The Akorell Break (The Mortal Mage Book 2)

by B. T. Narro

  “It has to be akorell metal,” Basen said triumphantly. “Yes, I can feel the bastial energy.”

  So could Desil. They found it on the ceiling after walking around a wide pillar. But the excitement started to dwindle as Desil began to piece together how their group was supposed to separate it from the ceiling. There was no way around what they would have to do, and it would be hours of tough work.

  Another distant roar gave Desil a quick panic and set everyone into motion. They positioned the ladder underneath the akorell. It was fortunate the ceiling wasn’t as high here as in most other places, but it still would be a reach.

  “I’ll go first.” Desil started up the ladder before anyone could object. He felt that he could work fast until he tired, and then someone could take over. He started with one of the mining picks, hammering away, but had to do so without looking up because the metal was too bright for his eyes from this close.

  With hard swings, he worked away the edge of the rock around the akorell metal. His arm tired after the better part of an hour, so he stepped down for Adriya to take his place.

  Panting, he couldn’t believe miners would work all day at this, and they usually had to dig much deeper to get at the valuable resources hidden away within mountains. Leida took a turn after her father, but after a few misplaced swings and nearly falling off the ladder, she realized this wasn’t her specialty and stepped down. Desil glanced at Beatrix, wondering if she wanted a try, but she shook her head. Kirnich wasn’t able to with his injury, so Desil went back up.

  He, Adriya, and Basen took turns for hours. The akorell metal eventually started coming down in large chunks. It didn’t crack as it hit the ground, but Basen opted to break off a piece by force that he wrapped in a cloth and pocketed.

  “Now we can make a portal from here whenever we want,” he said.

  As they worked to get the rest of the akorell metal down, Desil wondered if this place was where they would be for the next few days. The thought was hard to stomach. He already missed the sun and especially the fresh air.

  “How much more do we need?” Adriya asked when they had finally removed the last of the glowing metal. It lay on the ground between them. Desil could feel its potential. Leida and Basen were drawing out the bastial energy trapped within the blocks before them, but Desil didn’t want to try it himself for fear of injuring himself or someone else with all of that power.

  “Unfortunately a lot more,” Basen said. “I want at least as much as the Marros had harvested.”

  “And if you can’t find that much?” Beatrix asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Not because I still have any intention of stopping you, if that’s what you’re assuming. I’m only curious.”

  “I’ll make do with what I can find.”

  Kirnich had fallen asleep, no doubt from the potions he’d ingested. There was a sound above like a boulder crashing down that caused the warrior to stir. Rock dust sprinkled onto Desil’s head. A dajrik wailed as if tormented. It seemed as if he’d fallen. Desil pitied the beasts. To roam through the darkness for eternity seemed too harsh a punishment for any crime, and yet these beasts seemed innocent to him.

  “Kirnich, wake up,” Beatrix said as she shook his shoulder. “Basen can give us a portal that will take us behind the castle now.”

  Kirnich sat up and showed a drunken smile. He swaggered over and put his hand on Basen’s head. “You should come with us,” the warrior said with a slur. “We’ll speak to Fernan and resolve everything. Yes!” Kirnich thrust his fist into the air. “I love the idea. We must do it.”

  “I told you the caregelow is strong.” Basen stepped back so that Kirnich’s hand fell. “You should put him back to sleep, Beatrix, before a dajrik hears him.”

  She looked disappointedly at Kirnich as she held her hand over her mouth. “We won’t get into the castle covertly with him like this.”

  “Shh!” Kirnich hissed with his finger over his lips. Then he laughed.

  “Looks like he needs to sleep it off,” Desil suggested. “We could all use another rest.” He wasn’t sure how long they’d slept earlier, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.

  “I’ll take first watch,” Basen said.

  Desil lay down beside Leida. Sleep would come easy, if it wasn’t for his worries. Last time he’d helped the headmaster, he’d fulfilled the need for adventure long before they were finished with Kanoan. Now all he could think about was how long this would take, and what would happen afterward.

