Advent (Red Mage Book 1)

by Xander Boyce

  The first few steps into the tunnel caused the panic in Drew’s mind to come back. He looked behind him to reassure himself that the sun was still shining. The tunnel was pitch black beyond the glowrock’s light. He wasn’t even sure how Daryl had scouted this place out. He must have done it by touch. He would have to ask the other man how he did it later.

  If they had traveled in silence before, the trip through the tunnel was in something more still than that. The soft scuffing of their boots against the hardened tunnel floor was the only sound anyone heard. Their ears strained trying to pick up any sounds that might indicate the trolls were coming closer to them. Drew wasn’t sure how long they traveled like this. The silence grated on his nerves. He felt like they had been traveling in the semi-darkness for hours, but he assumed it was less than an hour.

  All his senses were on high alert. Looking ahead of them, under the DIA building, was a glowing ley line, like the one that had been under the headquarters building. He judged their distance traveled by how close that glowing node appeared. When it looked like it was only a few football fields ahead of them, Daryl’s aura appeared at the end of the tunnel. Drew held his hand up and everyone behind him stopped. Robbi turned to figure out what had caused the silence and seeing Drew’s hand, stopped as well.

  “The door is just a little bit ahead, no movement there yet. We should probably take a short break,” Daryl’s voice came into his head.

  Drew nodded, whispering to the others, his voice too loud after the long walk in the quiet dark. “Daryl says the door is just ahead, let’s take a minute to eat and drink something. We have no idea what’s on the other side of that door.”

  Trista and Sarah both sat down swinging their backpacks around and pulling some water and snacks out of them. Drew did the same, while Robbi kept his eyes staring forward, the sword in his hands resting against the floor of the tunnel. Drew had no idea how heavy their weapons must have gotten since they had begun their trek through the tunnel, but by the way the two girls were massaging their hands in between bites, it had begun to take its toll. After Drew had a few gulps of water, he swung his pack back on and then relieved Robbi at point.

  Drew idly chewed on some of his jerky while he watched the way ahead. He would miss the meat when it ran out. They did still have some canned chili and soups. They really needed to figure out a way to get some fresh meat soon. It would do wonders for the morale of the group.

  The break was short, none of them really feeling relaxed enough to do more than mechanically chew food and take a few drinks from their water bottles. When Robbi was done, they began to walk again. The door came into sight in short order.

  It looked old, the wood having a darkened quality he associated with ancient church doors. It was clearly something the trolls had created, not something man would have put down here. About five feet across and eight feet tall, its strange proportions marking it out of place for a human building but would have fit with the trolls more bulky frame better. There was no handle or hinges on this side, so Drew assumed there would be guards posted on the far side of the door.

  The plan was to blow the door apart and then storm through, hopefully killing the guards before they could sound an alarm to whatever other trolls were still in the cavern. And Daryl and Robbi stood behind him while he considered the best way to blow it up. It looked sturdy enough. Drew decided he would use a fireball to break it down, then launch a frostfire ball through the hole. Holding up a hand, he pointed it at the door, and then cast the spell.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine — Cage Fight

  The fireball impacted the door, and for a half second Drew thought that it wouldn’t be enough to break through. The shockwave from the explosion pushed him back a step even from where they stood 40 feet back. Dirt flew through the air and he covered his face with his arm, his ears ringing. He blinked away the dirt from his eyes and looked up. Smoke and dirt filled the air where the door had been, and he launched frostfire ball into the gap, intending for it to explode a couple of meters past the door.

  This time the explosion wasn’t anywhere near as potent feeling, due to the concussive force having somewhere to go rather than back down the tunnel he was standing in. Robbi immediately ran past him, his blood sword held at the ready. Drew followed, still trying to blink his eyes clear of the dust while his jaw was working to try and relieve the pressure on his ears.

  Almost tripping over a fragment of door, he cleared the dust cloud and stepped to the right of the door, taking a moment to survey the scene. Two trolls lay on the floor near the door, two more trolls still sat, stunned, at a table. Robbi charged the two at the table, his red sword seemed to grow longer as he held it in a two-handed grip. Drew cast lightning bolt at the farther one, the bolt of electricity hitting it in the chest and sending it and the chair it had been sitting on rolling backward.

  Robbi’s troll put an arm up to block the sword swing. The red sword bit deeply into its arm, cutting more than halfway through before stopping. Robbi kicked the troll in the chest, ripping the sword out of its flesh as the manaborn tumbled out of his chair. A cry of pain and alarm went up but was quickly silenced by two acid arrows Drew shot at his face. The caustic fluid ate away at his mouth instantly. Robbi raised the sword above his head then swung it down, separating the troll’s head from the rest of its body.

  Green blood spurted everywhere, pooling on the floor around the two dead trolls, shards of ice from the frostfire ball and shrapnel from the door having opened a dozen wounds. The headless troll’s body spurted blood in short intervals. Drew just stared at it until the troll’s heart stopped pumping. When he exited the trance, he realized that someone was dry heaving behind him. Turning around, he saw that it was Trista, Sarah holding the girl’s hair and rubbing her back. Daryl and Robbi were already examining the room.

