Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God

by Scott Duff

  Pointing the masqueraders, I asked, “Who are you?”

  Bishop was startled by that question. The entire room tensed. I had their attention, but not in a good way. Whoever this was had more time here than I had to wheedle his way into their confidence and the complacency spell had worked its magic well.

  “Seth, what are you doing,” the fake-Kieran asked calmly. He had the voice down, but Kieran wasn’t quite that condescending to me.

  “Oh, you’ve done a good job, I admit,” I said to them. “The look, the mannerisms, the voices. The façade is very good, but you’ve missed a few points that I would recognize. All his brothers would recognize. So, who are you?”

  He sighed heavily, just like he was dealing with a petulant teenager. I really hated this guy now. “Seth, just because we had an argument is no reason to act up in public. Let’s talk about this in private.” He moved in at us with not-Ethan as if their presence was enough to move the three of us, and if it had actually been them, we probably would have moved. I ignored them.

  “My second question, Mr. Bishop, is why are there fourteen elves in this room?” I asked. That most definitely got his attention. He touched the wards, firing the room’s search spells. He didn’t find anything.

  “I don’t see any,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes vacant.

  “Well, then,” I said, staring at the fake Kieran. “Let me prove both of my points.”

  I called the weapons forward and the armor sprang into being around me. Ferrin and Peter moved out beside me. Instead of waving a sword or shooting elves, I started shouting words I didn’t know I knew, just a few. Roughly translated, the words meant, “You are not who you claim to be. Rip away what lies on top and show what lies beneath.” Not the most poetic words in the world but swells of power came from me and hit them, ripping at the shell of reality that wrapped around them. This wasn’t a normal veil employed. It couldn’t be. That would have been instantly seen by any number of people. And their auras had to be subsumed somehow.

  The pair were slammed back against the shields I held on the dais—the second sure sign to me that they weren’t my brothers. The spell ate their façade quickly and showed the outer appearance of two elves underneath. Then it continued to eat at them as it searched deeper to find their hidden auras in their bodies, looking for their master, but I already knew the answer to that. I released the dais and they slumped to the floor, turning black and crispy as the spell continued to work on the tall forms.

  The room was suddenly a madhouse.

  The other fourteen elves in the room were a different matter. The overlap from my spell hit them and their veils fell in an instant. The elves were shown in living color, a full head taller than everyone else. Peter and Ferrin attacked in concert with each other. While my brothers’ look-a-likes were melting and Bishop was freaking out, I rose up into the wards and seized control. It was, unfortunately, incredibly easy to do. Not that Bishop’s security wasn’t good enough. Someone’s attack plans were better. It had already started. It looked like we were the final eggs in their Easter hunt. Once I’d been placed in the grass, they’d started. We just hadn’t known.

  We were already under attack. Slowly but surely the wards were being either bypassed or they had failed already. I killed off the spells that would interfere with defense, like the complacency spell. There were about a hundred of them, mostly cosmetic. I started to fortify the house’s sensing ward when I felt an elf sneaking his way into the wards through a crack in one of the maintenance systems. I sent a rising spike of energy back along that connection. It probably didn’t kill him, but he or she would have a nasty headache for a while.

  “Bishop!” I yelled. “Take the wards! I need to be down here!” I let go, calling for the Day and swinging it down and left, cutting the elf writhing in pain in front of me in two. Swinging it backhanded again, I hit the fake Ethan across the middle, eviscerating him. I jumped over the dying elves to the edge of the dais and pulled the Crossbow, firing twice at two elves trying to exit the room. They both crashed to the ground with emerald green Bolts through the backs of their heads.

  “We’re under attack!” I heard Bishop yell.

  “No shit!” answered Ferrin from the crowd. He’d managed to kill two on his own and two with Peter’s help but they were too far away from each other now. “Everybody down!” he yelled, gathering a huge yellowing sphere of power in his hands. People everywhere around him were dropping to the floor in panic. Unfortunately so were the elves. They were still tossing veils around and making it hard for the humans to tell the difference between them. Causing hesitations. I helped Ferrin out by slipping the Stone’s power underneath the elves in his vicinity and tossing them up in the air a few feet. Ferrin loosed his spell with a savage snarl, then dove to the right, narrowly missing a dagger thrown from several yards away.

