Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (16 page)

"Shit, shit, shit." Haley cursed quietly as blistering power formed in her body, threatening to rip her apart from inside. She needed to create an outlet for the magic before it consumed her, but she only knew a few different seals. Which would accept the most amount of power without breaking? She raced through her limited armament in her head and finally settled on the one she'd used the least. Heat. Fire. She held her hand up pointed at the sky and focused her mind on the necessary seal.

The result was far more grandiose than she'd intended. A pillar of molten, purple flame burst from her palm and roared into the sky, ripping the air from the world to fuel its rage and leaving Haley gasping for breath as the gargantuan light tore through the gray sky. It burned off the cloud cover in a surge of volcanic heat. When the rush of the flame flickered out there was a circle of undamaged area directly around Haley, but everything else on the balcony had been swallowed by the fire. Even the stone was partially melted in the immediate vicinity of the blast. The corpse of her first intended kill was little more than a blackened skeleton with its grinning face staring up at her in smoldering accusation. For a moment the world seemed too quiet, and then suddenly Haley could hear a high pitched whine. A moment later the sounds of hundreds of calls to alarm reached her. So much for sneaking.

Haley charged through the now open doorway into the building. The room that had been on the other side of the doorway was mostly destroyed. The burned wreckage resembled what might have been a sitting room. Haley didn't use much time to take in her surroundings. People would be coming. There was no way they wouldn't know where to start looking, and she needed to get down another three floors to open a window without being detected. Haley moved quickly down the hall as if she knew where she was going. From somewhere down the hall behind her someone else emerged from a doorway and called out to her.

"Did you see that? What they hell happened over there?"

Haley shrugged but didn't answer, keeping herself moving forward.

"Hey, who are you?" The voice called. "Hey!" He called again as he realized Haley wasn’t stopping. She broke into a run and dove into the next available door, which brought her masked face to masked face with two other mages who had just gotten out of bed and were quickly getting dressed. Both the men stopped and looked at her in shock.

"Stairs?" Haley asked, hoping that giving less information would be best.

One of the men pointed in the direction further down the hallway. "Five doors down the hall."

Haley nodded and popped back into the hall, pulling the door shut at her back with a sigh. Her relief was short lived though because the mage from earlier was running down the hallway in her direction.

"You, what are you doing up here? Are you the one who set off that explosion?" He called out as he came into close range. He had his hands up and his fingers were starting to twitch. Haley reacted on instinct. She lunged forward, her axe rolling into her hand in the same instant she moved. The blade of her weapon took the mage in the wrist and his hand fell away and struck the ground as a blood-curdling scream erupted from his lips. Things were not going exactly according to plan. Haley stepped forward again and her next blow parted the man from his head. Her heart was hammering in her chest now. She turned and ran back down the hall in the direction of the stairs. She hit the first step at the exact same moment a large group of mages were rounding the landing half a floor below. She still had her bloody axe in one hand and she wasn't dressed anything like a mage.

"There is a madman running the halls with a broadsword!" She yelled, pointing back behind her with the dripping axe blade. The mages looked confused, but as one they suddenly surged up the steps past Haley. Haley let out an uneven breath and continued her run down the stairs. She'd probably only bought herself maybe half a minute. She counted the floors as she descended. When she reached the third floor she exited the stair case and ran back in the direction she hoped that Kassa was still waiting. She finally reached the position she thought was the correct one to find Kassa and she opened the door to what looked like a small study. She closed the door carefully behind her and then walked through the room to the window, which she hastily unlatched and opened. She peered out over the edge but she couldn't see Kassa below the window. Damn it. Unsure what to do next, she swung herself out and over the sill and made her way quickly down the front of the building. The courtyard was busy with activity, but it seemed to be people moving into the house and heading up the stairs to see what had happened on the balcony.

"Kassa!" Haley called in a whisper. She hadn't come out directly under the balcony like she'd thought she had, but a few windows down. "Kassa!" She called again, moving further back in the direction of the balcony. She was just starting to panic when a voice answered.

