Metal Mage 5, page 30
I clenched and unclenched my fist as I worked to keep my blood flowing properly, and I held the sights of the elf as Myr shifted nervously beside me.
“You know,” the leader said casually, “when the Master told me about you, he seemed potentially concerned, but now I wonder if he’s been worked up over only a trifle.” The elf eyed me up and down, and his expression was a mixture of boredom and disappointment.
I narrowed my eyes. “Then you know the Master personally?” I asked icily as I carefully sent a tendril of my magic across the stonework of the floor.
The leader’s wicked grin returned, and it struck me how out of place it appeared on him. His face was an ashy gray, and his skin looked rather thinned with age, and although the smile pinched expressively, it didn’t reach his serpentine eyes. His deep red eyes remained bored and blank, as if the workings of his mouth had a mind of their own, and the look of him was subtly fiendish in a way that sent a chill down my spine.
“You cannot be very surprised,” he said with a hollow scoff. “You may have come to House Syru in search of a runed leader, but surely it has occurred to you that you might have walked into a trap.”
I heard two clicks at my back as the latches of the steel door rehinged themselves, and my pulse quickened another measure as I held the leader’s bloody sights.
He slowly cocked his brow ever so slightly. “Perhaps it hasn’t,” he continued. Then he jolted to stamp his foot as if he’d just found a cockroach beneath his seat.
The force of it met with the tendril of magic I’d been building in the stonework of the floor, and it sent a lightning streak of pain directly through the connection and into my brain.
I winced and stumbled back as the sharp pain pierced the base of my skull, and I fought to catch my breath as my vision sparked with dozens of little black spots.
The leader let out another hollow chuckle. “A few runed ankles was all it took,” he mused quietly. “You know, at first I was against the idea of it. My armies are strong enough as they are, but the Master insisted this little bit of play would only be to my advantage. Either way, they certainly seemed to enjoy themselves.”
I recalled the maniacal strength and fortitude of the elves who’d ambushed us that morning, and the comparison between them and the guards on the grounds of House Syru suddenly aligned. They must have been the only ones who were runed.
I carefully studied the blank and bloody eyes of the leader next, and I realized he didn’t have the same deranged glint about him that most of the Master’s minions had.
He didn’t seem possessed at all, in fact. He was eerily composed and calm.
I swallowed hard as the pain in my spine finally began to subside, and when I spoke, I did my best to sound less concerned than I was. “I’m guessing you didn’t bother with his rune for yourself, either?”
Now his serpentine eyes flashed with a vague amusement, and he tilted his head ever so slightly to the side. “What would I want with it?” he asked in a detached sort of tone. “It was the Master who sought me out, but while an alliance is one thing, his own work is of little interest to my endeavors at present.”
I furrowed my brow as his cryptic words sank in.
The elf in front of me showed no signs of demonic control. He was wholly in possession of his own grimly unsettling mind, and it was this independence that began to worry me more.
I didn’t wait to ask any more questions as the hollow sights of the black-haired elf sifted silently through my own.
I swiftly threw my arm out and wrenched at the wall at his back with a surge of my magic, but as the stonework crumbled inward, the leader rose to his feet, and the rubble seemed to be deflected by some invisible force.
It shot out around him in every direction, and the dust and shattered rock scattered across the floor as the night sky lay exposed at his back.
Then, before I had even blinked, the black-haired elf cast his own arm out and directed it toward me.
I could feel his icy grip snatch at me from across the room, and as his fingers curled before him, my throat was suddenly caught in a vice.
Chapter 20
The shock of his hold was instantaneous, and I stumbled forward as I warred against it. Then an invisible surge of strength pressed me back, and suddenly, I was thrown and pinned against the steel door as if the elf had come barreling at me himself.
The rifle dug into my back, and the pain that pinched along my spine was almost as debilitating as the vice clamped at my neck. I kicked hard against the steel to try and relieve the pressure, but I was locked in my place, and I gave up the effort in the hopes of steadying my breath instead.
Myr stared in horror from my side, and I could tell he would have liked to flee had I not been propped up like a blockade. He backed himself against the wall as if it might save him, but the leader’s red eyes flicked to him the moment he moved.
Myr froze at the lethal look on his face, and before he could make another movement, the turquoise clad elf was swiftly lifted off his feet and slammed against the stonework at his back.
I heard the crunch of his bones and the slap of his skull against the rock before he dropped in a heap to the floor.
I let out a haggard breath and fought harder to release myself.
The leader could snap my own neck at any moment, but as I met his eyes, I realized he wouldn’t. That would be too easy.
His cold sights were unnervingly clear, and he studied me while he appeared to deliberate about my fate.
My mind flew through the circumstances that had led me here, and as I considered the strength and prowess of the elf in front of me, I desperately searched for a means of keeping his attention away from tightening his grip.
I could barely draw a ragged breath into my lungs, and as I fought for more air, I glared at the leader who remained patient and calm.
“So … he just hired you to kill me?” I growled as I reached up to find any hold on the doorframe that might relieve the pressure of my own weight pulling down on my neck. “A little … degrading, don’t you think?”
