The Chronicles of Lumineia: Book 03 - Seven Days

by Ben Hale

  Wall felt a twinge of guilt. He should have volunteered to go with him, but at the last moment his fear had frozen his tongue. Now he threw from the relative safety of fifty paces, a distance at which he had become quite good. Spotting another group that had managed to push back the dark skinned defenders and were tearing at the bricks in the wall, he threw his spear with deadly accuracy. Another quare went down, this time toppling into another as it fell from sight.

  The soreness of his arm had gotten worse, and he paused to take a swig of lukewarm water before picking up another weapon. Even as he took a break, he saw Derek throwing spear after spear into the fiend attackers.

  Where does he get the energy?

  Uncomfortable with the sight of his little brother besting him, despite his poorer aim, he looked away and watched a group of black elf cavalry mounted on their armored lizards fly by on their way to reinforce a hole farther west. The odd mounts had taken almost as much to get used to as being around the underground race. One thing he had to admit though, they sure could fight.

  Each of their thin blades danced like miniature lightning, striking down fiends so quickly that several humans had been requisitioned to toss the fiend corpses over the cliff. They also fought like a single unit, flowing together like water rather than separate beings. Watching their tight formation, he wondered how much training they went through to fight like that.

  Despite the degree of tolerance that had been forced upon the black elves and the humans assigned to The Deep, there was one thing that Wall still found disconcerting. Glancing skyward, he watched the sinister shadow that hung everywhere above the black army. Its dark mass grew thick straight above him, stretched as far as he could see in either direction, and extended south to the horizon. At the brightest part of the day, the light struck the cloud and stopped cold.

  And the black elves fought better in its shadow.

  Wall still saw something wrong with that, but he rationalized that they were just used to the dark. It had certainly taken them weeks to get accustomed to even the early morning light. Now they fought like lions in the dark shadow. Their equally dark forms battled furiously alongside the lighter-colored humans.

  He sighed, a deep rumble that shook his wide frame, and stepped back to his post. There were fiends to slay and the wall had gotten lower and lower all day. They just couldn’t keep up with the buggers. Swigging the last of the bitter water, he reached for another shaft.

  —A shout rang out, echoing louder than the oppressive din of battle. He froze, still reaching for the spear and watched as three of the large kraka’s climbed over the wall in the center and dropped to the ground, landing no less than a hundred paces from Wall's spear stand.

  Stunned, he stood frozen as terror clawed up his legs and held him fast, leaving him to watch helplessly as the armored hulks turned and ripped into the remains of the wall. A veritable shower of missiles rained down on them as they punched and clawed at the crumbling rubble. One went down, felled by the sheer volume of arrows and spears. Then another collapsed. Alone, the last kraka roared and crushed the last stones to powder before finally succumbing, leaving a ragged hole in the fortifications.

  Dwarves rushed to use magic to plug the opening, but hundreds of black hands tore at the edges before they could. An instant later a tidal wave of fiends flooded through the widening gap, crying out in glee as they slew the scattered defenders. In seconds there were hundreds rushing onto the battleground, sweeping aside metal and magic with ease.

  The Deep had been breached.

  Before he had fully registered what was happening, Wall had turned and bolted north. A moment later the order came to retreat. Black elves streaked past him, sprinting and riding up the slope towards the reserves. Cursing the fleet footed elves, he huffed his way to a terror driven run. Then Derek appeared at his side, breathing hard.

  “How did you know to retreat?” he gasped.

  Wall shrugged without slowing, unwilling to admit his cowardice, even to family. Glancing backward, his breath caught and he almost stumbled. The great phoenix, ridden by the druid leader, was the only thing between them and the enormous collection of fiends that had already come through the breach. Slowing despite his desperation to flee, he asked, “What do you think—”

  —The enormous bird screamed a war cry, echoed by its rider, before his wings swept downward and a wall of flame erupted skyward. Faster than his eyes could follow, it sped west and east, encircling the fiends in a barricade of pure fire, hemming them in.

  “Come on Wall!” Derek yelled. “They are already pouring the oil!”

  Wall turned and watched in horror as thousands of barrels of oil were dumped ahead of him, and the two of them were the only ones left in its path. Galvanized into action, he turned east and barreled his way behind Derek’s retreating form. The hot oil flooded downhill in his direction, and the wall of flame leapt high on the other side of him. Heaving his sore body at the diminishing window between the two, he fought to go faster, cursing his weight.

  Smaller and smaller the gap became, until Wall reached the edge of the expanding oil and threw himself the remaining feet to safety. Landing beside Derek, he scrambled to his feet and hurried to put distance between himself and what was coming . . .

  —The blast wave shook the ground, knocking them sprawling away from the searing heat. Rolling onto his back he sat up and watched the explosion of flames detonate into a raging inferno. In seconds, the entire area they had been defending became an oven of deadly fire. Then a large bird erupted from the fifty foot flames, soaring skyward and away from the smoke, ash trailing behind it as it screamed its piercing cry of victory.

  “Will you look at that,” Derek breathed. “There is no way they can get through that for at least a day.”

  Wall found himself grinning. “So what do we do for the rest of our shift?”

