Spellscribed: Resurgence (13 page)

The woman took a step closer. "Then put your weapon down." she demanded.

Wrach hooked his little finger through the ring at the pommel and let the blade drop down, withdrawing his finger when the point reached the bottom. The blade hit the sandstone with a 'plink' and fell over with a rattle. "Done." he replied. "Let us talk."

The woman was close enough now that he could see her face. Wrach was surprised to see it was the one he had met before.

"Selene?" he asked, taking a step forward. The woman was most definitely Selene. She had the same curvy figure, pretty rounded face, and spirals of naturally corkscrewed hair; though her eyes appeared to be red colored in the dim lighting, and her hair had a purple sheen. Two of the corkscrews of hair looked almost like horns along the side of her head. Now that he was within twenty feet of her, he could smell that she was the source of the rain scent, but the faint undertone he couldn't determine before was strong enough now. He could detect the faintest whiff of sulfur under the woman's natural perfume.

Selene looked momentarily confused, blinking at him wide eyed before her languid expression returned. "Ah… Wrach." she observed. "We meet again."

"Selene." Wrach said, still confused but on alert for danger. "You've been gone for nearly a year now. What happened? Where have you been?"

Selene smiled "I lost myself for a while." she explained, coming closer. "But I've found myself now, and it is such a relief to be free of my… older self."

Wrach could tell something was wrong. She was close enough now that she could reach out and touch him, and he was able to see that the pupils of her eyes were square. "You do seem different." Wrach observed. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Never better, in fact." She replied, indeed reaching out with one hand to touch him. Wrach didn't move, but braced himself for any number of things to happen. He had only heard tales of demonic possession in the short time he had been living in Balator before the campaign to conquer Ironsoul had begun, but the best he could tell was that one of Endrance's companions had been taken over.

She caressed his shoulder and trailed her hand down his breastplate. Faint wisps of golden light swirled around his body where her hand touched, but none left him. He felt a faint tickling sensation, but he was opposed to any kind of magic the demon would use on him and balked at the subtle invitation to let her touch him.

Her face hardened almost instantly. "Why won't my power work on you?" she asked. "You aren't like the others."

Wrach tilted his head. "Why would you try to use your power on me?" he asked. "What does it do?"

Selene stumbled back from him, her hand touching her forehead as if she were about to swoon. "No." she stammered. "No, no no! Why would I?"

Her posture changed again. "No. We should kill him." she growled to herself. "He'll take away our food."

The woman staggered, now clutching her head. What he had thought was a black leather cape turned out to be a pair of wings that snapped open, spreading wide and knocking over one of her docile soldiers. "No! You promised! No one dies remember?"

Wrach saw for a split second that she was struggling to gain control from the demon and knew that if he was going to escape, now was his chance. He didn't want to hurt the woman, and this would be the only way he could get out without violence.

He whirled, crouching low and snatching up his dropped weapon in one smooth motion, while pushing off with his powerful legs. He heard a screech behind him and felt something scratch across the back of his breastplate as he darted through the doors. A line of heat burned on his back and he was surprised that she had managed to cut through the steel. She must have had a concealed weapon of incredible sharpness.

He fled down the corridors, taking each turn with animal alacrity. He kept a measured breath, and paced his movement so that he wasn't risking tiring himself or crashing into a wall. He discovered the door to the chamber where his pack was waiting was closed, and knew if she was chasing him he'd not have time to try to get the door open. He accelerated, throwing his full weight at the door.

The door was reinforced with metal banding, which should have resisted his attempts to push through it. But the stone around the door bolts had not been maintained for several hundred years and the bolts snapped, tearing out small chunks of stone as the door crashed to the ground and skid two feet further into the room with Wrach riding upon it. He scrambled to his feet to find his pack had drawn their weapons and were looking at him with wide eyes. The two men hadn't even stirred from the table.

"Retreat." he growled in Ulfreau. "Demon."

The pack withdrew from the room in reverse order, the two hunters in the back guarding the door from the other side as Runa lifted an axe and pointed at the two men at the table.

"Stay." she commanded in the common tongue before backing out of the room.

Wrach pulled himself up from the broken door and slipped out, looking back down the corridor. A pair of red eyes glowed in the dark, watching, but not following out further. His superior hearing picked up the faintest of whispers.

"Go."

