The Crucible of the Dragon God

by Mike Wild

  "Wuhh-ow."

  "Hells," Jengo Pim said softly, echoing the sentiment. "How the hells did it -?"

  Kali flipped herself up onto her feet.

  "No idea," she said, moving over to the racks and sweeping up as many of the crackstaffs as she could carry, before thrusting them at Pim. "Maybe these tubes channel magical threads or maybe they somehow concentrate them but one thing's for sure - they work. Pim, we've got something with which we can even up the fight a little bit."

  "I'm not so sure we have - yet." Pim said slowly.

  "What are you talking about? Pim, we don't have much time so grab some more if you can!"

  "Miss Hooper, I think we have company."

  "What?" Kali said.

  For the first time she noticed the thieves guild leader was staring past her, back towards the stairway they had used to get here, and followed his gaze. Several things were climbing - no, sweeping - up the stairs towards them. Spectral, ghostly shapes that Kali couldn't quite pin down enough to identify but knew immediately she didn't like.

  "Oh, fark. I guess there is no such thing as a free lunch."

  "I warned you this might prove hazardous," Poul Sonpear's voice commented. "I am afraid your careless use of the crackstaff has disturbed them."

  "Them? Them, who? All right, Sonpear, so these are your hazards but what in all the hells are those things?"

  "We call them residuals. They have become attracted to your vital energy."

  "I'm flattered." The figures had reached the top of the stairs now and she could see them in a little more detail. "Wait a minute. Are they what I think they are?"

  "They were what you think they are."

  "How can that be?"

  "It is believed that when Domdruggle created his expanse there were sacrifices that had to be made. An area effect at the point of conjuration that ended the lives of Domdruggle and they who assisted with the ritual, condemning them to a half-life here in the Expanse. They volunteered for it, Miss Hooper, elves and dwarves, but now I doubt that they even remember who or what they were. They know only what it felt like to be and hunger for that feeling, still."

  "Hunger. Okay, I'm not sure I like the sound of that. So, they're attracted to us why exactly?"

  "To extract the life force from your bodies. Make your souls part of the Expanse."

  "Gotcha. Sonpear, why didn't you tell me about these things before?"

  "There was a chance you would not encounter them, and so I did not wish to worry you."

  "Next time, Sonpear. Give me all the facts." Kali grabbed another crackstaff from the rack, then shoved the thieves guild leader. "Out of the way, Pim."

  Bracing herself this time, she aimed and pressed the same stud she thought she had previously used, gratified to find she'd made the right choice.

  A crackling lance of blue energy shot impacted in the centre of the approaching residuals. But instead of blowing them apart, as she had hoped, the lance passed through them harmlessly, doing no more damage than a hand might wafting at some fog. It did something, though, because the spectral figures suddenly quickened their approach, coming right at her with a renewed determination.

  "Shit."

  Suddenly they were close enough for Kali to see them in full detail. She could make out wasted bodies and haunted faces with gaping mouths and what she thought might be weapons. With flowing beards or streak-like, angular heads, they looked as if someone had drawn them on the landscape and then had a hasty rethink, half rubbing them out with repeated swipes of an eraser.

  Kali staggered backwards as one of them screeched like a banshee and slammed into her. Then, with a cry of alarm, she scissored back to avoid the wisps of a blade whooshing by where her stomach had been. The passing blade left behind tracers, like tiny furls of mist.

  Somewhat aggrieved by the development, Kali threw a punch in retaliation but, as had the energy lance, her fist went straight through. Next to her, Pim suffered the same experience.

  Now that was a little unfair. They could touch them but not the other way round? In the circumstances there was only one thing they could do. Dodging another rush, Kali pulled off her belt and made a makeshift strap for her back before grabbing an armful of crackstaffs and snapping her gaze at Pim, instructing him to do the same.

  "Run," she then said to the thieves guild leader.

  "Where? There are more of them on the stairs!"

