Crown of Steel (Chaos Awakens) (31 page)

In his hand was the bonesteel weapon that he had destroyed when he'd brought Kassa back from the brink of the death. Every detail of the weapon's design was exactly as it had been, but the weapon was a dark red color instead of the light stealing black it had been before. Dark green blood dripped over the red surface. The second beast charged Xan and he was forced to pull his eyes away from the blade that had appeared from nowhere. He didn't exactly have the time to consider the nature of his good luck in that moment.

The dog-thing was far too heavy for him to absorb the impact head on, and so Xan rolled his body with the impact. As he did so he launched his knife-laden fist forward with all the force he could muster. The creature's momentum carried it past Xan without knocking him back down and the strange red knife tore into its lower abdomen, opening a wide wound that spilled ichor out onto the gray floor. Xan didn't stop to enjoy his successful strike. His knife hand seemed to work of its own volition, striking repeatedly like a venomous snake delivering its toxin to an attacker. Each blow severed flesh and muscle sending the horrifying beast into a rage of agony and shock. Unfortunately for Xan, agony did not seem to inspire fear in the monster. Even as Xan took a moment of reprieve to give himself some distance the dog spun around to pursue his aggravator.

Xan shifted his grip on his knife and charged back into the fray. His reactions should have been slower, the knife should have been unfamiliar and ungainly in his hands, but everything he'd ever learned about combat technique was suddenly at his finger tips once more. It was all back as if it had never been gone to begin with. Xandrith's body was once more a honed weapon and he let it sing. He jumped atop the nearest of the dogs, dodging just beyond its teeth as it attempted to get a grip on his neck. Even as his body weight came down he drove the point of his blade into the firm muscle at the back of the dog's neck. The surprised beast attempted to throw him and that extra momentum was all that Xandrith needed. He rolled across the dog's back, dragging his knife through muscle and locking it into the heavy spinal cord. The pop as he used his blade for leverage to sever its spine would have been audible from a great distance. The first of his aggressors was falling, but the other was still an imminent threat.

The corpse of the first dog stood between Xandrith and the second. They met eyes across the fallen menace, two killers locked in deep consideration of the other.

"You could just leave, and then I wouldn't have to kill you too." Xan offered in a conversational tone.

The dog let out a slow, deep breath before its lips peeled back over its startlingly white teeth and a low snarl rose up from the back of its throat.

"If you insist." The assassin whispered quietly to himself. He leapt forward across the body of his fallen foe. It was an insane thing to do given his relative size and weight in relation to his enemy, but at the same time it was probably the last thing the creature had expected him to do. Xandrith couldn't read the dog-thing well enough to know if it was truly surprised, but when he struck it with the full force of his body it didn't immediately lunge and take a bite of him, so he considered the attack at least a partial success. He slashed out with his dagger, looking to get purchase in a joint at the shoulder or behind the head again, but this creature seemed to have learned from the mistakes of the other. It dropped and scuttled back as Xan landed. The red dagger drew a line of blood down its hide, but the hit wasn't substantial.

The counter attack came in quickly. Teeth struck forward aiming for Xan's right thigh. He saw it coming with just enough warning to get himself mostly out of the way, but the teeth still grazed his flesh and opened up long cuts which flowed freely with blood. Xan cursed and struck back at the beast's head with his knife, but it was already withdrawing and he caught nothing but empty air. He steeled himself for the next pass. His opposition seemed to be doing the same. They glared at each other from a few steps apart. This time the dog made the first move. Xan's only warning was the bunching of the muscles in its hind legs and then in a flash the vast mass of the toothy monstrosity was hurdling through the air in his direction.

