Healers came in from a side door I hadn’t seen before and began tending to the wounded.
“Captain Flarinen,” the king said. “You have served us well for many centuries, and with the losses we took today, we cannot afford to ignore that. You will stay with your men, but you are tasked with tracking down anyone else who might have been following the Dark.” He paused. I know I heard more than a few intakes of breath from the elves around me. “Yes, that is what we are facing. Normally, I would say this information should be kept secret, but I fear we no longer have that luxury. We must—”
A shrieking alarm pierced the chamber followed by screams from people outside and possibly inside the palace. The wail ended, then began again even louder thirty seconds later.
“The shield!” Flarinen nodded to the royals as he shouted between wails. “If I am truly allowed to continue my job?”
“Go, take your men and find out the meaning of this.” The king nodded to the mage standing at his side, and soon half of the mages raced out the door after Flarinen and the knights. The guards dropped back to take their places in front of the royals.
My friends and I stood close to each other. “What is that?” I yelled in Alric’s ear.
His green eyes were huge and I think it was one of the few times I’d seen terror there. “The shield, it’s under attack.”
“We need get out.” Crusty flew to me. She looked very worried and kept looking to the ceiling.
I looked up, where there had been light and beautiful colors from the stained glass, darkness flowed. Soon the entire chamber was dim.
“We go now.” Leaf had joined us and was resorting to pulling my hair.
The faeries were crazy drunkards but they also had senses I didn’t. I was willing to believe them on this. “We need to get out now! This building is going to collapse.” I started pushing my friends toward the door, but it wasn’t that hard. The darkness was eerie enough to freak them out. Both Leaf and Crusty were pulling my hair now, as if they could get me to move faster that way. I think if there had been three of them they would have tried to transport me out—then worried about thawing me out later.
I had no idea if the royals would listen to me, or if the building was really going to collapse. I knew something was wrong, and we needed out. The mages and guards continued to stand there, and the king and queen didn’t look like they were moving any time soon.
“The truth bringers say it.” Siabiane’s voice rang out. That got the royals’ and mages’ attention. I would not have called the faeries, any of the faeries, truth bringers. They honestly never lied, just sometimes omitted things. Nevertheless, it got the royals moving and soon a flood of people was fleeing the palace.
The sky outside was worse than what it had looked like from inside. As far as I could see, swirling red and black lines covered the sky. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t the sky, but the shield. The black was where it was cracking.
A moment later, the building behind us imploded.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The ground shook as the royal palace folded in on itself. Within moments, nothing but a pile of debris remained. When we got out of this, I was giving the faeries all the ale they could drink for a year.
The cracks in the shield were fine and almost delicate in their design. Unless you thought about what they were and noticed that among the cracks and the pulsing red flowing across everything, there were shapes.
Before this, I’d had no idea how high up the shield went. Even when the vague pink goo had been flowing around there wasn’t enough of it to give a good sense of height. There was now. It was high, very high, but I could still figure out what those shapes were that clung to the outside. Rakasa. It looked like the bulk of them were above the city center, but if that shield went down, then the entire enclave would be exposed.
The mages that came from the palace were casting spell after spell toward the sky, but while they could clear a crack for a moment or two, it came back in a new spot a moment later.
Flarinen and the knights formed a loose circle and starting singing.
That was a really weird reaction to an attack. Then I noticed their singing was clearing the dark marks on the shield and cracks were slowly closing.
The bonus was they sounded the way I thought elves should sound—deep voices raised in perfect harmony.
But the reprieve didn’t last more than a few minutes, as the cracks began coming back faster. The draw on the shield was weakening the knights, and their voices began to fade.
Siabiane went up to the king and queen and shook her head. “We cannot stop this.” She motioned to the two huge mages who still stood on either side of the king and queen. “You have to get them out of here.” Another wail of the alarms and more cracks appeared in the shield above us, wider ones. The swirling red looked more and more like the shield was bleeding to death. Siabiane stepped away from the royals and motioned for all of us to do the same.
“Shield them; there is no time to flee. Shield now!” Her voice held such command I wondered who really was in charge.
The two mages nodded, and even as the king was opening his mouth to speak, a slightly opaque bubble enveloped all four of them. Neither the king nor queen looked happy, but they were safe.
Unlike the rest of us.
A giant cracking sound, louder even than the alarms, almost knocked me to my feet. A stabbing cold took over my face. I put my hand up where I knew the manticore mark was and it came back with ice crystals covering it. I’d been able to block a tiny spot at Qianru’s house, but it was less than a foot wide. What made me think I could stop a massive shield from cracking, I had no idea.
Judging by the cold that was spreading down to my chest, the weird Ancient artifact inside me apparently thought we could do something. I sheathed my sword. Right now it wasn’t what I needed.
Padraig yelled at the guards, “Get people to safety, get inside, barricade doors. Do whatever you need to.”
Even though there had been screaming when the alarms first started, there were still way too many unarmed elves out in the streets. They had faith the shield wouldn’t collapse.
I wasn’t from here, but I had no such faith. The cold in my face flared again and flowed down my hands. The cracks grew wider.
