by Dante King
The captain sneered at me. “You’re all talk, lo Pashat.”
I turned my eyes to the other guards. “Last warning. Lay down your weapons and flee. Or die. You get to make the choice. But I’m running out of patience.”
Two of the pikemen dropped their spears and sprinted away without a second thought.
“Mercy, Master?” Nydarth said in disbelief. “For the unjust?”
“This isn’t going to be a fair fight,” I told her. “There’s nothing wrong with a warning shot.”
The archer’s bow creaked as he drew it back. I pushed water through my physical channels, and the arrow shot away from the recurve. My fingers closed around it half a second later, and I incinerated the barbed shaft with a small touch of Untamed Torch. Vesma’s hands flared as she activated her own channels, and Mahrai hefted her staff with a grin.
The captain leveled his pike at me and rushed forward. I slapped the point away from my chest with the Demure Rebirth, and a searing bolt of Untamed Torch whipped past my face. Vesma’s technique tore through the captain’s leather armor like butter, ignited his body, and filled the air with the smell of burned flesh.
I used my Augmented speed to rush the next soldier. He slashed at my arm, but I caught the blade on my new bracer and swept the Demure Rebirth at his thigh. The man’s femur splintered under the blow, and he went down with a screaming howl. I crushed his throat with a vicious stomp.
The gears of the elevator creaked, and the rattle of chains pulled my attention upward.
Three Augmenters in Wysaro robes appeared as the elevator whizzed down toward us. Mahrai came beside me, caught a sword on her brass-capped staff, and jabbed her weapon into his gut. The guard recoiled with a curse, and I called up a small Plank Pillar between his feet. I fed the technique Vigor from the environment, and a thorned spike erupted from the ground. The Pillar impaled the guard from underneath as the spiked point tore through his body and jutted out of his mouth with a fountain of gore. My technique grew until it was 10 feet tall, and the guard’s corpse flailed helplessly from it like a beached fish.
“Can you clean up the rest?” I asked Mahrai.
She snorted. “Do you even need to ask?”
I channeled Flight and raced upward to confront the Augmenters. Their jaws dropped as I landed on the platform beside them, and Scorching Lashes appeared around their hands a moment later.
Strength flooded my muscles as I adjusted my physical pathways. A flaming whip snapped toward my neck, but I caught it around my hand. Pain flared around my skin, but my new resistance to fire kept my flesh untouched. I yanked on the fire whip, pulled the Augmenter stumbling toward me, and caved his head in with my warhammer. His corpse hit the edge of the platform and rolled off it a moment later to the valley floor below.
The second Augmenter snarled a curse and fired off an Untamed Torch at my chest. I created a small Smothering Mist between us, catalyzed it with raw Vigor, and used it as a shield. Steam clouded the platform, but I knew exactly where my opponent was from his howl of pain. I emerged from the steam like an avenging nightmare, grabbed the Augmenter by the robes, and effortlessly threw him over my shoulder with one hand.
The Augmenter crashed to the floor of the elevator with a winded huff, and I shoved my warhammer against his throat. The scalded flesh of his face tightened into a grimace as the steam cleared around us. I put a little more weight into the hammer and gave my opponent just enough breathing room to talk.
“Where’s Jiven?” I demanded.
The Augmenter cracked a smile, despite the Immense Blade at his throat. “Gone.”
“Who’s at the castle?”
“The instruments of your destruction,” the man hissed.
He spat on my face and grabbed my arms with flaming hands. My bracers took the brunt of the heat, and I raised the Demure Rebirth into the air. The Augmenter wasn’t saying what I wanted to hear, and I wasn’t about to waste more time with him.
I activated Ground Strike and gave the blow some extra punch from the environment around me. The whole platform came apart in a shower of splinters. Chains snapped as the shockwave of the technique rippled upward and tore through the steel like paper. I leapt off the falling platform, dodged a whizzing pulley, and caught myself in the air with Flight.
I watched Mahrai smack a spear out of the last guard’s hands before Vesma burned through him with a burst of Untamed Torch. The sheer heat of her attack vaporized the guard’s flesh, and his armor drifted away in a cloud of cinders as I landed beside them.
