The Sword that Binds (Book of Worlds 1) (20 page)

Without wasting any time, Sarena created another sword and lifted it into the air. Her power had grown tremendously after creating the hole into the tunnel, but even with that she was starting to feel lightheaded. The sword weighed several tons, and she was continuously holding it aloft while also using a huge burst of power to swing it.
I can probably manage it twice more, but I’m not sure my body can handle more than one swing. I can’t risk breaking a leg now that Tyrus can’t heal me anymore.

She rushed forward at the struggling treant as soon as her sword was finished forming. It had finally realized it was missing its right arm, and was instead using its left to support itself. The explosion hadn’t sent her that far away, so she was able to reach it before it had finished standing. Instead of getting right up next to it like before, she stopped ten feet away and launched her stone sword at its head using all of her strength. Instead of dropping her control like before, she poured everything she had into it to increase its power.

The treant didn’t even have time to react. Her blade slashed down onto the top of its head and caused another explosion, only this time it was somewhat smaller than before. She could feel her sword starting to break upon impact and used her strength to hold it together as it crashed through the treant. Her power was draining at an alarming rate, faster than ever before, as it continued to cut through the treant’s head into the torso. When it reached where the stomach should have been she felt her strength give out.

Her body fell to the ground as her vision swam.

I really need to stop doing this. I’m getting tired of passing out.

She felt herself go numb as the world turned dark around her.

*****

“-o
ut of here?” Sarena heard in her mind as she struggled back into the real world from her dreams.

“I don’t know. Felaenahona was destroyed long before my time. Nobody, not even the elves, have stepped foot in here in thousands of years. How am I supposed to know how to get out of here?” Uckey’s said.

“Felaenahona? Didn’t you say that was the elven capital?” Sarena asked as she rubbed her eyes. Her body was sore all over, and she could feel cuts and bruises everywhere, but none of it felt serious.

“Ah good! You’re awake finally! Are you hurt anywhere?” Tyrus asked hurriedly. She was a little surprised at the concern in his voice. Shouldn’t he be able to sense if I was actually hurt?

“I’m fine. Just some bruises, nothing serious. Why didn’t you just check my aura instead of worrying?” She answered.

“I...For some reason I can’t sense your aura anymore. It’s like you disappeared. If it wasn’t for the bond connecting us I wouldn’t be able to tell you were there at all,” Tyrus said. “It’s not like the goblins. That just felt like an empty hole. Easy enough to find if you know what to look for. But this...it’s actually as if you don’t exist.”

“What? How did that happen?” Sarena asked.

“The pendant!” Uckey interrupted. “It’s full of life magic, which is the natural counter to mana. No mage is able to perceive it - aside from elves - so wearing the pendant makes you invisible to Tyrus. It’s an innate ability that all elves have actually.”

Sarena reached up to the pendant at her neck and took it off to inspect it. She had forgotten about it in the heat of the battle.

The pendant itself was a glowing green gem in the shape of an oval. It was the size of the palm of her hand, and connected to a chain made of a strange black stone with faint blue lines in it. Her hand felt warm as the pendant’s glow pulsed slowly, almost like a heartbeat.

“It’s not going to bond itself to me like Tyrus is it? I’m not sure I could handle another one,” Sarena asked, only half joking as she placed it around her neck again.

“Of course not! I may not be an expert on life magic, but I assure you that only a mana mage could create a bond!” Uckey said.

“Then what does it do? Besides hide my aura that is,” she said.

“Well I’m sure given enough time I could understand the intricacies of it, but we have other things to focus on right now!” Uckey replied.

“In other words, you have no idea. What a surprise,” Tyrus said dryly.

“Before you two start your bantering again, would you mind explaining exactly how we got here?” Sarena said before Uckey could answer.

She could already feel a headache coming on from listening to the two of them.

“It was a Gateway. Apparently you can use them to travel instantly to another Gateway connected to it,” Tyrus said.