  Derek reached out and slugged him in the shoulder. Then laughed like he thought it was a joke. “Look around you, we are inside the dwarven battalion of Western Falls. Looks like we are finishing out the rest of our shift with people half our size!”

  As Derek laughed and stood to brush himself off, Wall looked at the black elves mingling with the dwarves. With the exception of a few suspicious looks, most of them were preparing to help fight with the stocky surface race. He shook his head and sighed.

  I wasn’t made for this, he thought, wearily standing and following his brother to find their captain.

  Chapter 12: Healing and Remembering

  Aléthya had never felt so tired, but it still annoyed her that she was getting sloppy. Nearing the end of her third 12-hour shift, she felt like it had been a week since she’d slept. The last one she’d healed stumbled towards another healer, holding a bandage at his side. Some time yesterday, Tan had told her to stop completely healing them. He’d reasoned that if she healed the critical wounds, then he or the other healers could finish up.

  It was a sound idea, but one that she was grateful had been suggested by someone else. Rubbing her aching side, she moved to the next cot. Positioning herself at the old elf’s wound, she examined the seeping gap in his leg, preparing herself for the expected pain. Just as she placed her hands on his leg, she glanced at his face . . .

  With the transfer already begun, her eyes closed at the same time her mind recalled where she’d last seen him. An image of him standing guard at the door while she lay strapped to a chair flashed before her. In that moment the pain from the wound peaked, and the memory enveloped her—

  The restraints dug into her wrists and ankles, but were too well fashioned to budge. She struggled anyway, biting the strip of cloth that prevented her from voicing her anger. Aside from the two guards, the only other person in the cell was the Matron.

  How can you do this to me? she screamed into the gag.

  The Matron smiled at her. “I am sorry Aléthya, but this must be done.” Her voice carried the same silk it had always carried, mirroring the tone of a mother—but without the
love. “Your sacrifice means so much to our guild, and will bring us more wealth than we have ever had.”

  The glint in her eyes as she described the gold caused Aléthya to tear at the bindings, but the Matron shushed her and withdrew a dagger from her robe. Without another word, she plunged it into Aléthya's constrained arm, and then withdrew it, slowly. Even as Aléthya screamed, she watched the Matrons eyes glint in satisfaction as she watched the wound heal.

  Gasping, Aléthya felt the wound knit and close, giving blessed relief to the pain. Within moments it was over, but the Matron’s eyes never blinked from the cut until it had disappeared. “Interesting,” she said. “Did you know that the healing time is consistent, and as I see it, it looks exactly as if another healer had performed the task.”

  Murmuring to herself, she moved to the side of the room and made notes in her journal. While she wrote, Aléthya looked to the two guards, her eyes pleading. The older one stared at her, unmoved by what he’d just witnessed, but the younger one swallowed and looked away.

  As the Matron turned back the memory shifted to one several months later . . .

  “Why do you force me to keep you gagged?” the Matron asked, her silky voice carrying a trace of irritation, making Aléthya feel a grim satisfaction. “It would be so much more helpful if you could contribute to our studies.”

  Aléthya growled, her eyes burning with the emotions she felt. The memory of the most recent pain was bright, and she used it to fuel her hate.

  The Matron continued to talk, but Aléthya withdrew, sinking inward and away from the trauma. The healer in her knew she would be fine, but the person in her felt only rage. That—and the desire to escape—consumed her. It surprised her to remember that at one time, she’d thought of the Matron as a mother.

  Now she knew the truth.

  The Matron cared about three things, prestige, power, and gold. Everything she did was an effort to further those ends. Even the current torture of the guilds “brightest student” fit into her designs. Throughout the last several months the Matron had dropped too many hints, revealed too much in her excitement to discover all that Aléthya’s body could do.

  The Matron wanted to replicate the power in herself, and charge an enormous amount to grant it to others. But until now she had been unsuccessful. Perhaps Aléthya could hold out, perhaps not, but for now she had a plan.

  The young guard had become her friend, her ally, and soon, very soon, she would escape . . .

  —Her eyes fluttered open to see Tan’s worried expression. “What happened?” she asked, blinking as the pain in her leg receded.

  “Are you alright?” he asked, his voice tense.

  She mumbled something and tried to sit up, but Taneel pressed her back down. “You screamed like a banshee being killed. Was the wound that bad?”

  Aléthya shook her head as she rubbed her forehead. “It wasn’t the injury, it was a memory. Snapping to alertness, she looked up and saw the elf she’d healed was awake and sitting up, concern spreading across his face as he looked down on her. Then she spotted the angle of his chin, and the curve of his eyebrows.

  It wasn’t him.

  She sighed in intense relief. Although the resemblance was uncanny, the older elf was not the older guard from her past. For the first time in a long time, she thought of the young one’s sacrifice, and felt an echo of what she’d felt for him.

  Tan opened his mouth to say something but she cut him off. Rising to her feet, she looked at the soldier and pointed towards the door, repeating the words she’d said a thousand times, “You have been healed. Return to your post.”

