51. Deeds of Gods
Chapter 51
Deeds of Gods
18 th Day of the Blood Moon
Ilnaen – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom
The moon’s light signalled the end of the ventilation tunnel ahead, cold air rushing down and tumbling over Calen’s face. He pulled Valerys’s mind into his and fed from the dragon’s fury before sending a sphere of Air crashing into the grate that separated him from the city outside. Iron creaked, and stone rumbled, and the grate ripped free from its hinges.
Calen hauled himself from the tunnel mouth and dropped onto what appeared to be the roof of a ruined building. The dark of night still held the city in its grasp, the light of the Blood Moon glittering in the sand that swirled in the air.
More sand covered the stone beneath Calen’s feet, and behind him the two shafts of the ventilation tunnels jutted from the roof at an angle. Thousands of rooftops spread in every direction, broken towers jutting from their midsts.
A roar sounded to his left, and he twisted to see Valerys swoop low and bathe a street of Uraks in dragonfire. The dragon whirled upwards at the touch of Calen’s mind, wisps of fire swirling from the street and coiling about his wings as he rose.
Calen checked the satchels one last time, a hand lingering on the buttercream scales of the first egg he’d found.
Valerys swooped low and dropped to alight on the roof when arcs of purple lightning crashed into the side of the building. Shards of shattered stone dinged Calen’s armour and sliced into his cheeks and brow, a cloud of dust pluming into the air. Valerys wheeled upwards, screeching, smoke drifting from his hind leg where the lightning had caught him.
Calen turned at the sound of stone crunching, only for something to collide with his chest and send him careening across the rooftop. By instinct alone, he pulled the Spark into himself and shielded the eggs with threads of Air as he hit the stone with a crack , the back plate of his armour grinding on the sand as he slid. The low parapet that framed the rooftop stopped him from tumbling over the edge.
His head rang like a bell and his vision was blurred, and still only half his mind was focused on himself. Valerys’s pain seared in him as the dragon wheeled away.
Calen stared through the dust and sand thrown into the air, searching for Valerys through haze-filled eyes. Just as he caught sight of the white dragon in the night sky, a cold, armour-clad hand wrapped around his throat and lifted him into the air with the ease of a man lifting a newborn.
He found himself looking into two glowing red eyes set into slits in a silver helm. The warrior held Calen with his arm at full stretch, Calen’s feet dangling over the rooftop. His captor must have been ten feet tall.
Lungs burning, Calen slammed his fists down onto the outstretched arm as the fingers tightened. His vision blurred, limbs growing heavy, the pressure clamping down on his throat. Desperate, Calen reached for the Spark, but the man gave him a choking laugh and tossed him from the roof.
Any breath that had been left in Calen’s lungs fled as he dropped like a rock into a mountain of sand. He gasped for air, dragging himself to his feet, reflexively feeling for the eggs in the satchels. Relief flooded him when he felt them intact, their armoured shells withstanding the drop.
Above, the warrior that had held him stood on the roof’s parapet. The man was clad in a full plate of silver steel that reminded Calen of the strange armour the knights wore, smooth and flowing as though poured into place. Though this armour was covered in glowing red runes. This was one of the warriors Haem had spoken of: one of Efialtír’s Chosen.
A heartbeat passed, and the Chosen launched himself from the roof.
Calen threw himself forwards as the Chosen crashed down in a cloud of sand where Calen had been lying.
Calen drew his sword, his breaths ragged. Looking at the Chosen’s armour, he had no idea where he would strike. There were no weak points, no vulnerabilities. That thing wasn’t a man, it was a mountain of steel.
Before he could think, the warrior strode forwards, a níthral wrought of bright red light forming in its fist. It grabbed the hilt with two hands and swung in a vicious downward arc.
Calen sidestepped, then swung his blade into the man’s hip, a vibration jarring his arms as his blow skittered away harmlessly. The weight of the eggs in the satchels threw him off balance, and he stumbled to the right.
The warrior twisted and swung down with his níthral. Calen lurched backwards.
A roar sounded, and Valerys soared overhead. Too large to land, the dragon snatched at the Chosen with his talons. The Chosen swung wildly with his níthral, missing Valerys’s left leg by a hair. But he didn’t see the dragon’s spear-tip tail until it slammed into his chest and sent him careening down the sand and further into the street below. When he rose, a thin crack spread across the front of his breastplate.
“So,” Calen whispered, his eyes tracing the crack in the armour, “there is a way in.”
Calen pulled threads of Air, Spirit, and Earth into his body and charged down the sand, only stopping when Valerys roared, the dragon demanding he run. They needed to get the eggs to safety. That was what mattered.
He stared down at the Chosen, whose crimson níthral had now reformed. A piece of him wanted to charge, wanted to drive his blade through the cracks in that monstrosity’s armour just to prove it could be killed. But the knights were fighting, risking their lives, to give him a chance to escape. Calen drew a sharp breath, then turned and sprinted up the hill of sand towards a nearby roof. He slipped and scrambled upright, dragging himself forwards. All he needed to do was mount Valerys and take to the skies.
Calen dug his hands into the sand and hauled himself forwards, his feet sinking as he climbed. Something wrapped around his waist and slung him backwards. The world spun, and his stomach turned, the eggs swinging about him in their satchels. He hit the ground with a thump . He gasped, trying to drag the breath back into his lungs.
A hand reached down and hauled him into the air, metal fingers wrapping around his throat once more. This time, he didn’t stare through the slits of a helm. The face of an Urak, crimson runes carved into its leathery grey skin, stared back at him. Its eyes were black as a Fade’s, like bottomless wells.