  Two exits ran away from the small room on opposite sides of each other away from the tunnel entrance. A few torches burned around the room, giving off a strange purple light, creating an acerbic scent to the air that combined with the smell of troll blood and charred flesh. It made Drew want to sneeze.

  “Daryl, check the left tunnel. Go a hundred feet and come back if you don’t run into anything,” Drew said while they waited for Trista to get over her first smell of battle. Drew wondered idly who cleaned up all the trolls he’d killed before he collapsed. Probably Daryl; for a vegetarian, that man had seen a lot of burned meat lately.

  Robbi seemed like an old hand at this. Having taken up a position near the right tunnel, he stared into it with his sword held ready. Drew glanced around the room again. None of the trolls were growing xatherite, and aside from having Daryl harvest them for their skin and their weapons, there wasn’t anything worth looting. Sometimes he wished the world was more like video games. He loved pulling two-handed swords out of rabbit loot bags.

  There wasn’t anything else to do here. While they waited, he walked over to Robbi. Forcing himself not to look at several streaks of green blood slowly trickling down the other man’s armor, he looked at the sword. Its clean length still glowed red in the glowrock’s light; Drew wondered where the blood had gone.

  Sound from the hallway Daryl went down caused both Drew and Robbi to turn their attention in that direction. Daryl’s aura made its way into the room, but he didn’t bother to remove his invisibility. “They’re down there, people, dozens of them,” he said, the excitement clear in his voice. “I counted six trolls guarding them.” Without another word he turned and headed down the passage.

  “Wait!” Drew called after him, but the aura was already gone and didn’t reappear. Sarah and Trista had caught up to them, although Trista still looked pale. Drew looked back at the other tunnel and frowned, “Frak,” he cursed, “I wish we could block that entrance somehow, don’t like the idea of having unexplored stuff between us and our exit.”

  Drew was missing Katie, wishing he’d brought her rather than Trista. Logically, he knew that Katie would be needed up with the main group. But i
t would have been nice to know that there wasn’t going to be anything coming up behind him. After about eighty feet they came to a bend in the tunnel that twisted to go towards the glowing ley line core. He had to switch off his aura sight due to how bright the node was now that they were so close to it.

  It felt weird to be without his aura sight; he hadn’t realized how much he had come to rely on it, and everything seemed duller, less full of life now. When they got to an open doorway Drew signaled for everyone behind him to stop while he bent down and poked his head around the corner. He was ready to step back in an instant if it was a trap, although he trusted Daryl to have cleared that far at least.

  Drew had no idea what the room’s original purpose was; rubble along the far edge suggested it might have once been a cube farm, but it had been repurposed. Thick bars of iron stretched from floor to ceiling, creating dozens of six by six-foot cages that each held a captive. Row after row of cages stretched out with eight-foot hallways between them. Drew cursed under his breath. He would have to rely on his three single target spells or risk killing one of the humans.

  There was no sign of Daryl--he was probably wandering the room looking for his wife. Six trolls patrolled the room with another four sitting at a table on the far side. Drew pulled back from the edge of the door and looked at everyone. Taking a few steps back from the entrance, he whispered a description of the room. After a brief discussion, they decided to have Robbi go first, Trista behind him, with Sarah and Drew holding the rear.

  They tried to be quiet, but they were spotted almost immediately. Drew still didn’t have a good line of sight on any of the trolls, but the one that saw them roared, and all ten of the trolls came to alert immediately. Two started down the row they were on and Trista fired a shot. A line of blazing yellow-gold fire bisected the row following the path of the bullet. One troll cried out in pain as the bullet tore through him, the blazing trail of fire carving flesh as he pulled away in pain.

  Drew blinked. It hadn’t killed the troll, but the line of fire remained, and the injured troll swiped at it with his claw. It sliced through the hand, sending green blood and fingers flying. The prisoners in the cages around the injured troll began screaming, filling the room suddenly with sound.

  Drew launched acid arrow. The already injured one took the acid in the chest, falling to the ground silently. The other troll managed to get a hand up to block the projectile. The acid immediately began eating away its hand and it fell to its knees, howling in pain.

  Trista fired another line of glowing fire at the distracted troll. It impacted at center mass and he sliced himself in half trying to get away. Everyone stayed where they were, no one wanting to fight where those glowing bars of fire lingered. Drew turned to watch their back. Thankfully the cells prevented the trolls from converging on them quickly. The captives to either side of him began begging him to open their cells. Swallowing dryly, he tried to ignore them while the fight was still progressing.

  Aeon’s power began tingling at the base of his spine and he pushed it down. He couldn’t afford to collapse again, not here. Ares’ warning also lingered in his mind. There was danger in using that power. Besides, there were only ten, no, only eight, trolls, he corrected himself and the rising power subsided.

  Behind him, two more trolls had rounded the corner and were advancing on the group. With a thought and a flick of his wrist, shocking acid arrows impacted their chests. The lightning caused their muscles to seize while the acid ate their hearts. They died before their bodies could hit the floor. Six trolls left.

