Origin (Land of the Elementals Book 3), page 37
She could hear the others following, but Karria didn’t need their help to complete a task as easy as this. Karria circled halfway around the bush, then stepped up, forging a step beneath her foot as she traveled over so as not to make any noise at all. She reached the tunnel entrance without issue, then dropped straight down, landing just a foot away from the first dwarf.
He started in surprise, half-pushing off the wall on which he was leaning, before Karria’s dagger, perfectly balanced and weighted, took him in the throat. The other dwarf was a bit farther down, and he began to react, only for a similar dagger to slam into his throat as well. Karria straightened as the two men dropped to the ground, their armor clattering against the tunnel floor as blood sprayed from their ruined throats.
The daggers were dismissed and the dwarves shoved deeper into the tunnel by the time the others arrived, and Karria was in the process of forging the fake guards.
“Holy crap!” Hord exclaimed when he saw the dead guards. “How did you finish them so quickly?”
“Keep your voice down,” Karria said as the first of the two dwarves spun into existence. “And it’s hardly difficult to kill two unprepared dwarves if you know what you’re doing.”
Hord stared between Karria and the dead dwarves, wondering what she’d used to kill them. Their throats were both pumping blood at a prodigious rate, which meant that their arteries had obviously been severed. The rest of the group hadn’t been more than ten seconds behind her. She’d had the option of apparently running on air, but they’d had to take care when going through the bush so as not to trample it and make the next round of guards suspicious.
“Come on,” Karria said as the second guard was summoned, turning to head down the tunnel.
Hord, Grak, and Akkard shared another look before they followed. Karria wasn’t sure whether they were afraid, awed, or a combination of both. Whatever it was, she honestly didn’t mind. Karria sped up her walk to a half-jog as the tunnel began to slope downward, sending one of her fly constructs further down to scout ahead for her. There was always the chance of more guards being around, and she didn’t much feel like getting caught by surprise.
No one, not even Grak, talked as they went, leaving Karria to wonder if she might have a bit more sense than she’d been giving her credit for. They jogged along for about half an hour, Karria noticing that both dwarves were beginning to breathe hard. Much as she was tempted to keep running and simply ignore them, their breathing might start to give them away, especially in a tunnel like this.
So, reluctantly, she slowed to a fast walk, giving the dwarves time to catch their breath and recover. Her eyes never stopped moving as they traveled. Even though this was just a straight tunnel, lined with nothing but glow stones to light the way, Karria made sure to memorize every nook and cranny. There was always the chance that their mission to kill Jek would fail entirely, meaning that she and Arbor would be forced to flee once he returned.
Collapsing the tunnel behind them would assure their escape, but breaking a tunnel like this was dangerous. She’d only be able to hit certain spots of she didn’t want the whole thing to come crashing down on her head, so Karria took care to memorize the weak spots and calculate the risks.
Once the dwarves had caught their breaths, Karria began jogging again, this time keeping a pace that the dwarves would be able to do without getting worn out. Karria calculated that this tunnel would take them approximately two hours to span. The only question that remained was where in the throne room they would emerge.
She also had to worry about how many soldiers would be in the throne room. They had several advantages, one of them being their ability to use magic, and the other, her formidable mind. She was confident that she could handle herself, but the very first thing she’d have to do upon exiting was seal the doors to make sure no one could get in or out.
She would also need some sort of protection, lest the dwarves have ranged weapons and she was too distracted to handle multiple opponents. As they ran, Karria began forging a thin layer of armor beneath her clothes. It was soft, pliable, and enough to stop any projectile. It wouldn’t do much against, say, a hammer, but even if she were in a full set of the dwarven plate armor, her body simply wasn’t built to take that sort of punishment.
The remainder of their run was uneventful, and they only slowed once Karria finally spotted something through her scout. There, at the very end of the tunnel, four more guards stood. Two faced inward, and another two stood outwards. A massive stone block sat atop a set of stairs, and Karria had a feeling that that was where the throne was. It was a shame, really, as she’d wanted to see Jek’s smug face when she killed him, but the odds of his surviving the blast she’d set off beneath the throne were negligible at best.
There was always the chance that he wasn’t on the throne, but Karria didn’t think it was much of one at that. She slowed to a walk, holding up a hand to call the group to a stop. She turned, holding a finger to her lips, then motioned up ahead. She flashed five fingers, then mimed walking. After that, she held up four and mimed a stabbing motion. She really hoped they were smart enough to understand what she was saying, but just in case, she repeated the motion once again.
The others finally understood what she was getting at and all nodded, letting her know that she could move on. Karria turned, rolling her eyes and wondering if she could clone herself rather than have to deal with all these idiots. She didn’t have long to wonder about it, as the end of the tunnel was soon in sight.
Karria could easily spot the guards, chatting amongst themselves instead of doing their actual jobs. Still, there was always the chance that they could be spotted. After all, if she could see them, they could see her. This was a wide-open tunnel with no place to hide, which meant that she needed to act swiftly and without mercy, but that was what she did best.
