Death

by Rosie Scott

  El roc a blockad te risa. I directed the spell just to the side of the god, and a hulking vertical wall of solid stone rose out of the ground. Next, I sunk the earth just beneath his body. The lowered ground showed the buried stone support as it towered over Hinder, waiting for the opportunity to fall.

  “I'm a lover of irony, Hinder,” I told the paralyzed god, directing the bottom of my summoned earthen barrier to turn to sand. I headed behind it, putting the pressure of one boot on the rock as it weakened at its base. “Your love of stone walls indicates you might have appreciated this idea under different circumstances.”

  The rock finally swayed on its base, and I kicked my boot into it, directing it toward the fallen god. “This is for trapping my army in that poison pit.”

  The stone wall fell forward at the mercy of a broken foundation. The pull of gravity was ever stronger with the longer fall and the burden spell I directed into the rock as it toppled over. Heavy stone crashed into the indented crater holding Hinder, crushing him within the land's helpful embrace. Green grasses moistened with a pool of blood. I lifted a hand, seeking life. No energy appeared above my palm.

  I turned back toward the battle, and Azazel tilted his head as he looked over the gruesome scene. “Well, that was creative.”

  “The god of obstruction didn't have lungs strong enough to handle the hindrance of heavy stone,” I mused dryly.

  “Kai...” Azazel trailed off before I heard a huff. “That groaner humor was so bad that I feel like I should fire you.”

  I laughed at his jest as we finished the trek back to Narangar's entrance under the darkness of rapidly approaching night. The giants surrounded all four walls of Hinder's trap, chipping away at the stone and dismantling it as our armies filed through the exit already made. The mountain paths over the entrance were empty of everything other than blood, and Mirage's shriveled corpse was pounding at the doors of the city surrounded by a few others. Hades wasn't in sight, but I assumed the corpses were his.

  Cyrus, Calder, and Hasani were all grouped together at the pass entrance when I arrived, talking as our armies slowly were freed from the barriers. Calder was nude, for he'd already transformed for battle even though he hadn't gotten a chance to fight. Cyrus appeared bewildered, and Hasani was laughing.

  The king of Nahara slapped me on the back and asked, “How in the world did you convince Hades to join us, sister?”

  “I didn't,” I replied, before glancing at Calder. “He was with your reinforcements.”

  Calder shrugged, looking as perplexed as the rest of us. “Hades was wearing Alderi clothing, too. He must have been in the underground and overheard the request for reinforcements. I didn't know he was there.”

  Cyrus caught my gaze. “Hades was against you in Tal, Kai. Why would he be here?”

  “Hades wasn't against me in Tal. He was there to find and kill Ciro. He never made one hostile move against me then, and he even suggested we join each other. Hades said if I helped him kill Ciro he'd help me with my quest, as he called it.”

  “We were allied with Ciro,” Cyrus insisted. “And you didn't help Hades find and kill him. He shouldn't be here.”

  “I don't know why he's here now, but Hades suggested joining forces just before he gave me enervat,” I replied. “And I agreed.”

  Cyrus's eyes widened. “Kai.”

  “What was I supposed to say? No? He wiped out Tal in an hour, Cy. It was because of my protests that he pulled back his minions at all. The last thing I wanted was to give him a reason to kill more civilians. I tried to kill Hades. He let me. He found it amusing. Then I failed. We should count our blessings that he's not here to fight us.”

  Cyrus sighed heavily and looked off to Narangar's entrance, watching Hades's corpses beat at the doors futilely.

  I reached out to hold Cyrus's upper arm in a friendly gesture. “Please don't be angry with me, Cy. I did what I had to at the time.”

  Cyrus shook his head and met my gaze. “I'm not angry with you. I'm just conflicted. Hades had no qualms about wiping out Tal for some petty spat. He's the only god you've tried to kill and couldn't. Hades and his minions went east around the upper path like they will infiltrate Narangar before we do. He could wipe it off the map, and if you protest this to him, you can't be sure he'll hear you. If not, trying to kill Hades could cause mass devastation for our armies. At that point, we might as well consider this war lost.”

