Chapter 34
They hurried through the tunnels recklessly, heedless of the sound of their passage. Alex kept the laser on to provide what little illumination he could. It felt surreal, as if the two of them were throwing caution to the wind, a suicide mission in the pitch-black. Alex could only imagine that it felt doubly so for Tabitha, whose whole life had been spent in preparation for the danger these tunnels represented. It was a measure of the peril the city was in that she didn’t relent from their frantic pace.
At every intersection, they came upon a six-person guard, every one of them wild-eyed and wary. Each time Alex and Tabitha came into view, the guards let out a collective sigh of relief and relaxed the tense grips on their swords. They looked ragged, exhausted, and scared.
Their haunted eyes deepened the guilt Alex felt for having slept through so much of the battle. It spurred them onward even faster.
A journey that normally took many hours to complete passed in just one. They reached a final intersection and were brought up short by a guard who informed them that the main contingent of warriors was just ahead, still fighting. Four warriors lay prone on the tunnel floor. One of them moaned painfully, the other three silent and still. Two young warriors worked feverishly to staunch wounds that had created a large pool of blood on the floor.
“How far are we from the Antechamber?” Alex asked breathlessly, eyeing those on the floor. A soiled rag was pressed up against a stomach wound, and one of the warriors who Alex had thought was unconscious or dead cried out in agony. Alex ground his teeth together in guilt. He needed to get to the battle. He needed to help.
“Not far,” came the answer. “But it is bad, very bad—
“Can you stop them, Alex?” One of the wounded warriors asked from the floor.
Alex had already turned away to hurry onward, but stopped short when he realized that the warrior who’d spoken was one of the Divinites who’d been part of the mission to Thrain’s den. “Jedidiah.” He reached down and clasped the young warrior’s wrist. “I don’t know if I can stop them,” he answered truthfully. “But I am going to try,” he promised. “And I won’t stop trying.”
Jedidiah gave Alex’s wrist a final squeeze and released it. “May God be with you, Alexander Croatoan.”
Alex blinked back an unexpected onslaught of tears. Somehow, even in the face of all he’d done to put them in danger, they still believed in him. They still believed he could save them. He swallowed a lump. He knew he should say something, but was afraid that anything he said would probably come out all wrong. He was on the verge of simply turning away and leaving, but Tabitha gripped his elbow and cleared her throat.
“May…” Alex stammered. He looked for help from Tabitha but got none. “May He be with us all.” It nearly came out sounding like a question. The words felt disingenuous, at best, coming from his mouth. But Jedidiah’s eyes hardened with resolve and he gave Alex a grateful nod, as if Alex had already fought back Rasmus and his entire army. Jedidiah crossed his wrists over his chest and closed his eyes, seemingly at peace.
Not trusting himself to say anything further, Alex turned and left the intersection, already in a run before he was back in the tunnel.
They hadn’t far to go. The sound of fighting reached their ears before they rounded another bend, and then they were upon it.
More than twenty warriors were crowded into an intersection where two tunnels met. They had formed into the typical Domus arc, but with so many of them working at once their arc was more of a three-sided box.
Winston’s voice carried clearly over the din of clashing weapons, commanding the battle in his deep, confident baritone. Warriors responded to his orders in terse, single-syllable replies, changing tactics with an instant precision born from a lifetime of training.
Past the Domus warriors, surging and receding in waves as they pushed back their assailants, were at least a dozen thralls, silent harbingers of death. Raging in their midst, Alex could hear the unmistakable voice of a Nocuous as it spewed unceasing curses and threats, lashing its thralls into battle.
Alex had no trouble finding him—this Nocuous was known to them all.
“Phineas,” Tabitha whispered in horror.
Phineas, now a full-fledged Nocuous with thralls under his command, strode amid the fray arrogantly, as if he knew nothing could harm him. Although paler and perhaps more arrogant, he looked no different than the day he’d left them in the Antechamber.
But he was different. He bellowed commands without remorse or hesitation, sending his thralls into combat against people who’d been his friends and family until only very recently.
Such was the power of the Core, and such was the unquenchable thirst for dominance that it instilled into those it changed. The young man fighting against them was no longer Phineas—he was Nocuous.
Alex turned to Tabitha and put one hand on her shoulder. With his other hand, he activated the laser on the suit. “I can end this,” he told her. Phineas roared an order, his voice resounding in the cavern, accentuating the need for haste. “Phineas would want me to,” Alex told her. “I know he would. I can end this right now.”
