The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) (24 page)

“Yes! That’s what stopping us from touching the powers?” She frowned, gazing at him intently.

“It is. They’re called Equalizers. I came to you a few days ago, told you about this, but she stopped it.”

“How can you be sure? How can I trust you?”

“You can’t. She likely has something to do with this,” he waved towards the carnage hanging on the walls, streaked with blood, body parts, and crawling shapes.

He blew out his cheeks, punching and releasing a fireball, blowing a Skin Flayer’s head apart as it crested the wall. “Let’s go see her, ask her about it. I’ll wait, see if I can stop it. If it is her, there’s already a powerful enemy behind the Milvorian gates, and we need to root it out.”

“I see your point. You can cut spells? Grozul has already taught you this?”

“I don’t know, but it’s a slow spell. I can do something to distract her, bring you back.”

“You better be right, let’s go!” She scraped along the back of the wall, chopping through the knee of a Cerumal and finishing it with a stab through the chest. Walter followed behind, stopping between Nyset and Baylan.

“We’re paying a visit to Tamia, hold the wall.” They nodded at him in understanding.

“We’ll do our best,” Nyset breathed.

“Typical, running off when there’s real work to do,” Juzo said and grinned at him, his great sword hewing a skeleton in half from shoulder to hip, bones crumbling down a ladder.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Walter forced a smile out, unable to find pleasure with each additional moment like Juzo seemed too. Maybe he’d learn to just be happy someday.

He could hear Grimbald screaming up at the defenders. “Get them off the gates! Away from the gates!”

Men and women yelled curses as they ran past. A wizard leaned over the wall and fell back on top of Walter, coughing up blood. He had two arrows in his chest, deep and poking out the back of his cloak. He looked up at Walter, blinked, then opened his mouth to say something as his eyes stared up at the empty blue. An arm reached over the wall holding a crossbow and Walter chopped through it with a sword of fire, melting through stone, the warm blood spattering on his lips. The Cerumal screeched, stump burning, and rolled down the ladder, knocking its brethren off the rungs with it.

Bezda jogged down the stairs at the back of the parapet and Walter moved to join her. A dark form jumped in front of him, the god’s powers winking out, and a claw hissing at his face. He caught it at the wrist, talons squealing against Stormcaller on his forearm. He drove his boot into its knee and cracking it to the side, crumpling to the ground. It tried to get up and he jumped high into the air, both heels smashing down onto its protruding spine, poking out from under sinewy skin.

“Stay! Down!” he roared, jumping again and again. “Die! Die!” It squirmed and struggled, blood ejecting from its lips with each stomp. Walter tore the Equalizer off its neck, smashing it on the wall against Stormcaller. He hauled it up to its lifeless legs and ignited it with Dragon fire before throwing its flaming corpse onto the crawling scum below. Portals were opening and closing there, cutting them down in droves but their numbers were endless.

“We’re doomed, we’re doomed,” a young boy muttered. His head was shaved and dirty tears streaked his cheeks.

“Did anyone tell you to stop fucking fighting!” Walter roared into his face, spit flying.

“No!” the lad stammered, blinking as if waking from a dream, perhaps a nightmare. He lunged back over the wall, tossing fire and screaming with hoarse lungs. Perhaps a bit harsh, but this wasn’t the time for niceties.

Walter caught up with Bezda, eying the bulging gates and speaking with Grimbald. There was a small pile of Death Spawn stacked up in a corner, sets of beady dark eyes staring at him.

“It’s the giant slayer!” One of Falcon soldiers called out.

“Uh—” Walter sighed.

“Yeah, it’s him,” another agreed. “Good to have you here,” the man said, clapping a big hand on his shoulder.

“Form up,” Grimbald ordered. “These gates may not hold forever, we have to be prepared if that happens. I know there isn’t a lot of action down here, but be ready.”

“No action is fine with me,” a man with a pointed beard muttered, staring up at the war raging above. A dark armored body tumbled over the wall, limbs flopping like a child’s discarded toy. Falcon soldiers ran to it, jabbing it with spears and ensuring no surprises.

Bezda started moving. “No time to waste.”

“We’ll be back, hold the gates, Grim.”

“Nothing passes this street!” he roared. The men roared back, spears gripped tight, shields banging against weapons.