  “I hear your concerns, and I share them,” I agreed. “I can approach Hades honestly and without hostility to figure out his intentions. He was open to a partnership last time I saw him; he could be here because I said I was, too. The last thing I want is Hades killing civilians. If I can convince him I need them to help me run this city, he might listen.”

  “So we'll be partnering up with Hades if we can get him to play by the rules,” Hasani commented, his light eyes betraying both concern and amusement.

  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend, brother,” I said, mimicking my words to him from Comercio. “Besides, I won't pretend I can kill Hades. That man has enough power to give each necromancer in all our armies combined highs strong enough to disable them like he did with me. I haven't waged this war for thirteen years just to lose everything by fighting a god no one's ever been able to kill. This war can't end here.”

  Cyrus exhaled heavily at the desperation on my voice. “That's what makes this a scary prospect, Kai. Hades is immortal and he acts like it. Whether or not he likes you, saying just one wrong thing to him could get us all killed.”

  I nodded with agreement. “I'll tread carefully.”

  Hasani chuckled low and shook his head. “I just can't believe the man is still alive. It looks like he fell into a pit of blades and tried to swim out.”

  Calder laughed at that image but said nothing.

  “I'm gonna stay as far away from the bastard as I can,” Maggie spoke up from behind me, where the other Renegades listened. “I'm not gonna forgive what he did to my friends in Tal.”

  I exhaled with stress and nodded, understanding her position. “I'm sorry, Maggie. I didn't plan this.”

  The engineer shrugged off my concerns. “I know, love. Not everybody can be friends during a war. I know plenty about that from our time bickerin' with Eteri. Accept his aid if ya have to. I just don't think me and him is gonna be sittin' down for tea anytime soon, is all.”

  “You said Hades advanced toward the city?” I asked Cyrus, eyeing the upper mountain paths.

  “Yes,” Cyrus replied. “Visha and the others retreated, and Hades followed them.”

  “There's no way up there from here unless you walk around the mountain for a good few hours,” Holter informed me, motioning to the east. “If you want to catch up to Hades, it would probably be quicker to wait until we breach the gate.”

  Cyrus pointed to Hinder's stone prison and said, “I told Marcus we would attempt a breach after he and the other giants dismantle the walls and free the rest of our army. Invading before our entire army is prepared won't do us any favors.”

  “Good plan,” I agreed, before sighing with anxiousness. “In the meantime, let's hope Hades doesn't do more harm than good.”

  Thirty

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Marcus and a few of his giant soldiers bashed the battering ram into the center of Narangar's entrance repeatedly. Our massive armies waited on the plains just outside of the pass, low on energy but recovered from Hinder's earlier obstruction. We'd washed boots and armor of mud, and Hinder's enormous stone walls were in broken pieces and piles of sand. The blackness of night aided by the shadow of surrounding mountains enshrouded the valley. Millions of stars twinkled overhead like tiny beacons, but they weren't bright enough to be helpful for our vision. Not since my campaign in the underground had I led an invading army during darkness. Though Narangar was likely to be well-lit once we were in it, I wasn't taking any chances. I'd commanded the Alderi necromancers to the frontlines. Not only could they see best, but our armies desperat
ely needed to replenish our energy reserves.

  “Again!” Marcus pulled the ram back from the doors, and the giants swung it forward once more. Fracturing metal echoed mutedly behind the massive gate.

  “The contraption is breaking,” Azazel commented in case I hadn't heard it.

  “Ain't no biggie,” Maggie replied, before catching my gaze. “The issue, not the gate. Anything the giants break, I'll fix. It won't be totally broken, anyway. All they need to do is loosen it up with their sweet-talkin' and convince it to open for 'em.”

  “There was something oddly erotic about what you just said,” Cerin mused.

  “Nothin' odd about it,” Maggie replied with a grin. “Just erotic.” As another creak reverberated from the massive entrance, she added, “See? All them flirtations are workin'.”

  I reached up to pat Maggie's arm and said, “Please stay the way you are forever.”