Instinct kicked in. Xan shifted his grip on his knife and dove forward to be leading his dive with the red blade. His last minute evasion took him just under the dog creature and the tip of his red knife landed home at the base of its ribcage. There was a shriek of agony from above him as he slid out from under the falling beast, clearing the weight of its body and the stench of its guts as they poured out of its stomach. It hit the ground hard and the landing caused even more of its innards to pour out all over the pristine gray hall. Xan got to his feet and turned to watch his opponent’s last minutes. To his horror, the dying monster actually attempted to claw its way towards him again. It pawed its way through its own entrails in an attempt to attack the assassin one more time. It didn't have enough life left in it, and it slumped to the ground a few feet from Xan after a few minutes of the horrid display.

There was no reveling in victory or taking the time to enjoy having downed a foe. Xandrith immediately began moving through the halls again. He'd killed the two creatures, but he didn't know if there were more or if the gray halls had something else to send after him. He wasn't going to take any chances. He was injured now. The wound in his shoulder had become an agonizing reminder that he'd come very close to having his throat ripped out. Muscle and bone jostled uncomfortably as he jogged along the gray walls. It was time to find the way out. He'd gone several feet before he realized that the red knife was gone. It had vanished back into the void from which it had spawned. If it wasn't for the blood trickling down his arm, it might have all been some strange illusion created by his own mind.

A mournful howling swept down the hall from behind Xan.

"Shit." He commented as he switched from a jog to a somewhat ambling run. It was difficult to maintain a smooth pace with his injured arm and the relatively small but bothersome cuts to his thigh. Other howls joined the first, seeming to coming from every direction. "Shit." Xan noted again and he refused to look back over his shoulder.

"We're coming for you, Xandrith." A voice that was like a chorus of voices rang through the very walls of the gray passageways as though it was born from every surface all at once but aimed directly at the fleeing assassin. "We're going to kill you."

"No thanks." Xan muttered beneath his breath as he forced himself to run a bit faster. It was no easy task when every footfall sent a terrible jarring pain through his injured left shoulder. Xandrith was thankful that his fear response was one of flight as opposed to one of submission because he was terrified. If he survived he intended to never tell anyone exactly how terrified he was. Assassins weren't supposed to be afraid of anything.

"We're getting closer." That damned voice chimed in again.

As the words dissipated Xan saw something ahead of him that sent a surge of hope racing through his heart. It looked like the exit. The portal looked like the one he'd opened to first enter the gray ways, and it was only a short distance ahead of him. As he drew closer to the portal it became readily apparent that something had gone wrong with his spell casting. The opening was shoulder height off the ground and the gap was barely wide enough for someone to slip through. Still it was an exit, and Xan wasn't in any mood to go looking for a larger one. He dove for the gap even as the snarling at his back grew louder. He didn't need to look back to know that his pursuit was closing on his heels.

He caught the lip of the opening with his good hand and quickly pulled himself up. He wasn't as strong as he'd once been, but he'd also lost enough weight that it almost made up for the difference. He dragged himself through the gateway. It felt as though cold water had been dumped over his head, but he pulled himself from one side to the other with a huge sigh of relief and then rolled out onto a slab of cold paving stones in the shadow of the great wall. He took a deep breath and let it out shakily as sweat poured from his brow. He took quick mental stock of himself, but he seemed alright. Even his left shoulder wasn't hurting. He poked at it with his good hand and discovered that though the hole and the blood remnants of the wound remained on his clothes, his flesh was unblemished.

"Xandrith!" An excited voice called, and suddenly Kassa what at his side wrapping her arms around him. "I thought you were dead! You disappeared while we were walking down the paths and I didn't think we'd ever see you again. You said it always takes six hours to exit, but I've been waiting for two hours."

Xandrith sat up and grinned, then shrugged as though indifferent. "I don't die easily." When he noticed that Kassa wasn't returning his grin the expression fled his face. She was certainly happy to see him, but Xan could see the shadow of something else haunting her features, and her eyes seemed darker than normal and troubled. "What's wrong?" He asked, the mirth falling from his face.

Kassa looked down at her hands as if afraid to face Xan directly. "Haley and Crow are gone."

Xandrith snapped to attention, standing up quickly and dusting himself off.  "What do you mean they're gone? Where have they gone?"