They ran through the market square, leaving the wails of the dying and screams of the victorious behind. Bezda’s vanilla fragrance mixed with her pungent sweat, crinkling his nose at the odd mixture. They passed the broken spires of the Dragon and the Phoenix on either side, looking ready to crumble with their yawning holes and eyeless windows. They crawled up a pile of jagged stone chunks before an archway, sliding through the fragments and dust on the other side.

Walter coughed as they passed under the archway into cool and damp air, further drowning out the din of battle. A boom shook from above, coursing down the walls and to their boots. Dust shook from the mortar and hissed down the back of his breastplate. They shared worried glances, hurrying through the tunnel. The other side led through the bountiful gardens, mostly untouched by the chaos minutes away, a facade of peace.

“Where is she?” Walter asked.

“Planning our defense if the gates fall, in the dining hall.”

“You don’t have some sort of war room?”

“Remind me, when was the last time someone was foolish enough to attack the Tower?”

“History was never my strong suit,” Walter said, leaping over a pile of rubble.

The fountain lazily bubbled in the center, inviting one to lay on the marble with a book and a cup of elixir, if not for the hordes of demons at the front door. The garden was normally patrolled by armsmen keeping apprentice’s fingers from picking the flowers. Now it was an empty hollow, their footsteps echoing as they strode between the high walls.

Bezda sheathed her sword as they wound up the stairs in the veteran’s spire. The veteran’s dining hall was the biggest dining room he’d ever seen. Walter thought there wouldn’t be much to top the one in the Midgaard palace, but this did. It was about three times bigger than the one in Midgaard and the ceiling at least twice as tall. The walls were a sky blue marble with veins of red and purple running through it. Dragon and Phoenix carvings were inlaid in the stone tiles, so realistic looking Walter thought they might be able to fly from the stone.

Tamia flashed a scowl at them, quickly reverting to a pleased smile. “Ah! Arch Wizard, how does the defense of the Tower proceed? I see you’ve brought a guest with you.” She pushed away a marked up map and a goblet of wine. She then gave a quick bow, striding across from the middle of the massive table. “You look well, glad to see you’ve been staying out of harm’s way, other than a few cuts,” Tamia said looking Bezda up and down.

A warm breeze flitted through open windows, ruffling half-drawn curtains, reddish-orange like Dragon fire. The candelabras running through the center of the table swayed.

“No more frivolities, Tamia. Walter told me he brought one of these to us, to warn us. Is it true?” she said through gritted teeth, letting a chain with a shattered Equalizer dangle from between her clenched fist.

“Ah, yes. It’s true. You always
were
a stupid cunt. I’m surprised you remembered, honestly.” She shrugged, her midnight dress slipping off a pale shoulder, exposing most of a breast.

“What?” The blood in Bezda’s face drained, her jaw hanging open. “After all I’ve done for you?”

Walter shifted a step away from her, gliding to Tamia’s flank. There was something off at the end of the hall. Something was there, lurking in the shadows. Pairs of burning eyes opened, like smoldering coals hovering in the air. The eyes of Death Spawn. How did they get in?

“All you’ve done for me?” Tamia snapped, pulling the shoulder of her dress back on. “Always to live in your shadow, just a whore for your bed chambers!” she laughed.

“I raised you up, taught you everything I know. Without me you’d be nothing, and you betray me? Use one of the forbidden spells on me?” Bezda’s watery eyes were becoming icy rage.

“Oh, you are a fool for the ages. I do not serve you, in fact I have been living long before you were quickening in your mother’s womb, before your parents, and the parents before those.” Tamia glided across the polished floor, trailing a finger on an ornately carved chair.

“What? Who are you?”

“I am your reaper,” she said, voice changing from a shrill squawking to smooth and deep. She looked down at the stone, then looked up, eyes glowing with intense violet. “My name is Hilanda, I serve the one true god, Asebor.”

“No, no. You—it can’t be.” Bezda slipped her hand onto her sword hilt and took a step back, eyes brilliant with Dragon fire.

“Oh but it is,” Tamia said, grinning.

“I trusted you!”

Tamia rose up, stretching high into the air like a creeping shadow. “The Tower will fall!” She snapped her glowing fingers and an explosive boom roared through the shattering windows, up the stairs, pulsing across the air.