Wrach nodded, turning and following the pack up the stairs for two floors before stopping them. "Pause here." he ordered. They gathered together, crouching in the darkness as they waited to see if they were followed. After thirty minutes of sitting in the darkness and not seeing or hearing any pursuit, Wrach sighed.

"Clear." he said, rubbing at his shoulder. He was pretty sure he had dislocated it hitting the door, but he had been ignoring the pain while they were in danger. Without having to be told, Runa moved to his back and checked the bleeding of his wound. The cut on his back had been lightly bleeding and none of the hunters could miss that smell. They had known he had been hurt, but could tell it was not a serious wound by the small scent of blood in the air.

"Your pretty armor will need patching." Runa observed. "But it seems to be a clean cut. As thin as a nail."

"Whatever it was, it was sharp." Wrach replied. "I didn't feel any resistance when it hit me."

"Good thing you managed to dodge then." Runa replied. "Or you could be dead."

"What are we going to tell the general?" One of the other hunters asked, he didn't appear alarmed anymore. Half an hour outside of the strange floor must have helped calm their nerves.

Wrach refrained from shrugging, wincing as Runa patted him on the back. They would have to wait until they were safe to disarm and remove armor to treat the injury. "We tell him to barricade off that area." he said. "And that we wait until we can get someone to come collect her."

"Collect her?" Runa asked. "The demon?"

"She's… one of the Draugnoa." he said. "Endrance would be heartbroken if we killed her."

"Another one who knew Endrance." Runa murmured. "Was he really that important?"

Wrach's tail twitched once. "In the great tales of our pack, who knows?" he asked in response. "All I know is that he's the only reason we were able to finally recognize our right to live among the rest of Balator. That seems important enough for me."

Bridget rode her horse at a trot, keeping the swarm of insects just far enough behind that she could hear their droning buzz and clicking run to a quiet background noise. Whenever they started to catch up to her, the sound level would rise and they would speed it up. She figured out how to operate that way after the first night she tried to rest and found that the sand hornets did not stop, even after twelve hours of movement.

The sand hornets were a tidal wave of dark chitin, buzzing wings and spikey mouths that rolled steadily northwest at the speed of a trotting horse. Any living creature that was caught in their path was quickly snatched up and torn to pieces to feed them, but luckily whatever path the queen had set them on had been steering them away from any villages or small towns. Bridget and Tanya had to rush ahead seven times in the first three days to get shepherds out of the way before the swarm consumed them alongside their sheep.

Tanya and Bridget had decided to ride ahead and rest while the swarm caught up to their position. It wasn't a sure thing, though, since the bulk of the sand hornets moved at a constant, steady speed. It only meant that they could rest their horses for, at most, a few hours before they had to race off ahead of them again. Hour by hour, they skirted the edge of the hornet's path, watching as Ironsoul's capital city grew ever closer.

On the fifth morning, Bridget awoke to the sound of the swarm growing dangerously close. They had made it to the long rolling grassland area around the capital city, and had pushed their horses a little harder that night. The two horses were tethered by their reins to a stick shoved in the dirt, while their packs had served as pillows and they again slept in their gear.

She jumped to her feet, her pack left on the ground. The horses were still tethered and began to panic as Bridget could see the line of insects in the distance. They would reach their position in minutes.

"Shit!" she shouted. "Tanya! Where the hells did you go?"

She found her almost as soon as she was done speaking. Near the small fire they had made to reheat their trail rations, the woman was slumped across the ground. The fire had burnt out naturally, and the metal pan that Tanya had said she would clean after their meal was turned out onto the ground next to her. She must have fallen only minutes after Bridget fell asleep. They both had been running themselves ragged, so she was not surprised, but it could potentially cost them their lives.

She ran over to her fallen sister and scooped her up in her arms, only noting when she stood that the woman's eyes were rolled back in her head and blood had dried into blackened streaks down her nose.

"Tanya!" Bridget cried out, shaking the unconscious woman gently. "Wake up!"

Tanya's eyes fluttered, and only one eye shifted. "Muh?" the Draugnoa moaned, almost entirely unresponsive. Bridget cursed, looking up at the oncoming swarm and realizing she didn't have time to get her tied to her horse's saddle and lead the two out of the way. She shifted the woman so that her wooden arm was carrying Tanya's weight, and drew her short cleaver with her left. She ran over to the horses and cut the tethers with a swing, not even bothering to look back.

