I grabbed hold of the iron door and shook, but no luck. It wouldn’t budge.
There were a bunch of shouts down the hall, and then several guards appeared and jumped through another hole in the cell wall next to us to join the attack.
“Hey, wait!” I shouted.
The guard in the rear stopped and looked at us.
“We’re not the enemy. We’re Allyrian just like you. Let us out, we can help,” I pleaded.
The guard hesitated for a moment and then fumbled with the keys at his waist. Unlatching them, the man stepped forward.
A large red ball appeared, racing at the guard with impeccable speed, and an instant later, it slammed into him.
The keys went flying, and I grabbed Bella and dove to the side, afraid more blasts would keep coming.
When the dust settled, I raised my head and gaped as I saw that all that remained of the guard were his boots and the bloody stumps of his feet.
“Chet,” I said. “What was that?”
“Magicannon,” Bella said. “Balgyran tech. It requires the consumption of magika stones to fire. Your father outlawed them in Allyria.”
“What do we do now?” I asked, walking toward the cell door once more.
I stepped on something metal, and it scraped on the concrete beneath me. Lifting my foot, I saw the guard’s keys lying on the floor.
“Thank the gods,” I said as I picked them up.
It took six tries, but eventually, I found the key that unlocked the electrocuffs. I felt the pulse of magic return to my body the moment they fell. I used the same key to free Bella and then turned toward the door.
Unfortunately, the same key was not used to open our cell, so I had to begin my hunt through the ring of keys anew.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a bright glow growing in the darkness of the trees beyond the clearing.
“Aren, hurry,” Bella said.
Key after key, the door still remained locked. And breath after breath, the glow grew larger and larger.
The lock finally clicked open at the same time another giant ball of magic was launched from the machine, coming straight for us.
Bella pushed me through the door, and we jumped out of the way just as the blast slammed into our empty cell and blew a hole clear through to the other side.
We continued running through to the entrance of the camps that we’d come through. But as we burst through the door, we were chagrined to see the portcullises still down with no way for us to raise them.
“Back through the breach!” I shouted.
Bella didn’t argue as we spun and raced back down the hallway.
Once we reached the hole in the wall, we burst forth from it and turned right, running along the camp’s outer wall.
Blasts of magic from rifles slammed into the wall, spraying pieces of stone everywhere. I ducked and covered my head as I shouted, “Shield!”
My neural link responded, and a blue orb appeared around me as I ran.
And not a moment too soon, because the next instant a blast crashed into it and dissolved on impact. Thankfully, my shield held.
Legs aching and lungs burning, I pressed forward, glancing back only to make sure Bella was still behind me. She had engaged her shield as well.
Knowing she was safe, I turned my attention to the space of in front of me and kept running.
We cleared the wall of the camps and burst into the forest at its perimeter, angling in the general direction of the city. We didn’t slow down, even when our shields gave out after the time lapse.
The sounds of fighting faded into the distance, but still we didn’t stop. If the city hadn’t been attacked, they needed to be warned, and if it had—well, I couldn’t think about that right now.
The trip from the city to the camps had taken us about an hour before, but we were walking pretty slowly as neither Ryan nor Jacobs seemed in a hurry to get back to McKenna or their posts on the fringe of the mountains. Even so, it took us twenty minutes to reach the outskirts at a full sprint.
There were no Balgyrans in sight. Not yet, anyway.
I could barely breath as I burst through the doors of the great hall and collapsed onto the floor.
Thirty or more different sets of eyes all turned, and several people who had been seated jumped up at our intrusion.
“What is the meaning of this?” a thunderous voice boomed throughout the hall.
“Aren?” another voice asked—Claire’s voice.
Thank the gods.
“The camps—” I said, struggling to breath. “The camps—”
“Balgyra attacked the camps,” Bella answered for me as she was still on her feet—and apparently in much better shape than me.
“Preposterous!” a man with grizzled, short-cropped hair yelled.
“Impossible,” said another.
“Balgyra hasn’t crossed the lines in three years. Surely, we would have heard about this on the comms,” McKenna said.
The grizzled man coughed.
“General?” McKenna asked.
“Communications have been down for three days,” the general admitted. “I’ve been meaning to send a crew to repair the lines again.”
McKenna cursed. “You son of a—”
“Commander McKenna!” the other older man roared.
“Trevon is out on the front line!” she retorted. “You sent him there, and now he has no way to call for backup? If the Balgyrans are this deep already—” McKenna stormed from the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” the general shouted.
“I’m going to go find him,” she said as she slipped past me and out into the street.
“General Lockwin, clearly you see the truth of what I’ve been telling you,” Claire said.
The general turned his attention back to Claire and mumbled, “That remains to be seen.” Looking at me, he said, “Tell me what happened.”
I recounted the events since arriving at the camps, leaving out the details about actually being locked up, though I figured he surmised as much, yet he didn’t order us back in irons. He just stood there, staring at me, as if trying to process the truth of it all.
Before he could make up his mind, shouts out in the street drew our attention.
