Stones Unbound (The Magestone Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Innes

  He looked around, confused. He saw several sparks of light float upwards in the sky. Suddenly the darkness revealed a figure in dark flowing shadows as it dropped gently from the sky, wearing some sort of harness with a glowing stone in the middle. The face was covered in charcoal and swirling shadows obscured its face, but he could tell it was a man. Yulah looked past the man to see more shadowy figures drifting down from the sky to the top of the wall. Yulah watched as one of the figures shot Jorgen in the chest with a crossbow before he could draw his sword. He dropped silently to the top of the wall.

  Yulah stared at the figure standing near him, "How- Wha- How did you do that?" he asked, dumbfounded. Men who could fly! Now he had seen everything.

  The man stepped forward as he loaded another bolt into the groove and cranked the string back. Yulah saw one of the other figures run towards the far tower as the remaining figures strode across the wall and stepped off, dropping the five or so spans to the courtyard below as silently as they had arrived.

  The figure leaned down and whispered in a thick Goralonian accent, "Not for ya to be knowin'." He stood up and fired the crossbow bolt into Yulah's chest. He could now hear alarm bells ringing as he sagged to the cold stone wall. He saw the frustration on the man's shadowy face as he stepped past Yulah and moved beyond his sight swearing quietly.

  Yulah lay back on the wall, his body now numb, his breath coming in ragged gasps and looked up at the clear sky, the stars dancing into blurry dots as he died.

  Keyth

  Captain Keyth of the Fort, Commander of Farad'avor, was reading the note that Hoyle had left for him the night they had stolen the sky skiff. He chuckled again, as he did every time he read it. He put it back in the drawer to his desk and locked it. He did not really think that would stop anyone who really wanted in, but it would stop a casual observer. He ran the words through his mind;

  Captain,

  I must inform you that it is the five of us who are stealing the sky skiff attached to the western side of your magnificent citadel. I suspect it will take some time for you to receive this note after we board the vessel, which will make it appear more like a real escape.

  I am really hoping your men do not damage the vessel overmuch before you recall them back, as I would very much like to return it to you in the condition in which it was liberated. With all that being said, I hope you do choose to have your forces stand down, but will understand if you don't. We will be ever cautious about killing them, but accidents do happen, so I make no promises.

  Please force our 'chaperones' to wait a day or two before releasing them after us. Hopefully we will be in Karvesh and have located the warlock by the time they manage to track us down. I suspect we will need their help before the end.

  My compliments on your hospitality. Trust me when I say that I hope to enjoy it again soon, under different circumstances. Drinks are on me.

  Hoyle

  P.S. Keep Thandria ever close, it could save your life.

  He did not know exactly what those five had done to earn the Emperor's ire, but then sometimes it was better not to know. Based on his assessment of this man and his friends, minders aside, he felt that the man had a sense of honor deep down. Thus he had honored Hoyle's request to keep the Fear Squad aboard for two extra days before drakes could be 'spared' to transport them to the ground in order to track down the escapees.

  One of the servants brought him dinner that consisted of a hearty stew and crusts of bread. He ate what his men did. It earned him their respect, and besides, he liked the simple food.

  He ran the last line over in his mind several times. Keep Thandria ever close, it could save your life. As if thinking about her summoned her, she stepped through the door for the evening report. She walked forward and stood in front of his desk, always at attention. Before she could begin, he asked her, "Did you know any of our 'guests' before they arrived?" He didn't have to specify who specifically, as they had no other guests recently - especially ones who left in such a spectacularly memorable fashion. It made things damn inconvenient, not having the sky skiff, but it was definitely memorable.

  "No sir." Thandria responded brusquely. "Why do you ask?"

  "No specific reason," he answered, "just curious. Begin." He gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite as he did every night, and she ignored the suggestion and stood as she did every night.

