the night sky became visible and the gushing currents of freezing cold wind froze their faces, Ascher shouted with all the air in his lungs:
“Get down! Get down!”
Chapter 68
As soon as Ascher’s words exploded out of his mouth, Emma dropped to the wooden floor, taking Lily and Calista with her.
“What’s happening?” Calista shouted over the wind.
“It’s him,” Emma said, and the image that popped into her mind was of a man with scraggly long hair walking through a wall of flames, his face covered in shadow. “Iolus.”
Barrel pushed himself into their circle. “We’re surrounded. Lily if you know any shield spells, now would be the time.”
Lily looked ready to cry.
“I can’t,” she said. “I need quiet. I—I don’t even have a casting crystal!”
Barrel pulled out a glass bulb containing a semitransparent fluid. “Drink this.”
Lily grabbed the bulb with shaky hands, pulled out the stopper, and drank. Emma remembered the name of the potion, Manaris Brew, the same one Lily had drunk before summoning Rocky. As soon as the liquid went down, her eyes began to flutter. When she opened them, Emma saw nothing but black. The change gave her face a batlike appearance.
“OK,” Lily said.
The emperor’s soldiers—men in leather armor wielding swords and strange-looking crossbows—swarmed up the hill. Ascher’s men emerged from the surrounding forest and went to work fending them off. After a few minutes, it became clear that the emperor’s men had the advantage. Emma estimated it would take only a few minutes until the orphans were left without protection. She didn’t know much about combat and warfare—Milo had always been the one interested in those things—but she knew a hopeless battle when she saw one.
Adding to the misery was the remaining group of Elki. They leaped forward out of the snowy night like demons, tackling Ascher’s soldiers and digging into them with their teeth. Men shrieked in agony as they were ripped apart.
One Elki howled up at the sky. The rest followed suit, tipping back their misshapen heads and exposing pale, fleshy throats.
“Orphans,” Lily shouted. “Come closer!”
Coral and Andres herded the orphans together between two dining-room tables. Ascher shouted commands over them. “Get as low to the ground as possible!”
They crouched, and Emma watched as Lily rose from among them like a shepherdess among her lambs. The snowfall appeared to slow. Lily lifted her arms, making herself into a Y shape, and looked up at the night sky. Her hair and eyelashes were already white with snow, and the chant she spoke was lost to the wind.
A strange metallic warbling sound dimmed the whines of Elki and the shouts of men fighting on the hill. It was coming from Lily’s hands, a sound like an aluminum tray being shaken. Emma watched, wonderstruck, as what appeared to be a semitransparent dome dropped all around them. It was like being inside a giant soap bubble.
“Run, men!” Ascher shouted to the men fighting beyond the shield bubble. “Run for your lives!”
Emma could see several of Ascher’s soldiers—men whose faces she had seen on a daily basis—lying motionless in the snow.
What happened next was so disturbing she knew she’d never forget it. The Elki were feeding on the fallen soldiers, greedily burying their faces into the bodies and chewing. It was the chewing she couldn’t bear, as well as the sight of entrails steaming in the cold air.
“Oh, gods,” she said, clutching her stomach.
She heard a distorted thumping sound and opened her eyes to see enemy soldiers slashing at the shield bubble with their swords. Elki were throwing themselves against it, yelping and growling in protest as their bodies slammed like fists against a Plexiglas window.
“It won’t hold,” Lily said, on the verge of tears.
Emma ran over to Lily and held her hand.
“A little longer, sis. Just a bit more.”
Then the pounding stopped.
And there was silence.
The soldiers and Elki were now stepping away from the dining room floor and the shield bubble protecting it. They walked backward over the shattered walls and Emma saw with growing terror that the men were smiling. He was finally here.
Iolus.
Chapter 69
“There you are.”
The voice seemed to come from all directions at once. Emma swung her head around to look over her shoulder, thinking the sorcerer had stepped up behind her. She breathed in and out, on the verge of complete panic. Despite everything that had happened in the past six months—like watching her father die at the hands of murderers—Emma had never seen death as clearly as she saw it now. A new fear overtook her—not of death but of something much worse: that she would never get to say good-bye to Milo or her mother.
“A semi-permeable shield,” Iolus said, still invisible in the darkness. “Who would’ve thought Ascher had such a talented magician in his pathetic little orphanage?”
“She won’t be his for long,” said a much heavier voice, and Emma saw a giant gray-skinned bearded man holding a massive hammer step forth from the crowd. His beard had been braided across his chest and the top of his head was bald. His muscles were huge and obscene in the low light, like misshapen boulders.
Iolus emerged from the darkness next to him. He stepped over pieces of broken wall, his soiled hair falling in ragged shreds around his head. He was carrying a brown sack and there was a sword strapped to his back. Other figures emerged; Emma saw a Dark Acolyte that looked familiar, and then she understood why. He was one of the men who had come to kill her father and kidnap her mother. The Acolyte was looking right at her, his face twisted into a poisonous scowl.
“Golden wings,” she heard him say to his companions. “Clever trick. It won’t stop me from tearing them off.”
The third figure to join the group was a well-built woman with orange hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was dressed in a leather suit of armor with a fur-lined cloak draped over her body. Something long and shiny curled by her knees. Emma studied it for a moment, and then her mouth opened in horror. The woman had a tail like any other Feral, except that hers was the segmented, metallic-looking tail of a scorpion.
“A Pestilent.” Calista said.
Emma didn’t stop to think what the word “Pestilent” might mean. Instead she kept her eyes on Ascher to see what he would do next. She could tell by his furrowed brow and partly open mouth that the man had no idea how to proceed.
“Ascher,�
� Iolus said, rapping on Lily’s shield with his knuckles. “Knock, knock. I have a gift for you and your pups.”
He lifted the sack he was carrying and reached into it with his free hand. He pulled something out that looked pale orange and bushy in the torchlight—with glinting black eyes and white hair.
The orphans squealed in terror.
“Oh, gods,” Emma said. Her stomach tightened, and for a moment she was almost sick.
It was Sevarin she was really worried about. He wouldn’t stand for what Iolus had done.
“You son of a…” Sevarin muttered an obscenity Emma hadn’t heard since her time in the human realm. He was shivering with rage.
“Hold him back,” Ascher said, going over to restrain Sevarin.
Calista began to whimper. Barrel went to provide some comfort.
“See what happens when I get angry?” Iolus said, holding the obscene thing much higher so they could all get a better look. Emma heard a growling sound and realized it was Ascher. He was baring his teeth and growling at Iolus like an animal.
It was all too much for Emma. She wanted to scream in terror, and yet, despite her revulsion and fear, and the weeping of the other orphans, she couldn’t help but look one more time at the horror in Iolus’s hand.
It was Vastanon’s head, severed at the neck, his once pristine hair dirty with crusted blood.
“You sick bastard,” Ascher said, keeping an arm across Sevarin’s chest to hold him back.
Iolus tossed the severed head into the snow. Then, as if carried by invisible hands, his sword detached itself from his back and danced in the air. It was not just any sword. It was longer than any Emma had ever seen, one that could float and slash through the air without being touched.
It tapped its point along the shield as if in search of a weak spot.
Sevarin glanced over his shoulder at Lily. “Is the shield one-way only?”
Lily spoke as Barrel uncorked another Manaris Brew potion and handed it to her. “Yes,” she said. “Why? Sevarin don’t do anything stupid.”
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 37
