Chapter Nine #2
“He’s already asked us how many dead are acceptable to prevent Tish and éibhear from using the seal,” Sam says dryly. “I’m sure he’ll love it when I tell him about this. Talk soon.”
Gideon ends the call without saying goodbye, which… isn’t a surprise, and we head into the vault room.
It’s a mess. The walls, which I’ve been advised are fire-retardant and bombproof, bear scorch marks.
Bodies lie where they fell. The vault door is half-gone, and what remains hangs from a single hinge.
The wards, woven with a mixture of sorcerer and elven spellwork, are tattered, a huge, gaping hole rendering them useless.
The energy of the spell that punched through lingers in the fibers around the edge of the hole, and it gives me the same creepy feeling the portal in the antechamber did.
“Sergeant,” I call over my shoulder, studying the remnants of the spell. A moment later, I hear the scuff of his steps.
“Yes, sir?”
“Did you or anyone see the elf who cast the spell to break through the wards?” It’s not that important, but I’d feel better knowing for sure.
“I didn’t, sir, but one of the others might have caught a glimpse. We were trying to break through from out there, and they were already in here. Let me ask.”
As he retreats, I go over to one of the bodies and begin to examine it. It’s not hard to tell which elves were involved in the spell—their bodies are almost mummified, dried up and desiccated from having the energy sucked out of every cell.
“Problem?” Gideon asks, and I shake my head.
“More curiosity than anything. I think it might have been éibhear himself who channeled the spell.”
Gideon raises a brow. “Do you really think he risked coming himself, put himself in the hot zone?”
I shrug. “He’s arrogant enough to do it. And if he’s the only one who knows the forbidden spell, he’d be the only one who could.”
“Let’s hope it was him, then,” Gideon says. “I’d really rather not have too many people know that spell. One is more than enough.”
I’m not going to disagree with that.
The bodies tell me very little. The ones involved in the forbidden spell were all elves, which was expected, but the others are a mix of elves, a dragon, and Earth species.
Some are our people, who were killed in the initial surprise attack.
The rest are the enemy, taken down by our forces trying to get back into the room.
The sergeant returns with a young elf. “Tell Captain Caolan what you saw,” he prods. The young one straightens.
“Sir. I only saw him for a moment, just a flash, and I was distracted, but he looked like éibhear.”
“Thank you. That’s good to know. I’ll be back to talk to all of you later.” After. First, we need to stop éibhear and Tish from using that spell to corporealize the life force.
“Are we ready?” Lucifer Percy asks with his usual calm. If an outsider was to judge by him, we could be preparing to go out for a leisurely lunch.
Instead, we’re armed to the teeth, backed by ranks of enforcers and soldiers, and ready to end this battle once and for all.
“You won’t stay behind?” David asks Percy again.
I know exactly how he feels—King Raeulfr and Brandt stand right there with the lucifer, ready to storm the enemy settlement with us.
We’d all be much happier if they were locked in a secure, guarded bunker somewhere.
But apparently the life force made it very clear that they had to accompany us.
Please don’t let it be because they’re fated to die.
The lucifer shakes his head. “I can’t.”
David draws in a breath through his nose and sets his jaw. “And the timing?”
“Still no urgency,” the king says. “Don’t stop, but we have some time left.
” The life force, now fully attuned to what’s happening, has been able to give us some small hints.
It meant being able to take an extra hour to prepare and formulate a plan rather than just racing through portals and hoping for the best outcome.
Once we had the location coordinates, Gideon and Alistair had some demon intelligence agents teleport into the area and reconnoiter.
Despite their seeming victory this morning, things are not going well for éibhear and Tish.
Their first mistake (today) was indeed that none of the elves who volunteered to assist éibhear with the forbidden spell was told it would be a suicide mission.
When the survivors returned to the settlement and the word got around, dissension began in the ranks.
Settling that down prevented them from beginning the ceremony immediately.
It also gave our agents the chance to mingle in during the confusion and take pictures, allowing us to have landmarks to fix on when creating portals.
Then, the dragonet they stole refused to shift into her dragon form.