Already knowing the positions of the guards beforehand, Karria summoned two daggers, like the ones she’d had before. She took off at a dead run, her feet barely making a sound as she dashed toward them. She knew that it was only a matter of time before the guards would spot her, and just a few seconds after she began to run, one of them did.
Like the last, he half-turned, expecting to see nothing, and instead, saw death bearing down upon him. And just like the last, he didn’t get out so much as a word before a dagger took him in the throat. The dwarf went down with a gurgle, making the others start and turn as well, only for a second to go down as well, a dagger lodging in his eye.
Karria was still advancing, and as one of the dwarves tried to cry out an alarm, she flicked her finger, ripping the dagger from one of the dead dwarves and slicing his throat wide open. This was something that Karria had had endless trouble with once upon a time, but now, with a new understanding of her magic, controlling constructs at a distance was hardly a challenge at all.
The fourth dwarf, seeing that he was now alone and facing the incarnation of death who’d killed three of his companions in a handful of seconds, turned to run up the stairs. This was a big mistake on his part, as it left the back of his neck wide open. Both daggers came this time, slashing from the sides and severing his spinal column. Then, even as he was falling, a third dagger, thrown by Karria, sliced neatly across his throat, slamming into the wall and lodging there.
Karria slowed her dead run to walk as she reached the group, retrieving her daggers and flicking them to clear them of blood. Though Grak was the first to catch up, they’d all seen how she’d taken down the guards, and none of them said so much as a word. If Karria hadn’t been sure how they felt about her before, she most definitely was now. It showed clearly on all their faces as they looked upon the dead bodies of the dwarves and the callousness in which she’d killed them.
Sure, they’d been enemies, but even enemies demanded a little respect. Karria hadn’t even given them a chance to so much as raise a hand in defense, cutting them down like animals led to slaughter. Karria, on the other hand, saw no problem with how she’d eliminated the dwarves. She’d killed them in the quickest and most efficient way possible, assuring that they were not discovered and took almost no risk.
If she’d charged in like Hord or Akkard likely would, swinging a massive hammer, they’d definitely have attracted attention, and would probably be hip-deep in soldiers by now. Worse, their advantage of surprise would be completely gone. Now, they still had it. Chances that they’d been overheard were negligible at best, and even if they had been, there was no way anyone would assume the clanging of armor was anything more than the guards shifting around.
“I’d stand back if I were you,” Karria said in a low tone as she began setting constructed charges around the bottom of the stone slab.
She didn’t know how to make bombs per-se, but she had figured out how to detonate her regularly explosive magic attacks on a delay. This would assure she had more than enough power to blow the throne off its pedestal, even if it had been reinforced. The shock factor should also give her enough time to exit the stairwell and block off the exits, sealing them all into the room and assuring her victory.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, lass?” Hord asked as he looked to the tunnel walls.
“I won’t collapse the tunnel,” Karria replied, taking several steps back. “The charges are set to unleash their payload upward, so there will be minimal backwash from the explosion. Be prepared to move as soon as it’s set off,” she continued, summoning another sphere of glowing multicolored magic.
The others tensed as she hurled the sphere at the primed explosives, and Karria felt a wide grin split her lips. This was going to be fun!
47
The explosion that rocked the tunnel was deafening, and even more destructive than Karria had originally calculated. The blast completely blew apart the concrete slab that had been blocking their way. Karria didn’t hesitate for a moment, dashing forward and up the stairs, and finally coming out into the throne room. However, it took exactly one second for her to realize that her thought process had been off.
She’d been sure that Jek would have placed the secret escape tunnel right under his throne. Instead, the dwarf had placed it under one of the statues to the left of the dais, leaving him relatively safe from the explosion. Karria didn’t mind, taking quick stock of the situation as she looked around the room.
Jek, predictably, was sitting on the throne, or more accurately, was slumped on the throne. Both of his short legs were kicked up, while one servant fanned him with an oversized paper fan, and another fed him what looked to be strips of meat. It had to be the single most disgusting thing Karria had seen all day, and that included the corpses she’d left back in the tunnel.
Aside from Jek, the room contained some twenty guards, all spread along the walls. They’d been watching Jek with mixtures of disgust – which Karria could understand – and envy at Jek’s being pampered by his servants. Both of them were scantily clad dwarven women who looked more than a little uncomfortable in their roles. The doors to the throne room were closed, both the upper and lower, which meant that sealing them all in wouldn’t be a problem at all.
Karria took this all in in a matter of seconds. In fact, her mind was moving so quickly, that she could see the dwarves’ expressions changing from whatever they had been before to the shock they’d obviously display at someone blowing up a statue and running into the room.
“Guards…!” Jek began, only for Karria to extend a hand and forge a massive beam across the doors of the throne room.
Her eyes then flashed to the myriad of other small exits that the dwarves probably all thought were well-hidden. In another few seconds, they were all sealed, trapping Jek and the few guards he had within.
Grak came up the stairs then, predictably trailing her by some ten seconds. Karria didn’t know why the woman was so slow with her reactions, but perhaps that would cause her to be killed in the fight, saving Karria the trouble of doing it herself.