The leader gave a light shrug and nodded in a way that suggested he agreed. “I have better things to do with my time, it’s true,” he replied. “Still … the Master was quite insistent about the importance of this endeavor of his, and at the present it seems you are his only impediment.”
I snorted, and my fingers slipped from their precarious hold. “That’s … disappointing,” I grunted.
Now the leader smirked in earnest, and he looked almost tempted to carry on the conversation.
“I agree,” he said flatly. Then he sighed. “I was amused by him, you know. He’s such an enterprising individual. Normally, I would simply kill anyone who came to me in the search of knowledge such as mine, but his vision is admittedly …” He trailed off as a greedy glint came to his eye.
“Too good to be true?” I croaked.
The leader narrowed his eyes, but then he seemed to reconsider the words as he sized me up. From the looks of it, he was determined to remain as unimpressed as he’d been since I had first walked in.
“There is a certain insolence about you, Mason Flynt,” he informed me, “but I do not see the supposed threat. I am curious though, about the two of you. You’re so adamantly at odds, and for whatever reason this concerns him. It’s almost entertaining, really, given what I know of his dedication. Tell me, do you truly believe you will defeat him?”
I moved to respond, but he tightened his hold as if he knew what my answer would be.
As a reflex, I clutched at my neck as the pressure built behind my eyes and pounded angrily against my skull, but without a hand there to pry away from me, I struggled in vain to free myself.
His hold was a well calculated one, and I could breathe just enough to remain conscious, but so little that panic thrummed in my lungs with every breath as I began to gasp for more air.
The leader watched me struggle with a malicious sneer. “Perhaps you might have,” he said halfheartedly. “I can see your powers have strengthened beyond what the Master suspected. He was keen to study them further, I believe, but I don’t see much purpose in holding you here like a rat in a lab. I’ve never been one for trifling games. My own powers will serve him much better, that is already clear enough.”
He said this as if I were no more than a speck of dust, but his grip at my throat tightened violently, and the little sliver of air I’d clung to disappeared. I heard Myr shift on the floor through the sound of my frantic heartbeat, but the leader seemed to pay him no mind.
I didn’t doubt my guard was practically useless at this point given the crushing of his bones. Between the rifle now imprinted in the muscles of my back, and the invisible vice at my throat, I was fixing to join him.
I wrenched my neck upward and fought to allow even a trickle of air to pass through my throat. The leader waited while I writhed, and when I looked back to him, his bloody eyes bore through mine.
“You were correct to fear this magic, Mason Flynt,” the leader informed me darkly. “You are a strong mage, but this is no match for the power of the runes. I have studied this craft for most of my life, and together we will destroy the Houses of Nalnora one by one. Then we will bring the kingdoms to their knees. Mages, dwarves, and mere humans alike will sink to their rightful places beneath our feet, and rest assured, their ultimate enslavement will be your only legacy.”
As he spoke, the reality of the snare I’d stepped into sank in, and I stared through swollen eyes at the sorcerer who the Master himself sought the expertise of. He’d slipped right under my radar at the hall of the Elven Council, but the disgust the other elves had shown for him would have held more weight had they not all hated each other so incessantly.
I’d assumed I was only at war with another minion, but a mentor was beyond me.
He’d countered and anticipated every attack in my magical bag of tricks, and as I considered this, I realized how infuriating it must have been to unexpectedly come up against myself and my women in battle.
Then I thought of the Master who had been so concerned about me he’d dragged his teacher to the front lines to do away with me in his stead, and my blood boiled stubbornly.
My eyes shut themselves against the painful thrumming in my head, and I wrenched the last of the ceiling down with a surge of my magic. I could hear the irritated sigh of the leader as the stones smashed across the floor, and I wasn’t surprised to see he was completely unscathed when I peered through my watering eyes.
I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
So, I ripped the stonework at his feet apart next, and the leader stumbled only slightly as he sidestepped the gaping trench that split the room down the center.
Shouting rose up from behind the door at my back, and I tried to soften the metal as I warred once more against the grip that pinned me there. Then I sent out a wave of magic across the entire room and found the pulse of a thin silver chain around the leader’s neck. My vision began to cloud over, but I twisted the chain violently and managed to create a noose at his neck.
I saw the bloody red eyes flash furiously for a split second, but it only took a wave of his hand to splice the metal from himself, and his rage flew at my throat at full force.
I jolted as my windpipe nearly collapsed in his grip, and my feet began to twitch uncontrollably against the steel door.
The last of my energy was spent on tearing the metal mounts of the torches from the walls, but I never saw what became of them.
I held the sights of the leader of House Syru instead while my own vision began to dim. My ears rang loudly as my pulse finally slowed, and I thought I’d hallucinated the glint of gold that flashed across my vision.
Suddenly, I was released, and my knees crunched against the stonework as I dropped to the floor. I shook and fought to pull air through my swollen windpipe with Myr mangled but alive at my side, and I strained to look up from where we were slumped on the floor.
As my vision swirled with blotches of black, I saw the leader’s serpentine eyes flare, and I sent a tendril of magic out to twist the golden shuriken deeper into his carotid.
