by RG Long
As it turned out, they were much more concerned about the attack of the griffin and dragon.
Cyna saw that everyone’s attention had turned to the sky and that the dragon had managed to get its claws underneath one of the giant Rimstones in the griffins head. With a mighty roar, it let out a burst of fire. For a moment, the griffin glowed from every joint that it had. And then, an explosion rocked the sky.
The airship was blown to the side as Cyna was thrown to the deck. Screams echoed all around her as others tried to react to it and adjust themselves and the mighty flying vessel. All Cyna could feel was the sensation of falling. She did not know how far away they were from the ground or when the impact would come, but she braced herself for it.
When she dared open her eyes again, she saw that the great griffin had exploded into a great cloud of metal and shards. The debris was raining down on them.
The last thing Cyna knew before the airship hit the ground around the camp of the army of the Blackthorne’s, was that she had managed to kill the man who had lead the infamous gang for so many years.
And that no one would know of her great deeds.
49: Unexpected Enemies
Blume could feel the magic growing in this place. The tower had been full of it. It had been the thing that had prevented her from using her own abilities to open up the wall. It was also the thing that had kept her from doing any small amount of spells that she had tried.
Without her ability to do magic, she felt vulnerable.
She had learned once that she would need to survive without magic. Still, if she was ever given a choice, she much rather preferred to have use of the skills she had been developing over the last few years.
More out of habit now than anything else, she clutched her necklace as they continued to make their way up the stairs. The tower felt like it just kept going. No matter how many stairs they climbed, there were always more.
In her other hand, she held on tightly to the short sword she had found to arm herself. Her small dagger she had put back into its sheath. If she could not use magic, she would use what skills Silverwolf had taught her to fight with a blade.
She certainly preferred magic, but she felt confident enough with the sword, but she did not fear for her safety. Mostly, she found herself curious. What type of man would live in such a tall tower without any servants or people at all? Did he live here completely by himself? And what type of man was he?
Did anyone live here at all?
Holve certainly seemed to fear him.
Perhaps they should fear him too.
She had lost track of how many flights of stairs they climbed, but after what had felt like an unusually long amount of time, the stairs let up and came to a long hallway with several doors off of it. The hallway was lit dimly with only a few small Rimstone pieces. Blume wondered how they could work. She could not call out any power from the stone. How could they glow here?
“What do you imagine is that way?” Teresa asked as the rest of their group came up the stairs behind Ealrin and Blume.
“It could be nothing,” Ealrin offered.
Silverwolf scoffed.
“Nothing good more like,” she said. “If you don’t have your blades out yet, now is the time.”
Blume realized Silverwolf was the only one who was unsheathing a sword. The rest of them had long had out their weapons. Was she really so confident in herself?
“Do you think we should try every door?” Silverwolf said she admired her blade.
“I think we should get to the end of the hallway and be done with it,” Ealrin replied. “The faster we get out of the tower, the better. I really don’t like the feel of the place.”
Blume was glad he felt the same way she did.
“No sense of adventure,” Elise sent an elbow into Ealrin’s side. “Just get it over with and move on.”
Ealrin grunted with the blow but didn’t move much. Blume saw Ealrin roll his eyes and shake his head. He wasn’t going to change his mind. That made her glad. Even though she felt she could handle herself without magic, she really wanted her skills back.
Quietly, they made their way down the hallway. Blume looked at every door as they passed it. The halls were made of stone and the doors of thick wood. There were heavy handles with locks on each of them. What purpose they served, she did not know. There was hardly any decoration in this hall, which was strange. The rest of the tower had been covered in statues and paintings and works of art.
This hallway was bare.
She was just about to voice her observation out loud when they heard a noise up ahead. It sounded like voices. Harsh ones.
“Do we hide?” Teresa asked.
Silverwolf stepped forward.
“No point now, “she said. “We’d just trap ourselves in one of those rooms. This way, we at least have a way to escape behind us.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Elise said as she turned. Blume had heard it too. More voices and footsteps were coming from the other direction. They were already trapped.
“Whatever it is we can face it,” Ealrin said. “We’ve fought goblins and Wrents and Veiled Ones and all other manner of creatures before. What more can they throw at us?”
The voices grew louder as both groups stepped through the portals on the opposite end of the hallway at the same time.
“By the suns,” Teresa said under her breath.
“Bah! Now, this’ll be a fight!” Gorplin said, nearly ecstatic in his reaction.
Blume gasped.
The hallway began to fill with wide-mouthed, long-eared, gray-skinned creatures who had for their company fox-like beasts and lizards who flashed in and out of sight.
She heard Silverwolf let out a mirthless chuckle.
“It looks like what they’re going to throw at us is goblins, Wrents, and Veiled Ones.”
