My muscles tightened with apprehension as I waited for our enemy to make the first move.
“Should we charge him?” Richard’s voice whispered into comms. He was speaking too softly for the enemy knight to hear him.
“No,” I whispered. “Let’s wait. Keep him talking. As soon as he lets his guard down, I’ll lead the charge. You three circle him.”
The other squires nodded while the Rutheni knight smiled lopsidedly at us. “Having a good chat? What’s your plan of action?”
I sneered at the man as I remembered the boy who’d given me the action figure. In his conversation with Moses, this Rutheni had shown no remorse when he’d spoken of killing the innocent nobles.
He was a monster.
But he’d also gotten himself locked inside the armory, and the other Rutheni knights had left him behind.
The man’s demeanor was messing with my mind. I couldn’t determine whether he was an idiot who believed himself a play director, or whether he was a powerful warrior who cared little about the presence of four squires.
He could be both.
I’d been through enough shit to know we needed to be careful. I wasn’t going to charge until the knight gave me an opening, or he attacked us first.
“I never thought four Caledonian squires could slay a Bane Bear,” the knight continued as he looked around the armory with a bored expression. “I guess the Demiurge’s light shines on cretins every once in awhile.”
“Fuck your god,” Neville spat.
I was surprised at the squire’s fury, but then the Rutheni knight’s bear had almost seared through Neville’s brain with its molten saliva.
The knight tutted. “Now, that’s not very nice. My god was the one who granted me the power to summon his minions from beyond the void. This play’s current act hasn’t proceeded in the manner I envisioned. I thought perhaps I might rewrite it and spare four amateurs a gruesome death, but then you decided to curse the Demiurge. Let’s see how you fare against another of his creatures.”
“He’s gonna try and open a summoning portal!” I yelled as I sprinted toward the enemy knight. I wasn’t entirely confident we could all take him, but it would be much easier trying to fight him alone, so we had to stop him from summoning.
The man’s cackling filled my ears as he suddenly disappeared. My thermal detector couldn’t see where he was, but I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of movement in the armory. A hanging helmet shifted slightly, and I thrust my rapier toward it.
“There!”
Before I could rush the knight, there was a buzzing noise, and the area I had indicated burst with blue light. A portal opened, and a Bane Bear started to step out from it.
I heard a whizzing sound from behind me, and a blue object zipped through the air and slammed into the bear before it could completely enter the armory. I realized the newcomer to the fight was a Lightning Sprite, but this one was much larger and more fierce than the ones I summoned earlier today.
In one quick movement, the sprite tore out the bear’s jugular with its razor talons. Molten blood drenched the sprite, and the creature squealed as it exploded into flames before disintegrating into ash atop the bear’s corpse.
“That’s no fun,” the Rutheni knight said as he appeared behind the two dead summons. “Who summoned the Lightning Sprite?”
I glanced over my shoulder and recognized the person responsible.
Emeric.
The Aquitanian shield knight grinned at the Rutheni knight. Blackened patches spotted his crimson tabard, and lacerations marred his bulky power armor.
“We need to get out of here,” I said to the squires beside me. “We can’t take on two knights.” We’d tried to do that earlier today in the alley, and only pure luck had gotten us out alive.
“Fucking Aquitanians!” the Rutheni knight who’d summoned the bear screamed. His face bulged with pure rage, and he seemed to forget all about us. The Rutheni and Aquitanians shared a bloody rivalry stretching back millennia, and I guessed this knight was ready to settle some scores.
“Hello, squires,” Emeric said as his eyes fell upon us. “I couldn’t let this Rutheni fool’s monster kill you. Your lives belong to me, and I intend to--”
The Rutheni knight screamed and charged past us to meet the other knight.
Emeric cleaved the air with my lightning mace, but the weapon bounced off the Rutheni knight’s bear shield. They started a vicious round of strikes and parries, and I could barely look away as the two titans clashed. Then I realized that we had the perfect opportunity to escape.
“Go!” I ordered the other squires with a shove.
The three men sprinted through the doorway the bear had blasted a hole through, and I trailed behind them. Before I exited the room, I took one last look at my lightning mace. Emeric slammed the weapon into the other knight’s shield, and a spray of lighting danced through the air. It was hard leaving the weapon behind, but I preferred leaving with my life.
I led the squires through a dozen turns before stopping beneath an archway. The length of this corridor was illuminated by a narrow floodlight, so I slipped into a nook to remain unseen by thermal recognition. The squires shuffled along beside me until they too were hidden beneath the cover of solid walls.
“We can’t keep running without knowing where we’re going,” I said.
“Maybe we should just stay here and wait for this thing to blow over. I’m a little worried about more enemies confronting us. We barely defeated the bear,” Nathan said as he craned his neck and peered down the passageway. “Emeric could have brought more of his knights with him, and that’s forgetting all about the original Rutheni knights.”
“And their soldiers,” Richard added. “Not to mention one of those knights fighting in the armory is going to kill the other, and then the survivor will hunt us down.”
I turned to Neville. “You want to add anything?” The other two men seemed consumed with fear and worry so I didn’t expect him to be any different. We’d barely gotten out of the armory alive, after all.
