City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3) (37 page)

“I’ll be alright.  Barely hurts.”  Haley told him. 

Xandrith stepped closer to Haley and bent down to look at the hole.  There wasn’t any stomach acid visible, but the spike had clearly done some damage.  He didn’t know enough medicine to understand the extent of Haley’s injuries.  He knew it was good that her stomach wasn’t opened, and that as an assassin he wouldn’t leave a man for dead with that wound, but he also knew she was badly injured. 

“We should bandage this and you should rest for as long as you can.”  Xandrith finally said.  He reached for his pack and shuffled around it looking for something he could use to treat her.  He had a shirt which he tore a large section from, and then he cut a strip from the bottom of his cloak. 

Haley stood still, but Xandrith knew the posture of someone who was hiding pain.  Haley’s axe took away some of her pain, so the fact that she was clearly hurting made Xandrith nervous. 

“This is going to hurt a bit.”  He told her as he shoved the shreds of shirt into the hole in her abdomen.  He needed to stop all the bleeding he could.  Haley made a sound that was close to a whimper and shrunk back from Xan.  She reached out and steadied herself with his shoulder. 

“This isn’t how I wanted you inside me.”  She said in a shaky voice. 

Xandrith couldn’t help himself. He gave a dry laugh and sighed. “You’ve spent too much time with me, Haley. Your sense of humor is awful.”

“Hah,” she replied.  “Other people just don’t get it.” 

Xandrith drew the band of troll leather from his procured cloak around Haley’s injury.  It wrapped twice, and he pulled it tight enough that he knew it was uncomfortable for the girl.  It had to be done though.  Haley groaned as the makeshift patch was tied into place.  Xandrith looked at his work with a frown.  It wasn’t great. 

“Sit down, relax for as long as you can.  I’m going to find some place to hide these bodies.”  Xandrith gestured at the corpses.

Haley was shaking her head as Xandrith spoke. “I should help. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“No.” Xandrith insisted. He stepped over to the girl and picked her up. She gave a groan of pain, but didn’t resist as he carefully lowered her to the floor and placed his pack under her head. “Rest. You won’t have much time. I’ll find a place for us to hide.”

With that done, he set immediately to work on scanning the area.  The circular chamber was almost completely barren, but he did manage to find two separate offshoots on the side that opened into small rooms that had benches carved into the walls.  One of the rooms was on an open wall with no cover, but the other exited right below the spiraling path and was barely visible from the central room.  Xandrith wasn’t sure what purpose they served, but he was happy they were there.   He could stash the bodies in the one on the far side, and he and Haley could hide in the one in the shadow of the stairs with some cover.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best plan he could come up with. 

He began his task quickly.  The Unth bodies were heavier than normal human ones.  He guessed it had to do with their strange crystal growths, but whatever the cause he spent a huge amount of effort getting the bodies moved.  That left the blood.  There was a lot of blood.  He had part of a shirt to try and clean it up with.  Damn the Unth for not wearing clothing. 

Haley must have been watching him because she spoke up from the ground. “I have some spare clothes in my pack. You can use them too.”

“Thank you.”  Xandrith said, running over to Haley.  He had to partially lift her to get her pack off.  She winced a bit, but she didn’t look like she was going to die in the immediate future.  Xandrith took the spare cloth and set to work on cleaning up the blood.  It didn’t take him long, though he wasn’t positive he’d got it all.  Trolls would be able to smell it, and the crystal spikes were still protruding from the ground. He’d done the best he could do, though.  The sounds of an army on the move were beginning to echo down from above.  The Unth defense had failed, and the troll army was on its way. 

The assassin crossed quickly to Haley. He bent down and scooped her up in his arms. She wrapped an arm around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder. “My white knight.” She said softly.

Xandrith chuckled.  “No one has ever called me that before.”  He carried her into the more hidden of the two passages and laid her on the bench before sitting next to her. 

“I should get up.” Haley said, but Xan put a hand on her shoulder to hold her in place. “I’ll help you up before it’s time. Take a moment. We have to wait for them to get down here, this is probably the last peaceful moment we’ll ever have. Try to enjoy it.”