50: Resolve
The group climbed the stairs until they reach the next level of the grand tower. Several flights had gone by since they were last with the others. When the stairs finally gave way to a landing, Felicia was struck by the opulence of what she saw. Whereas before they had walked up winding hallway after winding hallway, this time they were met with a grand opening room like a palace. Columns lined the walls and in between each one stood statues of who Felicia assumed were men of great renown.
A royal red carpet ran the length of the hall. The whole place went around what Felecia imagined was the entire width of the tower. At the end stood a chair. A place from which a king might rule.
Holve held out his spear.
“Cautiously,” he said.
Felicia did not feel like she had to be told twice. If there was a king in this tower, this was certainly where he would rule from. Should any attack come, at least in this room they would be able to see it. The only stairs Felecia could see were at the other end of the room. It led up. Great windows lined the hall behind each statue and showed that evening was upon them.
Still, even in this area, there was not a soul to be seen. No person appeared to be residing here nor did any guard run out to stop them from going further.
Felicia would have felt better if they had encountered someone. Anyone. The emptiness of the tower was beginning to bother her more than she cared to admit.
“He’s here,” Holve said.
Felicia crouched low and held her sword out, ready for a strike from any direction. There was nothing to see, however.
“Where?” Urt asked.
Felicia felt glad to have her first mate again. They fought well together. She had his back, and he had hers.
“There,” Holve said, pointing towards the chair.
Felicia was sure the chair had been empty the first time she looked at it. But now that she glanced at it a second time, a man stood in front of it, arms folded, glaring at them. He was a middle-aged man, with long brown hair and a regal crown on his head. He was dressed in a red robe with white trim. And he looked triumphant.
“Olenor,” he
said. Though he was fifty paces away, his voice echoed throughout the room as if he were magically magnifying it. Felicia resisted the urge to cover her ears. She needed to focus.
“Prepare to fight him,” Holve whispered.
She saw Serinde step in front of Alma and the young girl extend the red blades of magic from her hands.
“What an interesting group you’ve surrounded yourself with, Olenor.”
Felicia did not know who the man was referring to.
“My friends,” Holve replied. “Better than living alone in a tower calling myself a god, Ibarin.”
The man let out a chuckle that echoed throughout the grand palace room and hurt Felicia’s ears. She winced but did not waver.
“You have a lived like a vagabond for millennia, and I lived like a king. I do not have to be convinced which of us has survived exile better.”
“And you have still not understood why we were exiled in the first place,” Holve said.
“I know why I was,” the man who was apparently called Ibarin. “Pride and greed and all the sins of our people. Except instead of trying to hide it, I wanted to embrace them. You, however, I do not know why they saw fit to remove you. Something about having a heart.”
“I wanted to find peace on this world,” Holve replied. “You wanted to rule it with an iron fist.”
The man shook his head.
“You sought to save these pathetic creatures. They cannot be saved. They will die in the coming judgment as will all of us. The demons and the Serions will exterminate one another, I have foreseen it. These pathetic Gilians will not survive our battle. It will engulf this world, and we will have no other place to run this time. At least our extermination will be complete.”
He flexed his hands out in front of him.
“I believe we should start sooner, rather than later,” he said.
“Down!” Holve ordered.
Serinde and Alma hit the ground and Urt dove to the side as he tried to grab Felicia and pull her down as well. She felt her arm tug with his weight. But she also saw that Holve stood up straight and did nothing to move out of the way.
She pulled away from Urt and hesitated.
An arc of white light shot across the room and Felicia felt it hit her stomach. It was one hundred times worse than being punched in the gut.
She doubled over in pain as pops of light filled her vision.
“Spare them!” Holve shouted. “They’ve done nothing to you!”
Ibarin laughed. It was a long, loud cackle that betrayed madness. Felecia could hear only that laugh in her mind as her being filled with pain upon pain.
“I care nothing for them! It’s you who I seek to torture. You and your ideals of peace. What did that ever earn you? Exile! The same as me! We are both scorned.”
Felecia looked up at Holve, who was staring hard at Ibarin.
“But if I return you to them,” the man said. “Perhaps my place can be reinstated. If judgment comes down on you, Olenor, then I may find a place among the elders once again!”
“Not if I testify against you and what you have done,” Holve replied. Felicia felt Urt’s paw on her back as she attempted to get on her hands and knees. The pain in her stomach was unbearable. She wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to give.
It was hard to focus. Hard to think.
“I did not say you had to be alive,” Ibarin said.
A sword materialized by his hand, and he flew, flying across the floor as quickly as an arrow and struck at Holve. The man held out his spear and deflected the shot. A radiant white light came from both weapons as if forged in the same fire. From below them, however, a ripple of energy shook through the floor, and Felicia felt it crack beneath her. Urt’s strong arms wrapped around her and he pulled her away from the crumbling floor.
