Chapter 19 Torn Asunder
TORN ASUNDER
Lark sprinted after the blonde-haired thief, each footfall pounding like drumbeats of rising dread.
She felt lost without the Hyalite. The orb’s presence had become as natural as her own heartbeat.
In an instant, it had been torn from her, but she could sense it in the distance as it moved away from her.
Lark threaded through the marketplace chaos with unnatural speed.
Her body wove paths between merchant stalls, past traders whose wares blurred into streaks of color, and around clusters of citizens.
The rage building within her transformed into something more primal. She had but a single focus, the Hyalite. It was the only thing that mattered. Sounds faded to a dull roar, as if she were underwater, every sense focused on the retreating figure ahead.
Sasja slipped through a gap between a weathered cart and a cluster of women shopping, the copper pots ringing at her passing. Her golden braids trailed her before she vanished into an alley. The entrance she ducked into gaped like a wound in the stonework leading to darkness.
Shortly afterward, Lark hurled herself through the gap.
Her shoulder met centuries-old oak with a thwack.
Pain ran up her arm with blinding force.
The door’s hinges snapped, giving way to her frenzied push.
She stumbled into the shadows where a dozen orc warriors huddled.
Their copper cloaks were visible enough in the gloom.
The figures were all green skin and rippling muscle.
Ivory tusks as long daggers jutted from their menacing jaws.
Behind the wall of Nordraven orcs stood Sasja.
The Hyalite illuminated her shocked expression with its ethereal light.
She stood next to a Morsythian who dominated the space like a brewing storm.
His black hair twisted around a face that was scarred from a lifetime of fighting.
The same ruddy amulet that Sasja wore dangled at his throat.
It blazed with the deep crimson glow of freshly spilled blood.
When he spoke in his guttural language, a shimmer of energy wept from the amulet.
“Fire fae!” The warning cry from the street outside came too late.
The Morsythian’s outstretched hand cupped the air as he turned an invisible doorknob.
Smokey trails of amber sparks carved an oval in the air.
They twisted, spinning into spirals, moving faster and faster until they came together to form a vortex.
The vortex cut a hole right through reality with a terrible screeching sound.
The hole revealed an entirely different place. A forest covered in snow.
The sorcerer’s chanting leveled off until a deep repetitive song fueled the dark magic he was performing.
The massive Morsythian grabbed Sasja by the wrist. Her skin blanched white under his grip as he dragged her through the portal.
The moment they crossed the threshold, Lark’s connection to the Hyalite’s presence wavered.
The warmth she’d felt from it in her soul stretched thin, then snapped with an almost audible crack that arrived with waves of nausea.
A molten fury erupted from her chest where the pendant lay, nothing like the gentle warmth from before. The fury spread through her core.
“No!” she snarled, as she drew her daggers. The steel sang against their sheaths, eager to taste orc blood.
Pounding footsteps sounded as someone darted through the alley, stopping directly behind Lark.
A shadow stretched across the threshold, distorted by the portal’s light.
The figure’s hand gripped a broadsword, its edge drinking in the strange colors.
Lark sidestepped instinctively, making ready to defend herself, but recognition froze her in place.
Venrick stood framed in the doorway, his striking features illuminated by the glowing light.
Is he in on this? The thought barely had time to register before he moved, confident in his posture as he took up a defensive stance alongside her.
The portal’s edges began to curl inward.
The orcs surged forward toward the pair, their massive forms moving with surprising speed.
Lark dodged a blade, saving herself from decapitation, but her movement brought her directly into another’s fist. It hit like stone.
She stabbed out. Her dagger found flesh, drawing first blood, but the victory was short-lived.
Venrick’s blade flashed in her peripheral vision, sinking deep into green flesh with a wet thud.
Each blow she avoided carried enough force to shatter bone. Her daggers deflected strikes meant to disembowel her, the impacts jarring up her arms. These weren’t the undisciplined swings of any common thug. These orcs moved as trained killers.
Her dagger found the soft spot under one orc’s chin, the blade sliding home with a spray of dark blood. Without pausing, she pivoted, burying her other blade into a broad chest. But for each opponent she felled, two more seemed to take their place, an endless tide of muscle and fury.
The portal behind them was shrinking with each passing heartbeat.
Venrick’s voice cut through the chaos, his elvish words rolling from his tongue.
The Yogo Sapphire in his sword pommel blazed, its blue light burning so intensely that it left afterimages dancing in Lark’s vision.
With the last of his words, the gem’s power burned itself out.
Its glassy prism transferred pure magical energy from the Yogo out through Venrick’s palm.
The spell cast forth, striking the portal’s edge.
It slowed, the closure, the vortex of sparks became sluggish in its inevitable collapse.
