Spellshift Page 8

  The physician’s wing was on the outskirts of the palace grounds. They passed through the gates and into the market as most vendors were packing up. Everyone seemed eager to head home when the evening chill swept through the city. The sun set a little earlier each day in the fall, and the narrow streets beside Grand Market were home to some of the fiercest winds billowing through them.

  Market District always seemed to rise and vanish along with the sun. Other districts like Riverside didn’t seem to care. The craft houses had a mixture of oil lamps and geonodes to keep working, and they stayed warm with all the bodies packed inside. The occasional tavern could be spotted easily after dark. Lights glowed in the windows. The sounds of drunken stories were shouted overtop a harp, lute, or in rare occasions, some sort of pipes. Garen didn’t enjoy the atmosphere, but he’d found a few tolerable enough, especially if they took his coins for a hot meal at any hour of the day.

  Garen had no interest in them at the moment. He realized he was following Drake without any plans. “What are the others up to?”

  “I expect Argus and Morgan are resting before patrol tonight. I haven’t seen Naia.”

  “Boring. Maybe Micah is done with meetings by now. Has anyone tried waiting in the hallways and ambushing him with questions?”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” Drake said, his tone resentful. “I forced an audience with him earlier and tried to talk all the sense into him I could. But he’s not interested in what I had to say. He’d rather stay neutral than address the problems on either border.”

  Garen stepped in front of Drake. “Wait, he said we’re staying out of it? So, we just do nothing?” Garen thought that a response of any kind from Micah would give him peace. Garen fumed and realized how wrong he’d been.

  “I’m sure our hands will be forced eventually. But yes, he believes that pre-emptive measures on either side would only escalate conflict. He’s also intent on letting General Tragus begin training his new Centralians before taking the kind of risks I want.”

  “I’ll bet everything feels like a risk in Micah’s head right now. Dare I ask,” Garen hesitated, “what you had in mind?”

  Drake motioned Garen to the side of the street so a cart could pass. He checked over his shoulder and spoke in a hushed voice. “I despise Sarkos as much as you do. But right now, he has the tools to force change. If we side with King Amiri and the East, I don’t believe Sarkos will back down. Our world will become very bloody. But if we swallow our pride and stand with Sarkos, King Amiri will be forced to heed our demands. He’s a fool, but not suicidal. No war, no deaths. Simply an end to the injustices my family has wrought on the world.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Garen said. “This is Sarkos we’re talking about. The guy that tried to have you sacrificed. The reason my father’s dead. There’s no world where I’d stand with him.”

  Drake tried to calm Garen. “It would be purely temporary. Once the threat of his Apatten has done what we need, we can always turn against him. He wouldn’t be the first one the Spellswords have had to assassinate.”

  Garen tried to process it, but it was hard to imagine doing anything alongside Sarkos other than killing him. “I can see why Micah refused. I think,” Garen paused again, “I just hate the sound of it. Remember when you guys told me I’d be joining you as a ‘defender of the kingdom’? I always assumed that would mean stopping conflict, not traveling far and wide to start it.”

  “Sometimes the biggest threats are the ones smart enough to lay low and keep their distance. We’ve saved a lot of lives by disrupting a few.”

  Garen shrugged, unable to argue. The conviction in Drake’s eyes was too intense to match his stare.

  Garen looked away. He waited for another cart to pass before stepping back into the street and making his way to the palace. This wagon had a large covered frame. It took up most of the narrow street, practically brushing against Garen as it passed. It wouldn’t have seemed out of place at all moving between cities, but it wasn’t the kind you expected to roll through market. Curiosity piqued Garen’s interest. The rider wore a dark cowl, both shielding her face from the winds and Garen from determining anything about her. He used what little light he had from the setting sun to peer into the wagon.

  Six Apatten sat inside, crouched forward with broadswords drawn.

  Chapter 8

  An Apatten leapt out of the wagon. It was close enough to slice Garen in two. He fumbled with a quick burst of water, disorienting it and allowing him to sidestep the blow. The element wasn’t very effective at restraining a seven-foot creature with glowing purple eyes. He realized his training with Belen had formed an unintended reflex.

