by Swanson, Jay
Then a louder crash came from above him as more gunfire erupted in response. He took the last flight with a tempered haste, signaling for the man behind him to mind the stairs after they passed. He came to the landing at the top of the stairs that led into the lobby of Merodach's office. A dead Woad lay at his feet, the first he had seen since his encounter in the sewers below.
At least they're still mortal, he thought with a morbid sense of relief. The lack of dead Woads along their path had somehow escaped his notice until this very moment.
He made a fist to slow his men, then motioned for them to fan out. Screams in the lobby died as the sound of tearing flesh and guttural growls overcame them. The collisions began again, the monsters working their way through the safe-like door to Merodach's office. They had been reinforced heavily after the famed intrusion by the Shadow King posing as Troy Silvers, and Keaton wondered how the Woads thought they could burst through.
Upon rounding the corner and facing them himself, he realized that it was only a matter of time. There were eight of the monsters facing the door, and in unison they ran and launched themselves at it, colliding so hard that the entire frame seemed to bow under the force. It might take them a while, but they would break through sooner rather than later.
He knelt, pointing his rifle as he waited the split second it took for his men to form up behind him, then opened fire. The determination of the Woads to get through to Merodach was only matched by their sense of survival. They whipped around as the first two died, not a hint of caution in their approach as they barreled straight for Keaton and his Hunters. The Hunters let loose with everything they had, killing another four but unable to kill the last two.
The Woads tackled two of his men, wrestling them to the floor and tearing at their chests and throats. Another round of gunfire illuminated the lobby in sporadic bursts, and the Woads lay dead beside their intended victims.
“Holy shit...” One of the Hunters still standing reached down for Grimes, who had been taken to the floor.
“Someone shot me...” Grimes was checking himself out as the other Hunter looked over his wounds quickly.
“You got cut up by a giant frog-cat, Grimes. No one shot you.”
“Seriously,” he patted his arm. “This one burns like a gunshot wound.”
“Like you know the difference,” another of the Hunters laughed.
Keaton knew they were only letting off steam from the pressures of their anxiety, but he couldn't let them continue. They had been lucky so far, but that luck would soon run out if they didn't take up a defensive position against the rest of the incoming Woads.
“Grimes,” he croaked as he grabbed the man's shoulder. “Blow the door.”
The prospect of making something explode gave Grimes enough incentive to move off into the extravagantly decorated lobby, but not without a continual stream of grumbling attached as he did so.
Keaton gestured towards three of the Hunters, sending them silently to watch the stairs. The rest he set to cover the door, uncertain of how much firepower they would encounter from the other side. Grimes had made it to the door and was rummaging through his pack, blood dripping off of his elbow slowly and leaving a dark smattering on the light marble floor. The moon shone through the windows, casting an eerie light on the scattered corpses of Woads and men alike.
“What?” Grimes picked his head up and stared at the door. To Keaton's dismay, he shouted. “Hello?”
Keaton rushed over to him, finger to his lips, but Grimes was already shouting again. “Yeah! We got 'em. They're all dead!”
And before he knew it, the locks on the door were spinning and clicking and the metal slab was sliding off to the side. Keaton motioned frantically for his men to join them, lining them up behind the door as it slowly slid open.
“How many of your guys got hurt?”
Rast... Keaton would know that cowardly voice anywhere. “Too many.”
He spun around the corner, bringing his rifle up over his shoulder and hammering down with the butt directly into the Premiere General's forehead. Merodach squealed in the darkness. The general dropped to the floor in a heap like spilled noodles, and Keaton had his gun back up as his men flooded the Mayor's dimly-lit office through the gap behind him. Two guards stood halfway across the room between the door and Merodach; they immediately dropped their rifles.
Keaton motioned them over to the southern wall of the room, against Merodach's books, where two of his soldiers proceeded to bind their hands with ties from their belts. Pompidus Merodach, for his part, simply scurried back into the space between the shelves on his eastern wall, the same place he had nearly been killed by the Shadow King mere months before.
Anders Keaton walked slowly towards the Mayor of Elandir, his former commander and a conspirator behind his attempted murder. Keaton felt a burning hate for the man grow with every step he took closer to him. The fact that he found the fat mayor sniveling on the ground like some scared rat only drew him closer to shooting him on the spot. How a coward like this could have killed so many good men with his incompetence and gotten away with it for so long seemed unbelievable to Keaton, and worse, unforgivable.
“Anders?” Merodach's eyes shone against the brilliant light of the moon pouring into his office. “Oh God... Anders!”
Keaton stopped ten feet from the Mayor; he removed his helmet, tossing it to Merodach where he sat. “I'd resign,” he coughed. “But I don't think I'm the one that should.”
The men stationed at the stairs jogged into the room and turned, moving to seal the massive door to the lobby again.
“Wait,” Keaton said as loudly as he dared. “Leave enough room for one at a time... we'll kill...” He coughed again, but the message was clear enough that he didn't need to finish his thought. They would let them come in on top of each other and kill them as they came.
“Lucius said you were dead... how... everyone thinks you are dead!”
