“Y-yes sir!” the man said, flushing slightly as he saluted. “Adventurers and apis are attacking! They’re rolling over the sentries, and most of the adventurers have the aura from strength potions. Galvan told us to pull back, but they unleashed a wave of fire, and are approaching quickly. I—”
“Gods damn it!” Damaris hissed, and her gaze darted over to Velk, Ovlin, and the others before growling. “Order them back! Pull everyone back here and hold them off! Velk, you’re in charge of the defense!”
“Yes, sir!” Velk replied, and bellowed. “Everyone, form defensive lines around the entrance! Make room for the others as they arrive. Magi, use shields to defend us from enemy magi! Move!”
The soldier who’d reported to Damaris turned and sprinted back toward the others who’d been holding the rear lines, likely to relay the order, and the other soldiers began moving as quickly as they could while still fighting off the ants. With them moving, Damaris headed for the sealing chamber, nodding to Velk as she passed.
“This should only take a minute. Hold them off, then we’ll counter-attack,” Damaris said, resolve steeling her against what was likely coming. They were going to lose a lot of soldiers, most likely. But no matter what, they would not fail.
“Yes, sir,” Ovlin said, pulling more arrows out of her backpack and refilling her quiver while Egan loaded his crossbow.
Velk didn’t say anything, instead striding toward the front lines with his axe over one shoulder, and Damaris nodded to Thomas as the other captain hurried to assist his men.
Damaris turned and hurried through the entrance, and even under the circumstances she almost stopped at the sight of the chamber, as it was shockingly beautiful.
It was like she’d stepped into a massive geode with luminous, blue-white crystals all around her. The interior was only thirty feet across, and much of that was taken up by huge crystals that extended out into the chamber. It felt a lot like dozens of tiny, biting ants were crawling across Damaris’s skin, but that much she’d expected. Most particularly, she focused on the object floating above a pedestal formed of dozens of crystals in the back of the chamber.
The object looked like half of a circular stone disc, a couple of inches thick, and with a hole in the center of the disc itself. There were glittering white runes across the surface of the stone, as well as a small hole about the size of a thumb through the disc.
“Analyze,” Damaris murmured under her breath, and information appeared in her mind.
Ancient Seal Fragment (Level 90)
This is a fragment of an ancient seal. If all pieces are collected, the user can assemble the seal and release what it is trapping.
“Good,” Damaris said, her worry easing, and she reached into her backpack and shuffled about for a moment until she found and pulled out an iron coffer.
The coffer was heavy, and Damaris grunted as she adjusted her grip on it and looked at it, the entire surface of the coffer covered in runes. Lord Alethus had created the item himself, and Damaris knew that it was incredibly expensive, even if the coffer could only be used a single time. Anything that she placed in it before activating its magic would be transferred to the coffer’s twin, which was in Lord Alethus’s possession. Her task was vital, and even if she died, Damaris was determined to succeed and show that he’d been right to trust her.
As she opened the coffer and stepped forward, Damaris heard yelling from outside, followed by an explosion that caused the ground to shake beneath her feet, and she muttered, “What the hells?”
Paling, she glanced behind her to see only dust and smoke obscuring everything, but she barely hesitated. As much as she wanted to help the others, she had to send the seal away first.
Chapter 43
Joy was on her second strength potion, and she really, really wished that she didn’t feel like she needed to drink it. Unfortunately, she was quite certain that she did, especially once they’d come into view of their opponents, who were surrounded by a berm of dead ants. The enemies were located in a broad ravine, above which was a huge, gnarled tree that would’ve taken thirty apis with outstretched arms to encircle.
A quick glance had given Joy a count of how many opponents were left, and she had not liked their odds. There were close to two hundred soldiers in the ravine initially, and they were in a semicircle around a cave entrance in the side of the ravine, and some of the enemies were huge, almost nine feet tall. The apis archers and some of the spellcasters among the adventurers had attacked the group, only for Joy to see something else new, as the enemy spellcasters threw up glowing barriers in the path of the spells, negating the attacks for the most part, while their archers had managed to fell several apis in return. Briefly Joy wondered how they were going to deal with their opponents, particularly with the ants swarming toward them as well as the Skyfishers. There were a lot of ants.
