Immortal Swordslinger 2

by Dante King

  I reared back and kicked the lock as hard as I could. The charred wood and damaged door around it gave way. It fell to the floor in ashen, smoldering lumps. Whatever was left of the lock hit the flagstones and skittered into a corner.

  “Come on,” I said to Labu.

  I strode into the cell, went over to Kumi, and unfastened the gag from around her mouth.

  “It’s so good to see you both,” she said with a relieved smile. “Much gratitude for coming for me.”

  “We were hardly going to leave you here,” I said. “Right, Labu?”

  The prince stood at the entrance of the cell as his gaze flitted from us to the corridor outside and back to me again.

  “Is someone coming?” I asked.

  “No,” Labu replied. “You’re fine.”

  But something about his stance had me on edge. He was turned toward us, not toward any threat that might come from the outside, and he looked ready to leap into action. He gripped his spear as he had when we fought the guards, ready to strike with the blunt shaft and knock someone out. If he was pleased to see his sister, his face didn’t show it. There was only a sort of grim determination, a reluctant acceptance of what he was doing.

  I lowered my hand to the grip of the Sundered Heart. “You planning on betraying us, Labu?”

  “We should move before they lock us all in one of these,” Labu suggested as he avoided my question.

  I took a step away from Kumi as her eyes widened in concern.

  “Aren’t you going to untie me?” she asked.

  “I want to,” I said. “I’m just a bit worried about what happens when I bend down to do that. When my hands are busy and my attention is elsewhere.”

  I stared at Labu. He looked away.

  “Get it done; we’re running out of time,” he said. “Do really think that I’d bring you all this way just to execute you in front of my sister? Really?”

  “I think you do a lot of things,” I said slowly. “Where were you when the monsters came into Qihin City? Why wasn’t it guarded? If the guild is responsible for the monster attack, they had to have someone on the inside. Someone to lay lures to draw the monsters in. To let Cadrin know about the side entrance to the temple, to enlist the temple guards. And then, there was the route we found to sneak in here. If everybody hated you as much as they make out, how would you know there was a hidden entrance behind a secret door in the cellar?”

  Labu regarded me with a blank expression.

  “Ethan, Labu couldn’t have been behind the attacks. He’s my brother,” Kumi insisted. “He might train with the guild, but that doesn’t mean he’s completely betrayed everything he stands for.”

  “He seems pretty cozy with the guild, though, right?” I asked her quietly. “A secret route into the guild house? That’s the sort of thing only people at the top would know about. The sort of people who would make rescuing you so easy, leaving just enough guards to make it convincing.”

  “Truly, Ethan, my brother would not—”

  “The guild would need someone to lead me here,” I continued despite the princess’ words. “Someone I could almost trust. Someone like you.” I glared at Labu as I prepared to end him with a swift strike of the Sundered Heart.

  Labu raised a hand. He seemed about to protest his innocence. I almost hoped that he would, that I would be proved wrong for once and that Kumi’s brother hadn’t just betrayed her. The princess gazed pleadingly at Labu and silently begged him to disagree. To call me a liar, or wrong. But then he gripped his spear again and smiled tightly.

  “You’re not wrong,” he said. “They don’t hate me as much as they make out.”

  Footsteps rushed down the corridor toward us. A crowd of guild members appeared in the hallway behind Labu, armed and ready for action.

  Fury boiled within me. Labu had shown his true colors.

  “You bastard,” I said. “I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

  “And now, here we are,” Labu snarled. “I will finally restore my honor.”

  “Not without a head you won’t.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  I flung myself at Labu as he jabbed his spear at my body. I dodged left and felt air brush my skin as the spear hissed an inch away from my arm. As his weapon came back around, I sidestepped right and grabbed the shaft. Labu and I pushed and shoved as we grappled for the spear. We twisted around the doorway to the cell while his guild companions waited in the corridor. They seemed content to watch Labu for the moment, at least until they could get through and into the fight.

  “Can you use your Augmenting?” I called out to Kumi.