Keaton turned back to the Mayor, the cold murder in his eyes clear even in the dim light of the room. Lucius told you I was dead?
“You can't kill me, Anders.” Merodach sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as anyone. “It's not in you!”
“I can...” was all Keaton said before he waved one of his men over. The Hunter pulled Merodach to his knees, binding his pudgy hands before he even had a chance to whimper.
“Why are they searching?” Keaton rasped.
“What? Who?”
He gestured back the way he had come.
“Those things? I've never seen them before tonight! We saw them coming in on the monitors, locked the tower down immediately... but they just broke through every door in their path.”
“Why?”
Merodach shook visibly now. “Anders, you have to get on the streets and stop those things. The people of Elandir need you now more than ever!”
Keaton kicked Merodach in the stomach, drawing laughter from the Hunters in the room.
“That's true,” said Grimes from behind him. “Almost as much as we don't need you.”
The small directional mines in the stairwell went off in that moment, the concussion in the small space leaving any man without a helmet dizzy. Keaton cursed himself under his breath for taking his own off. He motioned for his men to form up around the door. They shoved the two guards over to Merodach and left them under the watch of one Hunter. Rast was dragged over unconscious, flipped onto his stomach, and bound the same as the rest.
He could hear the growling grow as claws scraped on marble and thudded dully into corpses.
“Clean shots, boys.”
The Woads came flooding in then, three lunging through the gap in the door at the same time, one over the other. The Hunters were caught off guard, only killing the first two as the topmost sailed over his dying brothers and landed on the nearest Hunter. Keaton dropped his aim and unloaded on the Woad before him as more crammed through the gap.
The Hunters fired indiscriminately now, fear building
in place of the confidence they had rested on moments before. The room erupted in a strobe of small explosions, the gunfire practically constant as each Hunter reloaded and continued firing in turn. The Woads crammed the doorway, sliding into the room dead and overtaken by yet more vicious beasts behind. One Hunter tossed a small explosive through the gap, resulting in a satisfying concussion and the sound of shrapnel absorbed in stringy black meat.
The gunfire reached a tremorous apex before, suddenly, it was over. The monsters were piled ten high on top of each other. There must have been four dozen in total, Keaton realized as he cautiously stood. They want Merodach dead as much as we do...
He motioned for his men to clear the doorway and seal them inside, then turned to check on the man who had gone down in the fight. In place of his throat was a bloody red ruin; the Woad's fangs had done their work with lightning speed. He shook his head. Another dead on account of this pig.
He stood and walked over to Merodach, who had shoved himself back in the little corner he seemed to love so much.
“These are the Demon's creatures,” he said slowly as he gestured around.
“Obviously.” Merodach's admission came as a shock to Keaton. “I'm not so naïve as to think the carnival has gone feral, you idiot.”
“Looks like he wan–” Keaton coughed into his fist. “Looks like he wants you dead.”
“Of course he wants me dead!” Merodach shouted, covering his face as he cowered in the corner. “I've seen too much, Anders... I know what he's doing.” The conviction in his wavering voice sent a chill through the room. “And I'm the only one who can stop him.”
SEVENTEEN
ARDIN HAD NO IDEA HOW TO GET OUT TO THE DRAGONS AS THEY FLEW OVER THE WATER, sending their fire out among the ships and circling back for more. He did know that he had to do something. If they were anything like the rest of the Demon's creatures, they would crave and consume Magaic magic. If that were the case, he had to draw their attention, and quickly. He only hoped he could make himself appear threatening enough to grab their full attention. He brought his sword over his head and did the only thing he could think to draw attention to himself in the darkness. He made light.
The warmth rolled inside of him until the pressure was so great that he began to illuminate the area around him. And then it released into a brilliant flare of bluish-white light that grew until he looked to be standing in the center of his very own star.
The dragons turned, their attention captured, and hurtled at him at once. He smiled in spite of the burrowing fear in his gut and shouted his challenge. The light came to a focus above him in the sword that Caspian had given him. A wave of energy hit the ground with a shock, sending up dust all around him and disturbing the white mists churning at his feet. The dragons were preparing their attack, closing fast.
Ardin yelled again as he brought his sword down and leveled it at his flying opponents. The brilliance of it blinded the first, sending it careening off to the side where it crashed into the water. Ardin flexed every muscle in his body, willing the energy to new life, feeling the pull of the Atmosphere, focusing it to the width of the blade of his sword. He could feel the heat, see the water nearby steaming. His vision glitched, but he blinked it away. He shouted Alisia's name, and the light wavered like blue flame.
The dragon dodged to its left to avoid the beam, but Ardin controlled it much more easily now. He swung it low, bringing it up in an arc across the dragon's path as it did its best to dodge his attack. The monster's efforts were to no avail, and Ardin caught it directly on the chest. The light seemed to sense the connection, pulsing along the line between the attacker and the target. The dragon screamed as it writhed in the air, its momentum drained by the impact of Ardin's beam.
But then his arms twitched, the light wavered, and suddenly it was gone.
