The Willbreaker (Book 1) (20 page)

The two women spotted Lord Reinhold and Liam, both stopping and concentrating on the men. Liam blinked and withdrew his dagger. Turning it upside down, he held the dagger out in front of himself and plunged it deep in his gut. He grunted as he pushed the dagger into his belly, stopping only when it hit the blade guard. Liam fell over, rolling down the pile of rubble beneath him. Reinhold stared at the other woman, not paying attention to Liam, unable to take his eyes from the opposing Gifted. Charlotte screamed at him in terror from across the bridge. Reinhold turned The Heart of the King upside down and placed the tip on his stomach, never taking his eyes away from the woman in the streets. He nodded to her, as if she said something to him. She controlled his every action, and he could not fight the power of her magic.

The woman's eyes opened up in pain as she tried to scream, but only a weak grunt came out as she and the other woman fell dead to the ground. Arkam and three of his Ice Lancers stood behind them, blades shimmering from the fresh blood upon them.

Lord Reinhold's eyes came to focus. He could finally hear Charlotte's pleading screams as she ran up to get to him. Arkam pulled off his mask. He smiled and gave Cedric a small nod. Another Ice Lancer came into view from an alleyway, holding a small female child in his arms. Arkam leaned over and said something to his men, and with a bob of their heads, his men rushed into the alleyways with the Beacon and the Boatman.

"I'll meet you back at camp, Milord," Arkam yelled to Cedric as he pulled his mask back over his face. In an instant, he disappeared.

Charlotte took the last step up towards Reinhold and wrapped her arms tightly around him, tears streaming from her face.

"I thought you were dead! I thought you were going to kill yourself!" she said, pulling herself away from him to look at Liam. Reinhold shook his head, regaining focus.
That was close.

"We need to leave. We have gotten what we came for. It's time to move," he said with a sense of urgency. As he looked back into the valley, he saw Janga and the fifteen thousand troops, lined up and waiting to assist them in their retreat. Janga sent squadrons of footmen to the remaining city entrances to combat the Blade Maidens that still came out to fight. Sixty horsemen made the journey to the edge of the bridge, waiting to take out the two Preclass and the air benders. The remaining air benders followed Lord Reinhold and Charlotte down to meet them.

As they reached the bridge, the Ice Lancers came out from somewhere in the wreckage. They helped the two Preclass onto mounts and lead them towards their camp. Reinhold mounted up.

"We are going to stay back with the troops to help with any Gifted that may have escaped," Charlotte said to Lord Reinhold.

"Okay, make haste though. I will meet you back at camp." Reinhold spurred his horse and charged into the valley. Thousands of dead littered the land. It angered him that Aurora did not see the evil of her ways. He would not have to fight if she left innocent people alone. Lord Reinhold rode hard up the hillside. A ways up, he turned back to stare down upon Orlimay. As he looked, he saw one of the fallen towers, immeasurably heavy and over seventy feet high, rising up into the air, a hundred feet above the bridge where Charlotte and her Gifted were. Reinhold’s screams went unheard as the tower smashed into the earth, destroying everything underneath it. His Element benders were there one second, and in the next, they were gone. The dust cloud blew out from the bottom strong enough to knock over several horsemen and infantry. Things seemed to be in slow motion as Janga stood on his horse, yelling to his men.

Reinhold met face to face with his worst nightmare; Aurora Arclight stood on the edge of the bridge south of the one he recently occupied, hands extended outward, as she thrashed and destroyed Reinhold's men. The bodies of his men covered the ground. Although he could not see her magic, it swept from her like ripples on a pond, killing thousands of men in waves of death. They panicked and fled, trying to escape her to no avail. With the wave of her hand, hundreds of men took flight and smashed with incredible force into the side of the a marble building. With the twist of her head, hundreds more fell down to the ground, ripping at their faces as their heads all simultaneously exploded.