“What have you done?” Bezda shrieked, hands trembling. Her hand fumbled to her sword, hissing from its scabbard.

“
S
hit
,” Juzo muttered, looking down at the four rams beating on the gates. Plenty of them were burning, but it wasn’t enough. Some of their ladders had been pushed over, but more came and they were getting overwhelmed. The crystals the bastards wore rendered the wizards harmless, like pigs in the hands of the butcher. There were a few groups of Death Spawn on the walls now, thinning out the defenders with haste. More pressed on up the ladders, armsmen and wizards chopped, stabbed, and hacked limb from limb. Four of them were advancing on him from either side, sickles and horned swords thick with blood. He was the last one here on the wall, maybe not the last man, but the last one with a human heart. The rest were finished, being run through or torn apart by the hissing animals.

Juzo dropped off the edge of the wall, falling with a graceful roll and popping up in front of Nyset and Baylan. They were going to work, slaughtering the Death Spawn at the choke points as they came down the stairs. A few were bold enough to follow him, knees and ankles failing with pops as they landed. Juzo’s sword whirled, splitting through the jaw of a Cerumal, stabbing into the chest of a half-flesh covered skeleton, chopped through the arm of a Black Wynch, its hand writhing on the ground.

He looked up at the swaying gates, great hinges screaming for mercy. He tilted his head at the odd circle written upon the gates. The text shone bright in the day, purplish circle surrounding a series of connected triangles. It rang with a familiarity that he found hard to process in the midst of trying to keep his head on. It was a ward, like the one Baylan used at the Lair—it shone with incredible brilliance, burning light searing his eye.

There was a deafening roar, something smashed into his chest, hurling him into the air, hands grasping at nothing. His ears rang, skin and clothes burning, staring up at a spire mid-flight. His back and neck collided with something hard, stabbing and tearing through his flesh, raining on his face. He groaned, his vision swimming in sheets of red, white, orange. Voices screamed between the dull ringing, boring into his head.

Juzo’s white hand twitched, blood warm and running between his fingers. He took a sharp breath, neck twitching, images swirling in and out of focus. Dark figures running. Screaming. Wizard split in two. His back was against a wall, eye rolling back, excruciating pain in his chest, legs quivering. He peered down, tens of arrow heads were sticking out the front of his chest, guts, a few through his legs, others scattered around his body, splintered and broken. He lifted a trembling hand to an arrow head, mindlessly rubbing the sticky edges. A small ball of fire burned at his side, cooking a black hole into his hip. He batted it away, swatting at the flames, panting.

“What?” he whispered. “What is this?” Juzo screamed.

G
rimbald roared
into the fragments of the ruined gate raining down around him, hacking into the shoulder of a bald Cerumal. He was one of the lucky ones, well away from the blast at the time. There wasn’t going to be much to bury of the others. Most of his men circling around the gate were gone. Nothing left but boots, dropped weapons, dismembered limbs, smears of blood, and stinking offal.

Juzo was motionless at the back wall before an archway, arrows poking out of him every which way. He seemed like a nice person, had his fair share of scars, but didn’t we all? Grimbald wished he had a chance to get to know the man better. There was nothing he could do to help him now, or any of the others hit by the explosion. He had to focus on the living.

“They’re through, by the dead, they’re through!” he screamed, stating the painfully obvious. He wasn’t alone, by the dead, he wasn’t alone. There were others, still fighting, still pushing.

Some of the horde spilled through the narrow gaps in the gate, a tide of dull armor and ugly weapons raging behind. They tore and bashed with shields at the remaining pearl splinters. Once they got through what was left, they spilled in like a broken dam, falling over each other, gibbering and squawking with renewed ferocity.

Each person would have to decide where they would stand, where they would die. Time started to crawl. He saw each of the their hissing mouths, spikes glinting on the edges of their shields, brown, white, and black speckled furs around the neck of another. Weapons flashed, stabbing in the bright sky, glinting spear points, sharpened swords, curved sickles.