  And how it still wasn’t clear how he was needed.

  Leida reached out from her blanket and found his hand, stirring his heart. He knew it was to help her stay grounded, for she feared running into that being as sleep pulled her toward the other plane, but he couldn’t help hoping that it might also be more than that.

  His worries didn’t quite disappear as he focused on her touch, but their importance faded and eventually became insignificant. It was time to stop worrying about the wisdom of coming on this trip. The decision had been made. He was here. Sometimes the important tasks weren’t adventurous or even fulfilling, like trudging through these mountains, but he believed in Leida’s father. The war could be stopped with the right ingredients, and it was up to Desil to help get them. He could succumb to boredom and fret the entire time, or he could set himself on course with determination and stay vigilant. It was the better choice, as this place was full of danger. Complacency could lead to death.

  Kirnich was back to his old self by the time everyone awoke, except his movements were slow and his head hung down as if he was exhausted. He and Beatrix decided they weren’t yet ready to take a portal behind the castle, as there might be a battle to get to Fernan. Desil could feel Beatrix’s desperation to reach her father to tell him what her brother was trying to do. Desil wished there was more he could do to help. She’d climbed with him deathly high, with Marros attempting to pull them off the mountain, to save Leida’s life, and now all she would get in return was a single portal.

  Beatrix and Kirnich agreed to stay with Basen for now as they continued to search for akorell metal. They carried in their bags the heavy pieces they’d already found as they ventured deeper into the mountain.

  Eventually the path they chose started sloping upward. They walked up it long enough that Desil started to wonder if they might emerge into open air soon.

  Instead, it led them into the largest of these connecting caverns Desil had seen yet, probably the largest within the entire mountain. A single stream of lava fell from the ceiling far ahead. Desil took the lead as he went toward it. They needed some sort of marker to keep from getting lost, and the lava was better than one of the many pillars of rock.

  Eventually he led them to a precipice with light glowing over the apex.

  “Could it be a way out?” Basen asked himself in a whisper.

  “You found your way out of the Dajrik Mountains once before,” Leida said. “Could you have taken this route?”

  “No. It was another way.”

  “We haven’t heard a dajrik in a while,” Adriya commented. “We could be far from them now.”

  “Let’s see what’s up there,” Basen suggested.

  The precipice itself was strange in that massive slabs of rock jutted out from the wall of stone. They were much larger than Desil would need to stand upon them, looking as if giants had carved holders out of the wall for their enormous hands and feet.

  “Do you sense anything, Beatrix?” he asked as they came to the base of the precipice.

  “No. Are you going to climb?”

  “Yes. Do you want to come?” he teased. It was about twenty yards tall, high enough to result in a broken skull if one were to fall.

  “I will,” Basen said. “You can make the stone soft, right?”

  “Yes, but it still won’t be easy.”

  “I’ve climbed my share of mountainsides. I should be fine.”

  “Then you go first,” Desil said. “It’ll be e
asier for me to shift the stone while keeping track of you if I’m underneath you.”

  They stood beside each other, Desil with his palms against the jagged surface. He fell into his thoughts as he closed his eyes. He sought the essence of the stone, what made it what it was. Desil couldn’t compare manipulating an element to anything else, though ever since Leida had brought up the notion of having a conversation with nature, Desil realized it was the closest thing he could think of.

  The voice within his thoughts commanded the rock to soften. It obeyed, but he felt as if his brain was being flexed as he bent the stone to his will. Rock would always be more difficult to alter than water.

  “Go ahead,” he told Basen. “It’s a high climb, and the stone is not easy to make this soft.”

  Leida’s father tried to squeeze his fingers into the precipice, groaning and shifting to different spots as if hoping it would be easier elsewhere.

  “You have to jab your fingers into it,” Leida said as she came beside him to demonstrate. She shoved her fingers into the bendable rock, then kicked in one of her boots at the bottom. She stepped up and did the same with her other hand, then her other boot. She jumped off a moment later.

