Splintered Loyalties

by S. B. Sebrick

  "Gaaaah!" The Rhetan moaned, his face contorted in pain, "What in Beletok's fury is wrong with you?" Ignoring his cries, Keevan grabbed Falletal's icy right hand, still froze to the lock, and gave the entire arm a fierce twist.

  "Ow! Ow! Ow! Let go!" Falletal cried, trying to pull away, but Keevan gave the Tri-Being's arm one final jerk.

  Ice cracked along Falletal's arm, splinters slicing into Keevan's face. A final shriek echoed from the steel padlock, which snapped open and fell to the floor. The door swung aside, leaving them both to collapse on the hallway's stone floor. Warm prickles of pain danced up Keevan's leg from striking the man's groin and both his hands were still numb from touching the dying Tri-Being's body.

  "Wake up, Falletal!" Keevan shouted. He tried to punch the Tri-Being in the face, to rouse the man, but his numb arm only flopped uselessly against the Tri-Being's face. Desperately, Keevan reached into his elemental vision.

  The stone floor leached heat from Falletal's frame with all the greed of a drowning man struggling after air. Ice from his limbs leached into the ground around him like a spider web of pure cold. Grunting in pain, Keevan rolled onto his knees and clutched the Rhetan by his tunic. Keevan didn't have enough feeling in his limbs to lift the man, so he rolled.

  Falletal rolled limply on top of Keevan, like a blanket of ice. Heat vanished from Keevan's limbs as if he'd stepped into an artic storm. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he managed to hug himself, protecting his core. Falletal's hair fell on Keevan's face, sending waves of brain freeze into Keevan's head.

  "Wake up, you stupid Rhetan," Keevan growled, throwing his elbow into the Rhetan's serene face. "Wake up!"

  "I'm up. I'm up," Falletal grunted, taking a sudden, deep breath. Warmth oozed from him, drawing pinpricks of pain into Keevan's limbs as feeling returned.

  Seeing his friend alive and well, feeling the warmth return to Falletal's body, ignited a flicker of hope in Keevan. He wasn't the best fighter, luck sometimes ran against him and the loss of Bahjal's friendship left a hole inside he couldn't quite fill. Yet, despite his weakness, he'd just saved Falletal's life. Perhaps, if he did his best and gathered all the allies he could, Keevan could still avert the crisis brewing in the streets of Issamere.

  The Rhetan sat up, bleary eyed, looking up and down the hallway. A dozen captives stared at them from their cells, enraptured in wordless awe. "Did we really just do that?"

  "I hope so," Keevan hissed, rubbing his hands and legs for all he was worth. Losing a limb to frostbite was not how he wanted the day to end. "Because if you just cost me a finger, I will want you alive enough to hit again."

  Falletal winced, massaging the tender region between his legs. "That was, excessive, I think. Why didn't you just twist my ear?"

  "The cold of despair and the moisture of calm go hand in hand," Keevan muttered, rising shakily to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily on his numb leg, wincing as circulation returned, carrying a thousand pinpricks of pain. "I had to disrupt your concentration. Besides, what are you complaining about? It worked.

  "Falletal blinked in surprise, glancing around the dungeon. He stared at the open steel pad lock and back at his hand. A gust of wind wrapped around them, brisk and freeing. "I really did that?"

  "Barely," Keevan said, stomping his foot. The pain was excruciating, but they didn't have time to sit idly by. Revolt boiled through Issamere's streets. If they were to make a difference, they needed to get moving. "I need to help whoever's still trying to stop this. It will be dangerous. Will you help me?"

  "Just give me a minute," Falletal insisted, flexing his fists. They flickered with renewed warmth. "Zerik and Morgra both brought this on the city. I say we make them pay."

  "We need to know what's going on first," Keevan insisted. He sighed in relief shaking the prickling discomfort from his limbs. "There will be archers above the palace, stationed along the walls. Might as well start there. We'll have a decent view of the situation."

  "Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren't you?" Falletal asked, pointing down the hall. "What about the guards?"

  "I seriously doubt their minds are still on their duty," Keevan countered. He hurried down the hall, pulling a spare torch from the wall. "If not, we might have to force our way out. I'll try to convince them first, if I can."