Lord Reinhold wailed through tears as she destroyed his army single-handedly. He held out his hand to them, as if able to help them, when he caught Aurora's eye. For a brief second, she stopped her carnage and looked up at him across the valley with a look of pure hatred.

"This is only the beginning, Reinhold," she said through gritted teeth. "You're next."

Reinhold turned his mount and with the last remaining soldiers, he fled into the woods.

              Days bled into weeks and weeks turned into months for Brandon, Galadin, and the rest of the captives. The men ate four times a day; small bites of fanglin root and a mix of slop poured into wooden bowls that tasted bitter and foul. Although it tasted bad, the food allowed the men to shed body fat and put on pounds of muscle. After the first month, the men’s bodies not only looked intimidating, but became strong as well. Brandon's body reacted greatly to the labor, turning his once solid body into a muscular and well-built machine. He often thought how his father looked, wondering if his father had the same impressive build he did.

              The men were not allowed a day off. They got between four and six hours of sleep, and besides eating time, the Bauth'Dok expected them to work and be productive. Brandon tried his luck one day, and after six hours of mining, he only filled the bottom of a single cart; that got him beaten and sent to sleep without food.

              When they first arrived, their group consisted of Brandon, Galadin, and seven of Galadin's men. Working in the mines and being in contact with raw trexalite had its effects on them all. Galadin fell ill twice from trexalite poisoning; he questioned if it affected him more than the other men because of his race. Rallick and Terrin, against the wishes of the rest, tried to escape when the Bauth'Dok attempted to leave the cave. Their beaten and rotting bodies hung from hooks at the entrance of the cave as a reminder to those who thought of doing the same.

              After a few months, all of the men suffered from the trexalite poisoning. Brandon saw it when he closed his eyes and summoned his gift. Through his magic, a normal and unhurt person showed as a canvas of blue. Any wound, as a cut, appeared as dark red, fading outward away from the damage to orange, yellow, and into the blue of normal skin. As they worked in the mines, Brandon pulled at the magic within him. Once he felt it, he noticed that the deep blue colors of healthy skin got lighter in all the men around him, even himself. He summoned the power as he passed other miners from different tunnels; it surprise him that a few of them, cloaked completely in orange, were even alive. He figured it out; after seeing those men colored orange through his Gift, it would only be a few days before he never saw them again. He never saw anyone colored all red, unless they were already dead.

              Brandon heard the trexalite poisoning could not be cured and one could not recover from the effects, even if healed. He proved, but also disproved, that theory. After revealing he had the gift, he demonstrated his ability to Galadin and his men. After much practice, he no longer needed to concentrate to pull at the power within him. Including himself, the seven men in his tunnel gave him all the practice he needed to improve. Cuts and scrapes, even broken bones, became trivial against Brandon's ability to heal, but he could not alter the ever-growing radiation damage. He tried, but it did not matter who he tried to heal, or how he tried to envision it, the result was still the same: the damage could not be fixed. This proved the theory, but Brandon found
one
exception: he could heal himself.

              Although difficult, Brandon could reverse the damage. He could heal a broken leg or a cracked skull easier, but each night Brandon sat in his bed and summoned continuous flow of his power. He focused on the power settling over him, as a blanket would. The colors did not change by themselves; he had to force them and they changed slowly, but they
did
change.

              Brandon learned his ability well enough that small cuts and scrapes on his body healed themselves with no conscious effort involved; it appeared when he needed it and vanished as fast as it came when he did not.

              It did not take long for Brandon to establish himself as a 'trouble-maker' with Florian. Since the first day of captivity, Brandon's tolerance with the way he and his fellow captives were treated ran thin. Brandon would not endure the mean and pitiless abuse that all men faced each day in the caves, even if he had not grown strong and powerful. He understood they were slaves and mined a metal that would eventually kill them, but random beatings and senseless torture pushed Brandon to the edge. He stood up for himself and those around him; he fought back. Two different times, he hit Florian in the face. One of those times, Galadin fell unconscious from worsening trexalite poisoning, and Florian tried to wake him by beating him with his paddle. Brandon broke Florian's nose, showering him with blood. Another time, he busted the handle of a pick over another slave driver's head because the slave driver would not stop kicking a fallen miner, also sick from poisoning. Other days, Brandon just felt rebellious; he refused to work once because Florian did not say 'please.' Each time, the Bauth'Dok punished him; beating and starving him. Each time he would smile, welcoming the punishment in defiance. One time, he got locked inside a crate and left in the mine without food or water for two days.