“Smoke!” someone yelled.
“Fire at the camps!” another cried.
The general cursed, then said pensively, “It seems I have little choice but to trust you. You have my leave. Find McKenna. She seems dead set on getting herself killed. Let her be the one to risk her life to take you to the caves.”
“Thank you, General Lockwin,” Claire said.
“That’s it?” I blurted out before thinking. “What about Lucian—”
“Lucian is a blithering idiot,” Lockwin said.
Several people in attendance sucked in air, including myself.
“It’s easy to give orders when he’s hundreds of miles away, sitting in the comfort of his shiny palace. There’s a reason Xavier was suing for peace. Men are dying out here every day—my men—and for what? We are loyal, and we are faithful, and we will fulfill our Oaths to protect the crown, but what Lucian is doing is pure madness.”
The other general stood by stiff as a board while many others rocked nervously at the general’s words.
“What are you all looking at?” he barked. “The official position of this war camp is that our comms are down, we received no orders to attack, we received no kill orders on the Hallands, and we are obeying the direct orders of the crown brought to us straight from the princess herself. Does everyone understand me?”
A hearty, “Sir, yes, sir!” rose up throughout the room.
“Dismissed,” Lockwin said.
Claire asked, “Our weapons, general?”
“Someone get them their gear,” the general ordered with the wave of his hand.
Claire and Izaiah readily rejoined Bella and myself.
“Are you all right?” Claire asked.
“We’re fine, whe
re’s Leon?” I replied.
Claire shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since we were at the base of the mountain.”
“Chet,” I said. “Oh well, we have to trust that he’s keeping his head down and that he’ll turn up. He has a way of just appearing, and he’s always stayed close by.”
The others nodded as we left the great hall.
The city was abuzz with whole platoons of soldiers running every which way, but most were headed toward the camps. Several others were fortifying the city, preparing for the inevitable attack on their base of operations.
McKenna wasn’t all that difficult to find. She had been waiting for us outside the great hall with our gear.
I opened my mouth, but McKenna beat me to it. “Save it. I know Lockwin well enough to know he would send you with me. I took the liberty of getting your stuff. Let’s go.”
Slipping my bow and quiver over my shoulders, I followed McKenna as she turned and left the city, the rest of our group right behind me.
As we approached the first junction outside the city, McKenna turned to the south… away from the fighting.
“I thought—”
“That was your first mistake,” McKenna said.
Izaiah snickered.
I glared at him, and he mouthed an apology.
McKenna continued, “Going to the demarcation line without comms, especially, if Balgyra has invaded, would be suicide. And the general might not have said it outright, but he knew what I intended when I told him I was going after Trevon. We have to fix the dish first. Obsidia needs to know what’s happened here.”
“Who’s Trevon?” I asked.
“None of your business,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“All right, all right. Just making friendly conversation."
“Don’t think that just because the general pardoned you that makes us friends.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This woman was wearing on my patience, and I wasn't an easily frustrated person.
McKenna led us back up the path from the way we’d come in. We walked for three hours before she turned to the east and went up a winding trail that led higher into the closest mountain.
After repeated attempts at small talk and constantly getting rebuffed, I fell back, giving McKenna a wide berth. Izaiah was at the very back talking with Bella, who in turn was keeping her distance from me.
Claire came up alongside me, her eyes inquisitive. “How are things going with Bella, did you guys—?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “We talked. I think she’s telling the truth. At least I’m willing to believe she is. I was about to apologize when everything went sideways.”
“Maybe you should tell her now,” Claire said.
I glanced back.
Bella was smiling at Izaiah as they talked.
“The timing doesn’t feel right.”
“There’s never a bad time to say you’re sorry. If you’re not careful, you’ll find yourself putting it off, and then it’ll be too late,” she said.
I looked at Bella again. She caught me looking and averted her gaze.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Go!”
I took a deep breath and walked down to Bella.
“Can we talk a minute?” I asked.
“I’m kind of busy right now,” Bella replied, looking at Izaiah.
“What’s that, Claire?” Izaiah shouted loudly, sounding very fake. “I’ll be right there.” Then Izaiah ran off, leaving us alone.
Bella sighed. “What is it you were going to say, Aren?”
“I just wanted to tell you—”
“Everyone quiet,” McKenna called back. “We’re here, but something doesn’t seem right.”
Up ahead, the trail ended and a clearing was visible beyond. A huge satellite dish at its very center was raised up on a thick pole that could have easily been thirty feet wide and at least a hundred feet tall.
The earth beneath us rumbled, then went still.
“What was that?” Claire asked.
“I said, quiet,” McKenna hissed as we all stepped out into the clearing.
I moved closer to Bella and whispered, “I just wanted to say that I’m—”
Another quake, but this time it was a lot closer and a lot stronger.
That’s when the largest rhinoceros I’d ever seen before stepped out from behind the satellite tower. It must have been at least ten feet tall. Stopping, it turned its head and stared right at us.
Then it charged.
Thirty
“Run!” McKenna shouted.
