Blood of the Earth

by David A. Wells

  The beast gained terrifying speed, closing the gap too quickly. Just as Alexander was about to stop and make a stand, Hector broke off from the group, charging toward the beast.

  Alexander started to slow to help his bodyguard, but Horace pushed him toward the safety of the cave entrance.

  “He’ll be fine, Lord Reishi.”

  Alexander didn’t quite understand, but he accepted Horace’s assurances and continued to run for the entrance. Once they reached the threshold, Alexander stopped to catch his breath and turned to see the battle unfolding between Hector and the beast.

  The beast was bleeding from the belly along two deep gashes. Hector stood his ground as the beast lunged forward, snapping with its huge jaws. At the last moment, when Alexander was certain that Hector would be killed, he transformed into a vaporous cloud in the shape of a man. The beast’s jaws landed on insubstantial vapor. Hector flowed out between its giant teeth and beneath it, where he became solid once again before driving his twin short swords into the belly of the beast.

  It roared in pain and Hector once again transformed into vapor before the beast could kill him. When he noticed that Alexander had made it to safety, he disengaged, drifting toward the cave entrance. The beast roared in frustrated rage, turning away from the prey that had bitten it back.

  “Well done, Hector,” Alexander said.

  “Thank you, Lord Reishi. I suspect it’ll be back once it’s had a chance to lick its wounds.”

  “Hopefully we can get what we came for and be on our way before then,” Alexander said, turning to the darkness of the fortress entrance and holding up his vial of night-wisp dust.

  “Stay alert. The hunting party is right behind us and might follow us into the fortress.”

  The corridor ran straight for several hundred feet into the stone of the mountain before it came to a large octagonal room with several other corridors radiating away from it. The arched ceiling was thirty feet high with glowing crystals embedded in the stone that cast a pale light into the chamber. Alexander stopped at the threshold, scanning the room.

  There were a number of relatively fresh footprints leading into the fortress. It looked like a squad of soldiers had spent some time searching for just the right passage before moving on.

  “It seems we aren’t the first ones here,” Jack said.

  “I was hoping the things Rentu showed me were just possibilities,” Alexander said.

  “What did you see?” Isabel asked.

  Alexander saw the trepidation in her colors. She was worried about the prediction that she would betray him, but Alexander suspected he knew which prophecy they were walking into.

  “I saw us in a battle with Regency soldiers led by a wraithkin and a wizard in the cavern where the Nether Gate is hidden. Truss was there too, possessed by one of the shades. In the prophecy, we defeated the soldiers and the wizard, but the wraithkin escaped with the keystone, and Truss chased after him.

  “These footprints look recent and they’re from boots, not sandals or bare feet. It looks like Phane’s men have beaten us here.”

  “Perhaps there is some good news,” Jack said. “The soldiers’ tracks are liable to lead us right to the chamber we want. It’s a good bet that Phane knows the layout of this place and gave his men directions.”

  “It’s worth a try,” Alexander said.

  “I’ll take point,” Hector said.

  The walls were made of large blocks of stone cut with exacting precision and fitted together with virtually no tolerance. Even after thousands of years, the walls were nearly seamless.

  Hector moved carefully and quietly down the hallway. Very suddenly, the floor gave out beneath him and he fell into a pit concealed under a trap door. In a blink, he transformed into vapor and drifted back up to the hallway on the opposite side of the trap.

  Alexander and Isabel peered down the shaft as the door slowly closed, resetting the trap. Forty feet below was a floor filled with three-foot spikes. A soldier from the Reishi Army Regency was impaled by several of them.

  “Well, I guess that confirms it,” Jack said.

  “Hopefully, this place will thin them out a bit,” Isabel said.

  “Just so long as it doesn’t thin us out, too,” Alexander said.

  It took them half an hour, but with the aid of a rope they were able to traverse the pit trap safely. Once on the far side, Alexander marked the floor as a warning for their return trip.