“Don’t just stand there!” Jek yelled, sitting up in his throne as Hord and then Akkard came up from the tunnel. “Kill them!”
The dwarves, seeing their former king and his brother, hesitated. Karria noted this down, wondering if a fight might not break out at all. While these guards had likely all been loyal once, it seemed that Jek had done a real number on that loyalty since he’d become king.
“Are you really going to attack your real king?” Karria asked, turning her back to the pompous dwarf and facing the guards in question. “Or will you turn your weapons on the fat, traitorous slob making a mockery of you and your race?”
“Kill her!” Jek sputtered, his face going red in anger. “What the hell are you all just standing around for?!”
“Oh, blow it out your oversized asshole, ya pompous prick!” Hord yelled.
It seemed that he had noticed the hesitation as well, and was capitalizing on it.
“Y-Yeah, J-Jek,” said one of the guards, taking a half-step forward. “You’re n-not the real king. S-So blow it out your ass!”
There was a loud clattering sound as he dropped his spear to the ground, glaring up to the would-be king in defiance.
“Traitor!” Jek screamed, his voice so shrill now that he sounded more like a prepubescent girl than the adult dwarf he was supposed to be. “Kill him! Kill him! Kill them all!”
He stood from the throne, stamping his feet like a child and petulantly demanding his guards obey.
“I don’t think they want to listen to you anymore, Jek,” Karria said as she began to stride toward the throne. “I can see it in their eyes. The way they look at you, with such disgust and hatred. To them, you’re little better than garbage, Jek. You’re just an overblown fool who had to take what you could never get on his own, only to then go and run it into the ground.
“How are your people doing, I wonder?” she said, continuing her slow walk to the throne. “Are they happy with you, or do they resent your very existence?”
She stopped just a couple of feet from him, looking down at the seething dwarf with a condescending smile.
“If you want my guess, I’d say it was the latter, wouldn’t you? But what else could be expected from a lazy, talentless, sad excuse for a dwarf? I mean, that is why you had to overthrow the real king, isn’t it?”
With a howl of rage, Jek threw himself at Karria, his meaty hands balled into fists and swinging at her for all he was worth. Karria laughed at the dwarf’s pitiful attempts, easily stepping back and avoiding the wild blows. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several of the dwarves tensing, as though unsure of which side to take, but as soon as they looked to Akkard, their real king, they relaxed, allowing the situation to continue playing out.
“Come on, is that the best you’ve got?” Karria asked, taunting the little man. “My mother can fight better than that, and she’s dead!”
Karria didn’t see it, as she was facing away from her traveling companions, but the look they shared upon hearing this was one of grim acceptance. It was clear, at least to them, that the Karria they’d known before was all but gone. The old Karria would never make such a callous comment about her dead mother, not even as a grim joke or reference to dark humor. They needed Arbor back, and soon.
“Stand still and fight like a man!” Jek puffed, starting to slow down.
“You want me to fight back?” Karria asked, affecting a surprised look. “I mean, I’m not a man, but I guess you must be half-blind if you thought anyone in this room liked you. I was offering you a sporting chance by just avoiding your sad attacks, but if you want me to fight back, I’ll be more than happy to oblige!”
A forged metallic pole appeared in Karria’s left hand, and as Jek took another swing at her, she parried, using the pole to smack his hand aside. It wasn’t a hard blow, just a small tap to deflect the attack, but the follow up was anything but gentle.
Jek cried out in pain as Karria thrust the pole forward, slamming it perfectly into his left collarbone. She hit him just hard enough that it wouldn’t break, but definitely with enough force that it would hurt.
“What?” Karria asked in mock-surprise, watching as the dwarf staggered back, clutching at his injury. “Can’t take a little pain?”
Jek growled, then reached for his belt and pulled a heavy-bladed dagger.
“Let’s see how brave you are now, bitch!” he yelled, lunging toward her in a clumsy stab.
Karria dropped the pole, the construct vanishing halfway to the ground, and held her arms wide in a mocking gesture. However, as Jek came near, sure of his victory, Karria pivoted to one side, snagging the dwarf’s wrist and twisting it back with her other hand. She then used the dwarf’s own dagger, still clutched in his fist, to stab him in his chest.
“Oh, would you look at that?” Karria said as the dwarf howled in pain. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to run with sharp objects? I guess you were too stupid to understand. Maybe this will help the lesson sink in a bit more!”
Karria then proceeded to pull Jek’s arm back, stabbing him several more times until the dwarf collapsed from the pain.
“Are you crying?” Karria asked as she watched the dwarf begin to sob. “That has to be the single most pathetic thing I have ever seen!”
She began to laugh then, watching the shaking dwarf as fat tears rolled from his eyes and disappeared into his beard.
“Well, so long as you’re acting like a little bitch, I may as well treat you like one,” Karria said, forging a dog’s collar and starting to crouch down to affix it to the former king’s neck.
However, she was stopped by a firm hand falling on her shoulder. She already knew who it was, but still turned to glare up at the dwarf.
“That’s enough,” Akkard said, practically glaring down at her. “You’ve won. There’s no need to keep degrading him like this.”