  She began her daily report, starting with incidents among the men, injuries during practice drills, daily stores inventory, preparations for Spring Planting festival on the morrow, and more. Captain Keyth listened with one ear, knowing that Thandria and the quartermaster could deal with most of the issues that arose on a daily basis. His mind wandered to what Hoyle knew about Thandria, or maybe just suspected, and how he would know or suspect. His speculation continued as Thandria listed off the day's events.

  "- and there is a thick fog rolling up the valley from the east, and tonight's the new moon," she concluded.

  "Pardon. What did you just say?" he asked as his attention focused back on his second-in-command.

  "I said 'there is a thick fog rolling up the valley from the east, and tonight's the new moon'. Why, what do you make of it?" She looked at Captain Keyth, suddenly wary, as if they were about to be attacked in his study.

  "Relax, it may be nothing. But fog on the Goralonian side of the pass, and no moon in the sky tonight... would they?" He sat back in thought. As a caution he stood and walked to the peg on the wall, removed his weapon belt and belted it on. "Have the guard on the wall doubled immediately, just as a precaution. They are to look for movement on the ground that might threaten the Fort. Double rations for them all in the morning and half duty tomorrow for all that volunteer. The rest do it anyway, and get double duty tomorrow."

  Thandria turned to carry out his orders, her long legs taking her briskly from the room. He watched her as her golden locks disappeared into the hall and the door closed behind her. He went and stood in front of the glass door to his balcony, staring out into the clear night sky. He looked down into the courtyard and watched as several men walked from the feasting hall back to their barracks. He smiled as he saw Thandria approach them from the tower entrance below, their salute, and the uncomfortable shifting of their bodies as she gave them their orders. They both saluted again, and hurried off towards the barracks, most likely to retrieve their weapons. Thandria followed. They, nor others, would welcome the extra shift, but would be rewarded the following day - if they chose to volunteer that is.

  This tower was on the north side of Farad'avor, and his study faced the central courtyard so he could watch the practice drills in the yard, and was on a level to the main control room of the central spire. The central spire housed the largest magestone that Keyth had ever seen, about as big as his torso, that glowed bright enough that light leaked through the mortar holding the tower together. Standing in the control room was only possible by employing some sort of magic to shield your eyes from the effects. This also meant that Dar'Shilaar were required to operate them, a carefully designed symbiotic relationship he suspected was very much the only reason the Shilaar were not banished from the Empire.

  Suddenly he heard an alarm bell ringing, so threw back the bolt and stepped through the glass door onto his balcony to better see what was occurring. He felt the cool air as he stepped onto his balcony and looked around. It seemed there was a commotion over by the east wall, with several soldiers running that way. He saw Thandria running from the barracks, with a dozen or so men, directing them with her hands and shouted orders he could barely hear over the bells. More towers had taken up the call, rousing the men, but causing confusion, as it was not apparent what was actually happening.

  Thandria gave the last of the orders, intercepted several more soldiers, including a drake rider, and sent them all off in different directions. She then looked up at Keyth and waved him inside. He looked around once more, trying to spy any hint as to what was happening. He focused on the eastern wall, but could not se
e anything other than flickering shadows.

  He stepped back into his study and grabbed his spy glass from a shelf to one side of his study. He stepped back out onto the balcony and brought the glass to his eye and focused on the east wall. He noticed the prone bodies of two of his men between the eastern and northeastern tower. He pulled his eye away as he could hear Thandria yelling at him to get inside from ten spans below. He thought he saw something moving at the base of the wall below where the bodies had fallen. He looked through his spy glass again, and caught several shadows moving away from the wall towards the center of the citadel. He continued to watch in fascination turning to horror as a group of soldiers spotted one of them and charged weapons drawn.

  The shadow, which appeared to be human, moved like nothing Keyth had ever seen, sidestepping every attack, and returning a fluid one of its own, slicing throats, hamstringing legs, never once being hit, but dropping all five soldiers in just five moves. It turned and disappeared into the shadows behind one of the inner courtyard walls. He yelled down to one passing soldier below "Drop the inner gates! That's an order!" And one he didn't take lightly.