Tabitha gave him a single, resolute nod and stepped back.
Alex shifted his sword to his other hand and pointed the laser, taking aim behind Phineas. He waited patiently, for the perfect single moment when the battle would shift and give him a clear line of sight on which to travel.
One by one, the Domus warriors saw the red pinpoint as it danced amid the fray and they turned exultantly, knowing before they looked who had joined the battle.
“Make way!” Winston roared, swinging his black blade over head at those who stood in the path of Alex’s laser.
And at that moment, friend and enemy alike gave him the opening he needed. Alex closed his fist and suddenly he was in the thick of it. As soon as he appeared, he lashed out with the blade that Silas had given him, but Phineas had already spun to deflect the blow, raising his copper blade to take the brunt of the strike.
Phineas glared with a defiant sneer, possibly ready to curse Alex’s foolish attempt, but he never had the chance.
Alex’s new steel sword sliced cleanly through Phineas’s copper blade, hardly losing momentum as it continued its trajectory onward and through Phineas’s neck. Even Alex, who knew he wielded something far superior to anything in the Under, was taken by surprise and nearly lost his footing as Silas’s blade sliced clean through and beyond.
There was a great pause of both man and thrall as Phineas’s head thumped dully to the floor of the tunnel.
Alex caught his balance and righted himself, stumbling a little, hopping on one foot as he worked to regain his center of balance.
By the time he’d brought his blade back to bear, the warriors of Domus had already issued a collective battle cry and surged forward with renewed vigor. Alex only hesitated a moment before joining them, swinging his blade at his closest enemy.
Another head dropped.
He swung again. And again.
And again, until the floor was littered with the bodies of the enemy.
It was bloody work. The entire intersection was soon coated in the slime and gore spilt from so many thralls. Alex felt none of the glory that was depicted in songs and stories of battles such as this, just revulsion and overwhelming fatigue. A burning guilt welled up in his gut, a dislike for himself and what he’d brought down on a people who’d taken him in, even accepted him, despite who they knew him to be.
When none of the remaining thralls came to him, Alex went to them, hacking them down as they attacked his fellow warriors.
It was over so fast, Alex wasn’t even aware when it had truly ended. He felled a thrall and turned, his blade raised in search of another, only to find Jonathan backing away, both hands raised in surrender. Alex lowered his arm, recognizing his friend.
“You are well-met,” Jonathan told him with a wide smile. His face was barely recognizable beneath all the spattered black and cr
imson.
“Indeed,” boomed Winston, who came forward and placed a bloodied hand on Alex’s shoulder.
“Was that it?” Alex asked, panting as he surveyed the carnage. “Is that all? Have we won?”
Winston raised one eyebrow. “Not by half,” he replied, his mouth twisting as if he tasted something bad. “I am displeased to report that these few represented nothing more than a forward scout sent to test our defense and resolve. Their main force is holed up in the Antechamber and at the Core itself.”
A forward scout? Alex surveyed the dozens of headless bodies on the floor. There had been so many!
“It is our intention to press ahead and clear the Antechamber,” Jonathan added, receiving a nod from Winston. “We then hope to draw what remains of Rasmus’s force from the Core, out into the Antechamber, there to engage in a final battle.” When Alex didn’t answer, Jonathan clarified, “We cannot do battle at the Core itself, it is too dangerous.”
Of course. Alex hadn’t considered the idea that they couldn’t approach the Core. Any thralls or Nocuous who remained by it would essentially be in a safe haven. To send Domus warriors anywhere near it could mean losing them to the Core’s siren call.
But the Nocuous weren’t foolish or stupid, in fact they were exactly the opposite. It wasn’t like the Domus warriors could just holler taunts toward the Core and hope the enemy would come out fighting.
“What if that doesn’t work?” Alex asked, earning a frown from Winston. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean to say that it won’t, but what if… I mean, they could stay in there forever, couldn’t they? Just wait us out? I can’t imagine time means much to them, especially if they’re spending it at the source of their power.”
“We are open to suggestion,” Winston told him candidly. “We can conceive of no better option.”
“We have guarded the Core for centuries,” Jonathan reminded him. “And we will continue to do so after this day. If a thrall or Nocuous were to remain there, hiding at the Core, we would be there when they emerged, no matter how long it took.”