  "Convince a dungeon guard to disobey a direct order?" Falletal asked, picking up the steel padlock's chain. He wrapped the metal links around his knuckles, creating a fist of steel.

  "I can be very persuasive," Keevan insisted, tapping into the elemental plane as he flooded the dungeon with dark blue light. "Let's go."

  Chapter 25

  High Priest Kade Mathur bolted across the plaza, lighting flaring from his heels at each step. A hollow boom followed after him, and a couple hundred of Raejin's priests and acolytes. Around each corner he faced countless starving Rhetans. They swarmed shops, guards, and the wealthiest homes in each district, enraged and panicked. A few were even foolish enough to stand in Kade's way, mistaking him for a common runner.

  They didn't survive that mistake.

  The crowds whirled on him when they heard him approach. The rage in their eyes flickered when they saw his attire, a claustrophobic mixture of leather and wool, designed to support the countless metal spikes protruding from his body in all directions. Those spikes sparked with menacing electricity, as his power fed off the fears his own reputation ensured.

  Raejin's nickname, the Death God, was no accident. His High Priests would not deny those foolish enough to cross his path, the chance to meet him in the afterlife. The fools wielding metal, of all things, were the easiest to kill. Lightning needed no more than a nudge in their direction and they winked out of existence in a blast of electricity and a puff of smoldering flesh. Their deaths brought Kade no pleasure, but if sacrificing a few meant calming and saving the whole, they had no other choice.

  In each District Kade cut through, hostilities ceased. This priests and acolytes took up previously established locations across the city walls and rooftops, with orders to promote the peace the by means necessary. They all wore similar, black-spiked attire, the robes one wore when offering lives to the Death God. Few tri-beings were angry enough to risk Raejin's fury. None lived long enough to try a second time.

  Kade bolted into the Etrendi District, the bulk of his priests taking his lead as they ran for the palace. Morgra would be there, hiding behind his walls, waiting for Zerik's arrival. Throughout the Etrendi District, Rhetans were armed with powerful Danica weapons. Three of his priests broke away to deal with each one. The Sight Seeker's report hadn't gone unnoticed. His men were ordered not to touch the blades' hilts.

  The Malik's courtyard was a bloody scene indeed. Countless Rhetans swarmed the fences, hurling stones, flaming oils and whatever else they could find. Most guards fled to the palace's high stone walls. The Rhetans swarmed the gardens, turning a thing of beauty into a muddy cesspool of stomping boots and dying bodies. Whole trees were aflame now, feeding the rage of the Rhetan populace.

  A Rhetan turned on him, an elegant Danica blade in both hands. He launched a wave of flame, only to scorch the earth in vain. Kade was already past him, rushing for the palace ramparts. He heard the last of his priests meet the Rhetan with a blast of lightning and a roar of thunder. When Kade reached the palace walls, Sparks leapt around his armored spikes, blue, white and yellow.

  One reason Raejin's priests commanded so much respect from Tri-Beings, was their ability to harness and control fear. On days like today, however, with Rhetans and Etrendi on the verge of tearing each other apart, Kade did not require much concentration to conjure up the necessary terror. If his priests failed to terrorize the people into submission, death would fill the city's streets, sparing no one.

  Lightning coursed through Kade, and he directed the discharge behind him, using the force of the blast to hurl himself up the wall. He scrambled over edges, window sills, shattering glass and scorching stone as he went. When he ascended the wall with the h
eavy boom of thunder, many of the palace guards dropped their weapons in their haste to cover their ears. Kade whirled on the courtyard, now bathed in the orange light of the proud oak's raging flames.

  "People of Issamere!" Kade bellowed. Lighting amplified his voice as he spoke, unleashing a roar even the raging Rhetan population couldn't ignore. The palace guards scrambled clear of his section of the wall, for Kade's electricity scorched the stone battlements within twenty feet of him in every direction. "This slaughter ends now!"

  Roughly a thousand starving, furious Rhetans paused uneasily, staring at him. Their numbers stretched out into the city. On the far edge of Issamere, only one other fire burned, flickering off in the distance. Relief washed over Kade. The city was still relatively intact. The people's lives hung precariously on his ability to quell their rage, and the skill of his priests and acolytes in keeping the people's emotions stifled. Behind him, another elemental battle echoed, deep in the place. He could only assume Zerik had already found Malik Morgra. Smoke rose in from the harbor, where the relief ships still burned.

