Haven (War of the Princes) (35 page)

           
Two other Dragoons, one with red hair, the other wearing goggles, darted around the others, running straight for me.

           
Rune stepped between us, unsheathing the sword that hung from his belt.

           
He couldn’t stop both of them.

The red haired Dragoon brandished his sword, aiming to cut Rune down. The sweep was blocked, but Rune’s weapon was knocked from his hand by the sheer brute force of his opponent.

The Dragoon with the goggles dodged past Rune. I scrambled to get away from him, but stumbled over the legs of the dead Dragoon in my panic to get away. My mistake was all that the soldier needed to catch me. I thrashed and screamed as he put me in a chokehold, forcing me to face the scene.

“Just be quiet and wait your turn,” the Dragoon said to me, ignoring my efforts to claw his arm away.

A roar from
Fallux
broke over the sounds of violence in the room. The disc on his chest, thumped. It was a terrible, thick sound. I could hear the depth of damage it inflicted, even if I didn’t know its purpose.
Fallux’s
voice broke off.

Stakes was gripping the bars of metal that held
Fallux
and loomed close to his superior.

“Not strong enough,” Stakes said grinning as water dripped from the corners of his mouth and down from his eyes. The water was
Fallux’s
attempt to kill Stakes, but it was to no avail. Stakes looked like a twisted man, drooling and crying with vicious joy. “It’s the p-poison that weakened you-u.”

Another thump went through
Fallux’s
chest. His eyes rolled back in his head and he gnashed his two silver fangs helplessly. He was my enemy too, but how could I not feel pity for him? It was horrible. With the second thump, all of the color in his skin and hair was sucked away. By the third, he was ashen and his head lolled limply to the side.

Stakes stood over him triumphantly and raised the tube to his own chest. At the end of the tube, I saw a large, multi-pronged needle, and this he stabbed into his heart. Something began to move through the tube, from
Fallux
to Stakes.

Completely stunned by the brutality of the moment, I realized what he had done. Stakes was draining
Fallux
.

A siren wailed elsewhere in the fortress. It sounded like there was a fight outside too.

I struggled against the man who held me with his arm around my throat, but I wasn’t strong enough.

“Wait your turn, little Lodestone,” Stakes told me, and then hissed in pain when a metal bone pushed through his cheek. Three of his teeth fell to the floor as silver fangs replaced them and he bellowed when metallic ridges ripped from his forearms.

Draining
Fallux
and absorbing his power was turning Stakes into a greater monstrosity still. It was just like Dylan said it would be. It was as disgusting as it was frightening; worse than seeing a man killed, it was the most horrific kind of theft… like rape, without the sexuality.

He had said my turn was next… he was going to do this to me. I panicked as waves of nausea assaulted me. I didn’t notice the banging of the doors from the outside or the muted shouts beyond them. I didn’t pay attention to
Kelmen
, surviving a stab wound to his side and fighting on. I was vaguely aware of Rune, unarmed, using the objects around him to defend himself against an unnaturally strong attacker.

Registering the gruesome reality of the situation, all of my fear fueled my sense of self-preservation. I would not be Stakes’ next victim. My mind flashed with images of my home, my family, Ruby and Kyle. I wouldn’t wait patiently to be murdered.

A fire kindled within me. I gripped the arm around my throat with both hands. Squeezing my eyes closed, I reached for my only defense.

The ends of my hair frizzed, and I heard a buzzing coming from within me. I snapped my eyes open with fierce determination and pushed The Spark out from within. Electricity covered my hands and grew like angular white vines into the arm of my captor. The Dragoon seized up as my shock lanced into him, choking me in the process. I lost concentration and The Spark vanished, but the Dragoon gave out a delayed shout as the connection was lost and then released me.

I wrestled away from him as he sagged against the bookshelf.

Nearby, Rune was fighting for his life. It looked as though the red haired Dragoon was getting the better of him. When I saw the man’s fist punch straight through a map board, it was plain that his Ability had something to do with physical strength. At the moment, he had Rune cornered.