  There were eight walls that ran in each cardinal direction from the central spire that housed the sky citadel control room, to a tower on the outer wall. Each wall had a large, heavy portcullis in about the center. Each portcullis, when open, allowed large amounts of men to move around unimpeded within the citadel, as opposed to a series of man doors that opened through tunnels in the walls, making easier defendable choke points. However, there was a mechanism, located in the central control chamber that could drop all eight portcullises at once. The catch was it was more or less permanent, until you could attach a winch and pulley system and manually raise each portcullis by hand and reconnect their chain mechanism.

  The soldier hurried off to the nearest outer tower to get the word out. Men were streaming all around, looking for the attackers, weapons drawn, as word of mouth spread. Keyth turned to look in a different direction, and felt, more than heard the crossbow bolt as it passed his temple and shattered a pane of glass in the open door behind him.

  Instinct took over, reflexes forcing Keyth to draw his longsword, immediately deflecting the blow of a shorter single bladed sword wielded by a shadowy form floating over the balcony balustrade. Shadows surrounded the figure, moving as if of their own accord, obscuring the person's movements. It appeared that the figure wore a harness with a magestone in the center that glowed through the enveloping shadows. Keyth stepped backwards into the door frame, limiting his attacker into using straight-in attacks. He parried and riposted, trying to keep his attacker off balance, but his opponent was impossibly fast, and managed to twist their weapon and strike a couple of shallow cuts along his forearms, drawing blood. He could only see the glowing eyes of his attacker and they immediately reminded him of the Rak'soraa of the Fear Squad that he had sent after Hoyle and his companions just yesterday.

  The blades flew back and forth furiously, and he used all the skill he possessed to keep from dying, while it seemed like his opponent was merely playing with him. He was getting worried, slowly losing ground into his study. He sidestepped to his left, moving around his large, heavy oak desk. The shadowy figure stepped around the other end of the desk, allowing Keyth a brief respite in which to catch his breath, which to his embarrassment was coming in gasps.

  He feinted right, causing the other to start in that direction, but Keyth then turned the other way and flipped his meal dish at the attacker with the end of his sword. The other swore with a heavy male Goralonian accent as he stepped easily out of the way of the clumsy projectile. Keyth was running out of ideas - and energy - fast. He knew he would not survive a direct confrontation with this now obviously magically aided assailant.

  To his relief, the door burst in at that exact moment, and Thandria and two soldiers burst into the study. The two soldiers move to confront the attacker, while Thandria looked at Keyth and said, "Time to go sir."

  "Your timing is perfect as always," he said as the soldiers stepped between him and the shadowy figure, allowing him a route to the hallway door.

  As he reached Thandria, she grabbed his arm and pulled him into the hallway as Keyth heard the dying gurgles of his two soldiers a mere second apart. She pulled the door shut behind her and wedged a small knife into the door lock. She then pushed Keyth towards the stairs, "Run!" she yelled at him as she followed more slowly, looking behind.

  She had her rapier in her left hand and a long slim dagger in her right, as she slowly backed down the hall towards him. "Move!" she whispered again. "We have to find a safe place to defend!"

  "The spire. But not without you." He stated simply in his brook-no-argument voice.

  She turned to face him and saw that he was not joking. "Fine, but you lead, and I will cover you," she stated. The door behind her shuddered as if it had been kicked. "Let's go!"

  ---o---

  They reached the courtyard below to find chaos ensuing. They moved steadily through the mess of soldiers, Keyth patting backs and rallying the troops.

  "Form lines, square formation!" he shouted above the milling confusion.

  Thandria saw what he was doing, and repeated the order.

  "Lieutenant!" he yelled over the tolling bells as men began to form lines. A hardened soldier stepped forward and saluted. It was his training officer Korigan. He was stubborn, dutiful, and amazing with weapons of all kinds.