  “Not while I’m bound like this,” she said. “The silk straps are blocking my powers.”

  I couldn’t afford to let go of the spear and step back to draw my sword now that I was up close. If I did that, he would get a free attack, and the guild warriors would have a chance to swarm into the room. I had to create an advantage some other way.

  I yanked at the spear, but Labu had a vice-like grip, and there was no wrenching it from his hands. Instead, I took one of my hands off and released a Stinging Palm thorn into his stomach. It punched through his abdomen and came out the other side. His eyes widened, and I snatched his spear from him. I caught him in the chest with a high kick, and he flew back into the guards.

  I summoned a Burning Wheel and cast the chaotic technique into the corridor. The flaming tornado quickly grew and consumed the first line of guards, but the others threw a torrent of ice spears into the attack and rendered it little more than an ember.

  I grabbed the cell door and slammed it shut with a boom that echoed around the small room. I jammed the spear blade as hard as I could underneath the bottom of the door, wedged it shut, and bought myself a couple of seconds.

  “I think I just killed your brother,” I said to Kumi. The room filled with the sound of thudding as the guild disciples hammered at the door. I probably only had 10 seconds before they got through to us.

  “He isn’t so easy to put down,” the princess assured me.

  I drew my knife and rushed over to the seat where she was still tied.

  “Does silk always do this?” I asked as I sliced through the first of the bonds. “Stop Augmenting powers, I mean?”

  “It has to be specially prepared,” Kumi said. “But if used carefully, yes, it can restrain almost any power. Betrayed by my own brother. I can’t believe it.”

  The impacts hammered louder against my makeshift barricade. The spear blade scraped back half an inch beneath a particularly heavy blow and jammed up against the edge of a flagstone. Ice started to form around the cracks in the door, and I guessed the Augmenters on the other side were attempting to perform magic to break it down.

  “You’d better start believing,” I said. “Because he’s outside that door right now with a bunch of his mates, trying to get in and kick the crap out of us.” I doubted Labu had been able to recover so swiftly from my attack, but then this was a world where a woman could hum a tune and heal mortal wounds.

  The last of the bonds gave way beneath my knife. Kumi rose to her feet, wobbled, and placed a hand on my shoulder to straighten herself.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been tied here so long, my legs have started falling asleep.”

  She bent and rubbed at her ankles to revive the weary flesh. The thudding continued, louder, and the wood pressing against the spearhead started to splinter. When Kumi straightened up, she wore a look of grim determination.

  “Let’s do this,” she said.

  “Can you give me a boost to my power?” I asked.

  “Help me out.” She pointed to the ice coating on the door.

  Flames rippled free of my hands and turned the ice into a stream of water.

  Kumi chanted and swayed from side to side. Water slid away from the doorway and into the air between her hands. It flowed across me and granted a renewed burst of energy. It didn’t quite restore my Vigor, but it helped alleviate my weariness.
>
  I took hold of her hand. “Hold on tight. I don’t want to lose you after coming this far.”

  Raw Vigor brimmed over inside me, so powerfully that I could barely contain it. I let it flow out through the water channels to become a great cloud of mist that filled the room. The fog poured over the door and seeped through the gaps into the corridor beyond.

  I kicked the spear out from under the door a split second before someone slammed into it. The door burst open, and the attacker stumbled into the mist, slipped on the flagstones, and fell to the ground.

  I ran into the corridor, dragging Kumi behind me. The guild warriors were just gray shapes in the mist. Everyone in front of me was an enemy. That gave me an advantage. They couldn’t be sure who was friend and who was foe.

  I jumped over the charred carcass of an enemy who’d suffered death by my Burning Wheel. As I landed, I punched a guard in the face and heard their head crack against the wall. Another guard pushed into me, and I knocked them over with a roundhouse kick before I slammed into a third so that they fell to the ground. I trampled over them as I dashed past, along the corridor and away from the secure cells. My blanket of mist lingered as I sped away with Kumi in tow.

