I gasped awake and frantically examined my surroundings. I was cold, wet, and exhausted. My eyes adjusted to the darkness and my mind grasped at the present through the fading fog of memories of the destruction I had wrought upon Shlara’s Rest.
My daughter was on this world. But I had been banished.
Tears filled my eyes and I could not contain my sobs. They came unbidden but after the first few racked my body I didn’t try to hold them back anymore.
I could still smell their blood and hear their screams.
But the smell was fresh. The smell was not a memory. The screams were here. Voices shouted in the distance. My hands were covered in blood. My body was covered in blood. The reek of shit, organs, and rot surrounded me.
The floor of the room was thick with Elven corpses.
They were like a twisted jigsaw puzzle, bent and broken bodies filled every possible space. A faint glow permeated the stones of the Radicle, just enough to reveal the black, green, and red armor of the dead Elvens. None moved. Was the empress dead? Fehalda? Vernine? I could not remember anything that had happened after Telaxthe sent me through the Radicle.
I expanded my hearing and picked up pieces of a frantic conversation outside of the temple. Elven voices were coordinating a defensive perimeter around the structure.
In case I tried to escape.
I did not remember killing all these Elvens, but there was no other explanation.
I exhaled with mixed relief and tried to find a dry spot on my tunic to wipe my bloody hands. I felt immense relief that I was still on this world, still conscious and alive. I just had to find the right Radicle and I could awaken my daughter.
If Nadea knew her name.
That and escape through the hundreds of Elvens guarding this Radicle. I glanced at my hands again and another memory buzzed into my brain like a hummingbird. I had worn the armor in Shlara’s Rest. I had worn it when I attempted to rescue my friends from Castle Nia. When Telaxthe used the Ovule, I saw my armor on my hand just before my vision faded to white.
I heard a woman’s voice commanding troops outside. It sounded like Fehalda, but my headache made it hard to discern the voice or her words. Booted footsteps clomped above me and I realized I had little time to devise a plan before I would be attacked again.
I tried to remember what I had done to summon my armor, but the familiar pain returned to my skull, as it always did when I thought of certain parts of my past. It never accompanied thoughts of the war or my life with Iolarathe. It came when I recalled the magic that existed beyond the common magic of the Elements.
There were plenty of weapons among the corpses, so I grabbed a sword and a metal shield. I jumped clear of the bodies and landed at the foot of the stairwell. It was a quick sprint up the stairs and I crouched down so I could have a bit of cover while looking out of the Radicle.
I heard armor moving around outside of the shrine and the room was darkened in shadow for a half a second. There were eight of them and they wore the black armor of Fehalda’s warriors. From my position I could only see fifty yards beyond the doorway before the trail turned out of view.
“Telaxthe!” I called out. There was an immediate silence.
“Telaxthe!” I called again. I had not seen the empress’s body downstairs, she must have escaped. They would have protected her at all costs.
“What do you want, Kaiyer?” Fehalda’s voice bounced into the room, she was farther up the path to my west.
“I need to discuss terms with Telaxthe.”
“Terms of what?” Fehalda asked.
“Surrender.”
“You are surrendering to us?” Her voice sounded sarcastic.
“Or you may surrender to me. I will not wear my armor. I need to return to the castle.” I doubted Telaxthe would agree to any sort of parlay with me after what I had done, but I had to try.
“No, Kaiyer. There will be no negotiations. My sister was correct to banish you. This Radicle will be your tomb.”
“I want peace. Please, let me speak to her.” I sighed in frustration and wondered if there was another exit. Could I make it to Nia before the empress’s army?
Even if I could, the castle would be filled with Elvens and it would be difficult to reach Nadea, especially without murdering more of Telaxthe’s people. Even if I found her, I had no reason to believe she knew my daughter’s name, I only had the vague hope that Iolarathe had communicated it to her, finally, in a dream. Even if we knew her name, we would have to find the correct Radicle while evading the Elvens. Bringing my daughter back here would expose her to danger. We would spend our lives in hiding. It was no life for a child. But it was a life. There was a chance, however small, that it would work. I had to try. I had nothing else.
“We did send you through the Radicle. You returned a few minutes later, and then you set about killing us. You can see why we do not trust your promises of peace.”
Her words slammed into my throat like a punch to the esophagus. I did not recall experiencing the magic that sent me to the other world and I certainly did not remember returning a few minutes later.
“So what is your plan? Send more warriors in here to kill me? They will fail. I do not want to fight you anymore, but I will defend myself.”
“We will continue until we succeed. Once we have ended you we will hack your body to pieces and burn them separately. We will spread your ashes across this world. You will not return from that death.”
“My generals could not kill me.”
I knew now why they called me the Betrayer. There was something else that swam beneath the surface of my previous life. A truth my dreams knew but my brain did not yet fully understand.
I looked at my scarred left hand. My magic was strong and my willpower was even stronger. I could not save Iolarathe, but I had the power to atone for my sins by saving our daughter. My friends had not stopped me, they had only delayed me.
I watched as the armor formed around my hand.
Or maybe the armor was what really lay beneath my skin. My own bones. I had once been a man, but now I was something else. I was the ghost of Kaiyer’s intentions and now I would live forever. It did not matter. The armor, my shield, and my mace were as much a part of me now as my own bones, heart, and soul. I called them to my flesh and they formed from their resting place. The pain of their embrace chilled me for a moment, but then I felt the familiar warmth of purpose and power they brought with them.