  They continued on through the halls of the hidden fortress, following the footprints of the enemy soldiers as they led the way deeper into the bowels of the mountain. At one time, the fortress could have housed thousands, but now it was broken down and dilapidated. The air was still and heavy.

  The place made Alexander uneasy. His headache didn’t help.

  They had just descended a flight of stairs when Alexander saw a section of the floor glowing with a slight aura.

  “Stop,” he said.

  Hector stopped midstride and looked back quizzically.

  “There’s something wrong with the floor up ahead,” Alexander said.

  “If it’s a trap, maybe I can spring it,” Horace said.

  Alexander nodded. Horace stepped forward and closed his eyes for a moment. Alexander watched the aura of Horace’s magical servant appear just ahead of them. It was roughly three feet tall and vaguely shaped like a man, or at least its colors were; it was completely invisible to normal vision. It ambled forward until it reached the place in the floor.

  Horace looked to Alexander for confirmation.

  “That’s the spot,” he said.

  The magical servant jumped up and landed with a slight thump. A five-foot-wide section of the floor stretching across the hall glowed intensely for just a moment. Horace staggered back as his magical servant was destroyed.

  “It seems to respond to pressure,” he said. “I won’t be able to conjure my servant for another hour or so.”

  “Are you injured?” Isabel asked. “I mean, can you be hurt when your magic is dispelled like that?”

  “It causes pain for a moment,” Horace said, “but no damage. When my servant is destroyed by violence or magic, I simply can’t call on it again for a while.”

  Jack carefully approached the edge of the magical trap. He looked closely at the floor and frowned.

  “I suspect there’s a mechanism that deactivates the trap for a time,” he said. “It looks like the soldiers walked right over it without difficulty.”

  They spent several minutes searching before Jack found a small stone in one wall that moved with pressure. When he pushed on it, Alexander saw the light of the aura fade away. Once they were all across the spelled section of floor, Alexander marked the spot by scraping a line on the floor.

  They continued down the passage until it came to a tee. Hector looked around the corner and pulled his head back quickly. They heard shouting from down the hall.

  “Looks like we found them,” he said, drawing his twin short swords.

  “How many?” Alexander asked.

  “I saw four, but I suspect they’re just the first line.”

  Alexander sent his all around sight down the hall to survey the enemy. Four men lined up at the entrance to a large room. All of them were armed with crossbows.

  “Once they’ve fired their crossbows, we charge,” Alexander said. “Remember, as soon as we’re past these four, there will be more soldiers, plus a wizard and a wraithkin.”

  Isabel started casting a shield spell, Jack tossed up the hood of his cloak, Horace drew his short swords. Alexander drew Mindbender and focused on the fight. He created the image his enemy most expected to see and sent it into the sword.

  An illusion of him and his friends rounding the corner, weapons drawn and charging came into being, lifelike and real. The four soldiers loosed their crossbow bolts as one. What would have been a deadly attack fell on empty air.

  “Go,” Alexander said as he slipped around the corner, racing toward the enemy. The four
men drew swords and held their ground. Before Alexander could reach them, a shaft of brilliant white light lanced past him and burned a hole three inches in diameter through the chest of the man on the right.

  Alexander reached them first. He knew his first opponent’s intention even as the man formed the thought. He slipped past the thrust to the right of the center man and drove the point of his sword through the soldier to his right as he shoved the center man into his companion on his left. Before they could recover, he had his blade free and stabbed one man in the throat as Hector reached the last man and dispatched him with two quick strokes.

  Jack flickered back into view. “Not quite as dramatic as the Thinblade, but I think your new sword definitely has potential.”

  Chloe buzzed into view. “Darkness is near, My Love, in the chamber below.”

  “It’s a good bet they know we’re here,” Isabel said.

  “Can you scout for us, Little One?” Alexander asked.

  “Of course, My Love. Send me your mind and I will show you the room.”

  “Be ready,” Alexander said as he sat down and closed his eyes.