  Kade turned his attention back to the seething crowd. His electric display roared to life a second time, "You will all return to your homes, at once. I will personally find the men responsible for your suffering and end them. Their food will be yours, for the dead need not eat. But you, you will go home, or meet Raejin. Now."

  A thousand eyes stared at their feet, sufficiently cowed. They glanced down at their makeshift spears, swords, and chunks of stone. They were inadequate tools indeed. A gap in the crowd formed around the body of the Rhetan who'd wielded the Danica blade. Kade's priests stood over the corpse, daring anyone foolish enough, to attempt retrieving the weapon. The crowed relented, slowly making their way out of the palace grounds. Kade sighed in relief. For all Zerik's resources, he couldn't counter the might of Raejin.

  Then, a haunting roar echoed from across the city. The distant fire on the edge of Issamere roared all the higher, like a beacon of pure rage. Even at this distance, Kade could see the massive Bastrom rising up above the buildings, wreathed in flame like the embodied fury of a God. Dull dread tickled Kade's mind. Every report suggested those creatures were timid and lazy. Even in war, he'd never seen one enraged.

  Kade opened his mouth, amplified his voice and tried to command the Rhetans one last time. His words were swallowed up when the flaming tree before them erupted into a torrent heat, reaching even higher than the palace walls. The distant roar burst into fresh life as the Bastrom stepped through the flames and into the courtyard.

  "Stormborn," Kade whispered, his gaze jumping from the flaming tree before them, to the burning building in the distance. He'd heard rumors of fire-bonded creatures, capable of hoping from one flame to another. Nature's way of competing against a pagoda's ability to turn into an actual lightning bolt.

  "They said it only ate grain," Kade muttered, his mind desperately reaching for a means of containing so dangerous a beast. Fire-bonded creatures could only 'jump' through blazes large enough to encompass their physical bodies. Even as the Bastrom stepped onto the palace grounds, Kade noticed the burning building at Issamere's edge extinguish with surprising speed. Zerik's agents had enraged the beast, used his fire-jumping capability to herd him into the palace, and sealed off any chance of the creature returning by the same means.

  The Bastrom attacked. The stormborn creature's hide flickered gold and crimson, drawing power from the flaming tree. The Rhetans tried to flee, but the creature moved with incredible speed, crushing earth, Rhetan, and shrubbery alike with each step. A few tried to resist him, instinctively drawing on water or fire, but the creature's elemental field set aflame anything standing within a dozen yards of the beast.

  The Raejin priests scattered, as the cobblestones they stood on withered and melted from the Bastrom's progress. One of the priests, in his haste, accidentally sparked the creature in the face. The beast sprinted after him, the earth rocking with each heavy step. The creature's eyes burned pure white and when he roared in pursuit, Kade could see down into the beast's throat, a sweltering cauldron of heat.

  Another priest dived behind the beast, just on the edge of the Bastrom's sweltering elemental field. He unleashed a fierce bolt of lightning into his buttocks. The creature convulsed momentarily, and then spun, the beast's rage and heat growing even further. Kade gulped nervously. He could see the scorch mark from the lighting, already healing. To this creature, heat and flesh were one and the same.

  "Zerik, you madman," Kade whispered, "What have you done?"

  The third of Kade's priests took his place at the far end of the courtyard, lobbing an electric volley of his own at the Bastrom. The creature's elemental field was so wide now, a tidal wave of flames followed in the creature's wake, forcing his men to keep their distance. The farther from the target, the less potent the lightning. A direct shot, up close, might do enough harm to slow the creature. But no one could survive that heat long enough to strike.

  "High Priest!" Someone cried, sprinting toward him along the battlements.

  Kade turned, blinking surprise at Keevan's approach. A Rhetan accompanied him. Both their clothes were stained and tattered. "Outlander? I thought you were in prison."

  "What's going on?" Keevan asked. His mouth hung agape for a stunned moment as he stared at the rampaging Bastrom in the courtyard, "Oh."

  "This is no place for you," Kade insisted, pushing the boy away. The Rhetan accompanying the sight seeker took one look at the Bastrom and turned pale as a ghost. "Go. I won't risk you dying in a stray bolt of lightning."