"Be quiet! The guards are everywhere. What are you doing back outside?" Kassa slunk quietly through the shadows at the base of the house.

"I opened a window, but it's a little further along the wall. Follow me." Haley said, and turned to head back. Kassa fell in at her back.

"What did you do up there? It looked like you lit the entire house on fire from the ground." Kassa whispered angrily.

"Things haven't gone exactly as anticipated. I had to kill a few mages, and I may have messed up the disabling of the barrier. It didn't go like I thought it would. It's not like anyone ever taught me how to do that!" Haley explained without going into too much detail. She wasn't really proud of the way things had happened.

"Are we still going to be able to sneak in and sneak out?" Kassa asked.

Haley shrugged. "No, probably not. They seem pretty agitated in there. Maybe if we lay low for a little while?"

Kassa didn't say anything, but Haley was pretty certain that she was angry.

Haley located her window and started the climb back up. Kassa was quickly behind her, though not as quickly up the stretch of wall to the window. Haley leaned back out and helped her cover the last few feet. "They were all investigating the top floor when I came down, but by now they must know I was the intruder. They saw me when we passed on the stairs, but I told them there was some guy with a broadsword up on the sixth floor. Once they figure out I was lying, they'll come looking for me. "

"Great." Kassa snapped. "This is why I shouldn't have let you go alone."

"Actually, if you'd have gone with me I might have accidentally lit you on fire up there. So, really, things did work out for the best. I mean, we're both still alive. That's pretty good." Haley was trying to salvage the situation as best as possible.

"Yes, assuming we can keep ourselves that way for a while, I'll be quite surprised. Finding Xan with this place on full alert is going to be a nightmare." Kassa didn't seem particularly amused. Kassa placed a hand on Haley's shoulder and gave her a penetrating look. "Are you alright?" It was clear what she was referring to. She was asking how Haley was handling the lives she'd taken. The side of Haley that wanted to show no weakness and be indestructible wanted to yell out that she was fine, and that it hadn't fazed her at all, but that wasn't exactly true.

"It wasn't how I thought it would be. I knew what I had to do, but it was hard to do. The first one, he didn't even know anything was wrong. He was scared." Haley tried to explain. She could still see the shock in his eyes when he’d noticed her with her blade drawn and ready. He hadn't even had the time to think about using his magic. "I didn't do a very clean job."

Kassa nodded. "It shouldn't be easy. If you ever kill someone and it's easy for you, you've lost the last of what makes you a good person."

Haley shrugged, not sure how to reply. "Xan always made it look so easy. He was so fast and powerful, and he never wavered for a moment."

"Xandrith was a killer, but don't think that meant he didn't feel anything for those he killed. I once made the mistake of implying that he didn't care about people because he was a murderer and I have never seen him more angry. Xandrith does what he has to, but he still lives with the guilt of every life he takes. If Xan was really a cold emotionless killer, then neither of us would be here trying to free him. We're here because we know that he's a good man who can do the things that need to be done, no matter how much that costs him. We need him." Kassa gave the younger woman's shoulder a strong squeeze before letting go. "Come on, let's find the bearded bastard."

With that they slipped out into the dark house looking for their lost friend. Kassa led the way, passing from corridor to corridor and ducking into rooms when necessary to avoid groups of mages who were searching the inside of the house in parties of four. Haley's single-person siege had put everyone on high alert.  Still, moving without being seen was second nature to Kassa now, and Haley was quite adept when there was someone to lead the way. Kassa was following standard security logic and moving downward through the house. Cells were usually kept in the foundation of such buildings because the walls were secure and below ground a lack of windows wouldn't seem out of place. She was still searching for a way down when she ran into an anomalous passageway. There was a corridor at the back of the house that ran towards the face of the mountain.

"It has to pass right into the cliff face." Haley said quietly.