“I don’t remember stepping through any kind of gate,” Sarena said as she turned her head left and right. It was the first time she had actually looked around since arriving.

The area she had fought the treant in was a large room made entirely of wood. The size of it was staggering, being at least two hundred feet long and half as wide. Above them the ceiling was open to the sky, with the walls ending jaggedly all around. In some places it reached as high as forty feet above them, while others were low enough for Sarena to reach over. Trees as tall as mountains with trunks thick enough to house Garland Keep itself stretched into the sky, their branches extending in every direction far above them. There was no sunlight below the thick canopy, but tiny glowing lights floated along in the air everywhere she looked, creating a beautiful scene unlike anything she had ever seen before.

Incredible. How can a place like this exist? I can see why the elves didn’t want to give it up.

“The entire room is the Gateway. When we picked up the pendant it must have acted as the key, and sent us directly to Felaenahona,” Tyrus explained.

“What was the pendant doing there, Uckey? You said it should have been with the elven royal line. So why was it being used as a key in a Gateway?” She asked.

“How should I know! This isn’t my time either! Whatever reason they had for putting it there is beyond me!” Uckey yelled in aggravation.

Must be getting to him how little he seems to know now. I just hope this Felaenahona place is close enough to Stewrix that we can make it in time.

“So how do we get out of here? And how far to Stewrix is it?” Sarena asked.

“Well it’s about the same distance, so we haven’t lost any time. Stewrix is almost due west now. But as for getting out of here, that’s easier said than done. Take a look out the door and you’ll see why,” Uckey said.

Sarena stood up slowly, her joints creaking as she did so.
I must have been out for a long time. I haven’t felt this sore since I first started learning the sword from Grandfather.

She walked to the single door that lead into the room. It was a large half-oval arc that rose up over twice Sarena’s height. The doors themselves were missing, obviously lost at some point in the past. When she came to the doorway she looked out at the city. Her heart sank at the sight.

The building they were in was situated at the top of a hill, giving an unobstructed view of the rest of the city. There were wood buildings similar to the Gateway they were in, only smaller and more complex, while just as many buildings were made of stone. She had been expecting there to be trees everywhere, and it was clear the city had been built with them in mind. Or rather, it had been built around them in the first place. But the trees weren’t there any more - aside from those monstrosities that covered the sky of course.

It’s not that the trees had died. Oh no, that would have been too simple. Instead those hundreds or thousands of trees had transformed, becoming the treants that now shambled along the streets of Felaenahona. Sarena lost track of their numbers as she drew her gaze across the city. They were all different sizes, but even the smallest that she could see matched the one she had destroyed, while the tallest looked to be over one hundred feet tall. She glanced back at the corpse of the twenty foot tall monster. Its body was split cleanly in two from the head all the way down to where its stomach should be.

Seven hells. It took everything I had just to kill that one, and it looks like it was the weakest of the bunch. How are we supposed to get out of this mess?

She turned and walked back to Uckey on unsteady legs.

“What are we going to do?” She asked while sitting down and wrapping her arms around her legs. At this point she wasn’t even sure it was worth trying. Every time they took a step forward it felt like the world shoved them back two more.

“There’s only one way out that I can think of. We’ll need to take the Skyway,” Uckey said.

Sarena raised her head and stared at the gnome with one eyebrow raised.
Does he expect me to know what he’s talking about?

Uckey snorted, which Sarena assumed was an attempt at clearing his throat. “The Sky trees are what block out the sun above us. There are pathways within the trunks that lead to the higher branches. We can use them to travel to the edge of the city. The elves always maintain an outpost on the other side of the barrier used to hold the treants in, and should be willing to let us out,” he explained.

She stood up and looked out the door. The closest Sky tree she could see wasn’t that far, but there were still at least a dozen treants blocking the path to its base. Sarena knew she was even stronger now - her core had grown noticeably after she woke up - but at most she could handle two of them. Only one if it was much larger than the one she had killed already, and there were at least four of that size in the way.