  We ran out of the prison area, up a stairwell, and back along the dungeon-like corridor that Labu had led me across. There were shouts of struggle and alarm behind us as our assailants tried to work out what was happening in the mist. But there were also sounds of combat from up ahead. I let go of Kumi’s hand and drew the Sundered Heart.

  “Will you bathe me in the blood of these traitors?” Nydarth purred to me.

  “Count on it,” I thought back as I turned to Kumi.

  “Here,” I said, handing her my knife. “It’s not as good as the ones you normally carry, but it’s something.”

  “Oh, it’s plenty,” she said, a fierce gleam in her eyes.

  I wouldn’t have wanted to be her enemy.

  We emerged into a wide corridor where guild members fought Kegohr and Vesma in a flurried mass of initiate robes. My two friends had their backs to each other as they battled, a mismatched pair given Kegohr’s looming bulk and Vesma’s short, lean athleticism. While Kegohr sent their attackers flying with powerful sweeps of his mace, Vesma’s spear struck like a viper and drew blood from her enemies.

  Both my friends had raised Flame Shields, and the Ice Spears of the initiates melted in hissing explosions of steam. Vesma used her shield to attack while she sent out blasts of fire that melted Frozen Armor and forced her opponents back, giving her more space to wield her spear.

  I summoned my own icy coating of protection. Frozen plates spread across my body in curved, gleaming surfaces like the shell of a giant, white beetle. I launched a spray of thorns from my hand and caught the nearest initiate in the neck. Scarlet blood sprayed from the wound, and I charged as flames flickered from the Sundered Heart Sword.

  I caught the first of my opponents by surprise. He carried a slender sword and a small shield but didn’t bring either around in time to block me. My sword hit him in the side, and there was a burst of steam as his armor evaporated, dissipated by the fire and strength of the blow. He turned to face me, but my second attack caught his armor at a different angle and sliced through a melted plate of ice. The Sundered Heart tore into his body, and he fell bleeding to the ground.

  “We have to find the Depthless Dream,” Kumi said as she leaped onto an opponent and drove her blade into his side. “Cadrin has it somewhere in the guild.”

  “First, we get you to safety,” I said. “This is a rescue mission—everything else can wait.”

  “But the trident—”

  “Isn’t as important as the king’s daughter. As long as you’re here, the guild has leverage over your father. We can always get the trident later.”

  More warriors flanked us from the corridor that led to the dungeons. Several had bruises on their faces where I’d hit them or where they’d collided with the walls, but that experience hadn’t discouraged them. Quite the opposite; they seemed eager to enter the fray.

  Kegohr let out an almighty roar the moment the new attackers arrived. Flames flashed across his skin and left a bright blaze burning in his eyes as the Spirit of the Wildfire flowed through him.

  “Let’s start the party!” he bellowed as he charged into the oncoming group.

  Kegohr hit the initiates like a bowling ball slamming into a set of pins. Men and women flew into the air as the weight of the half-ogre crashed into them. A couple kept their feet, only to be felled by a sweep of his club. Kegohr pulverized the skull of one before he crushed another against the wall.

  I moved up to cover Vesma’s back. The initiates surrounded us, but their numbers were falling as we wore them down. They were no match for better-trained Augmenters with something to protect.

  I used an Ash Cloud to blind the nearest attacker, then ran him through while he swung blindly to fend me off.

  “More, mighty Swordslinger,” Nydarth moaned. “Give me their blood.”

  “Where’s Labu?” Vesma asked as she parried a spear. “We shouldn’t leave one of our own behind.”

  “He’s not one of our own,” I said as I kicked an Augmenter’s legs out from under her. “He betrayed us to the guild. This whole thing was a trap.”

  “Thought he seemed like an asshole,” Vesma said. “Next time, just kill him.”

  She sprang into the air, kicked an opponent in the head, and landed back to sweep her spear into another attack.

  We pushed along the corridor and cut down a path to make our way toward the exit. A constant supply of guild warriors kept appearing and slowed our progress. However many we dealt with, there was always a fresh fighter behind them.