Vesma looked over the battlefield at the corpses of the guards and grimaced at the carnage. The smell of burning flesh was almost overpowering. Charred corpses let off trails of smoke, and a few small grassfires flickered in the dying light at our feet.
“That was—” Vesma began.
“Easy?” I finished for her.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “We really have come a long way.”
Mahrai gestured at the broken elevator and then up at the top of the mountain. “How are we going to get up there?”
I glanced up at the castle above us and shrugged. “We’ll fly.”
“You and Vesma might be able to, but it’ll take me forever to climb up. And it’s not like there’s a lot of handholds either.”
I scooped her up into my arms without a second thought. Mahrai yelped as I took to the sky and levitated upward at a steady rate. Mahrai’s earthy scent washed over me as she clung to my neck and peered down at the ground. The curve of her firm breasts pressed into my shoulder, and I couldn’t help but notice the little gasp she gave as we ascended toward the castle. Fire streamed from Vesma’s feet and propelled her up to meet us, and we soared up to the castle walls together.
“Gods,” Mahrai breathed. “This is really fucking high.”
“Just hold on,” I assured her. “You’ll be fine.”
Stone walls drowned us in shadow as we drew closer to the castle. The original architects had carved it straight out of the mountain, and every inch of it was washed smooth from centuries of weather and rain. Vesma pushed on ahead of us, and with a final effort, we flew up past a tower and landed on a parapet.
Shouts of alarm echoed through the huge outer courtyard. Weapons clanged as a set of guards sprinted up a curving staircase toward one of the towers. A torrent of fire burst from the windows, rolled down the stairs like an ocean tide, and consumed them like kindling on hot coals.
I dropped Mahrai beside me and sprinted along the wall to get a better look. I’d only ever seen Augmentation of that power from Xilarion. But surely he hadn’t heard of all of this yet. Unless the missing monks had gathered here?
A man-sized creature of flame strolled out onto the stairs and raised a hand toward us. He was the one who had vaporized the guards who had been coming up the stairs.
I recognized the form. I had seen it during the Radiant Dragon tournament all those months ago.
“Hamon?” Vesma whispered.
It definitely looked like him. A living, breathing fire elemental.
Hamon Wysaro tilted his head in a kind of idle curiosity as I reached for my Vigor and readied myself for yet another fight against my old nemesis.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Instinct took over. Flight’s flaming streamers spun around my feet, and I leapt off the battlements toward Hamon. I pulled the Demure Rebirth from my harness as the air rushed around me, and Hamon’s eyes widened in surprise.
I crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. I hit Hamon in the chest like an avalanche, and he shot back through the doorway into the tower. I landed, rolled to maintain my momentum, and followed him inside.
Weapons and suits of armor gilded the walls around a stone floor covered in scorched carpet. Arrow slits let in the last of the afternoon sun as I gave my surroundings a once-over and found Hamon against the opposite wall. The smell of ashes and burned human flesh assailed my senses as I hefted my warhammer.
Hamon pulled himself gingerly to
his feet. Flames curled away from his skin, revealing something almost human underneath. He wore a suit of steel armor, elaborately gilded. His cold eyes studied me with that same detached expression that I’d seen seconds before.
I drew upon my Vigor again, and the Demure Rebirth shone with raw power as I prepared to encase the bastard in glass.
“Yes,” Nydarth moaned. “End him, Master. See justice done.”
“He’s not attacking us,” Choshi pointed out nervously. “Do we have to kill him?”
I slowed my step. Choshi was right. Hamon’s power had grown since we’d last fought, but it had been more than a year since then, and the Wysaro heir hadn’t even lifted his hand against me. His eyes fixed on mine, and he tilted his head again.
“Ethan Murphy Lo Pashat,” he said. “Have you come to kill me?”
“I’m still making up my mind,” I told him coldly. “Where’s Jiven?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here talking to you,” Hamon replied. “Why have you come?”
“Flametongue Valley is under attack,” I said. “Your cousin, Cinder, called for me. She said Wysaro Castle was overrun by demons. I’m guessing you were part of it.”