Haley sighed. “It would be easier to enjoy if I didn’t have a hole in my stomach.”

Xandrith gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Unfortunately we don’t get to have our say in how we spend our last moments. The most we can do is make the best of what death comes to deliver.”

Haley was quiet for a moment before answering. “We’re really going to die, aren’t we?”

Xandrith swallowed a lump in his throat.  “Yeah, probably.” 

“I’m scared.” Haley confessed.

“Me too.” Xandrith admitted. The sound of the army above echoed down the pit, louder still. The trolls had arrived.

Chapter 11

The Fall of Shadows

Voices drifted into the small room where Xandrith and Haley lay in wait.  The assassin had taken up a position at the edge of the doorway where the shadows were deepest, and he peered out into the pit beyond.  The light glowing from the Wellspring clearly highlighted the first of those to exit the walkway out into the open area.  He was dressed in a dark outfit with a stubby, wide sword strapped sideways across the small of his back.  Xandrith knew enough about the bonesteel blades to recognize the make of the weapon.  He was one of the Templar.

Haley crouched at his side, sweat running down her brow as she fought her pain. She looked at the first man down, and then at Xandrith questioningly.  She wanted to know if she should break the binding on his weapon.  Xan held up his hand and shook his head no.  It wasn’t time yet.  If they started too soon the other Templar might not come down into view, and then they would have a problem. 

The next person down the flight of stairs was Kassa. Xandrith didn’t even need to see her face to recognize her. Her silhouette was enough to immediately send a shock of despair through the assassin. She was still wearing the dagger on her hip. The weapon was there. That was one less thing they had to worry about, though her presence had an undeniable effect on the assassin’s state of mind. He found it difficult to keep his mind focused on the task at hand, but he forced himself to concentrate.

Two more Templar followed Kassa down, and then came someone that Xandrith had done his best to forget about.  Elder Shidsane walked quickly away from the stairs and across to the Wellspring, his eyes seeing nothing but the source of power before him.  The trolls had brought him along to unlock the Wellspring. Killing him might be another way Xandrith could stop the god-thing from obtaining the locked away power, or to at least slow down the process.

Xandrith drew his Unth blade from his back scabbard and waited for the rest of those coming down the walkway into the pit to arrive. He wanted to know exactly what he and Haley had to deal with before he made a commitment to action. He knew there would be no second chances. Death loomed over them all, filling the skyline of the future for as far as Xandrith could see. He’d long since given up hope that he might find a way to escape from this situation alive. He only hoped that he would succeed in his quest to end the troll god, and possibly leave Haley alive when it was all done. He knew that was asking a lot under the circumstances. 

A shadow of motion distracted the assassin from his dark thoughts.  Another figure walked down the stairs, this one dressed in black robes that covered it from head to toe. Xan was immediately aware that this thing was different despite its plain attire.  This wasn’t a troll, or a knight, this was the god-thing.  It radiated power, and as it stepped within the light of the Wellspring it seemed to swell and become larger. It was already feeding on the magic in the air.

Two more Templars followed it down the stairs, and that was it.  There were no other steps from the walkway.  The trolls had been left above.  Xandrith breathed a sigh of relief.  They’d probably feared the trolls might interfere with the proceedings that were supposed to take place.  Trolls were rather untrustworthy, destructive creatures. 

“Open the Wellspring.”  Kassa’s voice snapped with an unearthly authority.  She was talking to Shidsane.  The old mage jumped at the words, shaking in his robes.  Apparently his time with the trolls had shaken his resolve to a degree.  Xandrith found himself a little pleased at the man’s obvious discomfort.  He really hated that old bastard. 

“Of course, My Lord.” Shidsane’s voice was full of fear. “It will take me just a moment. The magic of the lock is human, but it’s in a dialect I’ve never seen. It’s old, but I will be through it soon.” It was clear he was terrified of what might happen to him if he failed. Xandrith almost wanted to watch and see if that would happen. Almost.

“Hurry.” Kassa issued the order in that voice that both was and wasn’t hers. It soured Xandrith’s mood at seeing Shidsane in misery. Seeing her worn like a costume turned his stomach and brought a painful pressure to his chest. It was time to do what they’d come for.