“I guess we’re going to have to run for it then. Just be careful, Uckey. They may be slow to react, but they run faster than you’d expect,” Sarena said.

“Yeah, and they pack quite a punch too. That treant you fought sent Uckey flying halfway across the room by accident,” Tyrus added.

“It’s a good thing this body is so sturdy! You two are lucky that none of the creatures you came across in the Godwoods were able to stop Tyrus’ blade. I doubt you would have survived the encounter,” Uckey said.

Sarena turned to the treant’s corpse and started towards it.

“There’s no core,” Tyrus said. “Your stone sword must have shattered it.”

She kept walking until she stood next to where the sword was buried into the treant. The blade had held out even after she passed out, albeit with cracks all along the edge and large chunks missing.

Well at least now I know how to deal with something that Tyrus can’t cut.

“Let’s go then. No point wasting time here, it’s not like the treants are just going to leave,” she said as she turned back to Uckey.

They walked to the door and Sarena jumped onto his back. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she looked towards the path that would take them to the Sky tree.

Gods help me. How did my life come to this?

S
arena looked down the path they had to travel. It twisted back and forth like a snake, winding its way around the buildings of the city. Most of them were round instead of the normal square shape she was used to seeing. None of them looked to be more than two stories tall, making it easy to keep track of all the treants meandering around the road.

The path itself was remarkably well preserved for having been abandoned for thousands of years. It was made of cobblestone – cracked all over from the treants no doubt – and covered with debris from the destroyed buildings around them, but aside from that it might as well have been new. There were no roots to tear up the stones since all of the plants that could have grown large enough to do so had mutated.

“So the plan is for Uckey to sprint through everything, and hope that they can’t fit into the Sky tree behind us,” Sarena said.

“How sad is it that this isn’t even the worst plan we’ve had to come up with?” Tyrus asked.

“Don’t remind me. Hurry it up Uckey, we’re wasting time here,” Sarena said.

Uckey trotted down the steep hill. He completely ignored the steps that lead up to the Gateway and instead opted for the straightest route. For some reason the treants tended to stay on the roads, so their way was clear up until they stepped onto the path itself. It wasn’t long before Uckey took his first step onto the cobblestones.

The city was eerily silent aside from the occasional rumble of a treant taking a step. There was no sound of any kind of wildlife, nor any birds singing. Even the air was perfectly still. Which is why every treant in sight stopped and turned to stare at them as Uckey’s hoof clicked on the cobblestone.

The world seemed to stand still around them for a heartbeat before dozens of treants began to charge. Sarena could feel the earth trembling beneath them even while mounted on Uckey.

“Run!” She screamed while lowering her body on his back.

“I already am!” He yelled back.

Seven hells! If they can hear so well, why didn’t any of them come when I was fighting that other one earlier? Is it because they couldn’t see us behind the walls?

The world blurred around them as Uckey shot forward, dodging around or jumping over any rubble that blocked their path. Sarena was forced to use her wind magic just to keep her balance as Uckey ran. Before she could even react they had already passed the first treant on the path. It didn’t have time to do more than reach its arm toward them as Uckey hopped to the right and danced past it.

Unfortunately the other treants in the way had more time to prepare themselves, and most of them were using it to run straight at them. Their massive legs pumped into the ground with staggering force, launching them forward faster than seemed possible. Uckey was still able to slip past the next three, all of which were only slightly larger than the one Sarena had defeated. But the one coming up ahead of them was one of the largest ones she had seen.

It towered over them so much that just one of its legs almost entirely filled up the path. With such a huge size advantage all it needed to do was lift its leg and then crush them as they ran under. And that’s exactly what it tried to do.

As the huge mass of bark and roots raised itself into the air, Sarena dropped her wind magic to pull up as much stone as she could.

“Keep going Uckey! I’ll stop its leg!” She called out while pouring all of her strength into the stone.