They were fighting with their fists and Rune was swinging to miss, frequently. The red haired Dragoon dodged easily and landed a heavy blow to Rune’s side and then his cheek. My friend hit the wall behind him, looking disoriented. He struggled to regain his footing, wiping a drip of blood from his lip. I could see the confidence in the other man’s eyes. He knew he had Rune beaten.

Rune looked like he was hurting badly. His breathing was labored and pitifully small blue flames flickered into nothingness around his hands. He didn’t have the strength to use The Sear.

Rune darted out with a jab to the other Dragoon’s side. The blow landed, but the red haired man hardly seemed to notice.

He hurled one last punch to Rune’s temple, sending him to the floor. If I could get there quickly enough, I could help him. Rune’s enemy was faster. Gloating in his victory, the Dragoon kicked Rune in the stomach before reaching down to pull him up by the collar.

Rune was reeling. The red haired Dragoon grinned savagely. And then, something changed. Runes blue eyes locked sharply with his opponent’s and he brought up his hands to grip the sides of the Dragoon’s forearms. It was Rune’s turn to smile. A single, slight flicker of flame was the harbinger of the blast that followed. Two powerful jets of blue fire roared from Rune’s hands, engulfing the overly confident Dragoon.

I stopped in my tracks. Rune let the man go, but the fire didn’t. It clung to him despite his panicked efforts to put it out, until he crumbled to the floor screaming, wounded enough to put him out of the fight.

Rune didn’t need my help… he’d been feigning weakness the whole time, just as he had during the sparring exercise. It was a ploy to get his enemy close enough to grip him with fire.

My Dragoon appeared hurt, to be sure. Even as he straightened up to look at me, I could see how he favored his side, and that the area around one of his cheekbones was beginning to swell. The flames on his arms extinguished and little trails of smoke twined up from where he burned the armor on his forearms. Rune may have been wounded, but he was far from defeated.

United by a common enemy, I was glad to see that
Kelmen
had overcome his opponent. Stakes was still draining
Fallux
, and now it was three against one. We had a chance to beat him.

Rune nodded subtly to
Kelmen
, a show of respect and unity.
Kelmen
bowed his head in return and I got the sense that even such a small display meant volumes in the world of a Dragoon. Maybe we’d have the traditional Dragoon’s help after all.

Kelmen
spun to face Stakes. He had a thick blade in his hand and stalked purposefully toward the vicious Junior Commander.

Already the wound in his arm where a sword had sunken to the bone, had ceased bleeding. He must have a healing Ability for the beating he could take. No wonder he had such horrible scars. He probably survived far more than the average Dragoon could.

Before
Kelmen
was near enough to swing, a javelin of wood lunged out from the nearest bookshelf, spearing him through the heart.

I gasped, feeling my knees go weak with denial. One second ago, he seemed untouchable to me. The wood spike splintered before it retracted.
Kelmen
dropped to the ground.

I didn’t have any further chance to react. A thick branch, the same color as the bookshelf, snaked around my waist, one of my wrists and my throat, and yanked me backwards. I screamed as I was pulled up and off of my feet, my back slamming into the middle of the tall bookshelf. My shriek ended with a cough on impact. The pressure on my throat and around my middle stole the air from my lungs and made me choke. The goggles beneath my scarf pressed harshly into the center of my neck and I clawed at the branch with my one free hand. Little black and white dots flickered at the edges of my peripheral vision.

           
Half swallowed by a constricting bookshelf, claustrophobia gripped me in full force.

I kicked my feet, stretching my legs, but they scrambled weakly, only finding meager purchase on narrow shelves. I looked down and saw the Dragoon with the goggles, the one I had electrocuted, holding a palm to the bookshelf that had come to life to trap me. He could control wood and used the bookcase to impale
Kelmen
and hold me painfully captive.