  "I can help," Keevan spat back, pushing Kade's hand away. The boy's eyes glowed blue and he scampered to the edge of the battlements. "Your men won't hurt him with those long distance shots. You're only making him angrier and stronger."

  "We're keeping him contained," Kade growled, pointing at the scrambling tide of Rhetans. Dozens lay trampled in the chaos, but most were safely on the other side of the tall, black fences. Not that the iron works would do much to hold back the Bastrom. Another priest took his turn, sparking the creature's flank and fleeing for all his was worth as the beast rushed after him. "Unless you have a better idea?"

  "Give me a minute," Keevan said, staring at the creature with those glowing blue Sight Seeker eyes. "The Bastrom is never this angry. Something is seriously wrong, to inspire such rage. Is he dying?"

  "I'm not concerned about the creature's wellbeing right now," Kade shouted, lighting sparking from the spikes of his armor and into the stone roof underfoot. "If that thing gets loose, thousands more will die."

  "Zerik wouldn't unleash that thing, unless he had a sure plan for dealing with the creature after the fact," Keevan said stubbornly, folding his arms. "He means to rule Issamere, not a mass grave."

  "A plan weeks in the making, I'm sure," Kade grumbled. One of his priests stumbled on a loose stone, skidding to a broken halt on the scorched earth. Kade extended his hand and launched a bolt of his own, striking the creature's right eye. The beast flinched from the shock, faced him and roared. Even from this distance, the air burned so hot Kade wondered if his hair and eyebrows would survive.

  "There!" Keevan cried excitedly, "I saw down his throat. I know what's wrong with him."

  "This had better be useful," Kade bellowed, rolling his eyes at the boy's blind excitement. The Bastrom smashed into the palace wall, shaking the building and sending a tide of flame rushing up into the sky, only feet away. They scrambled clear just as that section of wall tumbled into the inferno. This time, only the combined strength of all three priests hurling lightning bolts into the Bastrom's buttocks was sufficient to momentarily distract the beast.

  "It's Danica!" Keevan shouted over the roar of the flames. "Someone fed him a lot of fire Danica. It's as if that creature swallowed an entire forge. That's why-"

  His words were swallowed up in another blast of flame. The creature tore into the roof with hoof and flame alike, melting everything the beast failed to break. They sprinted
down the wall, tripping on unsteady ground as the Bastrom rose on his hide legs and bellowed his fury at them. The beast broke through the ceiling there, landing in the palace washroom. Steam billowed up around him like an ominous cloud. For a blessed moment, there was only quiet.

  "How do we stop that thing, then?" The Rhetan cried angrily, the heat was getting to his emotions.

  "Could we make the Bastrom bring the palace tower down on top of itself?" Kade asked Keevan, "Bury it?"

  "I think he would melt his way out at this point," Keevan countered, hot sweat pouring down his face. His limbs were spattered with blisters. Kade's armor protected his limbs and torso, though he could feel blisters forming on his face.

  "Then what?!" Falletal cried, leading their retreat down the wall.

  The Bastrom roared with renewed vigor, steam swirling around the behemoth like a living thing. The beast charged after them, eyes fixed on Kade, melting and tearing through two stories of stonework in the process. Kade's priests hurled lighting into the beast's flanks from behind, but couldn't do enough harm to distract the enraged creature. The added moisture of the washroom calmed the creature enough to center his efforts on a single target. Kade.

  "The Harbor," Keevan cried desperately, when they reached the tower door. He pointed out toward the ocean, where the relief vessels still burned. The last one's flames reached twenty feet into the air, their only hope. "The creature used fire to get here, right?"

  "Stay here!" Kade ordered. For once, the boy didn't argue.

  Kade leapt from the wall, throwing a blast of lightning into the ground below to slow his decent. He landed roughly, rolled to his feet and sprinting down the courtyard. The Bastrom left the melted palace wall and thundered after him, the very earth trembling with each step.

  "Full attack. On my order," He shouted to the first priest he passed. Then the second and third. They hovered on the edge of the Bastrom's field, surrounding the creature, while Kade led the beast in a wide circle. Sparks leapt from his feet with each step, hurling his body through the air with reckless speed. The Bastrom scorched plant and dirt alike from the earth, leaving only melting bedrock. Kade was running out of room. If he led the creature in a circle again, he'd be trying to run on magma.