The spell must be “sealed by dragon flame,” which is not entirely clear but seems to mean that dragon flame must be present as the last word is spoken.
But dragons cannot flame while in their biped form, and as long as that terrified child remains biped, the spell cannot begin.
I don’t know why she prefers to remain in her more vulnerable form, but it gave us some much-needed extra time. And now we’re going to rescue her and bring her back to her mother, finally.
Alistair, Garin, and David bend their heads together, confirming readiness, and then David gives the order: “Let’s go.”
Noah, whose job is to maintain contact with the forces staging simultaneous raids on the other enemy compounds we’d identified, relays the order into his headset.
I open a portal, aware of others around me doing the same and the whole rank of demons teleporting out.
The first groups through the portals are elves and sorcerers, given the task of establishing a ward barrier to give the others shelter as they arrive and provide reinforcement for the demons.
David is one of the first to cross, and my gut tightens as he goes.
But he needs to be there—we made the decision that while our leaders couldn’t stay behind, they would wait for the initial assault to ease and a safe area to be created.
That means that David and Garin need to be on the ground to oversee and give direction.
He can look after himself. I know this. People keep telling me.
But I hate having to stay back while he’s in danger.
The last of the troops allocated to my portal are through, and I turn to call to Sam. “Clear! Any news?”
He has a wireless earpiece in one ear, a line open to David, who’s using a “satellite phone.” I’m not entirely sure how that’s different from a normal phone. Sam explained a little bit about what satellites are, but there’s still so much I don’t know.
“They’ve nearly got a bunker set up,” Sam says. He’s the coordinator for our battle site. “Just another minute. They’re sending anyone who’s not fighting back away from the settlement into the trees to deal with later.”
I hope that doesn’t come back to bite us.
“We’ve got visual contact with the baby, but nobody’s been able to get near her yet. One of our demons tried teleporting to her, but they’ve warded against that.”
The king swears.
“And they’re ready for us. Let’s go.”
Following the plan, two enforcers go through first, followed by Noah and Sam—who the life force insisted had to be present, despite Gideon’s and Andrew’s vociferous protests.
Then the lucifer, the king, Brandt, and finally me, closing the portal behind me.
I considered keeping it open in case our leaders needed to stage a hasty retreat, but it only takes a second for me to open one.
If I’m killed, there’s also a chance that an open portal would become unstable before closing, potentially harming or killing anyone in the vicinity. Or worse—sucking them into the void.
Once my portal is safely closed, I take a moment to ensure our leaders are actually sheltered and not in any immediate danger.
I should have trusted more in my beautiful David—there’s one tough ward around us right now.
It even dilutes the sound from the battle, making it possible for us to talk at a normal level.
This is no quick creation—he must have been weaving the components for this for a while, and with elf magic intertwined, it’s all but infallible.
Speaking of David… where is he? Definitely not within the wards.
“Where’s David?” I demand, and Sam sighs.
Noah points. “As soon as we got here, he went out there. The others are with him.” From the not-quite-tremor in his voice, I’m guessing Andrew is one of “the others.” “He’s pretty badass. I didn’t know he could do half this stuff.”
Bracing myself, I scan in the direction he’s looking and soon spot my love.
He is, indeed, badass, as Noah puts it. Right at this second, he’s got an invisible band of force wrapped around about a dozen of the enemy, tightening it and drawing them closer and closer together, until they’re squashed into a mass of bodies, unable to move or fight back.
Prisoners for us to deal with later. It’s impressive.
Especially when he follows that up by blasting a furrow into the ground beneath the next onslaught of attackers, sending them tumbling in all directions.
Reluctantly, I pull my gaze from him. My primary task is to protect and support our leaders right now.
Brandt has his gaze fixed across the expanse before us, locked on to the stolen dragonet.
We seem to be in a mostly cleared, flat…
field? The area is not considered optimal for growing crops, but there was likely some agriculture here in the past, and it almost certainly would have been revived when people began using the settlement again.
On the other side of the field, I see stone buildings—they appear crude, but that could just be from time and a poor effort to rebuild recently.
There is also a plethora of tent canvas.