Dirt flew up in every direction, pelting Kadorax and the gnome with a relentless torrent of small rocks and clods of grass, leaves, and sticks. “We need goggles,” the gnome shouted above the raucous din of the steam engine.
“Yeah, no shit,” Kadorax yelled back. Ahead of them, the compound was alive with the sounds of battle. Kadorax was beginning to think the drill would be too slow and the alpha would already be out in the open by the time they reached his hut. Still, coming out behind the alpha and catching him unaware for a quick, clean execution was a prospect worth pursuing.
The gnome tilted the drill completely vertical, and the blade began to sink into the ground. It was several feet below the surface when the gnome operated a different lever to turn it horizontal. He pushed the small cart of coal in behind it, dropped down into the hole, then waved for Kadorax to follow. The device bored a tunnel about three feet in diameter, enough for Kadorax to crawl without fear of getting stuck, but it was a far cry from a comfortable journey.
Blinded in the sheer darkness of the dirt and soil, Kadorax had no idea if they were moving in the right direction. “How will we know when we’re there?” he shouted to the gnome who was busy at the controls in front of him.
The miner only nodded in response. Whether the nod meant they would be fine or meant they would be taking a wild, potentially deadly guess, Kadorax had no idea. No matter the outcome, he was in the tunnel and not about to turn back. The drill continued to spit a constant stream of dirt and debris back on his face as it chugged along, and there was nowhere for the smoke to go in the confined space.
“This thing… needs some redesigning,” he hacked between coughs. Kadorax wasn’t sure how much more he’d be able to take without getting a clean breath from somewhere. They kept going, and Kadorax kept slogging on behind it.
When they were maybe halfway to the alpha, or so they hoped, the ground beneath them began to rumble more than it should have. The gnome eased off one of the levers to slow down the machine, but the rattling and shifting did not relent.
Kadorax braced himself for a fall. “Some of the jackals live underground!” he shouted, but it was no use. There was nothing either of them could do.
Panicked, the gnome slammed his levers all the way forward, throwing his weight behind the machine and urging it on. They rumbled farther into the compound, and then the floor beneath them gave way, and the tunnel collapsed.
Kadorax, the gnome, and the drill fell through the air, surrounded by a smoky cloud of dirt and rock, and landed painfully on a hard stone floor some fifteen feet below the surface. The drill shattered on impact, sending hot coals and boiling water all over the unfortunate jackal caught beneath it. Kadorax and the gnome were in a jumble of arms and legs not far from the jackal. They both groaned as they tried to fill their lungs amidst the choking cloud of dust blocking the air.
Unlike the forest above, the subterranean chamber was illuminated fully by a ring of torches. The room looked surprisingly similar to the small temple Kadorax had raided earlier. Then he noticed three more jackals, each of them wearing robes and clutching various canine holy relics. They were on all fours off to one side, and they looked surprised.
“A summoning chamber,” Kadorax said. He swung his feet in front him, wincing at a sharp pain in his right ankle, and pushed himself up from the ground.
The gnome didn’t get to his feet. He was alive, but the fall had knocked more than the wind out of him. He’d lost a few teeth, and a piece of broken rock had been lodged underneath him, punching a nasty wound into his flesh on the back side of his ribs.
Kadorax didn’t have time to worry about the gnome’s health. The jackals were advancing, and at least one of them was already beginning to cast a spell. He dove to his right, away from the wreckage of the drill, and landed in a roll, barely dodging an icy blast that rocketed into the stone. Another of the jackals was a shaman, a fact Kadorax quickly learned as a magical pit opened up directly beneath his feet, offering a short drop onto a pile of burning embers.
The flames singed Kadorax’s armor and seared the hair from the back of his arms. He scrambled over the edge of the pit as quickly as he could, then took a blast of ice to his chest. Cage of Chaos responded to the direct attack with a burst of harmless light, and then the talent was depleted. Kadorax silently cursed himself for choosing the fifth-level passive ability. The sheer randomness of the effect was so unreliable that any benefit it conveyed was offset by the number of times it had failed to help at all.