  Kali thought fast. "The hole I made. Out through there."

  "This is the third level!"

  "You got a problem with that?"

  "Yes!"

  "Pim, trust me - just do as I do."

  Pim swallowed. "Go."

  The residuals hot on their trail, the pair of them raced for the breach in the Three Towers wall and hurled themselves through. It was the first time that Kali had been grateful for what she considered the somewhat disturbing design of the Three Towers. Because, as she expected, the two plummeted out not into empty air but onto the tapering, semi-organic slope that, at their base, was a more gentle incline than further above. More gentle but they weren't out of the frying pan yet. The pair landed on the taper on their behinds, bouncing slightly and scrabbling for purchase to slow their descent before riding it down towards ground level, then tumbling into a heap at its base. Behind and above them, the residuals - probably about fifteen of them now - poured through the breach. Untroubled by such considerations as gravity, they began to sweep down towards them.

  Kali quickly picked herself up. "Move!"

  "I hate to repeat myself, but where exactly?"

  "Away from here!" Kali shouted, already on the move. She tilted her head to the sky. "Sonpear!"

  "You are doing the right thing, Miss Hooper. Avoid physical contact of any kind."

  "I know that, dammit! Can you just get us the hells out of here?"

  "I am endeavouring to prepare a return portal. Continue in your current direction and please be patient."

  "Patient!" Kali repeated breathlessly as she glanced behind her.

  The residuals had formed themselves into one amorphous mass that was pursuing them with even greater speed. What was worse, they seemed no longer content simply to chase. From within the mass they were hurling or firing the weapons they wielded and, disturbingly, they shot ahead of the mass in whip-like tendrils before snapping back to their owners to be launched at them again and again, narrowly missing each time.

  "What the hells are those things?" Pim shouted. "Remember I'm only getting half this conversation."

  "Er, can we go into that some other time?" Kali requested in a slightly higher pitch than normal.

  She ducked as a hail of elven arrows pierced the air where her head had been a moment before, petering out into wisps ahead of her before, again, snapping back. Pim's question had raised one of her own. Namely why it was that Domdruggle's assistants - if she was right about the time he had conjured the Expanse - possessed such archaic weaponry. She could only put it down to some kind of race memory manifestation of their forms. It didn't really matter, though, did it? What did matter was that they were deadly and were not going to miss for much longer.

  Kali muttered something as she continued to run, still seeing no escape route ahead of her.

  "What?" Pim asked, breathlessly.

  "Oh, just reflecting on something Sonpear said."

  "What?"

  "Just that this is a farking big pin."

  "The portal is forming now, Miss Hooper," Sonpear advised. "Please try to stay alive a few moments longer."

  "Oh, right," Kali responded. She could now see something materialising a couple of hundred yards ahead of her - like a small storm cloud. "Actually, I was going to stop, turn and blow them a kiss."

  "There is no need for sarcasm."

  "Well, for pits sake!" Despite her words, Kali did turn, if only to glance over her shoulder to gauge the gain the residuals had made, and promptly wished that she hadn't. Because something else was materialising behind them, looming over them - s
omething spectral and massive that, in the brief moment she saw it, she could have sworn was a giant face.

  "Pim, I don't want to worry you but -"

  "Now what?" the thieves guild leader said.

  He, too, snatched a glance over his shoulder and promptly turned white. For what Kali had seen was indeed a giant face; gaunt, sunken and haunted. It regarded them hungrily with huge shadowed eye sockets and an oval of a mouth that was slowly widening into an all-encompassing maw.

  It swooped down towards them, clearly intent on sweeping them into that maw. And it roared deafeningly as it came.

  "What the hells!" Pim shouted.

  "Domdruggle, I think."

  "Ah. Run faster?"

  "Run faster."

