“Stay back,” Rurik says. “When he goes down, jump him. Until then, stay out of reach.”
Isola doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t look happy about being ordered around either. I circle the Chained, but he doesn’t seem to want to move from just outside the door to the tower. I guess he was told to make sure no one gets through, and he’s taking that literally.
That reminds me that at least Serica and another Chained are still in the tower. I guess we weren’t convincing enough to draw them from the top.
“How long do we have to get the flag?” I ask Isola while Rurik and I slowly move toward the monster of a man.
“Less than an hour,” she says. “We need to hurry.”
The Chained doesn’t turn toward Rurik or me. He keeps his back to the door and braces the shield in front of him, the greatsword held to the side and just behind the shield. Even approaching as we are, he really isn’t in any danger. Unless Rurik can somehow drive his sword into a weak spot in his armor, he could just stand there and take whatever beating we try to give him.
There’s a strange sound, like crumbling stone from the opposite side of the tower, but I don’t have time to think about it as Rurik attacks. He moves like a dancer rather than a soldier. The air around him glows as he fills his body with electricity, and I rush the Chained from the other side.
The monstrous sword comes down toward Rurik, but he turns sideways. Rurik’s sword moves in a devastating strike against the Chained’s arm, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
I slam my dagger down against the plate covering his kneecap since I can’t get to the back of them, but it’s like trying to stab a rock. He doesn’t react to the strike at all, but he does react to my presence. He turns his entire body without moving his legs and swings that massive shield in my direction. I don’t have time to get out of the way, and it hits me hard enough to throw me ten feet away from him. I hit the ground hard, landing on my back. Theair’s knocked out of my lungs momentarily, and I stare up at the sky as I try to catch it. That’s when I see a pegasus and a gryphon flying toward the top of the tower.
I scramble to my feet, knowing that it’s almost time to help Darian and Elara take the tower instead of just drawing the attention to us.
As soon as I’m on my feet, I see Rurik swing his sword at the Chained’s shoulder in an underhanded sweep. At first, it looks like he’ll connect with the weak spot in his armpit. Then I realize it was a feint, and at the last moment, the Chained tightens his arm against Rurik’s sword and catches it against his armor. He drops his shield at the same time and reaches out for Rurik with a gauntleted hand.
Rurik tries to let go of his sword to get away, but the Chained is too fast. The creature’s fist wraps around Rurik’s head. I can hear the crunching sound as the Chained shatters Rurik’s skull with his overwhelming strength. Crimson runs between his fingers, and Rurik’s headless body crumples to the ground at the Chained’s feet.
For the first time, I feel how impossibly wrong all of this is. Rurik was my friend. Logically, I know he’ll Return, but somehow, my heart can’t accept it. He was my friend, and this monster killed him in half a second. He was my friend, and I don’t know how to avenge him.
Rurik was the best warrior we had on our team. He was second only to his father within the Stormbringers. And he lost to the Chained. We have to get into the tower to take it. There’sstill another Chained and Serica inside. There might also be a Corpsebinder, and there’s definitely one of Nyxthos’s Mages.
I don’t know how we’re supposed to win this. I can’t beat a Chained one-on-one. Darian and Elara are supposed to be attacking from the top of the tower, but how can they kill a Chained, much less a Chained and Serica?
I look to where Jorren is, and he’s gone. Isola’s nowhere to be seen either. And then the Chained speaks, “Your friends left you. You’ve lost, human.”
Just as he finishes, he gasps and falls to his knees. The rust-colored armor slowly changes color, much more slowly than the Burning One’s clothes did.Isola’s trying to rip his soul from his body through the steel.I don’t know if she can finish the job, but she certainly is straining as the steel draws in her magic.
There’s no reason she has to do it on her own. I race toward the Chained, whose entire body is shaking as he tries to move. “My friends never left,” I snarl before driving my dagger through the eye slit of his helmet to feel the very satisfying resistance of a skull. I push harder and feel the bones give way.
His body stops shaking, and I rip my dagger out of his helm as he slumps to the ground lifeless. I look past him to see Isola panting. Jorren is right behind her, standing at the stairs leading to the second level.
Where are Serica and the other Chained?“Come on,” Jorren says through labored breaths. “They’re here.”
He means Darian and Elara, but where in the thirteen hells are our enemies? And why aren’t they fighting us?
Then I understand. We have less than an hour to capture the tower. All Serica is trying to do is stall. The Chained are soldiers, not leaders. They’ve been trained to follow orders.
Serica has commanded armies. Maybe she’s still thinking like a soldier, but she’s thinking like a general, a commander. And she knows all she has to do is hold the tower for minutes. Not hours. Minutes.
That’s when the stairs shatter. A massive table thrown from above hits the landing on the second floor and shatters it before continuing down to take out the supports of the staircase. Like watching a tree fall, it all moves so slowly, but stair by stair, it falls apart and hits the stones on the first floor. There’s no way we’ll be able to get up to the top of the tower now.
Isola looks at me with fear in her eyes. Jorren’s eyes scan the walls to find a way up. He won’t find any. I’ve climbed things for years. Climbing the inside of the tower would be impossible. Whoever built it smoothed the stones. But on the outside…
“Come on,” I say and rush outside.
Chapter 43
A soul is not a permanent thing. It grows, changes, and is scarred by its experiences. These memories hold it together and mold it into something that is so different from what it began as. The little swimmer that enters the body at birth, and the one that leaves at death, are not the same.
~Vyran the Black, The Future of Magic and Dragons
Fiona