  The engineer chuckled. “Aye. You too, love. It's a lotta fun havin' a boss who's more like a friend.” She snickered, ruffled Azazel's hair from above and added, “Especially 'cause some of us have ya as a friend who's more like a boss.”

  Azazel laughed and shrugged. “I'm a glutton for punishment.”

  A bright, vertical line of light etched through the center darkness of the pass, quieting our armies. The massive doors of Narangar caved to the pressure of the ram, though they were now just slightly open, allowing the city's inner glow to reach the outdoors. Hades's corpses from the ambush blindly rushed through the gap, happy to be granted access to their targets. The residual vibrations of battle cries and screamed orders slipped through the open stone, proving that Hades was fighting. A wave of anxiety flushed through my gut at the thought of trying to reason with him before I forced it out. I reminded myself that Hades had never been hostile to me and had shown nothing but interest in me. I had the advantage.

  Marcus and the others put the battering ram on the side of the pass, and he ordered the giants to align both doors and push. Our armies were eerily quiet as we waited for Narangar to reveal itself. With some mechanical bits of the gate broken, the doors slowly gave into the coaxing of a few dozen of the strongest people alive. Little by little, the city gave its greeting.

  Narangar's gate was at least a dozen stories tall, but its doors did not reach the city's ceiling. The mountain encasing the dwarven settlement was hollowed, leaving gray stone walls and ground on which to build. The ceilings were so high over the city that noise barely echoed. Similar to Olympia, the buildings here were tall and intertwined. Stone and gold skyscrapers stretched to the highest shadows of the cavern, ornately engineered bridges and avenues crisscrossing between them at various heights. Narangar appeared to be thousands of layers deep, for even at its entrance one could catch glimpses of multiple districts on many levels.

  Other than its main street leading from the plains entrance to the harbor, Narangar's roadways were thin and easily cluttered. Because the dwarves trusted the mountain itself to be the city's walls, it contained them in its resting place. Buildings grew up rather than outward, and stone signs gave directions to mines, the local Hall of the Dead, and underground neighborhoods.

  Though it was pitch-black with night outside, Narangar was beautifully aglow. As with any dwarven settlement, it relied on firelight from sconces, braziers, and lamp posts instead of magic. The reliance on gold in the city's architecture furthered its beauty, giving all levels a metallic twinkle. Dwarven ingenuity was evident everywhere in the form of various metal and gear inventions. Bulky iron and gear elevators delivered people and supplies from one level to the next. Heavy metal carts slowly traveled through the air on durable cables, transporting civilians from one section of Narangar to another without forcing them to take longer routes of stairs, ramps, and multiple bridges. Stores boasted various products I'd never heard of: mechanical pets that could move on their own with a press of a button, devices designed to tell time, vacuums claimed to clear a home of floodwater. I couldn't help but wonder if they had invented the latter out of necessity after my tsunami flooded the city eight years ago.

  There were traces of the tsunami's destruction even now. Water damage discolored the lowest stone walls and roads. Most wood furniture and architectural supports were recently replaced, proving that the old wood was damaged and subjected to rot. While homes and businesses kept upper Narangar lively, the city's lowest district was struggling. The tsunami I'd summoned so long ago had not only destroyed the harbor, but the floodwaters had also reached the opposite side of Narangar to where even the valley outside was affected.

  I didn't regret my tsunami, of course; my attack on the harbor had been devastating and pulled Chairel off its western coast to give Eteri relief. It was a necessary decision to aid my advance in this war, and it gave me tremendous success. Even necessary decisions have dissenters, however; I could expect some civilians here to object to my rule until I made amends for the collateral damage. As their enemy, I owed them nothing. As their ruler, I could ignore their needs and claim the throne regardless, but that idea didn't sit well with me. Once I took Narangar, its damaged lowest district would be my first concern.

  For now, the city was out of my control. Dwarven soldiers clad in green swarmed the roads ahead, most wielding melee weapons while others prepared to unleash handheld inventions and poisons. Life magic protected some. Human soldiers held bows and magic spells beside dwarven crossbowmen on bridges and balconies in the higher levels. Celdic and human life mages were sprinkled through the masses as support. Alteration shields protected many dwarves. That didn't concern me too much; they could reject our magic for a time, but a dwarven mage was an extremely rare phenomenon, so our reserves would release back into the air rather than be absorbed by our foes.