  The pair of them put on a final, desperate burst of speed and closed the gap between themselves and the now partly formed portal. Kali thought that she could see the interior of the Underlook through it and, despite its current circumstances, nothing had ever seemed so welcoming. The only question now was, would they make it? Because behind them Domdruggle had accelerated beyond the amorphous mass of his assistants and the maw that had been his mouth seemed, like some dislocated jaw, to be stretching unnaturally forward, ready to scoop the pair of them inside. Kali could no longer hear Pim's shouts of alarm as the Expanse seemed now to consist only of a looming darkness and a deafening roar. For a second her own scream of protest at her faltering body was completely lost as the maw drew alongside, and then around, her running form.

  Her last thoughts as the Expanse faded were: Jump now, Pim, now! Sonpear, this had better farking work.

  Suddenly, she could hear herself screaming, and then she was crashing into something hard. The realisation that she was back in the Underlook was interrupted as she felt something collide with her equally hard. She and Pim found themselves in a tangle on the floor, being stared at by a number of the Grey Brigade and Gargassians whose mouths were agape. She was vaguely aware that, across the room, Sonpear was gesticulating madly, managing to just close the portal as a grey and fog-like snout burst through with the haunting echo of the roar that had been deafening her only moments before. Then, it was gone.

  Kali coughed. "Okay, that was interesting."

  "You have a knack for understatement," Pim said, dusting himself down. The thieves guild leader wasted no time in getting back to the business of their own reality, frowning as he listened to the k'nid battering still at the outside of the hotel.

  "How's the situation?" he asked one of his lieutenants.

  "The walls won't last very much longer. Reckon maybe ten minutes or so before they're breached."

  Pim sighed. "Then it's time we took the fight to them." He dumped the bundle of crackstaffs on a table. "These are weapons. Anyone who feels they're up to it, take one. We'll show you how they work in a moment." Pim's men hesitated. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

  "There's another problem," Sonpear announced, stepping forward. "The fireballs, the k'nid, they did something to your friend. He went crazy when the turret room exploded, changed. And he went outside, as if looking for revenge. The old man's out there in the middle of the bastards. He's missing."

  Chapter Eight

  Kali had no idea how long she and Pim had been in the Expanse, but it had been long enough for Andon to turn into a full-fledged warzone.

  The city was all but obscured by smoke and dust, filled with the sound of explosions and agonised screams. Her plan to take the fight to the k'nid began as soon as she, Pim and the other volunteers flung open the doors of the Underlook and began blasting their way out of the alleyway. Bolts of blue crackled into the narrow space, filling it with so much magical energy that it was at first difficult to tell whether the crackstaffs were effective against the k'nid. But the gratifying crunch of their blasted and twitching chitinous bodies beneath their feet, as they continued to advance towards the Andon Heart, soon told them what they wished to know. Their fight had just got a little more even.

  Kali and the others burst into the marketplace and fanned out, beams lancing out to take down the k'nid who had made it their business to consume the market stalls. Their targeting was not random, each shot chosen quickly but carefully, and Kali found herself impressed by the marksmanship of Pim and his men. K'nid after k'nid were blasted, screeching, scuttling and dismembered. She supposed the dexterity of hands trained to slip a wallet from a pocket, without a hint it had ever been there, had other uses, too.

  She wished only that the same were true of the Three Towers. The spires continued to blast away above them and this close to the structure, in its very shadow in fact, she could feel the raw power. A power that made her limbs feel weak and her brain tight. Such power did not, however, stop those k'nid who had chosen the towers as their target from flinging themselves at its sides. As she watched they joined an earlier assault wave, working away at the tallow-like walls to find a way to the mages inside. Kali debated giving the mages a helping hand by blasting the k'nid away, but only for a second. As far as she was concerned the League could stand or fall by its own devices, as they had so callously left the people outside to stand or fall by theirs.

  The marketplace cleared, Kali and the others moved on into the streets where they split up to cover the warren of small streets and alleyways individually.