I grinned through my wheezing breaths at the thought of my caramel beauty somewhere outside the walls of the fortress with a deadly smirk on her lips.
Then I rolled my shoulder to drop Cayla’s rifle around from my back as the black-haired elf lifted a trembling hand to the slit that oozed violently at his neck.
The first bullet blasted a hole in the center of his chest, and as the ashen leader of House Syru stumbled back a pace, I sent the second bullet into his gaping mouth.
His bloodied body splayed with the force of the shot, and he landed in a sprawl on the rubble strewn floor.
“Double tap,” I mumbled hazily as my arms went limp, and the rifle fell into my lap. I coughed and cringed as I struggled to breathe, and the shouting on the other side of the door multiplied. The torches had caught on the tables at the side of the room, and their flames began to eat up the wood wildly.
Myr groaned beside me, and I glanced over to see him try to pull himself upright. His leg was snapped so the bone protruded from his thigh, and his left arm was twisted the wrong direction and hung loosely from the socket. Blood dripped from the back of his knotted hair and drenched his shoulders, and I dragged my arm to my pocket as I watched him prop himself up on his one good arm.
I slid the vial of Triorlin berries into my palm. “Here,” I mumbled and tipped a couple berries toward the spent elf.
He hungrily snatched them as they rolled across the floor, and I poured a couple down my throat as well. The pain of swallowing nearly blinded me for a moment, and I gasped and coughed through it as every muscle in my neck and back spasmed.
When I opened my eyes again, a hooked glaive hovered only inches from my throat.
I slid my sights to the elf beside me, and his stark green eyes narrowed.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I croaked.
“I have my orders,” Myr returned through gritted teeth.
I considered the many times my supposed guard had saved my life once more, but as I looked deep into the ruthless eyes of the turquoise clad elf, I let the heavy axe I held suspended behind his back fall.
The tungsten blade split his skull in half and dropped with a bloody clang to the stonework.
“Fucking elves,” I groaned as I nudged his corpse from my arm and strained to stand.
Every inch of my body felt deprived and disconnected, but I stumbled forward on numb feet to bring myself to the body of the leader of House Syru. He lay in a wide pool of blood as rich red as his serpentine eyes. They stared up as blankly as they had when he was alive, despite the gaping hole that now made up the rest of his face.
As I dropped heavily onto the rubble beside him, my eye caught on a strange bit of scar tissue on his exposed wrist.
I slid the long black robe up his arm, and as I did, I found the scar extended into a strange looping symbol. I continued along his forearm and eventually exposed five runes branded side by side into the withered flesh.
None of them were the mark of the Master.
I sighed. “Godsdamnit.”
The power the dead elf wielded against me had nearly been the end of it all, and if the Master had sought him out long ago, I couldn’t imagine what he’d be capable of by now. I eyed the strange symbols more closely and hoped he hadn’t had time to gain much wisdom from the lethal leader.
But there was no telling now.
Either way, the leader hadn’t been wrong. Right now, I was no match for what I was up against, but as his words about the enslavement of the kingdoms echoed in my mind, I turned and glanced toward the table at my back.
Every muscle protested as I pulled myself along the floor to prop my arms on the tabletop. The flames had already spread to the wooden legs and sizzled angrily at the edges of the pool of blood. I grabbed blindly for any piece of parchment I could reach before I toppled against the chair as the smoke tore through my wasted lungs.
The steel door rattled with the heavy blows of several axes, and I swayed as I fought to stand. Then I stumbled toward the trees that shone pale with moonlight beyond the crumbled wall.
From where I stood at the edge of the fortress, I could only see shadows far below me, and I took a haggard breath before I let myself tip forward into the black.
I softened the ground as I slipped silently through the air, and I thought briefly of Nemris and her spiraling galaxies before I hit the dirt.
It wasn’t nearly as unforgiving as it could have been, but I still felt a rib or two crunch on impact, and I remained where I’d landed with the parchment still clutched in my fists.
I considered the warmth of my blood and was a little glad to be able to recognize the sensation again, but I couldn’t rouse myself to move another inch. Then the thud of hurried footsteps surrounded me, and I felt soft hands slide across my spent body.
“Mason,” Aurora whispered. “We have to get out of here, you have to get up.”
I grinned as the honey sweet scent of the women washed over me. “I love when you don’t listen to a damn word I say,” I croaked, and I let my eyes open a sliver.
Cayla hovered inches from me with the moon directly above her.
I furrowed my brow. “You definitely should be naked, though,” I pointed out. “That seemed nonnegotiable.”
Three sighs echoed around me as I was quickly pulled up by my women and forced to make use of my legs again.
It took all three of them to support my weight as they made for the trees, and Cayla berated me from her place beneath my arm. “Your libido’s going to get you killed one day,” she warned.
“There’s worse ways to die,” I assured her. The effort of speaking shot streaks of pain through my throat and jaw, but it was nice to feel the cool air of the jungle settle in my lungs, and more than nice to know I’d be sleeping with all of my women once more before I died.
Aurora sighed and directed the four of us into the ferns. “They’re hunting for you,” she whispered soberly. “Ever since the gun went off. We have to hurry. I don’t know how long this enchantment lasts.”