  Our largest concern in Narangar would be avoiding poisons and other dwarven alchemy. The city was closed off from the skies, so my antitoxin rains would be useless. Additionally, I assumed Visha was still alive unless Hades had caught up to him. As well as the god of the dead could fight, he was also massively outnumbered here.

  Marcus and the giants charged into the city first. As the ground trembled with their weight, I yelled orders out to my men, encouraging them to target foes with alchemical weapons first. We advanced down the main road, and the necromancers raised the recent dead. Instead of following Marcus and the others toward the harbor, I directed my army to the right at the first major intersection. Not only would this allow me to avoid having my men intermingling dangerously with giants, but I was fairly certain the echoes of Hades's battle were coming from the northeastern section of the city.

  As we came to face an onslaught of foes, I called Nyx over to me. “Do you know where the path Hades took leads into the city?”

  Nyx pointed toward the northeast with a dark finger, confirming my suspicions. “It's a cave-like entrance near the top levels. Winds around to a path that branches off. If Hades is in here, he's probably in the upper neighborhoods.”

  I frowned and tried to see that far into the city, but it was so cluttered with architecture that its far wall was out of my view. “You mean on the bridges?”

  “No.” Nyx flung a throwing star at a dwarven crossbowman who fired into our army from a bridge a few levels above. He fell with a severed trachea. Nyx wrinkled up her nose. “Well, there goes a star. Didn't think that one through.”

  “I wouldn't worry about it. You lost enough of them in Comercio,” I reminded her, referring to how she'd run out while under Amora's influence. Some stars were retrieved, but many were permanently lost.

  “Yeah. Right after you bought me a whole new set, too,” she lamented. “Anyway, there's a ramp of sorts that leads up near the northeastern wall of this city. There are higher neighborhoods that are still on solid rock. The main road leading down through there is the most obvious one and the easiest to access from that cave entrance. Hades is probably using it.” Nyx glanced over at me. “Are we headed there?”

  “We have to be,” I replied. “I need
to talk to him sooner rather than later. Can you lead us?”

  Nyx stared down the road as if trying to compare the image to her memories of the city. “I can try. It's been years since I was here last, and it's a lot rowdier now.” She flashed me a grin.

  “Lead us as best as you can,” I decided. “The closer we get to it, the clearer the path should be.”

  Under Nyx's direction, my army of necromancers progressed slowly through Narangar one intersection at a time until the cavern holding the city echoed with battle from all directions as my allies spread their men throughout its streets. While the foes here were raring for a fight, they were disorganized and frazzled. The gods and generals in Narangar had assumed they'd easily exterminate my army in the ambush; they'd never planned on us making it through the gate.

  The northeastern wall of Narangar's cavern was part of its architecture, for buildings jutted straight out of its misshapen rock alongside a vertically zigzagging smooth path to its upper exit. Golden bridges stretched to this road from the inner city skyscrapers we looked to leave behind us, but they were mostly empty since the soldiers who had traversed them were amid battle. The inner city reverberated with the cries of beastmen, the shouted orders of Hasani, and the war horns of Sentinels. The zigzagged path ahead was much quieter, but not because it wasn't seeing battle.

  Halfway up the wall of paths and homes, just the edges of clouds of black magic erupted over roofs and past corners before seeking life to extinguish. The energy flew back through the streets to its caster. Dwarven battle cries mixed with the hisses of vampires as the creatures aided their master. One dwarf fired a giant repeater crossbow from her location on an overpass, screaming as the silver bolts darted toward the god of the dead. Though I couldn't see Hades from my angle, I saw the bolts fall onto the stone as they bounced off his flesh. The dwarf didn't relent, shooting until her weapon ran out of ammo. She grabbed an ax from her belt and ran to face the god in the streets, but one of his vampires got to her first. It drained her stocky body of fluids, and then it rose to heed Hades's next recruitment request.