Richard retracted his visor, and his expression hardened. I’d never seen him look so serious. “I’ll go wherever you tell me to go.”
I was taken aback by the squire’s words, and my head flooded with gratification when they hit home. He was trusting me with his life.
“Aye,” Nathan said. “I’m not gonna be left behind. Where to next, Nick?”
Neville stared at me for a few seconds, and then he sighed as he agreed. “I’ll follow wherever you lead.”
I swallowed back my stomach bile and nodded at the others. The responsibility was a great weight, and I wasn’t sure I could live up to their expectations.
But I didn’t have a choice.
The squires were relying on me to get them out of this mess unharmed.
“We’ll figure this out,” I said. “We need to get back with our team.”
I touched my comms activator and opened the channel to the knights. “Moses, sir, are you still fighting the Rutheni? I believe there are also Aquitanians within the maze.”
“We know,” Moses said. “We’re battling them as well as the damned bears.”
“It’s my kind of party!” Olav shouted over comms.
“Of course it is. Endless battle in a dark dungeon. Friend Olav, my parties involve beautiful women and beer,” Flanagan said with a snort.
“The point is, we are winning. These Rutheni might have more money than us, but it doesn’t make up for their terrible fighting ability.” Olav made a grunting sound, and I heard someone scream across the comms.
“We are winning. For now,” Moses added. “What’s the situation with you, Nick?”
“We managed to escape from two knights fighting in the king’s treasury,” I said.
“A Rutheni and an Aquitanian?” Moses asked.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“You kill them?” Olav snapped.
“No,” I said, and I wasn’t looking forward to what I knew
was coming next.
“Looks like you have an advantage,” Moses said. “You’re not gonna like this, but you need to go back there and take out the survivor once they finish fighting. Otherwise, he’s just going to heal and then come after you. Four squires won’t be able to stand against a fresh knight. The Tachionese troops will be arriving any minute now, and you’ll take down this knight by the time they get here. Understood?”
“Sir, I don’t think--” The line went dead before Richard could finish.
“Fuck!” Nathan exclaimed as he punched the wall. “How are we meant to take out those knights? You didn’t mention to Moses that they’re both summoners.”
“You think his orders would be different if he knew?” Richard demanded. “So, you guys have any ideas for an epitaph? I’m thinking, ‘Drank too much. Partied too hard. Then he died.’”
“What’s an epitaph?” Nathan asked.
“The cutesy line they write on a tombstone,” his brother responded.
“Ah . . . “ Nathan paused for a second as realization set in, and then he shook his head vigorously. “No epitaphs for me. I’m not planning on dying today.”
“Good,” I said.
“So we’re going back to those knights?” Neville asked.
“Our superior has given us an order,” I said. “None of us might have wanted to get assigned to the Stalwart, but we’re still members of the Royal Trident Forces. We don’t ignore orders.”
“You really think we can kill one of those knights?” Nathan asked. “I already said I’d go wherever you told me to go, and I don’t break my word, but your idea about the shaft didn’t turn out too well.”
“It would have if you laid off the cakes,” Richard mocked.
“Hey, I’ve got big bones!”
“Emeric found us once,” I said. “If he manages to kill the Rutheni knight, then he might find us again. We can’t wait for that to happen. Whichever knight wins, should be in a bad way after the fight. It’s like Moses said, we need to take him down before he can use a medkit to patch himself up.”
Silence rippled across the squires as they registered the truth of my words.
Moses had given us an order, and we would carry it out.
Chapter 21
After navigating the labyrinth’s passageways, we returned to the armory in time to see Emeric grip the Rutheni knight’s throat with his right hand and lift him from the ground.
The shield knight squeezed, and I heard the other man’s neck snap with a sickening crack.
Emeric tossed the dead knight aside and grunted. Although his back was to me, I could see a nasty looking gash on his right hamstring, and he seemed to have difficulty putting any weight on it. The laceration slashed down the knight’s leg, rending power armor and the flesh beneath it.
“He’s injured,” I whispered. “Look at his leg.”
“Ah, squires!” Emeric said as he turned to face us with a grin twisted in pain. “You’ve saved me the trouble of hunting you down.”
“I want my hammer,” I demanded as I stared at the glowing weapon in the knight’s left hand. I was surprised my voice sounded as brave as it actually did.
“If you want it, you will have to take it!” Emeric thrust the weapon up, and a lightning bolt cleaved the air in two. A lightning sprite burst through a magical cavity. The knight slashed the mace downward, and a second portal opened with a blue flash, summoning another lightning sprite to join the first.
Even though two sprites had entered the treasury, it didn’t make sense. My hammer’s rune effect was restricted by a cooldown of three minutes and could be used five times before it required repairing. Emeric had clearly circumvented those restrictions. He must have possessed some other equipment that enhanced the weapon and increased the cooldown recovery. It also explained why his sprites were at least three times the size of those I’d summoned.
As a sprite screeched and dove toward me, I saw Emeric stumble and fall to the ground. The cut in his leg was deep, but he should have been able to stand. Specialist shield knights were equipped with gear that allowed them to ignore even the worst wounds.