  Basen mimicked what he’d seen from her and quickly gained height. Desil followed directly below, his callused hands protecting him from the pain Basen seemed to be feeling based on his grunts.

  “This is much harder than I thought it would be,” the headmaster admitted shortly after as he came to a stop. “I changed my mind. I’m going down.”

  Desil climbed down to help the older man get back to the ground.

  “You go,” Basen said. “Tell us what you see, and I can follow. If needed.”

  Desil chuckled. Basen had a way of pausing for just the right length to bring out a laugh.

  Desil climbed eagerly. It was finally time to prove his worth to not only the group but to himself. Hopefully it wasn’t just an opening out of the mountain. There had to be more to see, to find. There had to be more of everything, or this journey would only be an interminable search through the darkness.

  He climbed straight, between the giant handholds. Every muscle in his body ached sweetly, relishing the climb as he picked up speed. He didn’t know what it was about scaling a mountainside like this that brought him such joy, but he couldn’t imagine any year of his life without climbing.

  The top came faster than he would’ve liked. As he’d feared, the mountain opened into the sky. There was a long walkway to what seemed to be an edge. He called down to his party, “This will just take a moment.”

  Expecting nothing more than a long drop ahead, Desil almost let out a yelp at the sight before him.

  He drew back as his breath caught. He checked one more time to ensure he hadn’t been seen, then moved away from the edge, possibly for good. Everything he saw slowly manifested into images in his head. There was a flat field of grass encompassed by crags that seemed to serve as walls. He’d seen at least five dajriks. Huge and man-shaped, they did appear to be made out of rock. Had Desil seen horns atop one of their heads? They seemed to be living down there in massive four-walled constructions of stone with a roof to protect them from bad weather.

  They hadn’t seemed mad from the quick glimpse Desil had taken, but there was something else that had caught his eye before he moved away. He considered the risks and eventually convinced himself it was worth one more look.

  He heard his group calling to him in softened voices of urgency. He ran back to the ledge overlooking where everyone awaited his return, but Desil saw no one. Leida moved out from behind a pillar, her shadowy figure barely recognizable in the darkness.

  “There’s a dajrik walking around somewhere here,” she said faintly. “Come back.”

  Desil could hear movement from somewhere below, a dull pounding of rock.

  “I have to check one last thing. Hide until I can meet you down there.”

  “It had better be worth it,” Adriya said from somewhere out of sight.

  “It will be.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It seemed to be the afternoon, the sun somewhere on the other side of this mountain, putting the field in shade. Desil tucked himself behind a rock that pushed out from the wall as if trying to get its own look at the dajriks. He leaned out to check the giants first, ensuring he still hadn’t been seen or that he’d alerted them by his soft calling to Leida. A few sat with their legs out, akin to Kirnich when he slept upright, but these beasts busied themselves with possibly the only entertainment in their wide field, a child dajrik frolicking in the tall grass.

  It was difficult to tell the size of the young creature from this distance. It appeared shorter than its parents even as they sat, and the enormous stone homes surrounding them had a way of shrinking all of them, but Desil still had the sense that the child dajrik was taller than he was. He’d let them be for now. There was something else of more interest past the end of the grass to the right. Behind the wall of crags was a definite glow.

  He took out his spyglass. Akorell metal. There was so much of it that what they’d already collected would be pointless to keep if they could get all of this. It covered the rugged surface of the mountain, too bright to mean any mage had disturbed it for a long time.

  Unfortunately, there seemed to be no way to get there without the dajriks seeing. Desil would have to run across at least fifty yards of grass where there was nothing to hide behind. Even if he made it to the akorell metal, the dajriks might just be large enough to see over the crags and spot him and his party as they tried to mine it. If that wasn’t enough reason to give up, the noise of removing the akorell metal would probably be loud enough to reach the dajriks.