She ran off at an angle, equal parts away from the swarm and across from them. She remembered what Joven had told her about running for cover from avalanches, and knew that going in a straight line would only get her smashed. Still, the goal of running from cascading snow was to try to reduce the chance of getting crushed or to get to nearby cover. Here, if the 'avalanche' caught up to her, she'd be torn to pieces and eaten.

Her stride carried her up one hill and down the other side, her breath already heavy from hauling her unconscious sister Draugnoa at a full run. Her legs were already burning, but she didn't have a chance to even look back. Green grass was trampled over, and small shrubs were nearly torn up as she powered through them. Behind her, she heard the squeal of one of the horses and a keening screech that Bridget remembered from when the sand hornets had attacked her years before.

Minutes of panicked flight passed, and she was starting to have trouble keeping up her running speed. She slowed to a trot, sparing a few seconds to look behind her. The sound of the hornets had only receded somewhat, but it appeared that she had managed to run far enough to the side that she was not directly in the path of destruction. Now she'd only have to hope that they weren't desperately hungry enough to go out of their way to eat her.

As she was looking towards the wave of sand hornets something behind her lit up the area brighter than the daylight. The bright light was almost instantly followed by a earth shattering explosion of sound and a shockwave that caught her in the back, knocking her forward. Bridget spilled to the ground, Tanya tumbling several feet forward. Tanya remained where she fell, but Bridget pushed off the ground, looking back towards the city.

The city walls were still nearly five hundred yards away, but there was a three yard wide crater hardly fifteen feet from where she had been standing. The way the crater was deeper closer to her led her to believe that it was something that had been fired at her. Whatever it was, it had exploded with force that had no heat, while still generating enough light to make the day seem dark in comparison.

"What the hells!" she groaned, climbing to her feet. She scanned the immediate vicinity, but nothing around her could have done it. Grass, dirt, and shrubs were the only things for dozens of yards. Even though the sand hornets were running past her a stone's throw away, they would not have the ability to explode-

A sand hornet among the swarm exploded. Bridget was looking in that direction and saw a bright finger-thin ray of white light touch it and it suddenly halted in it's tracks, glowed white around the joints, and then exploded in a violent burst of concussive force and fragmented smoking bug chitin. Bridget fell over Tanya's body, shielding her from flying bits and spines that could have struck her.

Fortunately, only the sand hornets for several yards were killed and injured by the blast, and the swarm absorbed most of the hits. Bridget watched in morbid horror as the dead and injured were almost instantly torn apart and eaten by the healthy.

She looked towards the city of Ironsoul, and it finally dawned upon her what was causing the explosions. Around the outer perimeter of the walls several diamond-shaped crystals hovered in the air, like some sort of art pieces. It turned out they were not. She saw the crystal closest to the swarm coalesce sunlight into its core, then fire it out in a beam of pure white light that blasted another hole in the carpet of insects coming down the plains toward it. As the swarm got closer, the crystals on either side were in range to fire upon the creatures.

Bridget started to get an appreciation for why Balator had never won a siege against such defenses. Those crystals could hit targets from hundreds of yards away, and that was only the first line of defenses. She got the feeling that she was about to find out what else was in store for them.

The queen and her guard slowed their advance, coming to a stop only a hundred yards away from Bridget's location. The queen sand hornet reared up and released an ear splitting screech as the shape of the swarm changed.

The wide blanket of hornets exploded into the sky, half of them taking flight while the remaining ground bound insects spread out into the newly opened space. Bridget stared in shock as the sky darkened with the droning sound of thousands of insect wings cutting the air.

She scooped up Tanya again, glad to see she hadn't been hurt any further from the fall or the explosions. She would have to hope that the sand hornets would find a way into the city, and she would be able to exploit it as well. Bridget lifted Tanya to her shoulders and took a deep breath, looking for an opportunity.

Tanya gasped, startling Bridget. Her eyes remained closed, but her lips opened. "Bridget…" Tanya moaned, her voice sounding strange and raspy. At the same time, the sand hornet queen warbled. Bridget looked from the unconscious woman to the queen, and that was when she saw it staring at her.

Bridget froze, an icy chill of panic shooting down her spine. The queen of the entire swarm was looking directly at her. "Ah hells." she muttered. "I hope to whatever gods are out there that Endrance is behind this."