A crimson light began to form in the creature’s free hand. Overhead Valerys roared, dropped from the sky, and lifted his head back, a pressure building within him.
Calen pulled their minds together and channelled Valerys’s rage through him, feeling the dragon’s fury in his blood. He slammed a ball of Air into the Chosen’s chest. The force of the blow sent the creature crashing into the wall of the building behind it.
The moment the Chosen hit the stone, Valerys unleashed a river of dragonfire. The flames crashed down over the creature and its gleaming silver plate, and for a second Calen allowed himself a flicker of hope. Until the dragonfire parted around the Chosen’s outstretched hand.
Calen didn’t hesitate. He pulled on threads of Fire, Earth, and Air, weaving them through the sand around him. With Earth and Fire, he pulled the grains of sand together and bound them into shards of glass with the heat of a dragon’s fury, then hurled them through the air.
The shards crashed into the Chosen like a raging storm, smashing into its armour and slicing through the grey flesh of its face before molten steel flowed from its collar and its helm reformed. Taking advantage of the moment, Calen dropped the satchels into the sand and charged.
He swung at the creature’s side but changed his course when the red light of a crimson níthral ignited in the corner of his vision. Calen twisted and caught the blow head-on with his sword, the impact jarring his arms.
A second Chosen stared down at him, crimson light misting in the slits of its helm. The pressure faded in the back of his mind as Valerys’s fire ebbed. A glance over his shoulder told him the first Chosen moved towards him.
Calen drew a sharp breath, opened himself to the Spark, and unleashed a shockwave of air, knocking both the monstrosities backwards. In that same breath, he sheathed his sword and pulled Valerys’s mind into his. Ayar vi?l. Ayar elwyn. Ayar nithír.
One life. One heart. One soul.
With the dragon’s power surging through him, Calen pulled on each elemental strand and felt a wash of relief as the purple flames burst from his fist, raging and thrashing before settling into the shape of a light-wrought sword.
The two Chosen fell upon him, crimson níthrals hacking and slashing. Calen fell into the movements of the fellensír, bursts of light igniting around him as the blades collided.
The Chosen to his right swung its blade downward in an attempt to cleave Calen in half. But Calen twisted, avoiding the strike by the breadth of a hair. Valerys’s rage swirling within him, he funnelled threads of Earth and Spirit into his left hand, then rammed the fist into the creature’s side. The impact jarred Calen’s arm, but it also spread a crack through the Chosen’s armour.
Before Calen could take advantage of the blow, the second creature sprang forwards and slammed something unseen into Calen’s chest. The force of the Blood Magic sent Calen tumbling backwards before he rammed a gauntleted hand into the sand and steadied himself.
Above, Valerys attempted to swoop down once more, but Uraks leapt from the rooves and grabbed at his feet and wings, trying to carve him open. The dragon split one from groin to throat with a swing of his tail and crushed another with his jaws, but the beasts kept coming.
Fly higher! Calen lifted himself to his feet. The dragon roared back in his mind, tearing the Uraks apart as he landed on the roof above, refusing to leave Calen. Calen was his soulkin, not his master.
The two Chosen charged again and a memory flashed through Calen’s mind, a memory that was not his own, a memory of Tarast, Soulkin of Antala, the world shifting around him. The light of his níthral flickered from purple to yellow, and it was as though Tarast moved through him. He drifted through the movements of a form he did not know, turning away strike after strike before he dropped to one knee in the sand, then spinning as a níthral soared over his head. He swung his blade as he spun and carved through the silver armour that protected one of the Chosen’s bellies. It was like slicing through parchment. Blood poured from the opening, but the creature kicked out and slammed its boot into Calen’s chest.
Calen lay on the flat of his back in the sand as the Chosen lifted its glowing blade and moved for the killing strike.
A roar erupted, and Valerys crashed down into the street, folding his wings in tight. The tip of the dragon’s tail burst though the Chosen’s chest in a spray of blood. With the talons of his winged forelimbs clinging to the stone around him, Valerys lifted the Chosen up, snapped his jaws around the creature’s body, and ripped it in half with a terrible wrench of his neck.
As the severed torso dropped to the sand, purple lightning streaked upwards and crashed into Valerys’s chest. The dragon shrieked, tearing chunks of stone from the buildings on either side, smoke pluming.
The surviving Chosen stepped forwards, the runes in its armour pulsing with a vibrant red light. Something coiled around Calen, an unseen rope constricting his limbs, crushing him and lifting him off his feet.
The Chosen’s helm receded once more, black eyes staring into Calen’s, rune-marked grey skin stretched tight across thick bone. The hairs on Calen’s neck stood on end as a voice like no other left the Chosen’s throat. Harsh, guttural, and deep, almost like its throat was bleeding. “Why did you return here? Did your god send you for the Heart?” The invisible bonds clenched around Calen’s throat, and he screamed. The Chosen roared, two voices shouting at once. “Answer me! Where is the Heart?”
Calen tried to reach out to the Spark, but it was all he could do to hold on to consciousness as the threads of Blood Magic tightened around him, Valerys roaring, trying desperately to get to Calen as more Uraks leapt from the rooves above. And then, all of a sudden, he hit the sand, and the Chosen was gone.
Calen gasped for air, looking over to see the giant beast in silver steel plate pulling itself from its knees some twenty feet away along the sand.
A knight in dark green armour stood over Calen. In a flash of green light, a Soulblade ignited in his fist, the green glow sparkling in the sand. Then Calen heard his brother’s voice.
“If you want him, demon, come and get him.”