"The house is tight against that wall." Kassa nodded her agreement. The corridor was narrow enough that two men walking side by side would be a tight fit, and it was only just tall enough for Haley to stand fully upright without her head touching the top. It had obviously been designed to be easily defensible. The problem came in the form of the guards standing watch in front of the opening, and what looked like another pair at the opposite end of the tunnel, though it was hard to tell for certain since the walkway seemed to cut quite deeply into the cliff.

"The house is just a cover for some kind of fortress." Kassa whispered to Haley.

"Then they're probably keeping Xandrith in the fortress area. We need to find a way in there." Haley answered, her hand resting on her knife.

"I don't think we can just charge in. We don't know what kind of security is waiting for us at the other end." Though they were reasonable, Kassa's words weren't particularly comforting. "Besides, what do we do once we get inside? We need information. We can't just charge around blindly hoping to stumble upon Xan. This place is obviously far larger than we thought. We're going to have to interrogate one of the mages."

This is something we can do.
The voice that was and wasn't Haley's spoke in her mind.
No more games, Haley. You know who I am and you need my assistance on this. You've tasted my power, but if you want to truly master me we need to complete our bonding. If you want to find Xan, you're going to need my help.

Haley's hand touched the top of her axe. "No, Xandrith said I shouldn't trust you."

Kassa frowned, looking confused. "What?"

I have always been there for you, Haley. Xan abandoned you after giving you his word. Which one of us has proven the most trust worthy so far? Protecting you is in my best interest. You should listen to me.
The voice coaxed, its words seemed reasonable despite the doubts they cast on Xan.

"You're troll made. You'll never serve a good purpose." Haley countered.

"I'm what?" Kassa seemed even more confused. "Haley, what's wrong with you?"

Haley shook her head. "I'm not talking to you, Kassa. The axe is awake. It wants me to form a bond with it. It says it can get us the information we want."

"You can't trust that thing. No matter what it says, it's an evil thing. I've touched upon the darkness it is connected to, and it is not something you want to become entangled with anymore than you already are." Kassa warned. Though parts of her time spent in the veil beyond death were pure blackness, she could remember the terrible grasp of the evil things that had kept her cinched tightly to her own corpse. They'd held her dangling above an abyss so infinitely dark and terrible that madness had been her only mental recourse. She still often had nightmares of that place.

I am not evil. I am truth, pure, dark, and ugly. I am the root of all existence once the facade of finery is stripped away. I am the heart and the blood that pumps through the veins to power, life, creation, and destruction. You can deny me, but without me you'll never reach your true potential. You want to be as strong as Xan, but how can you do that without embracing the same power that he embraced?

Haley balled her fists up tight. "I won't do it. I'm strong enough to do this on my own."

There was an internal shrug, as if whatever it was that comprised the thought process of the axe had simply given up.
As you will, but I will be here waiting when you need me. Call and I will answer. You need not fight every battle alone.
With that, the voice went silent.

Kassa was still watching expectantly, and Haley kept her waiting a moment more in case the voice tried to rise up again, but in her mind all was silence. "I think it's gone." She said quietly.

"Good." Kassa said, looking relieved. "We have enough problems as is without adding another one."

"We need to take out those two guards. We can find someone to interrogate once we get inside the cliff, but the longer we stay in this hall with guards moving back and forth between the two sections the more dangerous it is to us." It was time to get down to business, and Haley knew that meant they'd have to take more lives. "I wish we had a bow."

Kassa reached to her hip and drew her dagger. "I can probably take one with a knife but we'll need to move on the second as quickly as possible."

Haley drew her own knife and handed it hesitantly to Kassa. "Can you hit both of them?"

Kassa shrugged. "Probably." Haley watched her test the weight of both knives in her hands and look around the corner at the two men standing guard. Haley could see that neither was wearing any form of heavy armor and the daggers would be very effective if Kassa could hit her targets. Haley had never seen Kassa throw a knife, but the look of absolute confidence on her face was reassuring. That was Xan's confidence shining through. "Still, we should be ready to move in case something goes wrong."