The queen trilled, and one of her larger royal guards turned and started moving towards her. She tensed, unable to really escape if it charged her. Only one was coming, so if she dropped Tanya she could potentially kill it, but that wasn't a sure thing, and she had no way to ensure Tanya wouldn't get hurt in the fighting.

The guard approached to just outside of talon's reach of her. It stopped and stared at her, the silence punctuated only by regular bangs of the defense crystals' light beams. She stared back at it, unsure of what to do. However, the creature seemed to be looking at her like it was expecting something.

"I don't know what exactly is going on." Bridget started speaking to the thing, trying… no, hoping that it would help keep them safe. "But I am not your enemy. Neither of us are. You are here to rescue the same person I am."

The royal guard merely tilted its head, an act that she'd seen many of the war hounds do when they were listening but not understanding. She grit her teeth, but continued talking as she shifted her weight to her back leg.

"Endrance is in there, I know it. Your queen knows it. I can help you, but if you kill me then your chances of freeing him are much lower." Bridget started rambling as she noticed the huge insect slowly extend one leg and set it down a step closer to her. "But then again, we could be wrong and you really came all this way just to eat him because for some gods-forsaken reason, he really is as magically delicious as Tanya always jokes that he is. I really, really hope that's not the case, because then I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to fight you and the rest of these bugs."

The queen's guard merely squatted, then stood straight again. In the background, thousands of flying insects swarmed the closest crystal, throwing their bodies at it as the arcane device blasted away at the incoming ones. Within seconds, the crystal was overwhelmed and it fired a shot that hit an insect clinging to its surface and there was a resounding explosion that killed hundreds of the bugs midair, but cut a hole in their defenses.

Bridget looked at the guardian hornet, confused. "Do you understand me?" she asked.

The guard squatted and stood again.

"I'll take that as a yes." she said. "All right. I need to help Endrance, too; and Tanya here needs him to help her. So if you can promise to not attack me, I'll come with you to help."

The guard squatted, rose, and turned away, running back to the queen, the barbed points of its legs tearing up clods of dirt as it did so. In the distance, another of the defense crystals exploded. The queen screeched once more. As one, the swarm surged forward again.

Bridget adjusted Tanya's weight on her shoulders and sighed. "This is the craziest rescue I've ever been a part of." she muttered, exhausted.

She trudged after the sand hornet swarm, too tired from lack of sleep and low adrenaline to be surprised that they didn’t attack her when she moved in among them. The hornets on the ground seemed to be eyeing her as lunch, but it seemed the queen's command was absolute among her children.

In the lack of defense crystals, arrows rained down on the hornets. Most every arrow lacked the power to puncture through the hardened part of the drone's carapace, though occasionally a few fell to random hits to their joints. More than once, Bridget saw a sand hornet catch an arrow inside its mouth mid-screech.

She heard the queen give another command, and the remaining aerial hornets flew over the walls in a rain of toothy maws, bladed limbs, and stingers. The arrows quickly stopped.

They made it to the walls without further incident, and as the queen approached, the guardian hornets surged forward, screaming loudly as they swung their sharpened forelimbs at the stone. Bridget shied back, not able to shield her face from the debris because she was still carrying Tanya over her shoulders.

Within a minute, a tunnel had been chipped through the stone large enough for the queen to slip through, which meant that Bridget was able to follow with room to spare on all sides. She walked through, noting that many of the chips of stone sparked and fizzled with odd colors. The inner walls of the tunnel hummed as she passed through it, and the broken portions of the stone had a strange sheen to it, similar to the milky white color that Joven's axe had, or many of the weapons the elves had carried.

She found herself in an unfamiliar section of the city streets, surrounded by carnage as the swarm tore into anyone that got in their way. A large contingent of Iron Kingdom troops had been on the walls and had been quickly overrun by the flyers before the queen had even come close to being in range of their arrows. As it was, Bridget watched as dozens of armed men and women were mercilessly swarmed over, pressing down on individual soldiers with sheer numbers and literally giving them no room to move, much less fight. The soldiers were quickly picked apart and the body passed along the swarm, each nearby insect only consuming a chunk before moving on.

Bridget remembered how the sand hornets fought before, and felt a shiver of fear and revulsion. If they had not managed to kill the queen, they would have been eaten in much the same manner. She walked among the chaos, and the queen was only a few yards ahead of her. Bridget did not even once think about setting Tanya down despite her exhaustion; for all she knew, Tanya was only safe so long as she was with her.