“This is my home,” Hamon said slowly. “I would never bring ruin to my family’s ancestral fortress, or consort with twisted creatures.” He inclined his head and clasped his hands in the traditional sign of surrender. “You may hate me, Swordslinger, and you have every reason to. But I mean you no harm.”
I lowered the Demure Rebirth. My history with Hamon had taught me that he was prideful, arrogant, and believed in the supremacy of his clan above all else. But his father had overloaded his pathways, changed him into a fire elemental, and Xilarion had imprisoned him in an elemental cell to stop his body from disintegrating. Obviously, he’d broken free of that cell, as to how or why, I didn’t know.
“I’ll hear you out,” I said. “You’ve got 30 seconds.”
“Then I shall make it brief. The rumors you’ve heard were correct. Guildmaster Xilarion imprisoned me to halt the fire burning away my body. I spent months in seclusion, curing myself of my rage, until Cinder asked that I be moved here for safety.”
“The last time we fought, you were trying to kill me and my friends. And you were right alongside your father in trying to take over the guild. So, don’t take it personally when I say that I think you’re full of shit.”
“Look at me, Swordslinger,” Hamon said.
He lifted a flaming hand. Every inch of him burned with orange flame, and tiny cinders danced away from his skin as he closed his fingers into a fist and lowered it to his side. The steel armor glowed a deep cherry-red at the sheer heat of his body, but it didn’t buckle or melt. His body, however, was completely changed. His pathways had consumed him, and whatever was left of Hamon’s old body was gone now.
“Do you think I wanted this?” Hamon asked quietly.
“You sure as hell didn’t complain when it happened to you at first.”
“It gave me power, yes, but it wasn’t enough to defeat you. I was simply a tool to my father. A weapon to be used and thrown away. Guildmaster Xilarion preserved my life, and in my meditations, I learned to control my passion. And I found a new purpose.”
“I’m gonna guess it doesn’t have anything to do with cooking marshmallows.”
Hamon shook his head. “Revenge, Ethan. My father will die for what he did to Clan Wysaro. He stained us with his own dishonor, then fled rather than face true justice.”
“Whatever your past may be,” Yono whispered, “your goals align. You only see an enemy, Master, but the tides of fate may very well have pushed you toward an alliance.”
“He must die,” Nydarth insisted. “His very existence is a threat to you, Master.”
“Not with Master’s new power,” Choshi said. “Not anymore.”
I pushed the voices of the Immense Blades into the back of my mind. Hamon’s sheer destructive potential wasn’t to be sneezed at. He’d just vaporized an entire contingent of guards. Another Augmenter by my side meant more power at my disposal. Even if I hated Hamon’s guts, I couldn’t deny his potential as an ally.
The clash of weapons and shouted orders echoed off the castle walls and seeped in through one of the arrow slits of the tower.
“Suppose I believe you,” I said. “How did you escape from Xilarion’s cage?”
“One with wisdom released me from it, not a few minutes ago,” Hamon said.
A thought clicked together in my head. “Bald, beard? Red robes?”
Hamon nodded. “Do you know him?”
“I know their type,” I said.
So, the monk in Danibo Forest wasn’t just an outlier, as Tymo had wanted me to believe. At least one of the missing monks was right here in the castle. And unless I missed my guess, he was responsible for the demons that Cinder had spoken of. But why had this monk freed Hamon? Was it to reign destruction upon the castle? Or was this some elaborate ploy for my own destruction?
Hamon caught my attention with his soft, steely tone.
“Traitors now seek my end,” he said. “If Cinder did indeed send for you, then I will not allow bad blood to stand between us. The past is but a handful of ashes. Will you put it aside and stand with me?”
“I never thought I’d see the day when you ask me for help,” I said. “I don’t like you, Wysaro, and the second you look like you’re about to turn on me, I’ll make you wish that Xilarion never saved your life.”
Hamon inclined his head in respect. “I would expect nothing less. You will help me?”
“I’m here to help your cousin,” I said. “Not you. You follow my lead.”
“If it will allow me to cleanse the filth from my clan, then lead the way.”