  The man who threw it suddenly found himself traveling a similar path when Cahill picked him up and threw him overhead and into the far wall, snapping his back in several places when he hit. Ferrin’s spell hit three targets, lighting the room vividly. Another man flew into the air. Gordon, this time, protecting his father’s back. Damn, the Cahills were strong men.

  I pulled Harris’ trick. Three elves left in the room, three bolts fired. That gave me a few minutes to isolate the human traitors, five in all. That’s really all we had, a few moments. We were still under attack, elves on the outside. This battle had taken less than five minutes and we had sixteen dead elves—I hadn’t counted the fake Kieran and Ethan among my previous count—five traitorous humans, four dead mages, and twenty or so wounded. No one I knew was on any of those lists, but this room was reasonably safe now.

  “Peter, Ferrin, we have to go outside now,” I yelled, heading for the doors. I glanced back at Bishop before I left the dais. He was on his hands and knees, fighting for control of the wards. It looked like he was losing.

  I pushed up into the wards again and found the battle of wills going full force. Bishop was good, but so was the elf he was fighting. I finally understood why the elves were afraid of taking on human mages. We could push back when we had to, Bishop was showing that. If I tried to take the fight away from him, though, I’d crash the whole system of wards and we’d be relatively defenseless.

  Tracing the paths the elf traveled might lead me to him, though. Damn, this was getting harder and I was getting tired.

  “Felix, Gordon!” I yelled, locating them in the crowd. I wrapped portals around the five traitors and tossed them roughly into a corner of the room far from an exit. “Take care of them! Help us outside if you can!” I pointed at the corner then turned to the exit again. I’d done everything here I could do. Time to take the battle outside.

  Ferrin and Peter met me at the door to the gardens, opposite to the doors we came in. Peter was holding Ferrin’s right shoulder, concentrating. When he pulled away, he wiped Ferrin’s blood on his shirt. The rip showed the eight-inch cut beginning to scab over and the blood congealing quickly. I grimaced. Thankfully, neither of them could see that through the armor.

  “You sure know how to crash a party,” Ferrin said, nearly giggling. He was translating the adrenaline surge and fear into humor.

  “Glad you’re having a good time ‘cuz we’re not done yet,” I said, patting his good shoulder. “You ready for round two?”

  “With the rock you gave me? Definitely,” he giggled this time. I had a feeling that there was a drug reference in there somewhere.

  “We have to find the elf that’s attacking the wards,” I said, looking out over the balcony railing. “Bishop’s fighting him for them now, but if I interfere, they’ll crash and we’re all toast. Near as I can tell, he’s down there somewhere.” I point out into the darkness. Much of the grounds was lit, but there were several areas that either weren’t lit at all or the lights had been taken out.

  I tapped into the wards again to see the battle still waging. The power flow through the ley lines indicated the elf was southeast o
f us somewhere. I jumped off the balcony with Peter and Ferrin close behind me. We were at a definite disadvantage here. Unknown to both sides of the battle, we’d be seen as enemies by both and would have to defend ourselves, but we could only attack the most obvious enemies, the elves. At least until Bishop got control of the wards again. Then he’d have more control of his side, though not perfect control. Of course, the elves knew this, too, so they wore camouflaged forms and auras. Avoidance was my goal as we ran down a path through the garden.

  Ducking down different trails, I kept us close to the house until we neared the edge of a small inlet for the pond that spread out further back. The whole area was crawling with elves. The one fighting for the wards was sitting in a small utility shed hidden behind a tree, barely visible. He was heavily shielded so a Crossbow attack wouldn’t work. We’d have to go in.

  “Mike, please remember you’re not bulletproof,” I whispered in the dark. “I’d like you to see Ian graduate.”

