Legend of Ecta Mastrino Box Set 2

by BJ Hanlon

  Arianne reached out and caught the man before lowering him to the ground. The man was scared but it was just a normal soldier. He looked around but didn’t seem to know who to thank.

  A moment later, he bolted the other way and into the city.

  “He’s scared,” Dorset said.

  “Where can we help the most?” Edin said.

  “The river,” Arianne said and started that way. “The walls are thickest nearest the ends, but things can still go around.”

  “Yes, my princess,” Edin said. She rolled her eyes and they ran through the city, Edin’s knee hurt but he ignored it. That wasn’t a pain that would be unbearable.

  As they neared the river, he spotted Lieutenant Elva on the wall screaming orders at some men. He must’ve been on one of the other boats.

  It was odd to see a Dunbilstonian commander barking orders at Resholt troops. Maybe there was hope for a united land.

  Arianne turned into a stairwell below one of the turrets in the wall. They raced up the stairs faster. There was a man, boy actually by the looks of him, huddled in a corner sobbing uncontrollably. No one was cajoling him, no one was berating him, nor was anyone comforting him.

  Either he’d live or he’d die. Like all of them.

  Edin passed the kid and they burst out onto the wall as near to the river as possible.

  Suddenly, something began to glow in the sky. Edin glanced up and saw the light clouds beginning to form and the bolts of electricity coming through like flickering lightning bugs on a dark summer’s day.

  “Alva!” Edin called and saw his father’s and Grent’s old friend turn to look at him. He grinned slightly as the great ball of lightning hit. It hit Alva nearly head on as well as a couple of magi and at least a half dozen soldiers.

  Edin screamed and summoned an ethereal shield around them. The rocks, mortar, and whatever else that’d been part of the wall disintegrated, clattering off their shield as other chunks flew into the darkness.

  “Wyrms!” Dorset yelled. Suddenly, one of the rocks that had been thrown high was flung toward the wyrm.

  The beast swooped below it and turned. Then there was another cry. An earsplitting cry but not as strong as the one he’d killed during the Battle for the North.

  Edin spun to see a second wyrm coming toward them. The fire grew in the things mouth. Edin saw the dark shape of the figure on top of it.

  This was the one that killed Monk.

  “Off the wall!” Edin yelled as the fire ball inside its mouth erupted into a stream. Edin pushed Arianne and Dorset out of the way and leapt just past the beam as it swooped in and cut a great swath about three feet wide across the tower wall.

  It didn’t harm the stone, but he could smell the remnants of the humans who’d once been there and had not been quick enough.

  The wyrm whipped past and he felt the gusts of its powerful flapping wings as it buffeted him.

  More screams came from below and he looked out to see that the beam of red fire sliced a house in half.

  A moment later, the house crumbled like someone had pulled out its bones.

  The beast then swung up and out of the way as another large rock flew past it. Edin glanced around the walls and could barely see that across the river, lit up by great braziers, was his father.

  The rock flew out and dropped beyond the wall at the attacking horde.

  Edin watched it and saw many dematians get crushed as the ball rolled across the field toward the forest. Then, a moment later, it burst like a bubble being popped.

  A surge of power came from that burst. It was like drinking a ton of coffee, getting that rush, and then collapsing.

  “Edin,” Arianne said and tugged at his arm. He turned to see the thunderwyrm coming toward him from over the city. It flew very near a tall building, its wing clipping part of the structure. Then a waterfall of stones fell from the building.

  It swooped in and out of the attacks by the magi, the siege weapons, and the bowmen. The thing avoided everything but the tower was destroyed.

  He knew it wasn’t concentrating on them, it didn’t care. It had one thing on its mind.

  Edin.

  It swooped in like a leaf fluttering on the wind, floating left and right so nothing could get a good fix on it. It was coming at wall height and its eyes were wide open. Inside, the mouth began to glow into the great ball of lightning he’d seen before.