Eight black-armored Elven warriors ran into the room. The first four carried short spears, shields, and had swords at their hips. The last four carried stout crossbows. Their coordinated push into the shrine was seamless and fluid. At once the four with melee weapons attacked, while the pair of crossbow-wielding warriors unleashed their bolts.
I stepped backward down the stairs and raised my shield to block the bolts. They hit it at an angle and ricocheted off of the stone walls of the Radicle. My arm went numb with the impact of the projectiles. Someone gasped in pain but I did not have time to see if one of the bolts had found a new target before the spears were upon me. The stairs were wide enough to allow three of them to stand abreast, and they formed a shield wall to prevent me from working around them.
Their spears danced out in a synchronized routine and I lost ground while I tried to deflect the long strikes with my shield and mace. This group was exceptionally skilled and I wondered if Fehalda had trained them specifically to fight me.
But they were no Alexia, Gorbanni, Malek, or Thayer.
After a few of their strikes, I got the rhythm of their tactics and found a hole in their pattern. The woman on my right was slower than the other two and she was having a problem working the spear back against the curve of the stairway. Their strategy was sound as long as they could maintain their uniform wall and push me back with the spears. I guessed that once I reached the bottom of the stairs the crossbows would have an opportunity to punch holes in my body. I knew my armor was strong, perhaps it was close to indestructible, but a wound crossbow bolt could dig into several feet of stone and I did not want to risk testing the strength of my armor while my life hung as collateral.
My foes pushed another cycle of their spear thrusts and I leapt up a step instead of retreating. The woman’s eyes betrayed no surprise and I wondered if the entire strategy had been a feint. She could not pull her point back around quick enough and I smashed my mace into her exposed arm. The bones shattered under her armor and then I spun my body around to slam my screaming shield into the Elven in the center. It meant that I briefly turned my back to the first woman, but she would have to drop her spear to pull out the sword at her hip.
The middle Elven flew to the side and smashed into his partner. The fourth was in the back of the trio and I predicted he would make the poor decision of trying to thrust his spear into my right side instead of falling back up the stairs a few steps to ensure that I did not get to his crossbow support.
My guess was correct.
I thrust my hips back and bucked into the spear woman behind me. It pushed her up against the wall and I felt her right hand close around the shorter left horn of my helmet. It was another risky movement, but the spear intended for my stomach grazed harmlessly past and I dug the tip of my shield against the back of the man a few steps above me.
Then I pulled my right arm inward and thrust my hips forward, pushing the man across me and down the stairs into the other two Elvens. They fell into a tangle of armor, shields, and short spears for a second. I kicked the ass of the nearest Elven and they all tumbled down the winding steps. The woman hanging on my back tugged at the horn on my helmet and I felt her other hand drop her shield. She was going for a dagger, so I slammed my head back into the wall once, twice, and a third time before I felt her armor smash and her skull split with a wet pop.
The crossbows were at the top of the stairs and I heard the twang of their bolts being released before I could summon magic to incinerate them. I did get my shield up in time, but the impact of the projectiles shattered the bones in my right arm and knocked me down the stairs.
We were almost to the bottom of the steps, so I did not fall far. I was fortunate that the Elvens below me had not set their spears or even gotten to their feet. I landed on the three like a falling boulder and heard one of their spines snap.
Then I killed the other two with quick swings of my mace.
I heard the crossbows reset up the stairwell and I realized that trying to assault them from my current position would be suicide. Instead I filled my body with Earth and unleashed my purple and green Fire up the stairs. It filled the spiraling corridor like a chimney of lava and four voices screamed before they died.
Eight Elvens dead. Only a few hundred left.
The steps had melted under my Fire and were still cooling from the hot liquid glass they had become. I should not have used my magic in such close quarters, but it would have been even more treacherous to fall back and try to defend the stairwell from below. I had few choices.
My prospects were grim. I did not feel the same surge of infinite power as I had in my most recent memory. I needed a better plan than just killing small groups of warriors and hoping Telaxthe would run out of troops or grow weary of sending them to die. They would never accept my surrender now, and the more corpses I left piled at my feet, the less likely it would be that they would believe my promises of peace.
“Telaxthe!” I shouted out again once I made it to the top of the stairs. “Stop sending your people to die. I want peace.”
“Shut up and die, Kaiyer!” Fehalda screamed. I ducked back down the stairs and the room filled with enough fire to roast an entire dragon. The heat was intense and though I was not in the direct path of their magic, I would have burned to a crisp had I not been able to pull some of the energy from the flame and fill my own body with power.
“I will surrender!” I shouted after the scorching heat settled. “I will use the Radicle to leave.” There was silence outside for a few moments and I grew impatient. “I need an Ovule.”
“If we give you an Ovule, you will leave?”
“I will leave through this Radicle,” I clarified and prayed that they did not press the question.
There was murmuring outside, but I could not discern their whispered words.
“Fine. Be gone from this world, Kaiyer.” I heard feet approach the door and a leather satchel was set at the entryway.
I exhaled in relief and felt cold sweat trickle down my back beneath my armor. As I intended to trick them, I assumed they were doing the same. I stepped out of the stairwell and moved to the darkest side of the wall. My armor was finely crafted, but it was still over seventy pounds of plated steel and I could not move in complete silence. When I made it halfway across the room I took another deep breath to steady my nerves and dove for the leather sack.
As I expected, dozens of crossbows sang out, but none found a home in my flesh. The satchel contained an Ovule and I sighed in relief.
“I am sorry, Fehalda. Please pass my apologies to your sister.”
“Just leave!” She was furious. Telaxthe must have left. The empress would never have believed me.