  Without another word, she spun and worked her way towards the back of her bar. Stepping through the swinging door, she strode into her storeroom and grabbed the strongest liquor from the shelf. Yanking the cork out, she raised it to her lips and took several swallows of the burning liquid.

  “That’s not going to help,” Taneel said from the door.

  “How do you know,” she growled. “You don’t know what I went through.”

  “Does anyone?”

  His words stopped the bottle on the way to her lips. Had she told anyone what had happened? Even her father before he died? Then she realized she’d never revealed to anyone the details of her confinement, or escape. Although she’d told close friends the superficial information, she’d never managed to explain the whole truth.

  She hadn't realized that the pain of those months still haunted her. Shaking her head, she thought of all the ones suffering around her. The enormous battle raging outside, with many dying to keep her alive, and she didn’t even have the courage to admit what had happened to her. For some reason, she felt ashamed, as if she were dishonoring their sacrifice. If she survived this war, shouldn’t she try to be a better person?

  Trying to stall the difficult question, she said, “We need to get back to work Tan.”

  “It was the end of our shift anyway,” he shrugged, his eyes never leaving hers. “It is time for us to eat and rest . . . and talk—if you’re up for it?”

  She tried, but she couldn’t stop it. The wall that had been up for so long crumbled in the face of her need to share, and just like that the words tumbled from her mouth. Trembling, she gave voice to her time in the guild. The exciting beginning, her quick rise through the students, her early mastery, and finally the Matron’s betrayal and her imprisonment—she told it all. Then she shared the young guard’s effort to help her escape, giving his life in the process.

  The pain and ache diminished as she spoke, until she felt the last of it evaporate upon the tale's conclusion. A weight she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying was gone, and with its absence she felt a sliver of peace enter her heart. Her eyes met Tans and she felt like a child worried about what a parent would say.

  The silence lasted a moment before Tan said, his voice hoarse with emotion, “I need a drink.”

  Wordlessly, she handed him the bottle and he took a swig, coughing at its strength. Clearing his throat he returned it to its rack and said, “So that is why you take the pain of others into yourself. I had always wondered why that happened.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, her tone sharp. “I never figured that out.”

  His expression turned to one of surprise. “You are one of the most talented healers in our history, but you never realized why?”

  She felt a rush of irritation mingle with pride at his words, but the irritation won out. “Spit it out Tan, what do you mean?”

  “Don’t you remember one of the first lessons of healing—” He winced as he realized he was referring to the guild, and then came right to the point. “A healer’s ability is tied to emotion. Your emotions have been so bottled up with pain, you began to absorb the pain of others. I suppose your healing ability made the transfer possible.”

  Her eyes widened as the knowledge clicked into place, but he wasn’t finished talking.

  “If you could resolve the issues from your past, perhaps you could stop transferring the pain. I bet if you—”

  “No,” she said, her voice firm at the rising excitement in his voice.

  “But I’m right—”

  “I know,” she said, causing him to deflate. “But if I stop being able to absorb wounds now, how many more will die in this war?”

  The hurt in his eyes pierced her heart, but she held firm. “I will do my duty for my people. If we survive, I will have time to finish my own healing.”

  “Thia, if we leave this room, you might never have another chance to do it,” he said, his voice tinged with an earnestness that she couldn’t explain. “Your wall might rebuild and you’ll never let . . . anyone . . . back in.”

  She closed the gap between them, drawn to his worried expression. “Perhaps, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. The world stands on the brink of annihilation, so how can I shirk from the responsibility I bear. If I do, and then others do the same . . . then we are all lost.”

  He looked away, unable to mainta
in eye contact, but she reached up and turned his head back towards her. “Will you help me?” Her whisper brought a smile to his lips.

  “Of course Thia, you know that—”

  Her kiss stopped the rest of his words, but it didn’t take long for him to crush her to him. Passionate, deliberate, and full of sparks, the kiss took her breath away, and sent warmth into the deepest part of her soul—

  She pushed him away before her heart could heal any more. With her hand on his chest and both of them breathing hard, she said, “In four days we will finish this.”

  A grin blossomed across his features. “I look forward to it.”

  Chapter 13: Unbound

  Twenty minutes after Mae had laid out her plan, Trin was following Mae up a turret staircase. Jack brought up the rear of their small party, keeping an eye out for anyone happening on them from that direction.

  Although he would never admit it to anyone, Trin felt much less safe without Taryn, Siarra, and Kell around. Not that he doubted his ability with his longsword, he just considered them the leaders of their expedition. Without the three of them, the area around them felt empty. Despite that, Trin considered his position to be the best since they had left Azertorn. In their cell she'd made a comment that implied she favored him, and he'd always felt drawn to her. Her silence intrigued him, and he wanted to be the one that she opened up to.

  He'd always thought of her as beautiful, and right now he had an excellent view of Mae’s posterior . . .

  Mae paused and spun, her mouth open to say something—but she froze as she caught him staring. For a brief moment she appeared indecisive on how to respond to his obvious peek, and he took the opportunity to feign a look of puzzlement, clinging to a hope that she hadn’t noticed. Then she flashed a rare smile.

  “You should draw a sketch,” she said, her voice sweet. “It will last longer.”