  The lightning wouldn’t kill him, but the power and strength from the explosion could. It would be like getting run over by stampeding cattle or like falling from a great height.

  “Let’s run.” Someone shouted. Dorset, Edin guessed, but he knew that he couldn’t. He closed his eyes and felt the talent and the energy all around them. He pictured his father flinging a boulder the size of Horston’s cottage.

  Then he got ahold of energy and began reeling it in. Suddenly, he felt it flowing. He felt the energy whipping around like a tornado and the power that seemed to be coming from all around.

  It was like he was funneling in energy from in front of him and behind him and all around.

  His jaw clenched. It was massive and nearly made his knees quake.

  Then time seemed to slow as the beast sent a great burst of electricity and larger than the one that had destroyed the wall and Elva toward him.

  Edin closed his eyes, reached out a hand and let the energy flow through him like he was a conduit. It never stopped like the water flowing in the Crystalline never stops.

  Then he blinked them open and felt an intensity coming from them as the great ball of light burst over a large white ethereal blanket. The bolt hit and bounded off like a rubber tree.

  Then it shot back and the wyrm glided out of the way of the return attack.

  It careened to the right but didn’t make it all the way. The back of its wings and lower half of the body were struck with such intensity that the beast screamed in the horror of one being torn apart while alive.

  The pained, ugly screams of the monster met those of Edin’s fellow survivors as the world began to go black in his head.

  “You need to complete your destiny,” Vestor said in his mind.

  “Blasted god,” he said out loud and then replied in his mind. “I got it, you want your last descendent to burn, I’m trying my best.”

  Then the silence in his mind was interrupted by the burst of fury from down below. His eyes lowered and he saw the wyrm thrashing around inside a small square. Soldiers were hurrying around it as it tried to flap its wings but could not fly.

  A bolt of lightning shot out and incinerated a pair of approaching men, but the blast was weak enough to barely start the building it hit on fire.

  Men began to approach, and his mind was hit with another screech of a wyrm. Edin spun to see the firewyrm was bringing down a blaze on a small battery of scorpions a few hundred yards further east. Suddenly the braziers that had been lit were knocked over.

  A moment later, half of the field was aflame and there were monsters burning. The dematians and their awful, chattering cries were difficult to hear but it was better them than human.

  There was a giant roar from behind and Edin turned again to see a human warrior straddling the wyrm on the ground. His legs were around the beast’s neck as it spun around, its torched tail striking a cart filled with armor. The whipping tail continued and crashed into the side of a wall.

  The wall held; the tail though sounded like it’d been cracked in two. The flash of a greatsword came down into the beast’s neck and behind its skull.

  There was another single burst of fire, almost like a burp and the beast dropped.

  People began to cheer. A great cheer rose up starting from there and then people turned that into a war cry.

  “For humanity!” Someone yelled near him yelled out. Edin turned back to see that there was now a great swath of fire between the wall and the beasts at the far edge of it.

  In the firelight was Yio Volor who stood stoically with his arms crossed. He had a giant
sword at his hip and a staff between his shoulder blades.

  Edin took a breath and saw that the demons, at least for now, weren’t advancing and the ones that had gotten through were dying on the walls or the bulwarks. The few that were in the city were being killed.

  Yio closed his eyes, it was easy to see even from there and then all of the sounds of pain on both sides began to die out.

  Arianne gasped and pointed toward a man who had a piece of metal in his gut. There was a little blood but not much and suddenly, he was gasping, like he was being choked for air.

  Then he exhaled like the life was being taken from him and sucked out into the universe beyond. A small ball of light floated from his mouth. An ethereal light like Edin’s power.

  Edin saw others, an injured boy with his hand torn off suddenly collapsed into a heap like a doll and fell off the wall toward the cobblestone ground below. A ball came from him as well. Then more and more came out from around before suddenly vanishing into nothingness.