  “These people have their way and he won’t see it either, Captain Buzzkill,” he whispered back. Two elves were sneaking up behind us, silently and effortlessly, arrogantly certain they had us. When I turned sharply and thrusted, forming the Swords as I moved, that arrogance turned to shock for the split second they remained alive. The swords took everything they had to offer. Surprisingly, the Day Sword didn’t light up the surroundings as it normally did. I sent the Night to its sheath.

  Peter looked around in the dark, then grabbed one of the nearest trees, grinning. “Everything’s related, isn’t it?” he asked quietly, pushing a light green energy down through the base of the tree. He glowed ever so slightly the same color and he grinned. “I see you,” he called out softly in a singsong voice and shook the tree hard. For twenty yards around us, all the trees shook hard, too, as if we were in an earthquake and that tree was the epicenter.

  We heard thumps and crashes in the tall trees around us, and Ferrin and I took off running in different directions, laughing at Peter. Elves were falling out of the trees to our left and right, too dazed from hitting branches on the way down to do much. If this weren’t so ghastly, it’d be fun. We managed to kill about twelve of them as I headed down the trail to the shed.

  Whoever this was, they were expecting to come up against me. One of the elves had cast a strong spell locking space in the area. It wouldn’t last long, but it effectively cut me off from using portals. It didn’t affect bringing the weapons in and out of my cavern, which told me that it wasn’t a related action, another thought for later. That told me someone had been watching me recently. Or maybe they just didn’t want me escaping easily. Still, it was one less weapon in my arsenal.

  I was closer to the shed now and got a better look at the elf. There was one, a female, sitting at the front, too. The shield was blocking the Quiver’s targeting. I could see elves around the shed, but not the two physically sitting against it. That probably meant there were two more on either side and some on the inside, too. I needed something like what Peter just did. No, wait. I needed Gordon.

  I turned and ran back up the path to Peter. He was heading to meet me, limping, his thigh bleeding. Grabbing his shoulders, I pushed my thoughts down into his body, down into his leg. He’d already closed the wound but it would tear open again if he kept the running up.

  “Where’s Ferrin?” I asked.

  “Hurt, fifteen yards back on the left,” he answered, breathing hard and in pain. “You get him?”

  “Not yet. Need Gordon,” I said, picking him up like a baby and ran the fifteen yards. “Where is he?”

  “There,” Peter said, pointing behind a tree and bushes. I could barely see his feet in the dark.

  “Mike!” I called. His aura wasn’t as bright as it had been and he wasn’t conscious. I wrapped a portal around all of us and moved us back to the balcony, knocking a man I didn’t know into the railing. Peter grabbed him by his jacket before he fell over the side. I stepped quickly into the ballroom, melting the helmet. “Medic! I need a medic NOW!” I yelled. Every person in the room shut up and turned. Peter followed me into the doorway and stopped there. “Gordon Cahill, where are you?” I yelled next.

  “Here!” he called from the corner of the room that I left the traitors in. He stood beside his father. I jumped over.

  “I need an earthquake, Gordon, like on the side of the road the other day,” I said quickly. “I’m going to take you to some woods to a path and we’re going to start running. We have about twenty yards to run. At the end of the path is a small shed next to a pond. On each side of the shed is an elf helping to hold a shield around this shed. I need to destroy that shed. Can you do it?”

  “I’ll try,” Gordon said.

  “We’ll both go,” Cahill said.

  “No!” Gordon objected. “You’re needed here.” I didn’t have time for the argument. I grabbed Gordon and moved us directly from the ballroom. I gave him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the light then started running. Gordon was right behind me. With every footfall, Gordon gathered power. After only ten yards, he was thunderous behind me. Another five and I couldn’t even hear my own feet hitting the ground. When the shed came into sight, Gordon leapt up straight into the sky and planted both feet hard onto the ground and released the pent up power with a word, focusing his intent on the shed. I felt the surge under me, fighting to break free of the sine wave Gordon had created to dissipate through the ground. Instead, it gave in to him and flew up to the surface and hit the bottom of the shed.