“Everyone back!” Abigail exclaimed, stepping forward with a glowing red crystal in one hand, and she hesitated before adding, “You might want to brace yourselves, too.”
“What? Ack!” Joy asked in confusion, then yelped as Cora dragged her back and down.
“Get down, Joy!” Cora exclaimed, and glanced upward as she added, “You might want to fall back! She’s going to use her Meteor Strike!”
The apis looked confused, but they obeyed, immediately scattering backward, most of them still flying. Joy blinked, looking toward Abigail as the woman raised the red crystal aloft, and asked, “What’s Meteor Strike?”
Beside them, Stella hunkered down behind a fallen tree, while Brianna cut down a pair of army ants that had been approaching. All around them the other adventurers took cover as well, making Joy still more confused.
“A level forty spell. It isn’t as powerful as if she were—” Cora began, but before she could finish, the crystal in Abigail’s hand blazed like a star, prompting another yelp from Joy as she averted her gaze, blinking rapidly.
The light went up into the sky, then there was an immense roar from above as something huge and fiery came down, something which was bright enough that Joy couldn’t see it properly, though she could certainly feel the heat on her skin. The fiery object came down in the ravine like a pouncing spider, then erupted.
A wave of pressure and heat almost knocked Joy over, and she staggered, holding onto Cora for that moment. Ants went flying every direction, apis were sent weaving through the air, and smoke roiled out of the ravine.
“Attack, quickly!” Abigail ordered, and Joy let go of Cora as the elf climbed to her feet, offering a hand to help Joy up in turn, then followed as Brianna led the charge into the ravine with apis racing in overhead. The smoke started to clear by the time Joy was halfway down the path, and as it did, shock rushed through the apis.
The soldiers were scattered around a circle of scorched earth, many of them unmoving, and those who were still up weren’t moving quickly. They were scattered and disorganized, which made it the perfect time to strike, which the other apis seemed to agree with. Joy saw them swarming the biggest enemy soldiers, as well as those who hadn’t recovered yet.
Brianna let out a loud yell as she reached the enemies, her sword lashing out ruthlessly into the torso of a man. His armor held under her strike, but she hit with such force that he was thrown back into another soldier.
“Speed Burst!” Joy exclaimed, bounding past Brianna to finish the man off. She didn’t dwell on the action, instead glancing around as the other adventurers cut into what was left of the defensive lines, at least until she spotted a quartet of people near a glowing doorway into the mountainside, and she pulled out a dagger.
One of them was a huge man with green skin who had tusks protruding from his mouth, wearing a breastplate, greaves, and vambraces, and with a huge, jagged axe in his hands. The others were eclectic, with a blond human man with a rapier, a brown-haired dwarf with a crossbow in his arms, and an elven woman with silver skin and black hair who was wielding a bow. Only the orc had metal armor and all of them were scorched, but s
omething about them made Joy tense. They felt a bit like the demon she’d nearly died to, she realized an instant later.
“Rallying Cry!” the blond man yelled, and Joy could see his shout travel through the dust in a spherical pulse. Across the battlefield the other soldiers began to perk up and move more quickly, which sent a ripple of alarm through Joy.
The dwarf took aim at one of the other adventurers and grunted as he fired at almost the same time, and the bolt punched clean through the woman’s breastplate, slamming her back several feet, and that was enough to turn Joy’s alarm into outright fear, as the elf’s gaze lit on Stella, who was fighting a man nearby.
“Explosive—” the elf began, drawing her bow back, but Joy’s dagger left her hand before the woman had more than parted her lips, and the elf choked as the dagger slammed home in her throat, slipping right over her gorget.
“Ovlin!” the dwarf exclaimed in horror, spinning around as he pulled out a potion, but Joy didn’t dare pay attention to the dwarf. Not when she’d gained the attention of the orc, and he looked angry.
“Damnable apis. I’ll start with you,” he rumbled, and deep red light surrounded him as he shouted, “Demonic Rage!”
