Chapter 29 #2
“Not necessarily, Your Grace.” Nili’s voice was heavy with regret. “The ward reformed with our enemies still within our walls. Though we might hope that our foes have all fallen dead with the breach of earlier oaths, we’d be fools to bet our lives on that desperate hope.”
The king clenched his jaw, holding his wife, who held their younger children close, before jerking a nod. “Your counsel is, as always, exactly what we need to hear. Come. To the tunnel.”
“At once, Your Grace,” Nili concurred.
Linnea’s thoughts became an anxious blur, catching sight of both of the king’s young sons gazing back at her and Lao Tie.
“You know our role, of course?” Lao Tie asked with an oddly sympathetic smile.
Linnea gulped, not fighting it when she felt the pressure of her battle companion, allowing her flames to follow his lead as a crimson latticework formed over the entire royal clan.
“Yes. Enemies try to flank us, we light them up.”
Lao Tie blinked at the expression before flashing a bleak smile.
“An unusual way of putting it… but quite apt.” He gently squeezed her hand.
“You do understand that the stakes have never been higher, yes? Unless we know it’s a confirmed friendly—unless Nili or the king himself says otherwise—we fight to kill. ”
Linnea gulped, her heart racing with a painful mixture of terror and, yes, exhilaration so like her husband’s. A man she so desperately wished was by her side, even now.
“Yes, I understand.” She nodded just as they passed a T-intersection that had been flooded by a whole squadron of men dressed in servants clothes that now did little to hide their spears or the crimson ribbons about their arms.
“We’ve found them!” roared a soldier’s excited voice, before his piteous screams were joined by his fellows, all of them obliterated by brilliant flame.
You and your battle brother have successfully slain 7 Irregular Flankers with Conjoined Crimson Corkscrew! Experience earned! Crimson Corkscrew is now Rank 9!
“Linnea, come on. We need to move!” Lao Tie’s voice shook Linnea out of her horrified daze even as Nili’s desperate urging had the entire family running at a sprint.
Linnea knew not where as Lao Tie grabbed her dazed arm and compelled her to a speed she could only embrace so readily because her Vitality was now over twenty.
She could be one with her husband for all the centuries that they might walk this world together, though she now dazedly wondered if she’d even last the week.
Yet feeling herself slip into shadows and gloom, Linnea couldn’t help but feel a fierce spark of hope, that with Nili on their side, they might just see the gentle morning sun again.
And that was when she felt it. A spiritual sense of things in the only way Ruidians would define it, that normally would be a source of such comfort…
Yet now gave her nothing but feelings of dread as a panting Nili seemed to appear before a nondescript servant’s exit in the oldest and most abandoned-looking area of the palace they had raced through for what had seemed endless minutes.
“All right, here’s where we slip free. Your Grace, please wear these merchant’s robes.
Our friends Tang and Wu Xien are setting up a caravan even as we speak.
Best of all, it’s using wagons and supply orders commissioned by Dongfang Hong’s army, so we’ll be blending in as citizens of Qianshi, already a protectorate of the Red Prince, and serving as auxiliary logistics. ”
“Well done, Nili. I always know that I can count on you… and your loyal companions.” The king’s gaze shown upon them all with a noble gratitude that was like mana, rejuvenating Linnea as it did everyone else, letting them feel like righteous heroes daring perilous odds, and not like fools hurtling to their own deaths for the heartbeat Linnea needed to speak.
“Lady Nili, please don’t open that door!”
Nili froze, snapping around so fast that Linnea froze like a rabbit before the wolf. “Explain.”
A single word and so many pairs of eyes now upon her, and it was all she could do not to hide behind Lao Tie with a whimper. Yet even he was gazing at her with a look so hard and cold…
“I feel them!” She choked out a sob, and Nili and her powerfully built husband, Quing Da, were suddenly before her.
When did he even get here? So fierce and wild-eyed and deadly.
And did they really not understand? Did they really not feel it?
And then Princess Sunlay herself was there, the garment of royalty, so exquisitely beautified.
Such a contrast to the leather beast armor that Sunlay favored in her delves, and suddenly she and Nili were looking so gentle and motherly, and Linnea knew she should tell Nili what had happened, she really did, but she was so afraid, so terrified of what their reaction would be when they found out.