Maybe I could buy those people some time. I flung both hands in the air and tried to remember what I did to close the hole last time. I had been focused on saving Crusty at that moment. I channeled that fear now.
Blue ice, the same color as the manticore, shot from my fingers and hit the cracks closest to us. The ice fought like a living thing, shutting cracks as they opened. The more it fought, the more it drained me, but there were still too many unarmed innocents in the streets. I buckled to my knees but kept my hands up and the power flowing. Soon the entire sky was covered in a softly glowing blue.
I collapsed back and fell on my ass. There was nothing more to give. My face felt hot now, not cold, and I could barely stay upright even seated.
Alric ran to me and held me up. He touched the side of my cheek where the manticore was.
“Is it still there?” I couldn’t feel it anymore.
He leaned in close, and then smiled. “Yes. Faint, but yes.”
People were slowing down on the running and hiding part, but I knew I’d slowed down the attack, not stopped it. The shield was doomed the moment that mage flung his life force into it.
“They need to keep moving—it won’t hold.” I really wanted to go lie down somewhere. Alric squeezed my hand and I felt energy flowing back into me. He was draining himself to help me. He also grabbed the nearest guard.
“This won’t last. That bought us time to get some people off the streets, but there are still too many out there. The shield is coming down,” Alric said.
Not a moment too soon. I looked up as my ice shield started fading and the swirling red and black grew stronger.
Then the entire shield vanished, and while there was no blood drippin
g upon us, there were rakasa.
Normal beings would die after falling from that height. Rakasa were not normal. One landed near us and while its impact left a two-foot dent in the ground, the creature came out of it fine.
Thanks to Alric, I now had energy. I got to my feet and drew my sword. There had been too much happening to me as of late, and I hadn’t been able to lash out for most of it. My sword was raised and through the rakasa’s neck before it got two steps.
Orenda yelled in victory somewhere behind me, echoed by some growling yells from Covey. Then more rakasa dropped and we were all fighting for our lives. A wave of horrifically colored livery came from around the corner as a fleet of familiar houseboys, led by a very unlikely warrior, Qianru, attacked the rakasa as well.
The rakasa seemed a bit unguided and now were fighting on multiple fronts. I had a feeling that while their attack on the shield had been planned, their master—the inquisitor—was also supposed to be involved. That he wasn’t there for them spoke to the injuries inflicted on both him and Reginald. They’d gotten away, but they were too hurt to finish their plan. Or help their creatures.
The rakasa were actually dying faster than the elves, but many of the elves who died were innocents who hadn’t made it to safety fast enough. My trick had gotten the bulk of them off the street, but rakasa were still running toward the under-guarded homes. Qianru’s houseboys were trying to focus on them, but it was hard when people were running around screaming.
Then a new wave of darkness flew overhead. The shield was gone, so obviously this wasn’t coming from that. I looked up to see dozens of sceanra anam diving down on us.
Like the rakasa, they attacked unarmed people first. When a pair dove for Harlan, Orenda and I both jumped forward to protect him.
Crusty and Leaf were there first. With a screech I’d never heard before, both faeries flew over my head and engaged the sceanra anam. My heart dropped to my stomach. I knew a group of faeries could take out one of those things, but a single faery? Each had flown to one of the flying snakes.
The sceanra anam didn’t seem very impressed either and both lunged forward. Crusty was the closest and she whirled her war blade as the thing came to her. Before it could strike, a dozen wild faeries appeared alongside Crusty. The sceanra anam attacking her tried to pull back but its momentum didn’t let it turn fast enough. Within seconds both it and the one Leaf had been facing down were engulfed and destroyed.
I was glad to see the wild faeries, but there was no way they could take out all of the sceanra anam.
The rakasa clearly had been waiting for their flying allies and pushed their fights more. The faeries engaged another pair of sceanra anams, but there were dozens diving in the air. The guards and knights near me were fighting back, but I could still see more of both the rakasa and the sceanra anams going after people in the streets.
A knight closest to the houses sliced through his enemy, then ran for the closest house—clearly he heard something, but the doors looked shut. They burst open a moment later as a woman and two young children raced into the street. They were followed by two rakasa.
Now that the shield was down, they could come from underground.
I lost sight of the family and the guard as a rakasa jumped in front of me. I blocked one claw strike with my sword, then used the dagger to pierce his side. “The rakasa are coming up from the ground! The buildings won’t be safe!” I yelled to anyone who could hear me but I didn’t know how much it would help. We were massively overwhelmed and telling people we had to watch the ground as well wasn’t going to help.
I got another strike in with my dagger, injuring the rakasa enough that I was able to cut off its head with my sword. Then I looked up at some familiar bleating.
The flying gargoyle, Bunky, and the rest of my faeries all flew into view. A fleet of chimera constructs were behind them.
The chimeras were all different, but all of them had a similar, round torso, and from this distance, none of them looked fierce. At least to me. The sceanra anam had a different reaction to the obsidian invasion. Unless they were too injured, or weren’t able to break away from whoever was fighting them, all of the sceanra anam turned as the chimeras came in close.