  Two more Apatten jumped from the wagon before Garen could unsheathe his sword. Drake stepped past him and commanded the wind forward. Both leaping Apatten changed direction mid-air. Their bodies were flung back at the wagon. It skidded a few feet but stayed upright.

  Drake walked closer and released another burst of wind, this one tipping everything on its side. The pair of horses panicked. Drake drew his sword and cut them free. Both got to their feet and bolted away. An Apatten carved through the wagon’s covering and climbed out of the overturned top. Drake was waiting with his sword and took the creature’s head off.

  Garen saw the woman who had driven the cart make a run for it. The Apatten would be useless to them for information. They needed her. Garen shifted his body into light and reappeared opposite her in the street. He traveled further than he intended, but his appearance still made her turn and run the way she came.

  Garen chased on foot. A burst of red light and heat made him stop and cover his face. He saw Drake standing next to the wagon. It roared with fire. Four Apatten corpses lay smoldering in the street around him. The guttural screams of the remaining two howled from within the covered inferno.

  Drake noticed the woman running from Garen. She slid to a stop between them. The narrow street left her nowhere else to escape.

  “Why are you here?” Drake shouted.

  The woman stood her ground, but couldn’t help but tremble at the sight of Drake half-bathed in firelight. She pulled down her cowl, revealing the arrowhead tattoo below her ear. It confirmed her identity as Sanstric, but Garen didn’t recognize the woman. “We’re taking this world back—”

  “Exactly,” Drake cut her off. “Which doesn’t explain why you are here. We’re not your enemy.”

  The bracelet on the woman’s wrist glowed blue. Sarkos’ voice echoed out. “The problem is that you refuse to make any enemies. I’ve warned you there is no place for cowards in my empire.”

  Drake abandoned his last shred of composure. “You’re crazy if you think murdering the Spellswords is how to build that empire! Do you think anyone in this city would follow a madman like that?”

  “I expect not. But I did not mean Spellswords when I said cowards. Your entire kingdom is complacent and spineless. All of Vikar-Tola has been deemed cowardly. And to give rise to my reign…”

  An explosion roared in the distance.

  “…all cowards must crumble.”

  Far-away screams followed. Every cart and person on foot stopped to listen. Another explosion rang in the opposite direction. Garen felt the bonds of wind wrap around him. He held still long enough for Drake to complete the spell. He and Drake shot into the sky, high enough to survey every part of town. He saw the separate pillars of smoke rising from east and west. For a moment, the city was still. The only sound was a low rumble below.

  The lull ended as a hundred spheres of yellow burst in unison across the city.

  Garen flinched backward from the lights and the roar beneath him. Drake held his grip of wind and kept them from falling. Garen craned his neck enough to see the palace. The proud stone halls and towers were lit by the city erupting below. In an instant, the palace ruptured outward into a burst of luminescent smoke, too.

  Stones flung in every direction. The sounds of the explosions hit Garen moments after he witnessed them. He coul
dn’t move. None of this was real. The destruction continued in scattered flares across the city. The sheet of smoke was already thick enough that Garen couldn’t see the buildings themselves. He saw the lights burst within and heard the screams. It wasn’t possible, and at the same time, it was too much to deny.

  Drake’s grip relented. Garen fell back to the market. He searched for any sign of Drake in the sky, but his friend had taken off in a hurry. Garen summoned enough wind to slow his fall. It cleared the smoke where he landed. Scattered rubble filled the street. Rubble and bodies.

  Garen ran toward Grand Market where the smoke seemed thinnest. People were fleeing in all directions. Some tried to carry loved ones. He couldn’t take it in. He didn’t want to take it in. A woman in front of him tried to push a fallen column of stone twice her size. Her children helped to no avail. Their father’s leg stayed trapped beneath it. Garen moved closer and shaped a hole in the pillar large enough for him to free his leg.