  The trolls were shouting to each other over the din, their words spoken in a guttural language that sounded like it would rub his throat raw after two sentences. He glanced over and realized that one of them was making for a second entrance on the other side of the room. “Going after the runner!” he shouted, as he blink stepped through the cages, ending up on a row right next to two trolls. He immediately rolled and shot a cone of frostfire towards the ceiling, catching both trolls head on, but hopefully not hitting anyone in a cage.

  The runner was directly ahead of him, too far away for lightning bolt. With a curse, he jumped back to his feet and began running after the troll. Just as he was getting in range, it turned down an intersection in the cages. He cursed and pushed his legs to give him more speed. He was running full out now, his right hand held out as he grabbed a bar to swing him around the corner without killing his momentum. He blinked, confused as the yellow aura of his mana shield flared for a moment and he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.

  Another troll had come around the corner, a double barrel shotgun in its hands. Drew blasted it with lightning bolt without thinking. The concussive force of the shotgun blast against his mana shield threw him against a cage the blow reverberated against Drew’s skull. He pushed the pain away, and with the fleeing troll in his sight, he launched an acid arrow at its back. The troll ducked right before it would have hit him, and it splattered on the iron bars of a cage instead.

  “Get back here you green bastard!” Drew shouted, and the troll turned to look at him, fear evident in its purple eyes. The prisoner whose cell it was passing pushed out an abnormally long leg, but it managed to trip the troll, sending it sliding along the floor. It was enough for Drew to close the gap and another lightning bolt ended its life.

  Drew turned around; he couldn’t remember how many were left, but he looked for the rest of the group. Trista’s glowing fire lines were easy to find, and he followed them to the source. Robbi was dueling with a troll. The red sword seemed to be sucking in crimson lines of power from the cop’s body, while the troll was leaking green from several cuts all along its body. It appeared to be the last troll standing. Even as he watched Robbi charge the troll, swinging his sword wide, it jumped back directly into one of Trista’s fire lines. It burned a hole halfway through the troll’s skull before it collapsed on the floor.

  Drew scanned the room. He didn’t see any trolls, but he held his ready stance. The humans in the room were divided into three groups. The first two groups were easy to identify, either screaming in terror or hovering close to the edge of their cages watching the fighting with anticipation. He only realized the third group existed after a second. They were usually sitting in their cage silent and staring off into nothing. “Search the bodies, see if we can’t find a key. We’ll get these people out!” he shouted, while he turned to loot the bodies of the trolls in his sector.

  Trista ended up finding the key on one of the two that died first. She began unlocking the cages, while Drew stood near the far entrance looking to see if more trolls were coming. As he passed the cage where the captive had tripped the troll, he paused, and then cast acid arrow on the lock, opening it after a few seconds of metal sizzling.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking at the teenager inside. He was short, a few inches shorter than Drew even. With unruly black hair showing a lighter color at the roots, several piercings dotted his face.

  “Who are you?” The boy asked.

  “IT2 Drew Michalik USCG,” he said with a mock salute. “Go help Trista and Sarah organize the captives. We’re gonna need to move out as soon as possible.” He turned away from the kid then and walked to the doorway, peeking out to ensure they were alone. His fingers found the note in his pocket that Daryl left there. He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then pulled it out.

  Chapter Forty — Battle Lull

  The paper was faded. Drew wasn't sure where Daryl had scavenged it from. There were splotches where it looked like it had gotten wet, which ruined the lines. Whatever he had written on it was written in pencil, so Drew held it up to his glowrock to see better. The handwriting was feminine with a lot of unnecessary flourishes.

  Robbi is using a device to communicate with someone

  he is hiding it from JP I heard him talking about bringing

  a bunch of people in soon and to meet him at the bridge

  said the senator wouldn't notice. – Kara

 
; Drew frowned. Who was Kara? If the note came from someone other than Daryl, it made more sense that he would give Drew the note with its warning, so that he could get it from the horse's mouth so to speak. This was another instance where Drew's lack of interest in the non-combatants was coming back to haunt him. First with Frank and now with Kara. Who were these people? Drew vaguely recalled that there were three or four more women with the group, but he couldn't recall a name for any of them.

  Glancing around to check their progress, the group was a third of the way towards releasing all the captives. The kid that Drew had released now had the key and was in the process of unlocking cages. Several others were helping people out and bringing them to Sarah and Trista, who were organizing them into groups and casting heal on those who had been injured. Robbi had a few of the stronger looking kids gathering the trolls’ weapons and armor. Daryl was nowhere to be seen.

  Drew watched Robbi and considered what he was going to do about him. The note made it sound like he was conspiring against the senator with another group, and that they were going to what? Steal people? Attack Drew's group? Help them across? There wasn't anything particularly damning about the whole thing, other than the fact that Robbi had some sort of cell phone like device he was keeping hidden. The other problem was that he didn't really have a way to do anything about it. They needed Robbi. They needed another dozen people like him, to be honest. Drew was just now beginning to realize the scope of what they were trying to do. They were going to need to escort hundreds of people with six combatants.