The dragon dropped into the water, fluttering and pumping its wings to gain the air again. Ardin was still glowing, but the light flickered and flared uncontrollably as he fought to regain mastery of his power. He dropped to his knees as another flare of energy cracked the stone beneath him and boiled the sand beyond him dry.
The first dragon was out of the water and descending on him now, its companion working to make its way back and away. Ardin grit his teeth, trying so hard to focus the light, to send it at his enemy. The tail hit him so hard that the light was knocked out with a flash. He skidded along the rock, feeling it scraping at him in some places and never making contact in others.
There was a roar as one of the dragons dropped down on top of him. His body made the jump, but only where the monster made contact. The rest remained in place, the sensation of it driving Ardin to scream. He clenched his eyes as its right foreleg rose. It hammered its claw down. He made the jump just in time.
Ardin swirled in the mists of the Atmosphere, his consciousness torn in a dozen ways at once. I can do this. He was willing himself together again. I have to do this.
And then he saw everything. The dragons, the people the ships and the sea. There was energy coursing through the monsters and terror on the wind. The mists were responding to him, though confounded in their efforts. And he realized the bond of the Shade, saw the physical directly linked to the metaphysical. It was an anchor for the Shadow, but for Ardin it was a superconductor.
If he had possessed a face in that moment, he would have smiled. He jumped back in. Everything came together in a snap, his whole being unifying as it had before but with a greater permanence. The dragons were swirling out and around him again. He could kill them. Instantly the light returned, blazing forth from his core and focusing down Caspian's steel. The injured dragon was already diving, fire brimming along its lips. But Ardin's blaze caught it in the stomach again, and this time it did not waver.
The metallic scraping of the dragon's death cry grew until it was silenced suddenly by the power burning it from the inside. Ardin let the smoking corpse drop sizzling into the sea, the grin on his face secured by the vacuum of his departed fear. And then he was enveloped by blackness teeming with purple energy. The intensity of the heat lasted only a moment before he made the jump into the metaphysical, the terrifying rush of being burned alive imprinted on his mind even in this otherworldly state.
The other dragon must have recovered. He chided himself for being so cocky as to let his guard down. The purple glow around him died down as he sensed the dragon moving onwards. He made the jump back, only then feeling the pain of his burns. He sucked in air against the shock, not realizing that he had been so badly injured before jumping. Why don't they heal? His whole body began to shake instantly, the pain racking him as he tried desperately to find his flying assailant in the night sky.
The rising moon reflected gently off its dark scales, giving him time to make the jump long before it came down on top of him. The purple glow lit the mists of the Atmosphere around him like thousands of tiny stars, coming into existence only to die brilliantly moments later. The force of it was translated even here. It shook his formless being as the dragon swept past and climbed to start another attack.
He jumped back, the relief in finding his bodily form overshadowed by the pain of his burns. They were getting better, but not significantly or quickly enough. To his amazement, everywhere he had begun to heal, his armor had done the same. He called on the warmth, sending it along his skin and mending the patches of burned flesh as best he could while time permitted. He only hoped that it was enough of an expenditure to keep the dragon's interest, but after killing two of its kind, he doubted it would leave him alive if it had the choice now.
Why doesn't it just make more dragons from the ships? He was certain the creatures needed the metal to procreate. He was glad they didn't seem to do so too readily.
The dragon's broad wings shot out to the sides as it finished its climb, banking to its right and coming around for another pass. Ardin concentrated on building his body back up, but found that the wounds were different than any which had been inflicted on him before. They
were healing, yes, but slowly. He looked up just in time to see the dragon flap its wings to slow, the broiling purple-blackness streaming out towards him.
He made the jump, the energy rolling around him. It didn't die off so quickly this time, however, building until it was swirling around him where he floated in the Atmosphere. He drifted off to the side, trying to get away from the fire before he made the jump back in. He was in no condition to fight the dragon yet, but he wasn't sure what else he could do.
He waited for a minute until the purple glow began to dwindle and die off. Finally it was gone, but he couldn't be certain that the dragon had moved on or whether it was still nearby. The clarity of a moment before had left him. He felt like he must have put some distance between himself and the dragon, but the unfamiliarity of his Shadow form kept him from knowing how to tell for sure. Finally he decided to risk it, making the jump back into the physical. He was met instantly with a blow to the side as a massive claw struck out and sent him sailing out into the water.
The cold dark peaks of the choppy water struck at Ardin until they brought him to a halt. The salt burned the wounds that remained open as he coughed and fought to gain the surface. No sooner did he manage to take a breath than did he see purple blazing down towards him. He jumped into the metaphysical, the purple lightning launching past him and setting off the Atmosphere in its dazzling glow. He moved as quickly as he could back towards land, jumping into the physical and rolling to ensure he wasn't caught off guard again so easily.
The dragon, thankfully, was still circling around to reach him. Can it see me even when I jump?
He pulled together the warmth inside himself again, ignoring the wounds left on his arm and chest. He had to end this before the dragon got the best of him, which, he was beginning to think, might not take as long as he would like to believe.
