Metal Mage 5, page 29
Then I heard my last guard give an angry hiss, and I flipped around to find him sparring with the other elf of House Syru who’d rushed us from the side.
I fired my revolver, but the burly guard ducked in time to only catch the bullet across the back of his shoulder blade, and as he did, he snatched the ankle of the turquoise clad elf. I saw my guard pale in horror as he was lifted from the ground, and his leg was gripped firmly in the massive elf’s two hands. Before he could snap the leg in half, I fired once more, and the bullet shot straight through the metal vambrace of his forearm.
The blood red guard growled and dropped his hold, and my guard fell back to the ground. Then he swiftly pulled out his saber and with a deadly swipe, he split the large elf from neck to naval.
The guard reeled in pain and tried to grab for his glaive, and I brought my own sword from its sheath to drive it through his heart.
My own guard grinned at the sight of the blood that spewed from the wound, and as I ripped the blade free, the massive elf fell lifeless at our feet.
My companion let out a mirthless laugh and turned to continue his sprint for the doors of the fortress, but I paused briefly once more as I considered the rest of the grounds.
The blood red guards were larger and fiercer than the elves of House Natyr, but they didn’t fight as relentlessly as the ones I’d met in the jungles to the south. They wore the same garb, but they clearly felt the pain of their wounds and could at least be taken down with some persistence.
I furrowed my brow as I eyed a turquoise clad elf who’d been left to writhe in pain in the dirt. With a little scrutiny, I could tell it wasn’t Onym or his brother, but only a moment later he was trampled by a blood red guard, who thought to drop his glaive through the squirming elf’s head on his way toward Oryk.
The skull shattered with a sickening sound, and I winced before I turned back toward the door. As I ran to catch up to the ninety-three-year old elf who easily outpaced me, I caught sight of two more elves from House Syru who stalked us from the shadows between the torchlights.
I quickly pulled a wall from the earth, but before it could form itself completely, a stout glaive flew over the top, and my companion whipped around to deflect it with the staff of his own glaive. The weight of the tungsten easily split the wood in half, and I pushed the wall forward to pin the guards against the stonework of the fortress.
They dove aside with incredible speed and rounded the wall with their teeth bared, and my own guard rolled out of the way of the sword that nearly took his arm from him. I managed to bury a bullet in the shoulder of the other, and although he only paused for the briefest moment, it was enough time for me to send out another burst of my magic.
The metal of the stunned elf’s vambrace softened, and I brought the dwarven sword down with all of my force and spliced my attacker’s wrist open. His warm blood splattered across me as his hand fell to the dirt, but he swung his stout glaive with his other hand, and I quickly countered the blow. With a sword in one hand and a revolver in the other, I managed to hold out long enough to rip the earth beneath him apart, and as he dropped, he caught my own arm with the tip of his hooked glaive.
I gritted my teeth as a gouge ripped across my bicep, and the blood dripped down my elbow in a warm stream. I pulled the trigger regardless, and the guard’s jaw split open from the force of the bullet. Then he went limp and crumpled into a heap at the bottom of the trench. My own guard reached out in a flash and swiped the hooked glaive from the corpse before I’d closed the trench over the body, and he leapt with it toward the second of our attackers.
The turquoise clad guard was almost immediately pinned against the stonework by the brutish grip of his opponent, but I emptied the revolver into the back of his head before he could crush his collar bone completely. Then I stowed the gun in its holster and pulled my crossbow around from my back.
My guard fought for his breath as he swiped the splatter of blood from his face, and we swiftly backed ourselves toward the doors of the fortress ahead.
I saw the turquoise clad elves fighting ruthlessly with the remaining guards of House Syru, and my gut clenched as I counted. Only three warriors of House Natyr would remain in the grounds once we were inside, and the six blood red guards came at them with unyielding force.
Onym and his brother held out well together against an elf nearly twice their size, but the black eyes caught on mine as he ducked the blow of a glaive and countered with a dagger into the groin of the guard.
Onym twisted the blade and sent me a furious look as if to say I was wasting time, so I turned my back on him and his howling attacker and sent my magic toward the brace of metal on the doors instead.
The giant beam of steel was at least five times my weight, and I struggled to loosen it from its mount, but once it was finally free, I braced myself and sent it over the grounds toward the battle.
Onym and his brother saw the beam coming and dove aside, and the two guards who had nearly severed their heads were crushed flat beneath the beam. I sent an extra surge of magic their way, but I only had enough time to melt another two glaives down before my companion grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the doors.
“We must be swift, the guards inside will be coming soon,” he ordered, and we shoved the heavy doors open and slid inside.
I used my magic to meld the two doors shut along their seam behind us, and we managed to leap into the shadows at the corner of the giant hall just as three elves of House Syru ran for the entrance of the fortress.
They beat their glaives against the melded steel and cursed furiously in Elvish, and my guard and I were able to slip unseen along the wall toward the staircase at the far end of the room. The stairs had just rounded at the landing of the second floor when two blood red guards nearly barreled right through us on their way toward the battering of steel below.