Now’s my chance, Lark thought. The Hyalite’s energy was growing fainter by the moment. She had to get through the portal or all would be lost.
She spun, her heel connecting with an orc’s jaw in a devastating arc.
The impact left a spray of blood and broken tusks in its wake.
Massive bodies lay still on the stone floor while more emerged from the shadows.
Pain exploded through her ribs as a fist caught her side.
She folded inward, instinct alone saving her from the knee that whistled past where her nose had been an instant before.
A hammer-like fist crashed down between her shoulders sending sparks of white across her vision.
She didn’t let it stop her. The orcs pressed in tighter, becoming a forest of muscle and steel, as she tried to work her way into the diminishing portal.
Venrick’s blade flashed in and out of view, a desperate dance of silver against the encroaching darkness. But even his elvish gifts were failing against the onslaught, each parry coming slower than the last, each step less certain.
Lark found purchase on a thick leg aimed at her chest. Instead of resisting the force, she redirected it, using the orc’s own momentum to send him crashing backward.
He dropped as hard as a felled tree, taking two others with him in a tangle of limbs and curses.
The breach in their line was all she needed.
A grunt of pain drew her attention. Venrick’s sword met a war hammer with the sound of clashing steel.
The impact sent him stumbling backward, and before he could recover, a boot caught him square in the chest. He disappeared through the doorway, copper-clad shapes pursuing him into the alley.
The moment his concentration broke, the portal resumed its closing pinwheel.
Lark surged forward, crossing the distance in desperate bounds.
Through the shrinking oval, she caught a glimpse of the North.
Snow-laden trees stood like silent ghosts in an endless winter.
Sasja was among them, her glacial blue eyes widening with horror as she realized Lark might actually reach her.
But then the Morsythian pulled himself back through, the closing portal sealing the winter world away behind him.
His ruby amulet glowed as if lit by the tortured souls it had used to generate its dark magic.
Lark couldn’t tell if he controlled it or it controlled him.
A red mist began to form, its spell taking hold as invisible chains wrapping around Lark’s limbs.
She struggled against the magical binding, her dagger hovering mere inches from the orc’s throat, close enough to see the pulse beating beneath his skin.
He stepped away, letting the Nordraven orcs descend upon her.
They lifted her as though she weighed nothing, then brought her down against the unforgiving stone.
Boots and fists rained down, each impact carrying enough force to shatter stone.
Even after the magical restraints dissolved, she could do nothing but endure as her world narrowed to the bursts of pain from the impacts.
The world collapsed around Lark. Her connection to the Hyalite had been severed.
Though the orcs kept up their pummeling, beneath her pain something else stirred.
Her rage burned, sizzling through the lark pendant around her neck.
It blazed against her skin; a living flame trying to escape.
The undeniable power within it begged to be let out.
When she cried out, the word emerged not from her mind but from somewhere deeper.
It crackled through the void, lighting up a sliver of her forgotten past for an instant.
The knowledge vanished from her memory as it left her lips, but its effect rippled through reality.
She hadn’t really even heard what she’d said, but at that moment power erupted from her core, bringing with it both blessed relief and terrible hunger.
The air around her began to thicken as ethereal vapor coalesced from nothing.
It swirled around her. Flames exploded throughout, setting the vapor ablaze with an impossible blue.
It wasn’t the gentle azure of summer skies but the devastating cold-fire of stars.
These flames formed a cocoon of protective fury around her, and through its rippling curtain, she watched in horror and relief as the orcs’ massive forms blackened and crumbled.
The spell spread lines of flame-wreathed vapor across the room, consuming everything in the fire’s path. Each surge drew more deeply from her essence, turning her own life force into fuel for its hungry flames.
“End the spell!” Venrick’s warning cut through her fading consciousness.
She fought to rise, to resist, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know how to control whatever this terrible power was. Lark felt her body had become leaden and unresponsive. The magic fed on her, each pulse of power drawing her closer to oblivion.
“End the spell before it kills you, too!” Venrick shouted.
Lark could barely form words, let alone remember the one that had started this cascade of flaming energy. “I’m trying,” she whispered, feeling as though she was speaking with a throat full of ashes.
Through the haze of blue fire and encroaching darkness, Nix appeared as an image of salvation. “Olancia,” she said. The word she offered resonated deep within Lark’s fading consciousness. “Lark, say the word, Olancia. Say it now!”
“Olancia,” Lark repeated, her voice a hoarse rasp.
The supernatural flames vanished as though they had never existed, taking with them the terrible drain on her life force.
The roar that followed shook more than the walls; it resonated with Lark on another level, vibrating through bone and soul alike. Even in her weakened state, she recognized it.
That sound, she thought as she neared fainting. I know that sound.