              Brandon learned a great deal about the Bauth'Dok and their minions. Each slave driver had a small black chain around his neck, connected to a red glowing rock that rested in the center of his chest. Besides their leather boots and loincloths, they wore nothing else. At first, Brandon thought the rock put them under Bauth'Dok control, but he witnessed a situation that told him otherwise. A fight broke out between two miners from another mineshaft as Florian led their group into the mines. Florian and the other slave driver broke into the crowd to stop the fighting. In the scuffle, Florian's necklace tore from his neck. As the two slave drivers beat the men with their paddles, the two Bauth'Dok guards that monitored the cave entrance came to investigate the noise. When they approached, everyone dropped to a knee. The two creatures approached the slave drivers and spoke in a series of hisses and clicks. It did not appear that Florian could understand what they said until he reattached his necklace. Each slave driver wore one, making it possible to understand the wishes of their masters.

              Brandon also bet that the Bauth'Dok could not tell if their prisoners had the Gift. One of the captives, gifted in elementalism, attempted to fight his way out of the caves  right in front of Brandon and the others. He burned an unsuspecting Bauth'Dok and turned his fire towards another, but before he could focus the flame on the second creature, three Bauth'Dok turned their trexalite-powered staves on him. Brandon turned his head away as the dying screams of the Gifted dulled into stillness. That raised a question: why would the Bauth'Dok allow Gifted to walk amongst the other slaves when they had the power to hurt or kill? The answer: they did not know if a captive had the gift.

              Day after day Brandon mined the trexalite; a metal that amplified the power of a Gifted. A hard, black, porous material encased the metal. He did not know how it formed, or what material surrounded it, but he did know the danger of it. The amounts of trexalite they found were small, mostly flakes or smaller. The Bauth'Dok melted the metal and forged it to their liking. How they did this, no one knew, but the miners could hear the clang of the hammers, pounding and shaping the metal, every hour of the day.

              The morning started cool, same as the one yesterday, and as the one he would have tomorrow. Brandon rolled over on the giant rock floor he used as his bed and opened his eyes. He propped himself up with his hands, looking over Galadin and his other friends. In an instant, he touched his power. Like a colored lens dropped in front of his eyes, the flesh tones of the men around him turned to brilliant hues of yellow and orange. He raised his hand out in front of his face. Blue.
Why can I only save myself? It isn't fair. I don't know how much more death I can handle before I lose it. I hope Edward and Jasmine are okay.

              His thoughts trailed off as he heard the familiar footsteps of his slave driver approaching.

              "Galadin! Hugh! Guys, wake up!" he said, shaking Galadin's shoulder. Galadin did not look good. His skin, under Brandon's gift, spread mostly yellow, with small patches of orange along his hands and face. Galadin's eyes opened up, weary and slow, as he attempted a small smile. Brandon released the magic.

              "Brandon, good morning, friend. I had a dream about you," Galadin said slowly as Florian entered their bedding area.

              "Get up! Time to go to work!" he yelled, smacking his paddle in his palm. Florian used to leave his paddle at the cave entrance like the other slave drivers, but ever since Brandon started to fight back, it seemed Florian never walked without it. The men pulled themselves to their feet. Brandon hooked his hands under Galadin's arms and helped him up.

              "You sick again, elf? You aren't pulling your weight," Florian said, but before he could finish, Brandon's head turned sideways, giving him a hateful glare.