  “Kill the Wilds!” one of them bellowed as he hurled an Ice Spear at Kegohr. The half-ogre deflected it with his Flame Shield, and the half-melted slush spattered across the wall behind him.

  “Death to the tainted ones!” another initiate shouted as she leaped at Kumi.

  Nunchucks spun in the crazed initiate’s hands as Kumi danced aside, darted inside the woman’s guard, and knocked her hand away. The princess sliced her opponent across the shoulder. The enemy’s weapon fell to the floor just as Kumi drove her blade home again and left the howling opponent against the wall to try to staunch the flow of blood.

  We’d cleared the enemies around us, but more clustered at the end of the corridor and barred our progress. They flung frozen projectiles, so many at once that it seemed like a rain of icicles. I brought up a Flame Shield to protect Kumi at my back before I joined Vesma and Kegohr in blocking the spears. I used Flame Empowerment to increase the size of their shields, and our barriers almost covered the entire corridor except for a narrow gap, and an Ice Spear managed to slip through it. The projectile hit Vesma in the shoulder, and she screamed in pain.

  “Here.” Kumi’s magic scooped up the water of melted ice spears and turned it into a magical balm that settled onto Vesma’s shoulder and started to heal the wound.

  The enemy readied another hailstorm of ice at the end of the corridor

  “This way!” Kegohr thundered down a side passage, and the rest of us ducked out of view of the spear throwers.

  “This isn’t the way we came,” I said.

  “No, no, no,” Kegohr said. “It ain’t looking like we can get out that way, but I found other routes while we were hanging around the guild house. This should take us out near the main gate.”

  “You want us to fight our way out through the main entrance?” Vesma asked. “That’s crazy! There’ll be guards.”

  “There are guards here. You got a better plan?”

  “I’m right beside you, big guy,” I said. “We’ll smash through them together.”

  We ran down corridors and around spiral staircases. Servants stared in confusion as we raced past them.

  “Something wasn’t right about those people we fought,” Kumi said as we paused at a junction, trying to get our bearings. “They were seething wit
h hatred of Wilds. Not simple opposition but hatred. Real and serious hatred.”

  “That ain’t that rare,” Kegohr said. “Remember Hamon and his buddies.”

  “They weren’t this bad,” I said. “And there weren’t that many of them.”

  “Trust me,” Kegohr said. “That shit gets everywhere. Now, come on; this way leads out.”

  I wasn’t going to argue. He knew what it was like to be a Wild, while I had just seen a little of how they were treated. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something darker and more twisted had taken hold in this guild. And that Horix was behind it.

  More Augmenters came at us in another corridor, greeted us with another hailstorm of frozen knives, and enchanted their blades with icy power.

  “Kill the Wilds!” the leader shouted. “Drive out the taint.”

  They readied their Ice Spears, but before they could let fly, I closed the distance between us. Instead of pulling up a Flame Shield, I strengthened my Frozen Armor. Thin, chitinous plates became solid masses, like the armor of a knight. Their attacks shattered against my armor and exploded into bursts of snowy crystals.

  I ran into the center of the group as the Sundered Heart sung like Death’s own scythe. I cut a leg out from under one of the initiates, and she fell to the ground, screaming as her blood turned the tiled floor red. The next one had a thick set of helmeted Frozen Armor, and my blade bounced off it, leaving a narrow dent of half-frozen slurry behind. I brought my other hand up, called forth the power of wood, and sprayed stinging splinters into the eyegaps of the helmet. She yelped in pain and staggered as my companions came to my side. Kegohr’s mace caught her in the side, smashed her armor, and broke her against the wall.

  An Augmenter lunged at me with a wickedly barbed Ice Spear. My armor held strong as the spear hit and the blow glanced off me. I grabbed the Augmenter’s head and slammed him against the wall just next to a sputtering torch. I reached out to the fire with Flame Empowerment technique, and it engulfed his face in a sudden blaze of brighter flame. He screeched and stumbled back as I released my grip on his shoulder.