  As she worked her way along one such street, Kali could hear the discharge of crackstaffs echoing all around her, and she smiled slightly at the damage that was obviously being meted out. Firing as she moved, her attention was nevertheless split between the next target and the location of Merrit Moon. She thought she caught sight of the old man - in his ogur form - once, but only as a possible presence amidst a small hill of swarming k'nid who were being batted and tossed aside. The chaos of the streets, however, prevented her from reaching him before he had moved on, leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Soon after, their paths almost crossed once more - but this time the old man's presence was announced only by a prolonged and savage roar of fury that was carried to her from beyond the rooftops, a street or maybe three away. By this time, however, Kali was beginning to realise that she had other, more relevant concerns.

  The fact was, the sound of discharging crackstaffs that had been so prevalent not so long before was lessening somewhat. What was worse, she was beginning to hear cries of alarm and screams that she somehow knew came from Pim's people.

  It did not take her long to work out why. The alarm bells from the city walls were ringing again and, glimpsed in streets all around her, Kali saw more k'nid were entering the fray, flocking to their unnatural brethren and bringing reinforcements into the battle that seemed inexhaustible. She and Pim and his people had made a difference in the defence of the city, but the fact was there were just too many of the creatures and more were coming all the time.

  "We have to pull back!" Kali shouted to one of Pim's men as he stumbled out an alleyway nearby, his crackstaff firing into the shadows.

  The thief looked at her, his face desperate, and Kali staggered back as she realised half of it was a bloody mess, all but gone.

  "They just keep coming," he gasped. "There's no stoppi -"

  As he spoke, two k'nid sprang from the alley and enveloped him. In the time it took his face to crumple in horror he was no more than a pile of steaming bones on the ground. Kali could do nothing but fire off a couple of bolts in retaliation and then, as more k'nid poured from alleyways and began to pursue her, she turned and ran. All she could do was try to carry the message to Pim and the others herself now.

  Spinning occasionally to fire her crackstaff at the pursuing k'nid, Kali raced along the street, weaving from side to side as the fireballs from the Three Towers continued to pummel down, obliterating buildings all around her and forcing her to duck or roll as great chunks and shards of stone exploded across her path.

  Damn the League, she thought.

  They actually seemed - probably in increasing desperation - to be intensifying their bombardment and if their self pre
servation protocol continued like this, they'd be responsible for as many Andonian deaths as the k'nid themselves.

  And she'd be one of them if she didn't get into some kind of cover soon.

  Kali dodged into a side alley but there found herself tripping over her own feet, her route blocked by a man busied with another pack of k'nid streaming in from its other end. He was holding his ground well but, whoever he was, he wasn't one of Pim's men and he wasn't using a crackstaff to defend himself. In fact, he wasn't using any kind of weapon at all, except himself.

  Bursts of fire, ice and magical energy roared and cracked from his fingertips, wielded against his attackers to devastating effect. She'd seen shadowmages at work before - mainly using their magics against her - but never one who handled the threads with such absolute confidence, dexterity and power. Tall and becloaked - with a handsome, if weather beaten, face visible beneath the hood - he wove complex patterns with his hands that seemed less the result of years of dedicated training than a natural, instinctive affinity with the craft.

  "Nice handiwork," Kali said, running to his position. K'nid followed her in, thrashing at her heels. Too many of them.

  "You, too," the man said. "Saw you earlier - some of the moves you pulled off. Look out!"

  Kali span, firing burst after burst at the k'nid and found herself pressed back to back with the stranger. She could feel him lurch with each magical bolt that he unleashed and they balanced each other as she expended the power of her crackstaff.

  "Yes, well, I seem to have a peculiar knack for what I do," she shouted over her shoulder.

  "Me, too."

  "The name's Kali Hooper."

  "Lucius Kane."

  "Pleased to meet you, Lucius. But unless we break this up and get the hells out of this pitsing bottleneck, we're stuffed."

  "Not quite the language I'd use to describe our present predicament, but wholeheartedly agreed. Ideas, Miss Hooper?"