  Chloe buzzed into a ball of light and vanished into the aether. Alexander watched the world through her eyes as she drifted into the chamber below. It was a large cavern, one that Alexander had seen before. Nearly a dozen soldiers with weapons drawn were arrayed before the Nether Gate, with three more guarding the staircase leading into the chamber above.

  A wizard and a wraithkin stood side by side in front of the soldiers, facing the Gate and Truss, who was still possessed by Jinzeri. They seemed to be arguing.

  “You are of no consequence, Wizard,” Jinzeri said. “If you kill this body, I will simply take yours.”

  “You won’t take mine,” the wraithkin said. “Mother won’t allow it.”

  “Yes, how very clever of Phane,” Jinzeri said. “I am well acquainted with your mother. I’m quite sure she would much rather help me than Phane.”

  The wraithkin twitched.

  “We will have the keystone, Shade,” the wizard said.

  “Come and take it,” Jinzeri said, holding the small stone pyramid out in Truss’s good hand. “I grow tired of this broken body and your magic would be useful, not to mention entertaining.”

  In a blink the wraithkin vanished, leaving only wisps of blackness where he had been standing, and reappeared in front of Jinzeri. With a tormented smile, the wraithkin hit Jinzeri hard. He staggered back, dropping the keystone. The wraithkin snatched it up and vanished, only to reappear twenty feet closer to the staircase leading up to the room where Alexander and his friends were preparing for battle.

  “Tell your master, I’ll take him for this,” Jinzeri shouted in rage as he regained his feet.

  The wizard finished his spell just as Jinzeri stood, and a wave of magical force blew him onto his back without killing Truss.

  The wraithkin vanished and reappeared on the other side of the three soldiers guarding the staircase.

  “Flee!” the wizard commanded. The soldiers at the base of the stairs started up toward Alexander as the remaining soldiers and the wizard followed.

  Alexander snapped back into his own body.

  Chapter 24

  “Here they come, wraithkin first,” he said. “Spread out.”

  The wraithkin appeared at the top of the stairs and smiled. Alexander advanced toward the man mixed with darkness, listening through Mindbender for his thoughts. The wraithkin vanished and Alexander spun. The wraithkin reappeared ten feet past him, running fast.

  Alexander flipped Mindbender to his off hand and hurled his throwing knife at the fleeing wraithkin, hoping to hit his head, but the blade drove into the creature’s back instead. The wraithkin shrieked and vanished, reappearing twenty feet down the hallway fully healed and running even faster.

  Alexander was torn. There were more than a dozen soldiers, a wizard, and a shade coming up the stairs. It would be suicide to give chase to the wraithkin and leave themselves defenseless to the threat behind them and he dared not divide his force.

  “Take the Regency soldiers first,” he said as he turned back to the staircase, advancing toward the three men who had just reached the landing.

  The soldiers drew swords as Alexander advanced with Hector and Horace on either side of him. He met the first soldier with a quick parry, deflecting his blade to one side and following with a thrust to the heart, followed by a kick to drive him off Mindbender and send him toppling down the stairs into his companions.

  Hector and Horace each engaged a soldier, wielding their twin short swords with the kind of fluid grace that only comes from the combination of long practice and too much real-world experience. Each of them used his leading blade to trap his opponent’s weapon while striking out with his following blade. Both men killed their opponents in a way that looked almost routine.

  Alexander waited at the top of the stairs for the soldiers to come to him, not wanting to give up the high ground. Once they’d recovered from the corpse he’d cast into their midst, they began to advance again. The first one to reach him died quickly from a thrust to the eye.

  The next was more wary, making a stab for Alexander’s legs. Through Mindbender, he saw the attack coming and jumped to avoid the blade, coming down with an overhead stroke that split the soldier’s helmet and skull.

  A crossbow bolt broke against his armor shirt, then another whizzed past his head. Alexander held his ground, waiting for the next soldier to come close enough to kill, when he saw the wizard pull a man aside and stretch his hand out over another man’s shoulder. Alexander tried to duck, but he was a moment too late. The wave of magical force caught him full in the chest, tossing him backward ten feet. He landed hard on his back.