My hammer flickered in the knight’s hand, and I remembered Emeric’s axe had the rune effect which caused insanity after striking an enemy. The database couldn’t retrieve information on the rune’s specialist role, but now I knew why.
The massive man wasn’t actually a shield knight specialist.
He was a lich knight.
It was a role the RTF had banned centuries ago, but apparently, the Aquitanian military didn’t follow suit. Those specialists were capable of sapping the physical and mental strength of their enemies to enhance their own abilities, but they could also use their own energies if the situation were desperate enough.
Emeric must have sacrificed his own physical strength so he could ignore the rune’s cooldown.
It meant he was weakened.
We only needed to deal with the current sprites, and then make short work of the Aquitanian before he could heal himself.
I was driven from my thoughts when a sprite maneuvered past the twins and attacked me. It hit me with a flurry of swipes, and I could only block a few of them. The creature rent my pauldrons with its claws, and I grimaced with pain as the blades pierced my shoulders.
The sprite made for my helmet with a slash of its right claw, and I ducked. The blade-like ends of its fingers scraped against a suit of armor behind me, carving metal like a circular saw.
I rolled along the ground while the creature dove with its sharp toes poised to stab me. Before it could land its attack, I thrust my rapier into the blue monster’s belly, and the end of the blade sank into the creature’s flesh. The sprite beat its wings to carry it up and back. After a moment, it registered the fact that I’d just skewered it with my weapon. The rapier’s Poison rune did its work, and the sprite dropped like a dead fly after three seconds.
I rushed the sprite the three other squires were attacking and cut a hole in its wings with the end of my rapier. Neville drove his blade into the creature’s overgrown belly, and it popped in an explosion of blue ichor.
Emeric summoned another sprite, and my theory was confirmed when the move caused him to groan and lean on a crate for balance. The object seemed to be the only thing keeping him from falling flat on his face.
Now that the squires knew how to take down the sprite, we encircled it and hacked it with our blades. It attempted to fly out of range, but I grabbed a nearby javelin and threw it at the beast. My aim was true, and the weapon impaled the monster as it tried to fly away. The sprite let out a death shriek, falling to the ground as I turned toward the enemy knight.
Blood trickled from Emeric’s mouth as he smiled. “You lads can really put up a fight. The RTF should be proud.”
I marched toward the man, my rapier ready to end his life. Killing an enemy while they were weakened wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t see any other way of taking down such a strong opponent.
Emeric chuckled and slammed his left fist into the floor before I closed the distance. A light burst from his chest armor, and an invisible field stopped me from getting close to him. The skill would require immense amounts of energy to maintain, and he’d made the mistake of fortifying himself in a section of the armory without weapons.
As soon as the knight ran out of energy and his forcefield disappeared, I’d snuff out his life.
“We’ll need to wait until his juice runs out,” I said to the squires. “I can’t imagine him keeping it up for long.”
“. . .No,” Emeric said with as much malice as he could muster, “I’m not done yet.” The shield knight pulled his arm back and slashed the air with the lightning mace. A booming sound and a flash of lightning signalled the entry of a fourth sprite outside the forcefield.
Neville didn’t pause for a moment before engaging this new enemy. He might have been the brunt of jokes and socially awkward, but he was more than capable in a fight. The similarities between this nobleman and Luda
s Barnes were quickly fading.
I skirted around the flying creature as it used its claws to fend off Neville’s swings. The twins joined me, and together we hacked at the sprite. My heartbeat raced as the sprite dashed Richard’s sword from his grip and then clamped its hand-like feet down over his helmet. I knew I had seconds before my friend’s armor was crushed, or he was fried by the creature’s elemental lightning.
I increased my speed from my prot-belt and leapt toward the sprite. I lunged, extended my right arm, and plunged my rapier into soft blue skin. As the sprite twisted in agony, it released Richard’s helmet. The blade’s point slipped out of the sprite’s abdomen while the creature regained its composure in mid-air.
Richard jumped and clutched the sprite by the ankles. The creature vigorously increased the speed of its wildly flapping wings but couldn’t stay airborne with the extra weight. It plummeted like a boulder. With a quick roll and twist, Richard was on top of it. The sprite thrashed in the squire’s grip, and I ran to help him. I couldn’t find an opening for my rapier that didn’t risk skewering my friend, and the other two squires seemed to be caught in a similar predicament.
All we could do was watch as Richard and the sprite wrestled around the armory. The monster was only about four feet tall, but its sinewy muscles rippled with strength. Richard proved the stronger as he gripped the creature between his legs and pinned it to the ground.
“A little help!” he yelled with effort, and I slammed my foot square on the sprite’s skull. Bone shattered with the force of my stomp, and purple brains mashed into the granite floor.
I turned toward Emeric as he lurched to his feet. He must have applied a medkit while we were fighting the sprites because he was now standing on his injured right leg without difficulty.
“Get around him, squires!” I screamed. “We can’t let him arm himself.” I’d seen the enemy knight kill sprites with his bare hands and crush the armored windpipe of another knight, so I knew he was still deadly without a weapon. If he got ahold of a powerful item, then we were all doomed.
Space Knight Page 31