She didn’t have to tell me twice.
I drew my bow and nocked an arrow as I scurried away. A quick glance over my shoulder revealed that we’d all gone off in separate directions.
Thankfully, the rhino was chasing McKenna, not me, so I slowed down just inside the tree line and tapped my neural link. I focused my vision on the beast.
IRONHORN
LEVEL 42
TYPE: GROUND
IMMUNITY: EARTH
ABSORBS: NONE
WEAKNESS: ICE
DROPS: ENRAGE
The level was a bit more reasonable than the nightwing, but still way out of my range.
McKenna sprinted up the trunk of a tree and kicked out, springing up and over the ironhorn. It barreled right on through and uprooted the tree as it smashed into it, plucking it up as if it were a weed out of the ground.
Okay, so level 42 or not, this thing was no joke.
Though I hadn’t meant to, focusing on McKenna caused her stats to appear.
CHARLOTTE MCKENNA
LEVEL 25
AFFILIATION: ALLYRIA
PROFESSION: ENGINEER
250/250 MP
18,350/25,000 EXP
0 AP AVAILABLE
11,320 FAME – OFFICER
13,540 RIFKELS
McKenna was an Engineer? What was she doing out here?
And why was everyone else at a higher level than me? Leon had said I gained levels twice as fast as everyone else. After all this time, I was only a level 12, and I hadn’t seen an enemy lower than me since…well, never. Even those birds I’d killed on my first mission had been a higher level than I was at the time.
I brushed aside those thoughts as the ironhorn turned around and rushed at McKenna once more.
I really wished I had a few extra magika stones about now as my current bow didn’t have any magical properties. But it was what it was.
Pulling back on the string, I let my first arrow fly.
Despite the rhino’s thick hide, the arrow pierced through it, eliciting a roar from the beast.
Abandoning its current quarry, it turned in my direction.
Oh, chet.
I loosed another arrow, but this time it hit the creature’s horn and bounced right off. The ironhorn lowered its head, snarled, and charged—the earth quaking as it thundered toward me.
Having no shame, I turned and ran.
Out of nowhere, Izaiah appeared with alarming speed and crashed into the ironhorn’s side with his shield active, knocking the beast to the ground.
It flung its head and connected with Izaiah, tossing him aside.
I turned and loosed a few more arrows, drilling them into the ironhorn’s neck, but they appeared to do little damage.
Slipping the bow back onto my shoulder, I held out my palm. The neural link said the creature was susceptible to ice, so ice it would get.
A blast of icy blue magic issued forth at my thought and slammed into the ironhorn. It hollered in pain, and I saw the spot where it hit, ice over.
It was working.
It was actually working!
I called forth two more blasts, and more ice engulfed the beast, but it still wasn’t enough. I took a quick glance at my MP.
75/120 MP
Each blast took away 15 MP, but by itself, it wasn’t enough. I decided to test how well the neural link obeyed my commands.
I told
it to launch the equivalent of four blasts in a single, large strike.
Even as I thought it, the ironhorn had regained its feet.
I felt energy gather within me, and I watched as my MP dropped all the way to 15. Grabbing my arm for stability, I aimed at the beast as a massive ball of ice shot out from my hand and lanced across the field to engulf the ironhorn.
When the dust settled, the creature was completely encased in ice.
“Yes!” I shouted.
But before I could even enjoy my victory, the ice cracked and shattered completely.
The jaws of the great beast opened wide, and it roared in anger as it barreled toward me once again.
I give up, I thought, then dashed away with everything I had.
Trees were getting torn up left and right as it tossed its head, trunks snapping in half as if were stepping on twigs. Nothing slowed the beast. In fact, it seemed to gain speed, closing the distance between us.
Ahead of me, I saw Bella standing in my path.
“Run!” I shouted.
Instead, she tapped a stone on her chestplate, and a honeycomb pattern of blue light fell over her. Dropping into a fighting stance, she faced the ironhorn.
What was she doing?
I barreled past her, grabbing her arm as I did so, but it felt like pulling on a mountain, and she didn’t budge. The force of my momentum and the unexpected reaction sent me tumbling to the ground.
I flipped over just in time to see the ironhorn plow into Bella.
“No!” I shouted.
But Bella didn’t move. Instead, she grabbed the beast’s horn and stopped it dead in its tracks. What I saw next defied all reason.
She picked it up by its horn.
Literally lifted it into the air as if it weighed nothing, slammed it into the ground, and tossed it into the trees, leveling at least a dozen of them in the process.
My jaw dropped.
Bella tried to chase the ironhorn down, but each step looked like she was wading through thick mud. It took a tremendous amount of effort on her part as she moved sluggishly forward. Before she had made it a dozen feet, the creature had already recovered and was racing after McKenna.
“What did you just do?” I blurted.
But Bella didn’t bother to respond. She tapped another stone, and her speed returned to normal, then she was gone, chasing after the ironhorn once more.
Sworn Guardian: A LitRPG/GameLit Adventure (Forbidden Magic Book 1) Page 22