              "Shut your mouth, Florian," Brandon said as his lip curled in anger. Florian had little patience for sick miners, especially Galadin, because he fell sick more than the others. His malice could be seen as he stared at Galadin.

              Florian looked back towards the way he entered, back towards the central Bauth'Dok city. Brandon moved his head to see around Florian to see what he looked at. The Bauth'Dok Blademaster stood by the wall twenty feet back; a bad sign. The Blademaster was unique. He wore a thin black crown which had finger-like blades that extended straight upward from the metal head band. Strapped to his back were his two swords, crafted from trexalite, making the appearance of an "X" that reached up past his shoulders. He was the one, the king. Florian and the rest of the slave drivers, as well as the Bauth'Dok staff holders and guards, answered to him. Usually, he would sit in his black throne at the top of the city. For him to make an appearance, something had to be happening.

              The dark-skinned creature gave Florian an eyeless nod. As Florian turned his head back towards Brandon and the men, he smiled.

              "You," he said, dragging the word out in disgust. "Stand back towards the wall. I won't be having any trouble from you now. Back up."

              Brandon could not figure out why the Blademaster had showed up. That made him uncomfortable. He lowered his head to look right into Galadin's eyes.

              Speaking softly, Brandon said, "You okay, friend? Will you be alright?"

              Galadin gave him a smile, "Yes, don't get yourself hurt over me. I am fine. I promise." Brandon could tell he did not tell the truth, but he did as Florian told him and took a few steps back towards the wall.

              "Everyone, heads down, get your carts, and start working. We have some business we need to attend to," he said, staring right at Brandon. "I will be down shortly. If you waste any time, you will be punished. Don't disappoint me, now get moving!" Florian pushed the men out of the bedding area. Galadin looked back towards Brandon, worried.

              "I'll be fine, Galadin. I will see you in a bit. Go on. It's okay."

              Galadin moved towards the pathways that lead down to the carts. He did not moving as fast as the other men, and as he passed Florian, Florian turned and hit him across the back with his paddle. Galadin crashed into the ground, yelling out in pain. Florian landed a solid kick into Galadin's ribs before Brandon's fist struck Florian across the face. As Florian fell to the ground on his hand and knees, Brandon reared his leg back and kicked him as hard as he could in the side, lifting Florian off the ground. Brandon's rage towards the white-haired slave driver burned. He moved over to attack Florian again. The air behind him shimmered as two Bauth'Dok appeared out of nowhere. They pointed their staves towards Brandon. Two blue and white arcs of electricity cracked through the air as they struck Brandon in the back. Brandon's arms shot out to the side and his head went upward as his muscles spasmed out of control. He yelled but it could not be heard over the static of the electric energy. Brandon fell to the ground, unconscious.

              An evil smile came across Florian's face as he propped his body up on his elbow.

              "I told you, you would get yours," he said. "I told you."

              The two Bauth'Dok walked over and picked Brandon up, dragging him out of the sleeping quarters. They pulled him through the streets, and following the Blademaster, took him to the top of the city. Florian followed them.

              The throne area opened up from the lower pathway. The black throne sat up against the wall on a small, elevated terrace. The smooth and polished rock floor lead up to the throne, where it lent view over the whole city. The Blademaster took his seat as the two other creatures dropped Brandon to the floor. Brandon regained consciousness. The two Bauth'Dok walked towards the throne and stood behind the king. Florian walked past Brandon and dropped to a knee in front of them all.

              "I told you he was trouble. He needs to be changed. He has always been rebellious, and I am afraid he is giving the other men the idea that they may do the same. You need . . ." The Bauth'Dok king interrupted Florian by a series of hisses and clicks.

              Florian nodded his head as the creature spoke. Brandon looked up and watched as Florian answered the Blademaster with a quick "yes." Brandon pulled himself up. As he stood, the two Bauth'Dok guards standing behind the Blademaster took a few steps forward and held their staves out. Brandon glared at them all. Florian rose and turned towards Brandon, blood still leaking from the side of his eye where Brandon hit him.