The fire blast which shot past Joy and slammed into the dwarf was almost a side note, especially as the orc rushed toward her at blinding speed, almost too quickly for Joy to react. Almost, as she just barely jumped to the side and bounced deliberately off a rock to her left, flipping over the orc with her wings extended as his axe cut viciously through where she’d been standing moments before. She couldn’t fly with the damage her wings had taken, but she could direct her jump, and hover briefly.
“Stab!” Joy exclaimed, her rapier thrusting at the back of the orc’s head, but her blow never connected. The orc didn’t stop his swing, instead spinning in place, and Joy’s eyes went wide as the blade flashed toward her, jerking back as fast as she could. She wasn’t quite fast enough.
The axe caught Joy in the side, and her eyes crossed as an impact even more impressive than the wasp landing on top of her hit her in the side and slammed her into the rock she’d just jumped off of. It felt like something broke, and Joy gasped, twitching as she tried to regain her bearings, pain searing through her with every breath she took.
Snap!
The sound of her rapier snapping in half echoed loudly as the orc viciously stomped on the blade, speaking angrily. “Stupid vermin. Your armor only made this take longer.”
He brought his axe up, and regret rushed through Joy. Regret that she was going to disappoint Cora after the elf had told her to be careful.
Stella seemed to appear in front of Joy, and as she raised her shield the human shouted, “Mother’s Rampart!”
White light radiated from the shield to envelop both of them, just as the orc’s axe came down and hit Stella’s shield. The sound seemed to echo even more loudly than the Meteor Strike had, and cracks spread across the shield and through the light, but neither broke. Instead, it was the orc’s axe that shattered in his hands, and Joy saw the man freeze, ever so briefly.
“Lightning Blast!” Cora’s voice was tiny, but the anger in it startled Joy, as did the expression on the woman’s face as she threw an orb of lightning straight into the orc’s head as he hesitated, causing him to spasm, giving both Stella and Brianna an opening.
The Swordswoman was virtually silent as she stepped up behind the orc and stabbed him viciously, while Stella was even more ruthless, bringing her mace down on the man’s head hard. To Joy’s shock, even that didn’t manage to break his skull, though the orc fell to a knee, spitting up blood.
“I won’t—” he began, his voice angry.
“Be quiet!” Brianna snarled, and stabbed him in the base of the skull, at which point the glow around him finally went out.
“Ow,” Joy muttered, wincing as she started to stand, glancing around. The other adventurers had swarmed the dwarf, elf, and human who’d been near the doorway, and while a couple of them seemed like they weren’t in good shape, she thought they’d be alright, as most of the Skyfishers were down. More importantly, she smiled at Stella, trying not to breathe due to the stabbing pain in her side. “Thanks, Stella.”
“You’re welcome. Now we just have to find the seal and—” Stella said, looking around quickly, only to be interrupted.
“VELK!” a woman screamed, and a pair of adventurers went flying away from the cave entrance, spraying blood from where a sword had cut clean through their armor. The human woman was terrifying, in black full plate that reminded Joy of Alethus’s, though she had a large sword she was wielding in one hand. Her gaze was penetrating, and her rage as she glared at Brianna and Stella was palpable.
“Uh-oh,” Joy muttered, snatching up her rapier, and paused, blinking at the broken stump of a blade, and paled still more, just as the woman charged.
Brianna set herself in front of Stella and Joy, raising her shield, and Cora was moving in the corner of Joy’s vision. Joy quickly grabbed a dagger, one she’d been lent to replace the missing one from the guild house, hoping they could survive another encounter with someone like the orc.
“Flame Lance!” Abigail’s voice interrupted, and a lance of fire slammed into the woman from the side, launching her into the ravine wall. “Hello, Damaris. You can surrender if you’re not up to fighting us.”
“Abigail,” the woman replied, shoving away from the wall and glancing around the ravine in derision. “As if I’d surrender to this. I’ll die, but I’m going to die with my sword in hand, and knowing that unlike you, I didn’t fail.”