And the princess, of all people, gently squeezed her hand. “Linnea, it’s okay. Please. Time is precious. If there is something we should know…”
“The rest of the party!” she said at last. “Don’t you feel them?”
Sunlay furrowed her brow before her exquisitely made-up eyes widened with sudden comprehension. “Linnea, you don’t mean—”
“Yes! Zichen and Anjen. The assholes that sold us all out. They’re right behind that door… with what feels like a whole host of Reds on Alex’s interface map! And it shouldn’t even work outside the endless forest or woodland delves, but somehow for me it does, and our enemies are about to pounce!”
The princess exchanged a horrified look with Nili.
“Come, this way. There’s still a chance!
” Nili hissed, her voice filled with a sense of desperate urgency unlike anything Linnea had ever heard from the so confident woman who always seemed to be in control of any situation she found herself in.
Yet now… now it was like they were all prey animals desperate to escape desert jackals before they were disemboweled, entrails ripped free, and slowly eaten alive.
Linnea’s anxious gaze somehow met that of the king’s, whose gentle gray eyes were filled with such gravitas… and fear.
Linnea’s cheeks flushed. She couldn’t help but look away as she and Lao Tie found themselves in the lead.
“Are you ready to become a legend, Linnea?”
Her answering smile was a pained grimace, much like Lao Tie’s own as they conjoined their flame in one glorious spinning disk of fire before them.
“Any fucker comes our way, we turn them to ash!”
Lao Tie nodded. “Exactly.”
Linnea had time for a single desperate smile before the corridor rang with bullhorns and she was struck by sudden dizziness, her interface blaring with desperate messages as the corridor literally burst open and a monstrous giant of a man stood before them.
And before Linnea could even inhale enough to scream, she found herself crashing to her knees under the hideous spiritual pressure of a Gold’s killing aura.
Linnea’s heart pounded with terror as a cold sweat prickled her forehead, soaking the linen shift beneath her fine steel mail shirt.
Her world was filled up by those craggy, fearsome features radiating the Earth in all its power and glory as the giant smacked his fists together, the shockwave all that was needed to send her crumpling completely to the ground amidst the groans and cries of their entire party.
“So damned weak, these Ruidians. Ha!” Cold, mocking eyes glared into Linnea’s own.
“It’s a pity their leader has irked my master.
They make useful pets and are easily controlled when they are properly taught their place,” declared none other than Xien Tang, the Gold monster who had come so close to outright claiming Liushi.
And Linnea could feel it, the heat being generated by her battle brother, before it was extinguished with a single crack.
And Lao Tie, who had shown to such glory and competence in the Silver-tier delve they had shared together, proving himself a more than worthy battle brother despite his noble “young master” vibes, collapsed with a groan as if he were nothing at all.
“No! You bastard!” Sunlay screamed, earning a cold chuckle from Xien Tang.
“Did you favor this one, Princess? Well, you’re in luck. He just might live. For a time. Even your father, whose head I would SO DEARLY LOVE TO RIP OFF HIS SCRAWNY NECK might be permitted to live… at least for now. SO LONG AS YOU FALL TO YOUR KNEES, DESERT HARLOT! ALL OF YOU!”
The sound of boots hammering against cold stone tiles filled Linnea’s world.
She was still too dazed to move even when prodded before a cord was roughly wrapped around her wrists, and she soon found her shoulders wrenched behind her as she was dragged back to her feet and force-marched, along with all her companions, back to the palatial audience chamber they had so desperately fled.
Only what had once been a scene of beauty and splendor was now a ruined version of itself.
Incense and perfume had been replaced with the scents of smoke, terror, entrails, and blood.
The air was thick with smoke and the groans and sobs of broken men and women groaning over legs and arms deliberately shattered as dozens of lords of once noble bearing and countenance now writhed on the ground before a coolly smiling Lord Guo in crimson robes, who now looked exactly like the vile infernalists Alex had felt such fierce hatred toward in the brief flashes Linnea had glimpsed in their shared gestalt.
So, too, was Lord Xien Su, the powerful Silver that Alex had honed himself against while in disguise, looking far too dapper and pleased with himself, and the rest of the band of killers who had been attending court, according to the handful of Alex’s recent memories she had held on to, as the Red Prince’s agents revealed themselves to be the furthest thing from courtiers and diplomats and instead the savage assassins they truly were.