Sprinting for the wall where the casters stood, Kadorax uncoiled his whip from his belt. The longer range coupled with the relatively slow movements of mages and shaman compared to normal jackal warriors meant he had a good chance of landing Torment on the nearest enemy.
With only one good opportunity before the next spell was certain to come flying toward him, he cracked his whip and activated Torment, lashing the nearest jackal across the snout and sending the creature fleeing with its hands up in the air as though it was on fire. The other two jackals hesitated for a moment, watching their comrade’s retreat, giving Kadorax enough time to strike again.
The mundane hit from the whip caused nearly as much devastation as Torment had inflicted. The second jackal reeled backward as its spine and side broke open in a stream of blood. Yelping, it fell over its own legs in its haste to scramble away, though the third jackal wasn’t nearly as fazed.
A blast of fire buffeted Kadorax backward, forcing him to shield his eyes. The blast was quickly followed by heavy concussive force that slammed into his upper torso with enough weight to knock him to the ground. Or it would have knocked him to the ground had there been any stone on which to fall. Instead, Kadorax fell into another trap.
Punji sticks pierced his back and legs. He hadn’t fallen from a great enough distance for the stakes to impale him more than an inch in any one spot, but the painful wounds were numerous. Thankfully, the armor on his back took most of the damage and kept him from being killed. Kadorax struggled to get his arms free enough to push up from the ground. He was at an awkward angle, and his armor was so entangled that it kept him down longer than otherwise, but he was able to scramble free of the pit and roll to the side, heaving. Blood flowed freely from at least a dozen places on his back and legs. The back of his head felt like someone had taken a hammer to it.
Kadorax had to brush a bit of his own blood from his eyes in order to see. In front of him, the jackal had a small knife, something that looked more ceremonial than designed for combat, indicating that its wielder had either run out of spells or simply preferred to finish the kill up close and personal.
Somewhere in the tumult, Kadorax had dropped his whip. He drew his sword and climbed to his knees, using the blade as a cane as he pushed himself up to his feet. He knew he wasn’t going to last long. The muscles in the back of his legs had been shredded.
The jackal smiled as it stalked forward.
From the corner of his eye, Kadorax saw the gnome finally regain his composure. He wasn’t steady by any means, but he was standing—an improvement. Across the room from the shattered remnants of the drill, the second jackal was finding its courage.
The jackal released Pinning Arrow, firing the slow projectile right for the gnome. The terrified miner saw it coming, but he didn’t know what to do, frozen in place by fear with his hands shaking at his sides.
“Run!” Kadorax yelled.
Finally, the gnome took off for the other side of the room, narrowly avoiding the devastating spell. Kadorax had to turn his attention back to the jackal coming for him. He hated to leave the gnome vulnerable, but there was nothing he could do. The jackal pounced at him, and Kadorax caught the creature’s muscled shoulders with his hands, throwing him to the side. The quick grapple barely did anything to the jackal other than divert its course momentarily, allowing Kadorax a few seconds to continue moving away.
From all fours, the jackal came on again. Like the first time, Kadorax only defended himself, pushing the
jackal’s body wide, but not hurting it at all. He stepped backward as he fought off the attacks, positioning himself closer and closer to the wrecked drill. After the fourth jumping assault from the jackal, he started to feel his strength fading. His legs wouldn’t hold him up much longer.
The jackal lunged in again, slashing with its knife and biting the air with its huge teeth, and Kadorax deflected, shoving down hard with his hands and sword. His plan worked, and the bloodthirsty jackal didn’t realize it was landing directly on the drill blade at their feet. The blade itself was horizontal and therefore didn’t cut the jackal at all, but the creature lost its footing as the metal slid across the stone floor, issuing a loud shriek.
Kadorax, tired and bloody, swung down with his sword to end the jackal in front of him. As the beast thrashed and tried to scamper away with a partially severed spine, it wrenched the blade from the bastion’s hands and sent it skittering across the stone. Defeated as well, Kadorax slumped down against the floor.