“You have more friends in this tower,” Ibarin said as he continued to push down on Holve’s spear. “If I bring the tower down on them, then judgment can be served on us all.”
He thrust his hand into the air, and Felicia saw an orb of white light form above him.
“No!” Holve shouted.
It was too late.
Ibarin threw the orb on the ground and the floor beneath them shattered. Serinde and Alma had managed to escape to the other side, but Urt was not back far enough.
Felicia felt herself ripped from his arms as she began to fall. She looked up and in one final instant, saw fear and pain in her companion’s eyes.
The light of Holve and Ibarin’s weapons filled her vision for a moment as the pain in her stomach grew to a crescendo. She saw waves and full sails and a bar fight and a companion she trusted.
Then there was blackness. Felicia was falling through an empty blackness. It filled her up as she fell. It consumed her along with the torturous agony in her stomach.
And then, in an instant, there was no more pain.
51: Reckon
“Did you see that, Miss Jill? Up on the tower?”
Jurrin had been paying close attention to the tower ever since his companions had left. There was an uneasy feeling in the stomach. He never liked it when he got this. Either it meant he was hungry or that something terrible was going to happen. No matter what, Jurrin was always willing to end this terrible pain.
“I saw it, little one,” Jaxon said as he came up beside Jurrin and patted his shoulder. “What do you think we ought to do?”
“Get this thing in the air!” Jill said without hesitation.
“Are you sure that’s wise?” Galp asked from the doorway of the crew’s quarters. “Holve instructed us to stay here.”
“Well, now it looks like the tower’s exploding,” Jill said as she looked out at the city and the tower above it. “I don’t think they would have expected that to happen.”
Jurrin had to agree. As smart as his friends were, there were often times when the unexpected came at them. He had experienced this himself on several occasions. New plans had to be made.
“What do we do when we get up there?” he asked.
“See if we can get close enough to catch them if we need to!” Jill said. “What are you waiting for? Get this thing in the air, Jaxon!”
“There’s no convincing you once you’ve made up your mind,” Jaxon said. He got behind the wheel of the airship just as a second explosion rocked the tower.
“Faster!” Jurrin yelped, the feeling in his stomach growing. His friends were in danger. They needed help.
“I fear we may not make it in time,” Galp said. “Look at how the tower leans!”
Even though the suns were setting and it was getting dark, in the blackness around them, Jurrin could see that the tower was indeed beginning to lean to one side.
If they were unable to reach their friends, they may all perish within the tower they had sought to find answers in.
The ship bolted up and sped towards the tower.
Jurrin hoped they had left in time.
52: Magic Returned
Blume was running along the hallway, stabbing with sword and dagger whenever a goblin came up beside her. They had made the decision to fight through one side of the beasts that had come to them. If nothing else, they knew that there could only be so many of the creatures. They had not seen any indication of them from below, so they went that direction, hoping that there were fewer of the creatures than those who came from above.
At least, that was the best logic they could come up within the short moments they had made their decision.
More goblins and Wrents and Veiled Ones came behind them as they sped down the stairs and back to the intersection where they had split up with their friends. Silverwolf and Gorplin were making short work of any of the creatures who dared to get close. Any who snuck by then found themselves at the end of Blume’s sword or Elise’s daggers.
Once they reach the split in the stairs, the tower began to shake. It was as if a massive explosion had occurred just above them. But that was where their friends had gone and a viable option for them as
well.
“Do we go downstairs or up the way everyone else went?” Blume shouted as they reached the intersection.
The decision was made for them.
A third group of monsters was coming up the hall from down below the way they had come.
“Up!” Ealrin ordered.
The group ran for the stairs, and Blume hoped that they would not run into another group of the vile beast going this way as well.
She had no time to think of where they come from — no time to even consider how there were so many of them.
The monsters fought with a vengeance. It was like they knew that this party had encountered their kind before and had bested their kind. They fought as if they held a special grudged against them
The best they could do now was to get ahead of them.
If they reconnected with the others, it was possible that they could find Alma’s magic very useful in this situation.
Blume cursed the tower and its ability to take away her powers.
She greatly desired to blast these monsters into a million tiny pieces.
The group ran as hard as they could. Up stair after stair until a second explosion rocked the tower and Blume felt herself knocked to one side.
Elise grabbed her and set her upright before they continued on their way. Blume nodded her thanks.
It wasn’t long before they came upon a terrible sight.
It was Felicia.
Trotta was holding her hand and shaking just beside her.
She lay among rubble on the stairs, her body broken and her expression blank.
“No!” Ealrin shouted.
Then, from up above, they heard more shouts. There was fighting going on up there as well.
Blume caught a glimpse of Holve and a man locked in combat as Alma and Serinde were holding onto a piece of stone that was breaking away from the floor. Urt was trying to get around to them but seemed to be struggling with the task.
They were all in danger of falling as well.