He turned to Haley and placed a hand on her arm.  When she looked over at him he mouthed word “now.” She nodded once.  Xandrith stood up and set off into the pit.  Whatever would come to follow, the time for hesitation had passed. 

Two of the Templar were talking on the far side of the hole, their voices carrying across the echoing chamber. Xandrith only half listened as he slunk from the shadows and began to creep across the open space towards Shidsane. He was out in the open, but no one was looking at him yet.

“I’m surprised none of the Unth stayed behind to defend this place.  It looks like they’ve fought for it before.”  The knight commented, gingerly touching the crystal that had penetrated Haley’s abdomen. 

“That is curious.”  Another said.  “They fought hard enough at the city limits.  I thought we were going to run out of trolls before we got through them.”  The man joked, chuckling.  “Not that I would mind running out of trolls.”  The man’s laughter suddenly stopped, his eyes going wide.  He snapped his mouth shut, confusion spreading across his features. 

Haley had just freed him.

Kassa’s head snapped in the man’s direction, her black eyes wide and terrible.  “Kill him!”  She yelled, pointing at the knight who’d just been freed.  Somehow she’d known, and she’d known quickly.  Chaos exploded in the pit as the Templar still under the command of the troll god sprung to the attack. 

Xandrith flipped his knife in his hand with the intent of throwing it, but as everyone started to move he realized the situation was too volatile.  Once the knife left his hand it would be out of his control.  Instead, he charged at Shidsane.  The man was just turning to look and see what the disturbance on the other side of the room was about when Xan reached him.  He didn’t even see the assassin until it was too late.  Xandrith slid his finger across the black gem on the Unth weapon and the blade hummed to life in his palm.  He reversed his grip and slammed it into Shidsane’s throat as the man looked at him with eyes wide and full of terror. 

“I’m not going to lie.”  Xandrith whispered in his ear.  “This feels really good.”  He wrenched the knife across the man’s neck and pulled back on his head, ripping it from his body.  It was perhaps excessive, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

A heavy footfall just behind him was the only warning he got that he was about to be attacked.  Xandrith dropped the severed head and rolled to the ground, spinning back up to his feet. His injured leg protested the abuse with a generous dose of pain.  Kassa was standing where he’d been just a moment before.  She had the bone knife Xandrith needed in one hand and she was standing at the ready, just as he would have been in her place. 

“Kassa, please.  I don’t want to fight you.  Just give me the knife and ...” His words trailed off as she sprung towards him. 
She closed the space between them in less than a second, leading with the bone knife and using Xandrith’s own style of combat.  She was fast, and unnaturally powerful.  The assassin countered the attacks as they came in, blocking some, turning others aside.  Kassa’s style was so similar to his own that it felt like sparring with the masters that had taught him the techniques.  Of course, the difference was that Kassa knew all the small nuances he’d added to the combat styles, and she was working them to full effect. 

Across the pit a huge battle had broken out between the Templar still bound to their weapons, and the ones Haley was freeing.  She seemed to be slowing down as she went, probably from the effort involved in breaking the spells.  Xandrith barely had time to notice as Kassa was demanding nearly all of his attention.  Fighting her was like fighting a mirror of himself, but one that was somehow a clearer and faster image.  The assassin was worn out.  He’d been through too much, had too little rest, and taken too many injuries. Kassa was fighting at the top of her game and possibly even beyond that, fueled by the god-thing that watched over them, seemingly indifferent to their struggles.   

“Killing Shidsane has only delayed the inevitable.”  Kassa said as she launched into another flurry of attacks.  Xandrith parried and countered what came his way, but he was reaching his limits.  Each counter with his bad leg sent a shiver of pain through his body that threatened to cripple him.  “The Wellspring will give up its power in time.”

Xandrith blocked a direct thrust from the knife and attempted to use the momentum from the blow to turn Kassa’s arm out wide. She surprised him and fell into the motion, using her own body weight and Xan’s attack to drive him hard into the ground.  It was a superbly executed maneuver, and one that took a subtle alteration of Xan’s style to achieve.  He couldn’t break the fall, and he was in no position to turn it to his advantage.