The gnome had his back turned and was running frantically around the edge of the circular chamber, dodging magical blasts as best he could.
“You have to fight!” Kadorax tried to yell. His voice only came out as a faint, hoarse, incomprehensible gargle. Running would mean the gnome’s death, and the gnome’s death would certainly ensure his own. “Fight! Turn and fight!”
Luckily, the jackal mage was wounded as well, leaking blood from the garish laceration caused by Kadorax’s whip. Searching for some answer to ward off the inevitable, Kadorax gathered up a small pile of coals and some of the magical powder the gnome had doused them with earlier. There wasn’t much, but a bit of a plan started to form in his mind nonetheless.
His whip was still lying on the ground not too far away, and the space between himself and weapon had returned to solid stone once more after the Spike Trap’s dissipation. Kadorax dragged himself across the ground. He left a thick, red smear in his wake. When he grabbed onto the whip’s handle, he started pulling himself closer to the remaining jackal, trying hard to not make any noise and draw any attention to himself.
A blast of some invisible magical energy knocked the gnome to the ground. The miner squeaked as he hit the stone, scrambling for his life to get back to his feet, and Kadorax made his move. He cracked his whip forward and connected with a torch right behind the jackal mage. He yanked his arm back, exhausting what little was left of his strength, and the torch fell free from its sconce to land at the jackal’s feet. Before the beast could react, Kadorax threw his little pile of coal and enchanted powder at the flames.
A huge burst of flame—temporary, and more dramatic than effectual—erupted from the jackal’s feet. Had the creature been standing quadrupedal, Kadorax knew the blast would have probably done a good deal of damage. Against the bipedal target, it only managed to distract and scare the creature, but then the jackal fell over in its panic. It landed directly on the torch, and a bit of unburnt powder must have still been clinging to its robes. A howl of pain and rage filled the chamber as the jackal burned.
When the scream subsided a moment later, Kadorax couldn’t open his eyes. He had lost too much blood. “Healing?” he managed to ask, but he knew his head was not facing the correct direction for the gnome to hear.
Kadorax awoke in the chaos. He could smell the burning sulfur and smoking pitch before he even opened his eyes. As before, Ligriv was smiling down at him, his ethereal form flickering and wavering at the edges.
“So nice of you to join me again,” the strange guide said.
“Ugh,” Kadorax groaned, rubbing his temples. “Did I even survive?”
With a laugh, Ligriv nodded and continued, “Of course you did, otherwise you would not be here right now.”
Kadorax realized he was shirtless, and the soul rod lodged in his chest throbbed with pain. Part of the rod’s metal rim was dented and nicked. “I don’t suppose you’re going to fix that, right?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Ligriv replied. “You must learn to protect yourself better if you wish to survive. Though your body will regain some of its composure while you remain in the void, your soul rod, the most important aspect of your class, will not.”
“What does it even do?” Kadorax asked. “If the damned thing is so important, what do I get for lugging it around?”
Ligriv looked surprised. “You haven’t figured it out?” he answered with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t have time for your games.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Ligriv chided. “Haven’t you thought it odd how you’ve been consistently fighting enemies far stronger than your level should allow? You’re smart, yes, and you have more than enough experience on your side, but at the end of the day, your stats are simply subpar. Every jackal you’ve killed has been stronger than you. The undead you slew in Assir was more than four times your level. Anyone else would have been carved to pieces a dozen different times by now. You have survived.”
“What’s that have to do with the soul rod?” Kadorax asked, though he could more or less anticipate the answer.
“Bastions are stronger than the other classes on Agglor,” Ligriv explained. “Speaking of which, you’ll be level nine when you return to the material plane. But think about what you’ve accomplished already. All of that cannot be luck, and all of that cannot be attributed to your experience. As I said before, bastions are stronger than other classes. The soul rod implanted in your chest becomes active during combat, channeling your abilities and enhancing your senses.”
“Everything at a cost, right?” Kadorax assumed.