  Edin half expected the people to rise as minions of the god of the underworld. He’d heard of a story of necromancers that could do that. Men who made it their life’s ambition to bring back the dead.

  That’d be horrendous.

  Then Yio opened his eyes and Edin felt their burning hatred directed at him. “A valiant effort. Look though at how many have died and it isn’t even morn. I said do not try and escape by boat or my sea minions will get you, but you tried and everyone who was out there has died. All but one. The chosen one.”

  Yio paused.

  “I know what will happen, the prophecy of the Ecta Mastrino ends in the burning of Vestor’s last descendant. It will be done. That is not that I have not enjoyed this display of bravery. You should be proud and hold your heads high. Though know that while your numbers dwindle, mine grow larger.”

  Then from behind, there were more beasts appearing from the darkness. They were nearly surrounded but for a patch near the road where the dead spiders were smoldering and Edin had come back on land.

  “Oh gods...” a guard gasped.

  “Come out now and I will make it easy and painless like these.” He waved his hand before him at the dead bodies.

  “Maybe you should go out and fight him?” someone said near Edin.

  “Maybe you should shut up,” Arianne spat. She turned to Edin who continued to simply stare at the giant god before him. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’m not planning on it,” he said, not yet at least.

  “Come out soldiers, and your end will be painless. Send your wives and children so they do not suffer as they die, nor as they watch you die.”

  “No,” a soldier crowed. He took a step back then ran toward the open tower door and disappeared inside.

  Other men around were slowly beginning to drop their weapons.

  A great gong erupted around the city. It reverberated into the bones and seemed to come from the highest tower of the castle.

  “The bell of Foal Tonin,” Arianne gasped. “It still exists.”

  There was a hush that came over the walls and the city and the fields beyond.

  “Do not cower!” A man screamed. He was on the other side of the river hundreds of yards away. “We are men of Resholt.”

  “Men of Resholt.” Another person shouted.

  Then people began to echo. More and more followed.

  It took a moment then and soldiers slowly moved back into position on the wall. People who’d been below started to climb the tower stairs. Children were joining as well. Not exactly children but boys. Barely preteens.

  Women joined. Duria appearing next to Edin with Melian. “I’m not a man,” said Melian.

  It didn’t matter though. She knew it, they all did. It wasn’t the words that sounded with the reverberations. It was the feeling that welled up inside.

  Even Edin felt it. He stood near men who would’ve killed him without a second thought a year ago. Heck, a few weeks ago probably.

  This whole moment was screwy. It was death no matter what defenses they had, no matter what chants or sounds came to steel their hearts.

  There was a great roar then that came from Yio Volor. He reached back, grabbed the staff and yanked it out.

  It was the staff that the dematian king had had. The one that nearly killed them all at the lake.

  In a blink, he slammed it down onto the ground and there was a great boom as a wave of air erupted in all directions.

  Instinct took over and Edin reached out to catch it, or at least send it around himself and the city. He closed his eyes and felt others doing the same.

  Arianne was groaning, pressure built and Edin grunted as he felt it continuously pushing at him. It was like the weight of the river. The power of an unceasing and unstoppable force.

  Edin felt his muscles ache and his bones, somehow his bones felt like they were cracking like a stone under a sledgehammer.

  The wind roared around them like a hurricane that was ten times the strength of any ever formed.

  Edin leaned into it but his feet slid backward on the stone. His arms shook beneath the force and his lungs began to burn.

  He wasn’t breathing. He was barely thinking. The only thing going through his mind was that this needed to end quick or he was dead.

  Above the roaring wind he heard, “I cannot hold on.” Arianne moaned somehow still able to speak which was more than Edin could do.

  Then suddenly, it all stopped. Everything disappeared and Edin fell forward, his already injured knee smacking the stone. Edin gasped in breath and fought hard not to hit his face. His arms felt like they were a thousand-year-old rickety bridge holding up a wagon train hauling boulders.