  Garen placed his hands on the man’s leg, putting himself in tune with the healing processes of his body. He realized he had no chance of healing the broken leg in the few seconds he could spare. His wife and children did all they could to help him stand and limp to safety.

  Garen pointed south. “You need to get out of the city, now. Stay low and move as fast as you can.” He wished he could have carried the family himself, but he did not have the same degree of wind magic Drake employed. Another explosion lit the sky. Garen remembered the devastation he’d seen at the palace. Any of his friends could have been caught in the blast. He refused to imagine it.

  The cloud of smoke was expanding overhead, but spread apart once more as Drake flew by. He had at least a dozen men and women in tow behind him. Drake had already reached the conclusion Garen was moving toward. There was nothing to fight. The explosions made no sense, and they couldn’t protect the citizens from the unknown. It was time to evacuate.

  A female voice shouted up ahead. Bursts of flame trailed from her feet as she ran. Garen was thrilled to see Morgan alive. She carried two children under her arms and launched herself over the crumbling rooftops toward the city walls. Garen passed by her without a word on his way to the palace. He saw guards scrambling down the streets. A few had the sense to kick down doors, helping to evacuate anyone they could. Most ran back and forth responding haphazardly to the screams.

  “You three,” Garen called out. “Get to the palace. They’ll need help carrying wounded.” Garen wasn’t even sure if they recognized him, but they sprinted where he’d commanded just the same.

  A frightened huddle of people tried to run through the cracked, debris-filled streets. They were oddly compacted together. Garen feared the worst if a blast came at the wrong moment.

  An explosion ripped through the base of the courthouse nearby, expelling stone shrapnel in their direction. Garen ran toward them, but the shards were too scattered to control all of them at once with earth magic. He redirected as many as he could take hold of. The remaining chunks flew toward the crowd.

  Braids of water whipped into the air above them. They enveloped and flung away the smaller pieces. Two larger shards of stone still spun toward the group. A thick pane of ice formed above them. It swung hard and fast, batting them right back at the courthouse.

  “Keep moving,” Naia’s muffled voice came out of the huddled mass. Garen sighed a full breath of relief. She noticed him pushing through the crowd toward her and shook her head. “You sure picked a fine time to show up.”

  “I know when I’m needed,” Garen said. He tried to force a grin, but couldn’t. Not in the middle of this. “Have you been to the palace?”

  “No, I just started escorting people out. Is it worse?”

  The air was clouded in ash. The sun had finished setting, leaving only the soft glow of lamps nearby, which could hardly pierce the smoke. Garen released a small gust of wind to clear their view. As if on command, another blast flared up, revealing the absent skyline where the palace should have stood.

  “Spit and souls,” Naia pushed her way outside of the terrified mob. “You’re on your own, people. Keep down this road until you’re outside the wall.” They stared at her in shock. “Go!”

  Before Naia could yell at them again, Garen grabbed her hand and took off. Naia instinctively recoiled at his touch, but he gripped tighter without time to explain. He had been experimenting on patrol with Drake and Argus to see if he could share his speed imbuement. He’d never been able to transfer another person into a state of pure light, but he’d had a decent bit of success simply gracing their feet with a touch of it. Their strides became the length of buildings. He was grateful she could avoid the rubble in the streets as agilely as him.

  The tall palace gates came into view, and Garen pulled them back to a natural run. The gate was open but swarming with people trying to flee. Instead of running against the crowd, Garen knocked a hole out of the wall. The stone was thick. Even after he’d carved it free, they had to crawl through to the other side. Naia followed without complaint.

  Inside the palace grounds, the main hall had collapsed entirely. There were screams in every direction, and the surviving guards did all they could to move people to safety. A group pulled back the heavy bronze doors that once opened into the atrium. Some tried to dig their way into the palace with their hands, others their depth. Garen couldn’t stand to look at the bodies it revealed.

  An explosion roared from the bell tower beside them. Naia reacted quicker than Garen could, coating the front of the tower in ice. The stones held for a moment. A dozen people beside them watched in terror. The cracks widened until the first piece broke free and rained from the sky toward them. Garen ran toward Naia. She tried again to force the rest of the tower back, but all the ice in the world was no match.