Unlike the chimeras, the sceanra anam looked built to do one thing—kill. The elven stories said they only went after evil people, those with dark souls, but based on the attacks I’d seen previously as well as today, that was nothing but a comforting myth to soothe scared children.
These flying snakes had almost as many teeth as the rakasa, but their ability to fly, and the maneuverability their long, snake-like bodies gave them in the air, made them far more dangerous.
The first wave of chimeras dove down as a single unit to meet the sceanra anam. At first it was eerie how silent their fighting was. Then the sceanra anam all began screaming.
The elves around me paused as their sensitive hearing was assaulted by the sound. It also distracted the rakasa and I was able to kill one that jumped in front of me with ease.
I looked up briefly at the aerial battle. Some of the chimeras were herding the sceanra anam into groups where the other chimeras would charge into. The chimeras charging the sceanra anam glowed—blue-gray light crackled off of them like colored lightning.
The glowing chimeras flew through the gathered sceanra anam, the electrical charges coming off their bodies leapt into the sceanra anam, leaving burning wrecks that crumbled to the ground. The sceanra anam fought back as best they could. Since the chimeras were made of metal, the sceanra anams’ best weapons, those teeth, didn’t hurt the chimeras at all. But the sceanra anam were basically one long, muscular tail. Two of them singled out a non-glowing chimera, both wrapping their tails around it—then they pulled.
The chimera was ripped in half and crashed to the ground. I saw a few chimeras die that way, but it just seemed to bring more glowing chimeras forward.
After a few more waves of chimeras, the battle was done. The sceanra anam who hadn’t fled, were piles of smoking flesh and fangs on the ground.
It had all been so quick; I doubted many people even realized what happened.
Bunky and the gargoyle came to hover over my friends and me as if daring anything to come near us. I wasn’t sure what either would do if that happened but it was good to have coverage.
Once the flying monsters were gone, the chimera constructs attacked the rakasa.
The rakasa must have had stories of constructs in their weird history as the ones closest to us fled as soon as any construct came near them. Considering I’d not seen rakasa back down from anything, this could be very good news.
Between the elves and the flying reinforcements, the streets were cleared within a few minutes.
Flarinen and his men marched through the street, pounding on doors to make sure no rakasa had gotten inside homes or businesses. Then they stabbed all the rakasa on the ground for good measure, and assisted any injured elves.
I was surrounded by a group of at least a thousand flying faeries all cheering and jabbering at the same time. Bunky and the gargoyle buzzed above our heads.
I heard a popping sound behind us, and the shield protecting the royals dropped.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“We would request that Alric and his companions come before us,” the king said.
I was filthy, exhausted, and had scratches all over. However, I was going to meet real elven royalty. And the way my luck was going, they wanted to lock me up for starting this entire mess.
Although it really wasn’t my fault. Perallan, my late patron, had been the one who found the original glass gargoyle. Rather, he led me to find it, which led this whole thing, and possibly even Perallan’s death, back to me.
A nudge in my side shook me free of my spiral of blame. “They asked you a question,” Alric whispered in my ear. Somehow, while I was trying to defuse the blame for bringing down an elven civilization, my friends, even Qianru, had come alongside of Alric and I, and I’d missed an imp
ortant question. Probably “do you want to die slowly or quickly?”
I gave what in some places would almost be a passable curtsy. “I am sorry, your majesties, I took a few hits to the head.”
Both looked very serious, and then the queen nodded. “We wanted to know if you realized how grateful the elven people of our clan are that you saved us.”
Everyone was smiling. This was a first.
“Thank you, your highness, but we all fought.”
“Agreed and we lost many good people this day. I have been informed that Lorcan was murdered and that it was his brother who betrayed us. I wish I could speak to my counsel once more.” The king’s face was filled with sorrow. Both he and the queen were ageless, yet ancient. They were the perfect ideal of elven beauty.
“You still can.” Lorcan’s ghostly form appeared beside the queen.
I’d wondered where he’d gone, but didn’t have time to ask before. He answered it before I asked this time.
“My brother spelled me when I tried to enter the chamber with all of you. He almost succeeded at breaking my connection to this plane. As you can see, I recovered. He will not get a second chance.” Lorcan’s grin was fierce.
“It is good to see you, my old friend, no matter what the form.” The king’s smile made him look a few eons younger. “And you are right; he will not get a second chance at anything.”
Flarinen jogged up and dropped to one knee. “The enemy are all dead, but without the shield we cannot defend against another attack.”
“The shield can be rebuilt, but it will take months, possibly years.” Padraig had one arm in a sling, but his other still held his sword. “My type of magic could not help rebuild the shield therefore I ask permission to chase those behind this. For my wife.” His voice broke, but he stayed strong.
“You don’t even know where they went.” The queen’s voice was almost as broken as Padraig’s.
I raised my hand, not sure of the protocol. “I think I do. When that thing tried to get in my head, I sort of got in his. He wants something in the Spheres.” I felt silly not being able to tell them what, but it was better than nothing. Those two had three relics. We needed to stop them from getting whatever they needed in the Spheres.
The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients Book 4) Page 33