  “Can’t see nothing!” someone yelled.

  Edin took deep breaths and looked up. All he could see was a dim parapet wall, but he also heard the attackers and the defenders.

  The thumps of arrows, bolts, and catapults echoed through the night, or was it day. The yells of soldiers, magi, and humans as they were flinging what they had at the beasts. There was the crash of ice coming down.

  Near his head, lightning erupted and the air around them lit up.

  Arianne caught his gaze and gave a weak smile.

  “Nice night for a stroll I think,” she said.

  “Yeah, maybe we take it on the boardwalk under the oil lamps. I think I can find a minstrel to sing us something sweet.”

  “You? You’re broke and have the charm of a rattlesnake.”

  “It’s not that bad. I got you.”

  “Will you two shut it,” Melian said dropping down behind the parapet as something flew right over her head. “They’re advancing and I’m not sure we can stop them.”

  Then there was a giant smack. Then another. It began to sound like a person playing drums on a large hollow wood crate.

  Then a crack sounded after that and Edin leapt up.

  The flaming field was gone and there was little light save what the fire mage were sending into the darkness.

  Down below, he spotted a giant slamming its fists on the gate. Then he saw there were others too.

  Cries came from above as flying beasts began to swoop in. Edin heard the crackling of the wyrm as the power lit up in its mouth. He started to form the lightning in his mouth when suddenly its aim was thrown off. There was a screech that sounded nothing like any of the beasts.

  “Cliff raptors,” Edin said still not knowing why they came to help him earlier and why they were here again.

  Vestor. He thought.

  The lightning bolt erupted out and over Edin’s head by at least a dozen yards. It crashed somewhere further into the city. There was a boom and cries but he couldn’t help.

  “The gate is failing,” someone yelled.

  Then something crashed into the tower next to them. A great big boulder simply disappeared into the tower like a morsel down a hungry man’s throat.

  The tower cracked. Only slightly at first and then Edin saw it slowly starting to fall, to teeter
.

  Melian stood only a few yards away.

  “Get off the wall,” Edin shouted and saw Melian looking slowly up at the collapsing tower.

  He reached out both hands and felt for the stone. He took ahold of it. It was heavy and for a moment, he thought he’d lose it.

  Then it grew lighter and started to twist out over the field.

  “Let go,” Dorset growled.

  Edin did and then the tower collapsed into the darkness and onto the wild monsters. At least some of them.

  But there were others too. More people screaming. Melian was one and she was digging at a collapsed portion of the tower.

  Edin looked around and saw only the slack look in Arianne’s face as she stared at it.

  “Where’d?”

  “She started down,” Arianne said.

  Something flew in suddenly and snatched at Edin. At the last moment, he ducked as the great jaws snapped at him. The wings buffeted him and he heard Arianne cry out as she was thrown over the wall down into the city.

  Edin didn’t even think. He leapt after her and held out a hand. Everything was dark below them save a few small lamps that wouldn’t go out. He created a great pillow of air below and summoned an ethereal light.

  Arianne was on the ground clutching her leg, the bottom of it pointed in the wrong direction. It was clearly broken. To the right there was a thunk of the gate cracking even more.

  “Edin!” Dorset cried from above.

  Edin looked around and saw that his friend was trapped up top. So were many others. “Off the wall,” he shouted. “Jump.”

  Crack.

  The door exploded inward twenty yards away as he heard, “Catch.”

  Edin reached out and felt the energy of the wind as it caressed the world down below the wall. People screamed, at least a few of them.

  Edin opened his eyes and saw the small group of soldiers that had been at the gates get bowled over. Their screams were cut short as they were torn through like sickles in a field of wheat.

  Some of the beasts that’d burst through turned toward him and rampaged as fast as they could.

  Edin looked down at Arianne. Fear mixed with the perspiration and pain on her face. There was also her determination. A woman that would not be beat and that was why he loved her.