  He looked back at the dajrik colony to see what he could figure out. There were swirls of red flowers, some forming a path into the stone homes. He figured they had to be rujin flowers, based on Leida and Adriya’s story, for these dajriks hadn’t gone mad. They seemed civilized, even speaking to each other. One laughed as Desil watched, or perhaps the creature was just coughing? The windy sound was deep and rough, yet broken up by low hums.

  There was no way for Desil to tell if these creatures were male or female, at least not from this angle and distance. A waterfall brushed over the mountain to his left, falling off the edge and disappearing from view. It made him question just how high they were and what might lie beyond the dajriks. All he could see was sky, but there could’ve been other ledges with more fields of grass. There could be hundreds of these creatures.

  He wasn’t sure if any of this would help him get to the akorell metal. He needed more time to figure out a plan. Perhaps there was a way up to the precious resource from below. There could even be other akorell metal at a lower location, farther from the giants and easier to access.

  He wondered what they ate, for he saw nothing of substance here. It also seemed unlikely for them to get to the distant waterfall without risk of falling. He had a sudden terrifying thought. That dajrik roaming around near his party…could the creature be returning to this group? He rushed back to check.

  One of the massive creatures walked toward the base of the precipice, water sloshing in a stone bucket taller than Desil. Stunned, Desil didn’t move. It’s going to look up before climbing, you idiot! Move! He finally drew back.

  Desil looked around in a panic. There was nowhere to hide. Could he climb sideways from here to leave the ledge? Yes, but he’d easily be spotted sticking out from the wall.

  He heard the giant getting into position on the precipice, the thump of its hands grabbing hold. Desil couldn’t flee the other way without the other dajriks seeing him. He had to find some way around this one coming toward him.

  The giant climbed with deep whimpers as if the strain of lifting its massive body was almost too much for it. Perhaps this one was old and frail.

  Why would that matter? Desil still couldn’t fight his way past the creature. He needed a different solution.

  The dajrik climbed with the pa
il. Was this pail the answer? Besides it slowing the dajrik down as the creature put it on a holder along each step of the way, it would also hinder the giant’s progress once the dajrik reached the top. The creature would no doubt put the bucket up first, then climb up after it. Could Desil hide behind it? Yes, but he might be seen once the giant lifted it.

  That left one other option, but it might be impossible. He searched deep within himself for the necessary power and found it. He would not die here.

  Desil positioned himself against a side wall and got ready to climb for his life. He waited until he could hear the dajrik’s grunts nearing the top, which only took another moment, and then he started to climb. Desil didn’t have time to look below him to be sure, so all he could do was hope he was right that the dajrik would set the bucket down first and look straight as it came over the apex, not up.

  Desil jabbed his feet and hands into the stone as he scaled as fast as he could. He reached the ceiling quickly and took a sharp breath to push out his fear. He’d never attempted to suspend himself from a ceiling before, but there was no time for hesitation. He could hear the dajrik nearby, getting the last of its body up from the precipice. The creature had seemed nearly as tall as the ceiling itself when Desil had seen it from below.

  He finished focusing bastial energy to strengthen his hands, as they would be doing most of the work, then reached back from the side wall and dug his fingers into the softened rock above him. He pulled himself up from the side wall hard and kicked his feet into the ceiling. Feeling akin to an ant, he clenched every muscle to keep from falling, but he had to move somehow. The sound of rock, or possibly cartilage, crackled as the giant bent for the bucket of water.

  Just a few yards, Desil told himself as he held back a whimper of terror. He almost fell as he pulled his curved fingers out from the ceiling and clawed into the gravelly surface farther behind him. He swung his left arm back and up next, thrusting his fingers in hard enough to draw blood. His angled feet were more difficult to yank out without falling off, forcing him to pull with nearly his full strength to get just one of them free. When he’d finally moved both feet toward the sound of the dajrik, it was already too late to move again. The beast was headed toward Desil, beneath him. Each thudding step sounded through Desil’s chest, past his rushing heart.