  I leapt through the air and called the Night. Gordon’s power ripped through the bottom of the shed, blowing the sides out and slamming the elves on the outside against their own shields. They were pulverized in a tenth of a second. Their protection failed and I flew through without a hitch. The Night Sword hit the shield that I expected inside the shed, but it was feeble by comparison. The Night pierced it like a soap bubble. Then it pierced the temple of the elf controlling it just as easily. I wrenched my arm twisting the elf’s head around in the tumble and pulling the epee free. A small price to pay for me.

  Gordon killed five in the miniature earthquake, four in the perimeter of the shed and one inside. I got the other, the one vying for the wards. He ran up to me, skirting the mess that was the shed. The only thing discernible about the shed was the elf I’d killed. Everything else was pulped. The ground still rumbled and shook and the pond behind us rippled in the moonlight.

  “Excellent, Gordon,” I said, panting on the ground. “Exactly what we needed.” The Day shifted me hard to the left as an arrow narrowly missed me. I shielded Gordon with my own power and shot the elf from the tree without looking. I doubt the elf even saw me pull the Crossbow from my back and return it. The Bolt returned to the Quiver and we moved on regardless, albeit slowly. That took a lot of energy out of both of us.

  Running up a different path to the house, we still faced a gamut of attackers. Space around us this close to the house was still too thick to allow portals, so we ran. My training with Ethan was as effective as the Day’s guidance. Rounding a turn on the path, the Day twisted me right, missing a strike from a staff. I rolled and dipped further right, avoiding yet another strike from the same elf. Continuing to roll, I jumped up and left, regaining my feet and facing my opponent. I was trapped in a circle of four. Behind me, Gordon was similarly trapped by another three elves waving short swords or long rods. My opponents alternated between long staves banded in bronze at irregular intervals and long, very sharp swords, reminiscent of the Night but nowhere near as beautiful.

  They circled me slowly, neither opening nor closing the gap between us.

  “So, MacNamara has decided to go public with his enmity, huh?” I asked the lead staff elf. He cocked his head slightly, saying something in his own tongue. “Won’t work, elf. Feigning a lack of knowledge won’t help you. I know better.”

  The staff elf grinned evilly at me and began circling again. The elf at Gordon’s back decided to strike. With my eyes still on my staf
f elf, I whipped my hand between my shoulders, ripping the Crossbow free, and swinging it back. The sword elf at my back swung out. I fired, then sent the Crossbow back between my shoulders. Completing the follow through, I called the Night and twisted my body right to meet the other swordsman. With a parry and a twist, the Night Sword bit the elf’s magic, severing his connection to the metal. I’d have to ask someone what that did. At the moment all I knew was he was in agony.

  In front of me, the first swordsman’s follow through swept through the plane of the Crossbow’s path, not mine. Either way, he missed. And the staff elf was attacking at my back but short of where I was. They were trying to destroy the weapons. Or maybe disarm me. I brought the Day up into my right hand and swung back down hard, decapitating the sword elf and breaking the snippy staff elf’s stick into toothpicks in one sweep. Gave him a nice long cut along his jaw, too.

  “That’s what you get for bringing a stick to a knife fight,” I said to the elf, looking back and forth between them. The fourth one, the second staff elf of my group, had been actively blocking my shot at Gordon’s attacker. This had been a concerted feint. The top quarter of his staff was missing now. Apparently, they had underestimated the power of the Crossbow and the magic of how the Bolts found their targets. Elves get really attached to their weapons as he was in shock over the partial destruction of his toy. Freaky.

  “Gordon, you doing all right over there?” I called, casting out into the bushes in case they had backup. I still held a shield up around Gordon and very aware of his condition.

  “I’m good,” he growled. “See what Peter means about you grabbing all the glory. Three in your group and one in mine? Glory hound.” His back was clear now. Once I killed the sword elf, Gordon fired fast successive shots of dark violet rings of concussive force at both staff elves he faced, but he concentrated on the right most one. I got busy at that point.

  “To be fair, I only killed one of mine and dazed the other three,” I called back. “I may be calling for help again.”