I rolled out of the way of a glaive and loosed two arrows into the guard’s back, but he turned and drove his blade toward my chest with a feverish hiss. I was already pinned with my back against the wall, and I ripped the dwarven sword from its sheath to counter the blow. Before I could, my companion sliced the neck of my attacker open with the hooked blade he’d stolen from the corpse.
I cringed as the blood red guard gurgled and collapsed against me, and I was suddenly locked under his weight as he twitched and bled out across my legs. I grunted and struggled to free myself while my companion dodged another blow from the second guard.
The stout blade of the glaive missed him narrowly as he dove down the steps a ways, and as it struck hard against the stonework, it sent a shower of sparks across the stairwell. The blood red guard had just raised the blade for another sturdy blow when I loosed two arrows into his skull from my place on the floor.
He dropped and tumbled in a lifeless heap down the stairwell, and the clanging of his vambraces echoed so loudly, it was impossible no one heard. My own guard helped me get free of the dead elf who pinned me down, but I could see a fresh bloom of blood on my thigh where my stitches had reopened from the effort.
I cursed under my breath as we quickly rounded the landing and made for the next floor of the fortress, and with every step, blood flowed more persistently from the wound. I fumbled to find the vial of berries in my pocket, and I’d just managed to get one free when a glaive came around the corner and fell two inches shy of my skull.
“Godsdamnit,” I growled, and I lunged to the side to avoid being shoved backward by the next guard. He snarled and lurched forward, and my companion sliced the back of his knee with the hooked tip of his glaive.
The burly guard snarled viciously in pain and whipped around, and the swift elf caught him once again with the deadly hook in the tender bit of flesh under his arm this time.
He was twisted by this bit of skin, which ripped open wide against the pull of his weight, and as he slipped on the step beneath him, I saw the tendons of his inner arm peel from the bone.
He yelped as he rolled away down the stairwell, and I frowned as I watched the elf beside me flick the discarded sinew from his blade. Then he turned and continued up the stairs without a word, and I swallowed the silver berry down together with the fresh bile in my throat. I stepped over the meaty mess that slicked the stairs to follow, and as I heard the angry guard struggle to rise once he’d tumbled to the base of the stairwell, I quickened my pace as best as I could manage.
Shouting seemed to echo from every corner of the fortress, but we moved silently along the landing of the third story and quickly rounded the final staircase without being seen. I knew we were in the north eastern corner of the house, and as we finally came to the fourth floor, I ordered my companion to take the hall to the right.
The Triorlin berry had given me enough of a boost to distract from the pulsing pain in my thigh, but the blood hadn’t staunched at all, and I limped badly as I fought to keep up with my guard.
I was acutely aware of how false this energy that flowed through my veins was now, and even though it held me upright and focused my thoughts, my head began to feel strangely light with the blood loss. I locked my jaw and forced my legs to keep moving and realized I would need to finish the head of the house off as quickly as I could before I passed out completely.
The enormous fortress seemed to go on and on as we stole through the many halls that wound toward the southern corner, but after what seemed like several minutes, the turquoise clad elf came to a sudden halt at the corner of a hall.
He sent a curt nod over his shoulder and motioned past himself, and I peered around the corner to find two well plated guards with massive axes held across their chests. They carefully scanned the three halls that converged at the doorway where they stood, and I guessed the sturdy steel door at their backs marked the chamber where the head of the house resided.
I pulled my head back out of sight just as one of them turned toward us, and we stood still for a long moment to be sure he didn’t come this way.
“What is the plan?” my companion asked in a low voice.
I shrugged. “I’m working on it,” I told him.
His serpentine eyes flashed with anger. “We are a guard short,” he snapped, “and the head of House Syru waits right beyond those doors. How is it you have no plan?”
“Hey, a few hours ago, none of you did either,” I pointed out. “Just let me focus.”
The muscle in the elf’s jaw twitched as he gritted his teeth in agitation and stared me down.
He had jet black hair knotted all over with leather twine, and his bright green eyes darted to the end of the hall and back to me every few seconds. I counted how many guards we’d made it past to get this far, and although his gaze was genuinely irritating right now, I couldn’t deny he’d saved my skin multiple times already.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Why does that matter?” he hissed as he checked the hallway once more.
I sighed. “I was just wondering.”
The elf’s jaw flexed again before he said, “Myr is my name, and if another guard comes around that corner before we’ve dealt with those two, we will be outnumbered and finished.”
“Nice to meet you,” I shot back with a smirk, and I rolled my eyes as I leaned past him to get another look around the corner.
The two guards still scanned the halls like hawks, and I eyed their metal plating closely.
The cuirasses were bolted in a hinged style on one side of their torsos, but on the other side, the metal overlapped itself slightly where the chest and back plating were secured together.
I grinned and ducked back behind the wall.
“Give me a second,” I muttered.
I closed my eyes and focused my magic toward the guards at the end of the hall. The presence of their immense axes nearly blotted out my attention, but I didn’t bother with them just yet. I pinched my eyes more firmly shut and sent my magic past the weapons to the cuirasses behind them. With a tendril of magic, I melded into the metal plating, and then I began to shift it ever so slightly.