  Hector and Horace took his place at the top of the stairs, but the remaining soldiers didn’t charge. Before Alexander could regain his feet, a shell of magical energy emerged from the top of the staircase and pushed out in a bubble, driving Hector and Horace back as the enemy soldiers filled the space within.

  With his all around sight, he watched ten soldiers form a battle line at the top of the stairs while the wizard cast another force blast down the stairs at Jinzeri, followed by a spell that caused the stone of the staircase to rapidly grow like crystals until the entire passage was blocked behind him, trapping Jinzeri in the cave with the Nether Gate.

  Alexander regained his feet just as the bubble of force protecting the soldiers dissipated. They fired a volley of crossbow bolts as one. Hector transformed into a vapor, saving himself from injury. Horace took a bolt in the leg and one in the shoulder. He went down to one knee.

  The crossbow bolts meant for Isabel bounced harmlessly off her magical shield.

  One bolt hit Alexander in the thigh, driving straight through but missing the bone. He remained standing, almost automatically retreating into the place within his mind where pain was less important. Two more bolts broke against his dragon-scale armor.

  Jack was off to the side where the bubble of force met the wall, waiting for the chance to strike. The soldier at the end of the battle line died with a knife across his throat.

  The remaining soldiers dropped their crossbows, drew swords and charged. The lead man fell back with a hole through his chest from Isabel’s light-lance spell. Alexander held his ground, waiting for the enemy to come to him rather than risk using his injured leg any more than he had to. Hector rematerialized in position to strike at two men at once. They both fell with stab wounds to the gut.

  Another went down from Jack’s knife as the first three men reached Alexander—or where they thought he was. He had projected an illusion of himself several feet to one side while making his true position invisible to the advancing soldiers. As they committed their attacks to striking down his illusion, Alexander dispatched them one by one.

  Mindbender’s power was becoming more accessible and more natural, flowing freely from his imaginative mind in the heat of the battle. He was learning to trust the
power of deception and the foreknowledge that the sword gave him. It was a far more subtle weapon than the Thinblade, but its reach was greater and its potential was staggering.

  Another man fell from Isabel’s light-lance spell. Alexander saw her colors swelling with rage as she fueled her anger to protect herself from the pull of the firmament.

  The remaining two soldiers reached Alexander and Hector as the wizard stepped into the room. The two men fell quickly but the wizard had time to cast his spell. Six narrow wedges of blue magical force shot forth from his outstretched hand at Isabel, one after the next. Her shield absorbed most of them but failed when the fifth hit. The sixth magical blade drove hard into her stomach, penetrating her armor and driving into her gut. She went down with a shriek that made Alexander’s blood run cold.

  A moment later, Jack slipped up behind the wizard and cut his throat. The look of surprised horror on his face was only matched by the horror Alexander felt at seeing Isabel fall to the ground.

  “Hector, guard the door,” Alexander said as he limped toward Isabel. “Jack, see to Horace.”

  He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out in pain as he went to a knee next to Isabel. She was bleeding through her armor and breathing shallowly.

  “This is going to hurt, but you have to let me get to the wound,” Alexander said, as he rolled her onto her back and fished around in his pouch for his jar of healing salve.

  Her leather armor was rent as if she’d been stabbed by a blade. Alexander unbuckled it quickly and lifted her shirt to reveal a deep wound. She gasped in pain as he packed the wound with healing salve and she gritted her teeth as he wrapped her belly with a strip of cloth. Next, he unstoppered one of Lucky’s vials of healing draught and helped her drink the contents.

  As she drifted off into a magically induced sleep, Alexander examined the crossbow bolt in his leg. With his brass-pommeled long knife he scored the bolt so he could snap it off several inches below the point. He nearly screamed as he pulled the shaft through his leg, feeling light-headed and nauseous the moment it came free.