  "Korigan, we have an unknown number of intruders within our walls. They are fast and are using some sort of shadow magic, but they are only men. Arm your men with bows and crossbows and kill them from a distance. Do not approach with arms, as they are deadly in close combat." There was a shout as he finished.

  He turned toward the tower he had just come from to see the shadowy figure of his attacker float down from his study balcony. Apparently he had given up on the door. A second figure floated down from the wall nearby, several bodies obvious on the ramparts. Men gasped and prayed under their breath.

  "They are just men, wrapped in dark magic!" he yelled as the men formed a square formation around him and Thandria. "Use your bows or crossbows if you have them! Kill them from a distance!"

  Several men stepped out of formation as the attackers began to run at the ranks of soldiers. As two men loosed arrows at them, the attackers leapt, driving incredibly far up into the air, arcing over the arrows and men, landing quickly in the center of the formation, where missing with an arrow meant killing a comrade.

  Thandria stepped forward with Korigan to flank one of the attackers while some men rushed the other. The shadow assailant spun quickly and struck at Korigan, but the man did not flinch and rebuffed his attack with a tiny flick of his wrist to deflect one of the shortswords the attacker was wielding. Thandria stepped in quickly to strike, but her rapier was parried by the other shortword. Blades flittered back and forth, flashing in the torchlight, but neither Thandria nor Korigan were able to land an attack, and took several cuts from the attacker.

  Keyth looked to the battle with the other attacker, to see more than a handful of soldiers on the ground dead or dying, the attacker a whirlwind of blades parrying, slicing and slashing down his men. More soldiers entered the courtyard with crossbows and seeing what was going on, prepared to enter the fray. He saw a gap in the two skirmishes and hurried over to the crossbowmen.

  "Wait for a clean shot then take it. Even if it's not quite clean, take it!" he ordered.

  "But sir, we might hit our own men!" the young soldier responded.

  "Look at them! Watch how they're killing our men. The men that are fighting those attackers will probably be dead in a few minutes. Line up your shot and take it. You may kill one of ours, but you will save more if you hit him!"

  The men around him nodded and took a knee. These were heavy crossbows they were using and had huge recoil. They took aim at the attacker fighting the common soldiers. After an indeterminate time, the battle opened up for just a second and one of the me
n fired. The aim was true, but just at the last second the shadowy form flicked up his shortsword and deflected the bolt wide - into the chest of an oncoming soldier. The soldier stopped in his tracks, looked down at the bolt, and fell over dead. The battle streamed on around him.

  "Everyone fire at once!" Keyth ordered

  Three twangs sounded around him, and three more bolts launched at the attacker. One was again deflected harmlessly to the side, thankfully missing any of his men. Another missed completely as the figure dodged in an impossible contortion, but the last disappeared into the shadow wrapped form, which grunted and stumbled. Two more bolts followed, easily hitting the staggered opponent. Soldiers moved in to finish him off, though the attacker managed to kill several more before a sword swing managed to drop the figure to its knees. More strikes followed until the figure lay prone on the ground.

  Keyth turned back to watch the battle Thandria and Korigan were waging with the second assailant. It seemed pretty even, the two veteran warriors facing off against the enemy. In fact, it seemed like Thandria had to hold herself back a little due to coordination with Korigan. Each of the two had numerous cuts, Thandria on her arms and one on her leg, though none seemed to impair her movement. Korigan had more, including one on his forehead that caused blood to drip into his eyes. A deeper one on his thigh looked to be impeding his movements.

  Korigan had managed to move around to the far side of the attacker, and was facing Keyth. He noticed his commander watching, and briefly saluted with his sword. Keyth knew he was about to do something stupid. As the shadowy attacker lunged, Korigan stepped forward onto the blade, trapping it in his body, and grabbed the wrist of his attacker, holding him in place. That was all the opening Thandria needed, and she stepped forward and plunged her rapier and her thin dagger into the attacker's back hitting vital organs.

  The shadowy figure dropped to the ground - dead, Korigan with him.