Hamon joined me at the narrow window of the tower and gazed down into the courtyard. It spanned out below us in a rough circle. Stone stairs led up to the battlements on each side of it, and two sets of huge doors led into the belly of the castle.
“Ethan, what the hells?” Vesma demanded.
She burst into the tower with Mahrai at her heels. Her eyes widened as Hamon offered her a polite bow, and Vesma turned to stare at me in confusion. I made a negative gesture. A mass of black-furred demons and armored soldiers pushed through the castle’s main doors below us and streamed into the courtyard by the dozen.
“Short version: Hamon’s helping us kill the demons and get Cinder out of here,” I said.
Vesma’s knuckles whitened around her spear as she glared at the fire elemental beside me. “You can’t be serious. He’s a prick. Once a prick, always a prick.”
“He’s a fiery prick now,” I told her. “So long as he’s causing trouble for the bad guys instead of us, we can use him.”
“They’re gathering in force,” Mahrai warned us. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“We need a plan before we take on the garrison.”
Mahrai nodded and waved a hand at the doorway. Just outside the door, her golem melted out of the stone steps under its feet, and in seconds, the classic Greater Stone Golem blocked any entrance into the tower. A cry of alarm filled the courtyard, and a satisfied smirk stretched across Mahrai’s face. Hamon turned on his heel and gestured to the ceremonial armor and weapons around us.
“Take whatever you need,” he offered.
Vesma’s glare turned venomous. “I don’t want anything from you, Wysaro.”
“Ves, pick up some armor,” I told her gently. “You’re going to need it.”
She glanced down at the courtyard. The demons and Jiven’s loyalists halted in formed ranks, and captains shouted orders. They’d seen what Hamon had done to the last wave, and they weren’t in any hurry to run up the stairs. There didn’t seem to be any end to them.
Vesma sighed, set her spear against the wall, and examined a set of armor to her left. She pulled off her outer robes with a quick movement and rapidly clad herself in a tight set of black, gold, and red steel. It hugged her petite form, and a s
mall cloak hung around her thighs as she tightened the greaves around her shins. Gold trim sparkled in the low light as she pulled a fresh spear from a rack of ornate weapons and gave it an experimental spin.
A narrow, razor-sharp head curled into the shaft of the spear, and Vesma took a moment to appreciate its workmanship. She turned, found a thick quarterstaff, and tossed it to Mahrai.
Mahrai caught it, weighed it in her hands, and glanced over the ends. “I could imagine crushing demon skulls with this,” she said as she nodded appreciatively.
Snarling dragon heads of solid steel stood out at each side of the staff, and a studded leather grip swept around the shaft to give the user better control of the weapon. Mahrai set aside her simple brass-capped staff without a second thought and nodded her thanks to Vesma.
Vesma caught my look and glared back at me. “What?”
“You both look like goddesses of war,” Hamon said before I could answer. “An echo of my once-great clan. It will be an honor to fight by your side to cleanse my people of my father’s treachery.”
“I hate to agree with the human bonfire, but he’s right,” I said. “It suits you.”
Vesma and Mahrai blushed in unison, and my chest swelled with pride.
“We’ve just let them build up their forces while I’ve wasted time getting pretty,” Vesma said.
“Allowing them to gather their forces outside gives us more fish in the barrel,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
Mahrai waved her staff, and her huge golem thundered down the stairs with crashing steps. I sprinted after it, leapt off the stairwell, and took to the skies with a burst of Flight. The courtyard shrank below me as I took up a vantage point above the frantic melee below. I raised my hand to the sky and let an Untamed Torch ripple out of my hand. Environmental Vigor rushed into the small gout of flame, and an enormous pillar of fire blazed a hundred feet into the air.
If Kegohr and the others remembered my instructions, then they would now know that our worst fears had been realized: demons had overrun Wysaro Castle.
I hovered down a little lower and dodged a howling demon as it flipped through the air. Mahrai’s golem waded through the enemy forces and hurled demons and guards like tennis balls. Flashes of flame washed over the golem as an Augmenter or two tried to take it down, but their elemental attacks were useless against the stone colossus.