Ligriv nodded. “Right you are. Many of Agglor’s strongest personalities have chosen the path of the bastion upon respawning, though few have succeeded in making a name for themselves. Several priors and more than one leader of the Blackened Blades have all attempted to take on the mantle of the bastion. Few have made it to the point of adopting a second class. Fewer still have risen to the level of their previous lives. None have fulfilled their destiny as a bastion.”
The scene was beginning to fade from Kadorax’s vision. “Not even multiclassed?” he repeated. “That’s only level ten… and a destiny? I’ve no time for your riddles.”
Ligriv flickered out of view before responding, leaving the world in utter darkness, accented by flares of pain from Kadorax’s legs and back until he finally lost consciousness altogether.
Chapter 11
Kadorax awoke in the camp, and he immediately knew something was wrong. His body hurt, but that wasn’t it. There was too much noise. He could tell there was no battle raging just outside his dark room, no jackal invasion moments from bringing his end—just a tumult foretelling action on a large scale. Rubbing a bit of headache from his eyes, he got out of his small cot as quickly as his wounded body would allow.
As he expected, the camp was awash with activity. Both groups, Blackened Blades and Priorate Knights alike, were scrambling to and fro as they collapsed tents, gathered supplies into piles for transportation, and disassembled some of the fortifications. “What’s happened?” Kadorax asked of the nearest soldier, a tall man dressed in the telltale dark leather of the Blackened Blades.
The man stopped only for a moment to respond. “Some sort of jackal attack on Kingsgate,” the man said. “Elise and the prior are leaving a few stationed here to protect Skarm’s Reif, and the rest are headed to the port to get on ships.”
Kadorax knew an attack on Kingsgate would throw all of Agglor into war. Maybe that’s exactly what they needed. He spotted Syzak helping with some of the operations near the forge. “Syzak! What’s going on?” he called.
The snake-man looked relieved to see him. “We just got back an hour ago. There’s word from Kingsgate that the royal heir was kidnapped by jackals somewhere on the ocean. She was en route to Oscine City to meet with a tutor or something like that when her ship was seized. Rumors say the jackals left the whole crew alive, but forced them to go to different cities so they could spread the word, though I’m not sure I bel
ieve it. Sailors have been known to lie.”
“Was Kingsgate sieged?” Kadorax asked. He thought of the drill the gnome had tried to sell to the dogheads and what kind of damage it could wreak if dozens of them were unleashed all at once.
Syzak shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything of it. Everything I know comes from Lord Percival. He had run one short delivery for Skarm’s Reif, just transporting some messages to a priory outpost somewhere along the coast, and the crew ran into the information from a guard. No one is sure what to believe.”
“It could all be an elaborate campaign of misinformation,” Kadorax added. “If the jackals are planning on summoning more of their gods out there in the wilderness, they’d want the knights and Blackened Blades to leave, chasing some phantom all the way to Kingsgate.”
“You’re right,” Syzak said.
“If everyone goes now, Skarm’s Reif will probably be sacked and razed within a week,” Kadorax continued.
Syzak stretched his back and took a break from moving crates to rest for a few moments. “Elise and the prior are keeping a contingent here to protect the city, though most of the people are fleeing as well. Word of the brazen attack on a royal family member has traveled quickly. People everywhere are going to be scared. They’ll flock to the largest cities for protection,” he explained.
“We’ll go with the Grim Sleeper,” Kadorax stated, rubbing his forehead in concentration. “If there’s an attack somewhere else, we need to be mobile to get to it.” He thought of Ligriv’s strange words about the now dinged soul rod implanted in his breastplate. “We’re too low level to really be any use here anyways, especially if the heavy support is packing their bags and hitting the road as well.”
Syzak nodded his agreement. “Brinna stayed with the ship. Ayers made her a new pair of daggers, and one of the crew’s been showing her how to use them. He has a few things for you as well, and when I heard the news from Kingsgate, I didn’t feel like dragging everything out here just for you to have to haul it back.”
Killstreak Book One Page 22