Kassa shrugged. "They were ahead of me when we crawled through the exit, but when I pulled myself through I blacked out. I came to laying about where you are and they weren't here. I don't know where they went."

A long litany of curses passed between Xan's lips. It only took him a second to put together what had happened. "It was Crow. I don't know all of his abilities, but he must have knocked you out when you came through the portal and then gone off with Haley. I don't know whether she would leave with him willingly or not, but that has to be what happened."

"Why would they leave us?" Kassa asked, confused. "My head doesn't hurt or anything. I don't feel like I was knocked out."

Xan shrugged. "He may have an ability that allowed him to knock you out for a short period of time without hurting you. His blade is a mystery to me. I'm not sure why he'd leave, but I'm positive he has some sort of plan. He doesn't want me to be here and now he's got Haley. He knows she can be used as leverage against me."

"Then we should go after them. We don't need him causing us any trouble while we're here. This place is dangerous enough without him running around trying to sabotage us." Kassa replied.

Xan shook his head. "That would normally be my first impulse as well, but Crow is well adapted to stay hidden from us. He could be here right now and we wouldn't even know it. I'm afraid we're just going to have to move forward under the assumption that he might pose a threat at any given moment. Tracking him will just waste time since we'll never find him unless he wants us too, and then he might as well come to us."

Kassa sighed heavily. "What do we do now?"

Xan was quiet for a moment as he thought. "We need to find a place to bed down for the night. I think it's time you know what I intend to do here."

Chapter 4

Incredibly Stupid

"That is the stupidest idea you've ever come up with!" Kassa whispered harshly from where she was hiding wedged into a dark corner of a storage space in a small home that Xandrith had decided was appropriate for keeping them concealed.

Xan frowned. "It's not stupid. It's desperate. There is a difference. Listen, there aren't a lot of options."

"I get that, but what would possibly make you believe that those things, these Drayid, will even give you the chance to negotiate with them? They certainly haven't proven particularly social so far. They have tried to kill us every single time we've encountered them!" She seemed to notice her voice was rising because she spoke more softly next time. "They mostly succeeded with me, remember?"

"They are essential, Kassa. To open the box I need access to a massive amount of life energy. When the mages tampered with the seals on the Great Vault all those years ago they sacrificed hundreds of their own people to the cause. We don't have hundreds of lives to spend. We have me and you, and I don't intend to let either of us die." Xandrith tried to declare his point with confidence and bravado, but that was difficult to do at a whisper.

Kassa was quiet for a time. When she spoke again it was with an uncertain resignation. "How do you intend to get them to even listen to us?"

"I need to find and steal the Great Vault." Xan spoke confidently.

Kassa lifted an eyebrow, the gesture could barely be seen in the darkness of their hiding place. "You're going to steal the one thing they probably have guarded by hundreds of their own?"

Xan nodded. "Once I have that, they'll have to listen."

"Why?" Kassa looked honestly confused.

"I might not be able to destroy the box or open it on my own, but I could open another one of those passageways to the gray place and throw the box into that. The Drayid would lose their foothold here and would be forced from their stolen bodies and back into the box."

Kassa's seemed surprised. "Really?"

"Maybe. I don't know, but it's a good threat. Once I can get them to stop and listen I can try and convince them to let me open the Vault."

Kassa was still skeptical. "What happens to them once you open the Vault? Will that let all the mad Drayid out into the world all at once?"

Xandrith shrugged. "I've been thinking about what will happen for a while now, but I can't be certain. I don't understand the magic that has held them clearly enough. All I know for certain is that this is the only way for me to get into the Vault to recover the one trapped inside. Without him, or it, or whatever it is, I don't see how we can fight against the chaos the trolls are bringing upon us."

Kassa closed her eyes and lapsed into silence again for a time. When she spoke it was with the kind of resignation that told Xan she would go along with his plan. "This is a stupid plan."

Xan nodded. "You said that already."

"I know, I just want to be sure you know how I felt about this." Kassa leaned forward from her hiding place. "Xan, what is this going to do to you?"