The two halves of the cuirass cinched tighter by a centimeter, and the guard didn’t seem to notice the change. Then I tightened it another smidge, and as I felt the ribs of the elf begin to pinch, I heard him shift uncomfortably from around the corner. The guard coughed lightly, and I felt him reach to pull at the edge of his chest plate, but by the time he began to wheeze, I had already locked the metal in place so that nothing could pry it open.
Soon, the guard lost his ability to fill his lungs enough to catch his breath, and I felt the stout axe slip from his grip. I quickly caught it only an inch from the ground to settle it without making a sound.
The guard beside him didn’t notice this as he moved to catch the bluing elf beside him, and he struggled to support the burly guard as he spoke to him with urgent confusion.
With the second guard distracted, I shifted into his own metal plating, and I’d locked him in a vice as well before he’d noticed the cinching of his ribs. Then he wheezed and lost his hold on his companion and his axe at once. I managed to catch the metal of both in time, and this time the guard must have noticed the silent fall, because he tried to call out through his bluing lips.
I quickly tightened his cuirass another three inches to force the last of his air from his lungs, and I rounded the corner just as he dropped to his knees in a panic. His serpentine eyes bulged with purplish veins, and his brow twitched in shock as he saw the two of us come down the hall, but the fist he raised toward the door at his back wavered. He didn’t have enough strength left to make it the last foot to the door, and he fell forward with his fist still raised as he finally lost consciousness.
I sent out a surge of magic and caught his fall, and my guard and I stepped silently over the two blueish bodies. Myr stooped to take up one of the axes, and the weight of it was nearly too much for him to manage. I cocked a brow as he strained to hold it to him with the hooked glaive in his other hand, but he only narrowed his green eyes and nodded to the steel door in front of us.
This door wasn’t as stout as the one at the entrance of the fortress, but after I explored its makeup for a moment, I found it was bolted from the inside with two sturdy latches, and then barred with a steel beam across its center.
I would need to simultaneously disarm all of these locks if we were going to have any chance at catching the head of the house off guard now.
I motioned for Myr to keep an eye on the three halls that converged around us before I sent my magic coursing through the steel of the door. I could feel the latches were slightly rusted from the moisture of the jungle air, and the hinges would screech if I shifted them even a centimeter from their places.
So, I took a deep breath and let my mind gain a more finely tuned connection with the metal for a moment before I tried to reverse the corrosion of the metal itself. I felt around the rusted hinges and carefully sifted throughout every inch until I was sure the last of the rust was reworked back into unmarred steel. Then I held my breath and slowly shifted them free of their latches. Not a sound came from the door, and I let out a tense breath as I turned my focus to the metal beam next.
Sweat beaded my forehead, and the throbbing in my leg began to have a numbing effect on me from the hip down. My foot felt like ice in my boot, and I didn’t know when I’d lost the ability to feel the warm blood that still trickled steadily down my leg. I shifted uncomfortably at the disorienting lightness of my limbs and muttered quietly to the elf at my side.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
Myr gave a curt nod, and I clutched the crossbow firmly in my weakening grip as I zeroed my magic in on the steal beam of the other side of the door.
With a surge of power, I sent the beam flying from its mount and across the room, and then I threw the door open with my shoulder and entered with the crossbow drawn.
When we burst into the room, the head of House Syru glanced up from his table. His eyes didn’t look surprised at the intrusion, and he swiftly raised a hand in front of him in response.
The steel beam halted a foot away from his face, and his lips curled into a sneer as he carelessly flicked the steel away. It fell with a loud clang on the stone floor, and I loosed two arrows in succession before it had even settled completely.
The bolts skidded to a quick stop in midair, and my gut dropped.
Then the leader chuckled lightly as he cast them away as well.
With another quick turn of his wrist, the steel door closed firmly behind us, and the head of the House folded his hands on the table in front of him.
“And here you are at last,” the elf said almost boredly. It was the same man I’d seen at the hall of the Elven Council, with his dull and straight black hair held back from his face with a single braid. He’d been the first to assure me no elves used rune magic in Nalnora, but I began to suspect he knew the strange magic better than any other.
His dim chamber was lit with only two torches at the walls on either side, and there was nothing but a few tables scattered with various pieces of parchment and his own chair within the vast and gloomy room. It was cold and vacant, but the presence of the black-haired elf at the table seemed enough to fill it.
I could sense something of the forces in the air around me, and although they didn’t feel anything like magery, I knew they were laced with the powers he wielded.
I didn’t waste another second.
I abruptly raised my crossbow once more, but before I’d even strung an arrow, the elf’s sneer widened into a wicked grin, and the metalwork twisted in my grip until the bowstring was snapped in two from the tension.
I leveled my eyes with the black-haired elf’s and dropped the destroyed crossbow to the floor.
“There now,” the leader said quietly. “Let’s not waste any more time with that.”
My pulse quickened as I recalled Onym’s warning about not hesitating, and I wondered if he had already known the head of House Syru could manipulate metal.
It seemed like something he would have warned me about, but they’d assumed this entire thing would be easy simply because of my power, so it was hard to discern.