  Garen ran headlong into her and felt the air leave her lungs. With all the strength he could muster, he tried carrying her over his shoulder. The scattering of bricks fell around him as he ran. He couldn’t see where they were falling. He had to keep moving and hope.

  Hope died as a sudden blow knocked them to the ground. Garen felt no pain. In a frantic patting of his head and back, he realized the brick didn’t hit him. Naia had taken the impact square to the side of her face. The weight of it had knocked them both flat. In the haze he saw more falling around him. Eventually, icy clusters of stone would flatten them against the street. Garen considered for a moment trying to shift into light away from it. He could escape, but that would mean leaving her to die.

  He had only one option he could live with. Garen pulled Naia tightly to his side and tried to shift them both. Her skin started to escape as glimmering threads, but he couldn’t seem to transform her all at once. He tried to push harder, to reach deeper, but she kept her form.

  He’s going to get them both killed.

  I can’t exactly stop him.

  Garen heard the male and female voices in his head. His focus was too resolved to question them. He saw only the bricks falling toward them. His heart raced. He pushed against the fragile state that would be her death. He pushed her into the only form that could escape it. She became light itself, darting forward. His heart gleefully followed. He held it for the briefest part of a second. They reformed a street down and heard the crash in the distance behind them.

  Garen knelt over Naia and saw how severe her would was. She was breathing but unresponsive. She was lucky it hadn’t struck her a little higher and cracked her skull. Instead, it had torn into her cheek, leaving a wide gash from her ear to her chin. Garen ripped a strip off his tunic to cover the wound, but it was too odd of an angle to wrap tightly. He hoped it would slow the bleeding and keep the dirt out while they ran, and so he did.

  Explosions still rang in the distance. He avoided any new catastrophes as he carried her out. The heartbreaking moment occurred as soon as he stepped outside of the city gate. Men and women screamed for the guards to let them back in. They called for someone to find their loved ones. There were too many v
oices to understand any of them and too many wounded in the streets to start searching for specific survivors.

  Garen wanted to take Naia somewhere safer, but it was a courtesy he couldn’t afford. There were still people trapped, desperate to escape the cloud of death Vikar-Tola had become. Garen placed Naia among the wounded, somewhere she wouldn’t be trampled, and he ran back into the city.

  He still hadn’t seen Argus, Belen, or Micah. Without their wrist relays, Garen had no way to contact them or know if they needed help. There was only one person he could find without a doubt. No one else would be as helpless as Tarn right now.

  Garen bolted toward the palace once more, hoping the outer wings were still standing. He found the physician’s wing delightfully intact. It bordered on suspicious how untouched this hall was compared to the rest of the palace grounds, but Garen was in no mood to question his first moment of good luck.

  The able-bodied had long since fled the building. Many of the beds inside were still occupied. They cried out to him, begging to be taken out of here. These people were sick or injured before their city fell to pieces. Now, they’d been left for dead as well.

  Tarn would have been among them. He was in no condition to move on his own. But instead, Garen found an empty bed. It was possible someone had carried him to safety. The pair of guards that lay dead in the room suggested otherwise. Amidst whatever Sarkos had planned, the Sanstric wanted their prisoner back.

  Garen ran out of the building and searched for anyone fleeing nearby. There were still rescue attempts taking place at the palace. He was hoping to find a more rushed endeavor. He spotted two gray-skinned, seven-foot-tall figures. One carried a man in its arms. A woman in purple robes and glimmering skin ran beside them.

  Garen closed the distance as fast as his gifts allowed. Something felt wrong. His footsteps didn’t spring with as much imbuement of light as a moment ago. Aethis saw him coming and instructed the Apatten to defend. One dropped Tarn to the ground. The other pulled a broadsword to intercept him. Garen was already at full sprint. Blades met. Momentum outmatched strength, and Garen knocked it off its heels. Garen fell forward with the Apatten, cutting a deep gash into its chest as they hit the ground.