They bellowed out with a war cry, some shrill and others low. The warm air pulsed in and out of Grimbald’s nostrils, knuckles white around Corpsemaker. His palms were wet with blood and sweat, the hair on the back of his neck glistening. There wasn’t any choice but to charge into the swarming hive. He was either a fool or a hero, Which, he wasn’t sure. Only the histories would tell…
if
humanity lived to write it. Maybe someone would find Baylan’s notebooks.

The abandoned hope was in everyone’s eyes now, the remaining defenders shuffling back, fingers twitching on fireballs. He wanted to run, find a place to hide and weep like he did when the boys at school teased him. The old scars never left us alone. It would have been a good idea if there was a place to run to. Nowhere to go but into the jaws of the wolf. Maybe they could push them back, get something up to hold the gates. To die running or die fighting was no choice at all.

Grimbald pulled Corpsemaker from behind his back and bellowed with all the air in his lungs, dashing into the Death Spawn. He felt the other’s following him, heard their cries, Nyset and Baylan close behind. His boots stomped through the dirt, blades ringing all around. His breath burst from his lips, rushing in and out.

He just barely twisted his body in time to avoid being impaled upon a spear, bashing into heavy iron with his shoulder, sending a Cerumal rolling through a few others and taking out their legs. He hacked through the leg of a downed Cerumal, brought Corpsemaker up again, and hacked through its gut, almost splitting it in half. He swung again, axe grinding against a shield with razor sharp rim. He drove the shield back, slamming it under the neck of its yellow-toothed wielder. A woman his age in bright red stumbled into him, vomiting red and yellow onto his shoulder, down his armor.

A white sword stabbed into a Black Wynch’s helm and dark blood bubbling out. A heavy curved blade slashed at Grimbald and he pressed back, the blow chopping into the arm of someone beside him. A great boom rained from above, catapult stone tumbling over the edge of the wall, raining a cloud of dust into the fray. Grimbald forced the living things behind him back as the stone fell, rolling down and crushing at least six under the massive boulder. He blinked, eyes hot and watery, unable to detect friend from foe.

A hand scratched at his chest, hanging on his armor. He bashed it with the butt of Corpsemaker, feeling the arm snap under the blow. A red face flitted by, collapsing. Something slammed into him and he fell, his face smashing on a stone. Blood trickled out his mouth and he groaned. He was on the ground, hands straining for his weapon, the only comfort he could imagine in this nightmare.

An axe was no weapon for a fight like this, too tight, impossible to swing. He stopped looking for Corpsemaker and drew daggers from his boots, perfectly balanced in his hands. Men strained against the horde, chopping and stabbing, shining mail surrounding the screeching beasts. He rose to his wobbly legs and sent a dagger in a curving strike into a black eye, the other slitting it up the balls. He thought he saw the other Shattered Wing out of the corner of his eye, shrieking and dropping stones.

Grimbald stabbed and was repelled by a shield, the vibration coursing up his arm causing the dagger to slip out of his grip and under thudding boots. Men and Death Spawn were packed in tight, pressing into the gnashing blades, fighting to get an arm free. Something gouged into his leg, burning and getting worse as he tried to free himself. Something else—a spike, a blade—ground deeper into his leg, wetness pouring down his shins under his armor.

He took a big breath, summoning his strength for a mighty push. He roared, thrashing with his arms and creating a gap to move. His dagger jabbed into a mouth, cutting out from under a cheek, teeth clamping on the blade. He slammed the monster in the face with his big fist, nose shattering, taking his weapon out. They were pressed back in again, the unconscious Cerumal with the slit face bleeding all over him.

A mace flew at him from the side. His arms were pinned and all he could do was clench his jaw and close his eyes. Something in his neck popped, head whipping to the side, filling his vision with white light. The next thing he knew, he was crawling through rubble against the wall, hand snatching a sword from the ground, dragging it behind, waiting for the inevitable blade to be rammed through his shoulder blades. On the ground again crawling like a worm, hands sinking into stone and dirt, mouth trailing blood, legs straining to propel him.

He shrimped onto his side, back pressed against the wall. There was a Cerumal on the other side, much in the same position as himself, except Grim still had his arm. Grimbald gasped as the beast burst alight, white fire burning from its limp body. There were legs everywhere, swarming all around like moving trees. Legs with plate, legs under robes, legs with bloody mail, legs in hard leather. A boot kicked him in the breastplate, clanging off.

