The Unmaker: Tower of Ayia
Page 10
Dante cried out as he looked up and saw the roof screeching as it rocked backwards and forwards — it was surely going to collapse at any moment.
“You…” a voice snarled, as someone came dragging himself towards him. Russell’s thigh had been pierced by a falling metal rod, its sharp point having punctured his flesh with an ugly wound. “I’m going to kill you for this…”
The healer screamed as he tugged and pulled. He attempted to summon his gift again, but it was useless. His legs were already slowly healing, but he couldn’t do anything about his current situation. Russell was still carrying his strange blade as he pushed himself closer. Dante recalled the sound it had made when it had been unsheathed, a horrible alien screech that had echoed in his mind for a long while. The blade seemed hungry as the man dragged it with him.
Dante finally managed to pull one leg a few inches out from beneath the support, but it was too late. Russell was already almost on top of him. The enemy leader lifted his sword with his free hand and slashed down at Dante with no mercy whatsoever. The boy cried out and slammed his hands together on the blade, catching it inches from his face.
“No!” he shouted, as Russell pushed with all of his body weight and forced it closer to Dante’s face. The healer’s arms shook as he fought to stop the blade, but it was getting closer and closer. He could hear strange whispers coming from the weapon’s material, and finally, it reached his face, slowly opening a wound on his cheek and continuing to press deeper into it. It caused a terrible feeling of both pain and fear that felt both artificial and real at the same time. It was as if the blade was getting into his head somehow. Dante saw Russell’s triumphant smile before he growled and pushed his arm forward one last time…
…but then Russell cried out as somebody tore him away from Dante and pulled a knife across his throat in a single, brutal movement. The large man gasped and clawed at his gaping wound as a beaten and bloody Callum dropped him and staggered towards the lad trapped beneath the support. Dante’s eyes darted from his legs to the quaking roof.
“It’s coming down, Callum. Save yourself,” he breathed, but the man shook his head. Russell was still rolling around and fighting for air, but it was clearly a losing battle.
With a final animalistic roar, Callum pulled the metal bar off Dante’s form and threw it to one side. The roof’s windows cracked and exploded, glass raining down on them as they both limped out. Callum had a keychain in his hand: the keys to the cage truck.
As they stepped out of the doorway, Dante turned back.
Russell’s eyes — bionic and biological — were both staring at him as the man lay on the floor with his chest rising and falling very slowly. He began to mouth a word, but then the screech of metal drowned it all out.
“Go!” Callum yelled as he pulled the boy away as fast as he could towards the parked vehicle. The roof of the skyscraper came down all at once in a resounding crash.
As they sped out of the area, fighting off the shots that were fired at them from allies and foe alike, they saw the skyscraper begin to collapse inward on itself.
Russell was dead and his tower of slavery and tyranny were destroyed. It was over. Ayia was no longer a city of pain and death.
Callum drove haphazardly, thundering out of the city and past the bridge they had entered through, the watchman long gone from his post. Both he and Dante had so many things on their minds, they didn’t even notice.
“Where are we going next, sir?”
Callum wondered for a long time if he was doing the right thing, and finally he found it within himself to answer.
“We’re going to the University, boy. Someone has to teach and guide you; your gift is too strong for even me to decide how you use it. Someone has to find a way for you to control your powers and become something even more special than you already are. I believe in you, Dante, and I know you can bring change to this world.”
With a small smile, Dante decided that perhaps it was for the best; a return to the community could wait. It was time to find out more about himself and what awaited him in the future.
It was time to recover control of the events taking place around him.
It was time for him to get his life back.
EPILOGUE
The young man stumbled inside with his hands on his head. The number of dead bodies was incredible — so many had been crushed under the debris, others had been shot as the last desperate battle had ensued.
He had grabbed his weapon and run towards the city as fast as he could, spotting a speeding truck as it left the streets of Ayia just moments after the explosion. It was them, he knew, the intruders from before. He’d told one of his contacts within the city that there were new arrivals, but nobody had paid attention to him. A man and a kid on foot…nobody had cared.
Yet, it was they who had brought the building down, destroyed their organization and killed their leader.
The bridge-keeper stepped through the rubble and saw the dead. Their pale, dead eyes looked up at him — people who he had considered friends and family. Finley, Hoxha, Gonzalez and Thomson, the city’s outer guards who had often shared their stories with him; ‘Big’ George and ‘Little’ George, the brothers known for their jokes; Sereena and Jamie, the cutest couple ever. All were dead, either shot or crushed. Ugly scenes, he thought as his eyes filled with tears. We were never good people, but we didn’t deserve this.
Only then did he spot the most heartbreaking corpse.
It was Lord Russell himself. The man was lying in a pool of his own blood, the sword in his hand shining faintly in an intimidating manner, despite the fact that it was depleted and its owner dead.
The fallen warrior looked powerful even in death, the sentry thought as he shook his head. It was a shame, but Lord Russell wouldn’t need the sword anymore now that he had lost his life.
The bridge-keeper crouched over the man’s body and pulled on the blade as firmly as he could.
It didn’t budge.
“Hey, you can give it over now that you’re d—” He never finished the sentence as the blade spun around and stabbed him in the heart.
A tremor ran down Russell’s body and this would-be thief fell back as blood began to run from his gaping wound.
“I’m not dead yet,” Russell managed to say as he pressed his metal hand to his wounded throat. He got to his feet and stepped out of the rubble, looking at the distant lights of vehicles leaving the city. His cars, his city.
“In fact, I’m just getting started…”
TO BE CONTINUED
Thank you so much for reading my first book! If you ever have any questions or comments, please done hesitate to email/message me on social media. Check out Book 1 in the series here! >> Book 1
Sincerely,
Casey Herzog
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