“What?” Abigail asked, her face paling. Joy blinked, opening her mouth, but Damaris moved at that moment.
“Fire Blast!” Cora’s spell launched past Brianna at Damaris, but the human ducked, some wisps of her hair that weren’t under her helm scorched by its passage, then she swung her sword hard, as Brianna braced herself.
The sound of shearing metal split the air, as the sword cut off the upper section of Brianna’s blade, and the Swordswoman cursed, falling back as she bled from a nick in her nose. Stella stepped forward, her mouth opening, but Damaris stepped into it, her fist lashing out hard and fast into the Acolyte’s throat. Gagging, Stella staggered, and Joy lunged forward, hoping she could get past the woman’s guard since both her hands were occupied.
The woman’s kick was not what Joy expected, and she felt something else crack as she went flying backward into the rock again. This time she was seeing stars, and Joy looked up as Damaris turned away, backhanding Brianna as her sword cut a spear-wielding apis from the air with vicious efficiency. This was what the others had meant, Joy realized at last, pain making it difficult to think. Higher-level enemies could almost ignore their attacks, and with Damaris in the middle of them, neither Abigail, Cora, nor the other magi could easily attack.
Then Joy’s gaze fell to the woman’s legs, and particularly the back of her knees. Damaris was keeping a close eye on the others, but Joy still had the dagger in her hand. Even trying to move her arm sent a spike of pain through Joy’s body, and she swallowed her whimper, her eyes watering. But raise her arm she did, and when Damaris took a step toward her, Joy lunged forward, stabbing toward the human’s knee.
“Penetrating Strike!” Joy gasped, thrusting hard… and missed, as the woman jerked out of the way at the last second, and Joy slumped onto her side, almost passing out.
“You’re not dead?” Damaris demanded, half-turning to glare at her, then raised her sword, reversing it. “Enough! Hellfire Er—”
Damaris didn’t finish, as Brianna’s sword hammered into the underside of her sword arm and she staggered back, and the human hastily dodged the downward swing of Stella’s mace. It took her a little farther away, and that was when Joy heard several spells.
“Inferno Blaze!”
“Fire Blast!”
“Lightning Bolt!”
Abigail and Cora cast spells almost simultaneously, as did a haggard-looking half-elven man. Damaris s
tarted to dodge, but it was too late. Fire erupted from beneath her, and Joy didn’t see the orb of fire or the lightning bolt hit as they slammed into her. The next thing Joy knew, the woman fell to the ground, what little Joy could see of the human blackened and burnt.
“Owww…” Joy gasped, falling backward as she slowly closed her eyes.
“Joy, drink your healing potion!” Cora demanded, her voice rapidly approaching, and Joy reluctantly opened her eyes again, looking up at the elf as she came closer.
“Do I have to?” Joy protested, her stomach rebelling at the very thought.
“We’re in the middle of an army of ants, so yes,” Stella said bluntly, even as Brianna laughed.
“Phooey,” Joy replied, practically deflating, and she reluctantly pulled out a healing potion, barely able to move as she did so.
Meanwhile, Abigail was rushing over, Joy noticed, but she didn’t pay the woman much attention. She was far more concerned with how the potion was about to make her feel.
* * *
“Please be here, please be here…” Abigail muttered, quickly going through Damaris’s inventory and praying to Besalk that the seal was in her possession. She’d already glanced into the sealing chamber, and the stone definitely wasn’t there.
She ignored the gagging sound from Joy, as she found the apis’s hysterics over potions rather ridiculous, and somewhat dubious. If they were honest, she’d have to apologize later, but Abigail didn’t have time for that. Besides, the woman had set her guild on fire.
There wasn’t a seal anywhere in Damaris’s things, so Abigail quickly pulled out the one container that the woman had been carrying in her backpack, a heavy, rune-covered iron box, and opened it. Then her heart sank, as she was confronted by an empty box.
“Gods help us,” Abigail whispered under her breath.
“Guildmaster? What now?” Brianna asked, looking over at her. “Did we get it?”
Webs & Wards (Beesong Chronicles Book 2) Page 26