He thought it might be time for a rest now, maybe close his eyes for a few seconds. The colors of the world blended together in an unrecognizable palette. Angry roars and screams of pain made their way into his ears. He tongued his cheek, skin in tatters and leaking metallic fluid. There was stuff on his eyelids, maybe blood. He didn’t seem to care much right now.

B
ezda roared
, a curved blade in both hands and held over her shoulder, Milvorian boots echoing in the vast hall. An impassioned strike, one that should have been easy to dodge, yet Hilanda waited. The Dragon House Master’s black dress, twinkling with gems like stars, drifted into smoke, becoming formless shadows, swirling over her bare flesh. She grinned at Bezda, calm as a Sid-Ho master, hands and eyes burning violet.

The Death Spawn emerged from the dim behind the grand table. Three Skin Flayers unsheathed their blades, ringing all at once. Walter dropped low, Stormcaller burning at his side, blade of fire raging his other hand.

A sacrifice must be made,
the voices of the Dragon and the Phoenix grated in his head.

“No,” he muttered. “No sacrifices.”

Hilanda’s eyes darted to him for a second then back to the charging Arch Wizard. The shadows dropped from her body, leaving her nude, enveloping the area under Bezda’s feet in a lake of black.

The pool of shadow erupted with at least twelve arms, clawing, ripping, and tearing into Bezda’s legs. Some were full of spines, others had animal’s claws, others terminated with axe heads and blade tips. They all ripped into her, pinning her in place, shearing armor off in seconds. Walter stared in horror as the flesh was torn from her legs in great chunks and flung across the room like fresh steaks. A piece of her leg landed on the table on the side of a plate, gray sinews reaching out and blood pooling.

The Arch Wizard screamed, her blade thudding on the priceless carpets, Dragon fire leaving her eyes. “What is this? You commune with the tainted form of the Dragon?” A tainted form of the Dragon. Which was he using?

“The great lord has blessed me, has he not?”

“Your soul will never reach the Shadow Realm,” Bezda coughed, blood rolling in waves down her porcelain chin. The shadows chopped into her hips, one arm punched into her gut, extracting intestines like a rope being hauled up from a well. A pair of black arms stretched up from the ground, whipping her intestines around her neck, cinching around and around, snapping tight. The Arch Wizard’s head lolled, face turning blue, yellow bile hanging from her lips. How quickly the perfect flower could become the picture of decay. Another pair of arms became dark spears, stabbing through her arms, hoisting her into a shaft of light.

“Enjoy your last sunrise, Arch Wizard,” Hilanda sang in a joyful tune. The shadowy blades stabbed in and out, body supported by her swaying neck, jabbing great bleeding holes all over her torso. A rattling breath pushed through her closed lips, eyes rolling back, body flopping onto the stone with a wet slap.

“Now that business is finally taken care of, there is you.” Hilanda’s eye turned to him. “She was a bore in the bed chambers, I must say. The things we must do to rise from our stations.” The shadows spiraled around her legs and arms, transmuting from rigid forms to calm waves.

Burning acid crept up Walter’s throat, and he turned, spitting and retching over his shoulder. The brown liquid splashed inside a vase worth more marks than his farm. It took everything he had to stay focused, to keep his eyes on the soon to be dead. Deep furrows formed in the crevasses of his forearms, nails cutting into his palms.

“You? You’re responsible for all of this?” He barked, pointing at her with his buzzing sword, Death Spawn fanning out around him. She planted her hands on the table, her breasts hanging over the stained glass plates, nipples bright with pink.

“Nothing lasts forever, Walter. Even a child must know this. All things crumble in time’s winds, even the Silver Tower.” She flashed a grin, pushing away from the table, pressing a dark fingernail on her pouting lips.

“My family, my friends—so many dead because of you and your cruel god. Why?” he hissed. It didn’t matter what she said, just empty words, biding his time, planning their deaths, seeing it play out in his mind. He knew for certain that only one person would leave this room alive and it wasn’t going to be this creature. Retribution flowed through his veins like molten iron, immolating the ragged edges of his soul.

“Why does the Sand Buckeye eat the Shroomling?” she asked, palms opened, purple fire sputtering bright as gems in the high sun, shadows slithering around her chest and stomach.