My mind screamed at me that this was a dream. Things like this couldn’t happen. Gentle displays of Abilities were hard enough to believe, but the violence that had erupted around me made me wish that such powers were a figment of my imagination. Frantic denial only enflamed the impossible horror I was witnessing with my wide-open eyes.

I gave in to the reality of it and poured my frustration into my Ability. Angry threads of electricity unfurled from my hands, but only managed to blacken the solid element holding me. With so little oxygen I was weaker. Rune had warned me that using your Ability wasn’t bottomless. Now I was experiencing its limit.

Heart racing, I panted there, struggling in pitiful bursts. From above I could see Stakes reveling in his transformation,
Fallux
staring at the ceiling without focus,
Kelmen
writhing on the floor, and Rune zeroing-in predatorily on his new enemy. Beyond them all, the double doors were being pounded from the outside with great force. If I had noticed the screaming of wounded men and the cries of battle from the greater keep, it was only in terrible ambiance to the scene around me.

Watching Rune square his shoulders for a fight, a retrieved sword held in both his hands, my vision began to darken and blot out. Seeing him collide with my Dragoon captor and hearing the dull ring of their weapons meeting together with force made my head swim. It was a dangerous, dirty fight, entirely without rules. Did Rune hit him? Was he struck in the side? Someone lost their footing on the fallen books in a mess on the floor. Who was it? It was difficult to tell. I couldn’t see. Why couldn’t I see?

I realized I was holding my breath, and in my crushed state, it was a dangerous thing to do.

I pried attention away from the battle below, hissing in a shaky breath through my teeth. The constriction around my middle was so unforgiving. My lungs were hardly allowed any expanse. I had to close my eyes to concentrate on breathing shallowly. Whether they were opened or closed hardly made any difference. I was going blind from the lack of oxygen. If this lasted much longer, I’d pass out.

I couldn’t let that happen. I had to be awake. I had to help.

Clawing and clutching at the branch around me, I refocused on my Ability the way that I had so recently learned. I squeezed my eyes shut with effort, and a bolt of lightning burst from my hands, igniting the branch. I realized my mistake as soon as I made it. The fire was very close to me.

Rune shouldered his way to the side and grabbed the branch, forcing the fire I had accidentally created down the wooden limb. It raced away from me, harmlessly over his hand, and exploded when it reached our enemy. I hoped our cooperation had done some damage, but the wood-controlling Dragoon was only mildly wounded. He focused, turning my branch green, too moist to burn easily. The limb tightened with a resurging strength.

Gaping, I closed my eyes again. I refused to black out. I had to know that Rune would win this. Tiny, weak breaths were all I could manage.

When I was sure I had enough air to see and think, I opened my eyes just in time to see the pair of blades locked together. A flame burst from Rune’s sword and crept over to his enemy’s weapon. In a matter of seconds the blade began to glow as red as would if it were pulled straight from a blacksmith’s coals. The hilt was next. The goggle-wearing Dragoon dropped it to protect his hands from a burn that would have melted his flesh. He stepped back defensively, just below me.

Rune’s enemy shot a branch of living, green, wood to wrap around the fiery blue sword. The wood didn’t burn fast enough, and as soon as he had a hold, the Dragoon wrenched Rune’s sword out of his grip. Rune let go early, sent the other Dragoon lurching downward, and followed up by punching the man in the jaw with burning fist.

The enemy Dragoon fell against the bookshelf, hitting his head hard, and was too dazed to realize, at least at first, that his head was on fire. In his panic to put out the flames, he didn’t see Rune hefting a chair to smash over his head. The man’s Ability was interrupted when he slumped, knocked out cold.

With the Dragoon unconscious, the bookshelf returned to normal, and I thudded to the floor in a ball, cradling my head to protect it from the shower of splintered shelves and crushed books that toppled down after me.

Rune was at my side in an instant.

“We need to make for the side door,” he whispered to me urgently.