Jonathan made a good point, but his end-game strategy involved setting up shop in the Antechamber again, posting warriors there until the end of time. Alex had no intention of stopping after the Core had been retaken. Going back to the old status quo, sixteen hour shifts, in fear of being attacked every day—it was simply not acceptable to him. It was no way to live.
Unless Rasmus was waiting there with his father, Alex would continue the battle forward until he found him. Now was the time. Now, when so many thralls and Nocuous had already been slain. Their forces were weaker than they might ever be again.
Alex shook his head.
“Alex,” Winston told him, “we will find your father, but today—”
Winston made a small sound, like a cross between a choke and cough, and his eyes grew wide. He stiffened, standing up straight, nearly on his toes.
Alex squinted, confused. “Winston?” he asked.
Winston opened his mouth, but no words came. A trickle of blood dribbled out, sliding down his chin in a thin rivulet. Woodenly, he turned, looking back over his shoulder. He moved so slowly, unhurried, as if someone had called his name and he had no wish to answer.
And that was when Alex saw the copper blade that had been thrust into the center of his back, and the thrall that had silently slunk up to plant it there.
Winston saw the thrall too, and worked to lift his blade, but only got it half-raised, as if it suddenly weighed much more than his great arm could bear. He coughed once, blood frothing on his lips, and sunk heavily to his knees.
The thrall leered at them with its back hunched, arms bent forward and eyes wide as if it, too, was shocked by what had happened.
“Nooooo!” Into the stunned silence, an anguished cry rang out. Alex’s blade was already over his head and swinging down through the thrall’s neck when he realized the cry was his own, his despairing lament continuing on even after the thrall’s life was ended and its body slumped to the floor.
Winston was still on his knees, but his entire body had slumped forward, his chin on his chest. He didn’t appear to be breathing.
Still holding his blade over his shoulder from the back-swing, Alex stared down at the quivering body of the thrall, wishing he could kill it again. His own body shook with fury as he knew that, ultimately, Winston’s death would be his fault.
“Alexander,” Winston’s voice was barely a whisper.
He was alive!
Alex spun and knelt at the Marshall’s side.
“We will get you home,” Alex promised in a tight voice. Winston slowly lifted his left hand. It was covered in blood and grime, but Alex took it without hesitation. “You’re going to be fine, sir.”
Alex felt a soft, sad hand on his shoulder. Tabitha. He looked up at her and she shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Winston pressed his lips together painfully. “I have seen too many others pass before me to believe I could survive a wound such as this.” He closed his eyes and swallowed once, grimacing. “Jonathan…” he rasped.
“Jonathan!” Alex called out, but Jonathan was already there, kneeling on the other side of the fallen leader.
“I am here, my Marshall.”
Winston took a shuddering breath and, with a groan, lifted his right hand, which still clutched tight to the black blade of his office. With a final push, he thrust it into Jonathan’s hand. “It will be you,” he said.
Jonathan said nothing. He bowed his head in prayer. Slowly, silently, the warriors in the tunnel gathered and bowed their heads with him.
“Do not,” Winston coughed again, more blood spraying from his mouth. “Do not blame him,” Winston gasped, letting his eyes slide toward Alex. “His heart is pure and he may yet be the salvation of us all.”
The corridor, which only minutes before had rung with the sounds of a battle that held a promise of victory, was silent as a grave.
“Do not…” Winston said, but his words failed him. He began to breathe in quick, shaking gasps. “Do not…”
Something loud sounded from inside the tunnel leading to the Antechamber, followed by a low, steady sound. One by one, the Domus warriors lifted their heads and peered into the darkness.
Alex lifted his head, loathe to miss a single one of Winston’s last moments, but something was coming.
It was a rhythm. A cadence that was quickly gaining in volume.
The sound of footfalls pounding toward them in a dead run. A great many of them.
Jonathan met Alex’s eyes, confused.
“To arms!” one of the warriors yelled, and as one they backed away, forming the Domus arc.
Jonathan, Tabitha, and Alex were left alone on the cold stone floor, kneeling by Winston’s side, knowing they could never in good conscience leave their fallen leader, even in death.
Alex looked at Jonathan and nodded grimly. He curled his fingers around the hilt of his blade.
Shimmer Page 39
