The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3) (17 page)

It started rising from the melting suit of skin, crab like claws snapping in the air, round body the color of a bruise. It stepped out of the skin that was Juzo’s body, wiry, scaled legs with three gleaming talons the size of Nyset’s arms stuck out from its toes. Its body was bulbous with an incredible mouth between the two claws that gaped open and lined with jagged teeth. Gelatinous spindles of saliva hung from its fat lips. One hit the floor and sizzled, filling the air with the familiar stink of acid.

“By the Dragon,” she whispered, her hands glowing like embers. She extended her long fingertips, blasting it with another gout of Dragon fire, but it continued advancing seeming unharmed. Fire smoked on the strands of Juzo’s hair attached to the top of its body. Her mind raced, spinning out possible ways to harm the creature. Above its gaping maw was a single eye, the size of her fist, its iris black.

She splayed her fingers, thrust her arms forward and pushed with a blast of icy air, its saliva fanning out in burning strings over the cobbles. It lunged forward with shocking speed, slashing with its leg talons and cutting her deep across the ribs, thudding through muscle and across bone. She screamed, clutching her side, her body exploding with a burst of fire, throwing both of them back and creating distance. Fire flared in her eyes, spiraling like wisps of smoke into the air. She looked down at her hand, warm with blood, fingers trembling.

Something slammed into her, pinning her hand to her bloody chest. The claw cinched down tighter, barbs lining the inside of it piercing deep, the bones in her arm snapping like wood from the tremendous pressure. The beast’s black tongue smacked at the blood, her skin bubbling from its acidic spit. She fought back the urge to vomit at the bitter smell of her own burning flesh. Nyset knew her only hope of survival was to cling to the Dragon, its rage her only salvation. She screamed with agony, beams of fire spraying from her eyes and cutting a thick chunk from its tongue, which flopped onto the stone and then squishing under its taloned feet.

Then she was airborne, bouncing on the stone, over and over, flailing like a discarded doll. Hard cobbles punched and hammered over her body. She rolled and rolled, tumbling head over heels. Something in her shoulder broke apart against the unforgiving stone. Rather than dashing her skull open on the perfect little squares, she only shattered her nose, washing her face in a red sheet. She slowly slid to a stop, face up, laying still.

“Ugh,” she groaned. Something in her back clicked back into place. She blinked the blood from her eyes, its sting a mere annoyance in the face of the pain tearing her apart everywhere else. Her left shoulder was twisted towards her chest, her arm jutting out from the confines of the socket. Further down the same arm, two splinters of bone painted with pink probed out from her skin. She licked her lips, the metallic and sticky taste of blood slathered on her tongue.

The beast’s talons blurred in and out of focus, clacking over the cobbles and making its way to her. Black streams bubbled from its grinning mouth. Its big eye was wide and expressionless. She started shrimping away, pushing at the cobbles with her legs, arm held protectively tight.

“It has been long since I have bled,” it laughed, mouth ever widening. It raised its chicken leg high, sinking one of its sword like talons through her thigh and pinning her to the stone. She convulsed, the breath choking from her lips, unimaginable waves of pain shivering through her body. A blob of acid dripped from its mouth and mixed with its own burning blood, tearing a cauterizing hole in her cheek.

This wasn’t the sort of death she had in mind. Not an easy thing like she had imagined. She thought she would be going to bed one day in the arms of tranquility, kissing Walt’s cheek, and slipping off to the Shadow Realm. Walter would be there, ushering her to the great beyond. Their children would weep and bury her in the yard, the salty breeze of the Abyssal Sea her unrelenting companion. That death would be easy. Her body convulsed again, something popping in her hips, misery her only friend. Everything was pain—shoulder, arms, jaw, teeth, guts, head—everything was ablaze in its fury.

“You will be my conduit to freedom, my new form in the world of man,” it boomed. “No longer will I be imprisoned!” It’s grisly, bleeding tongue inched towards her face, the smell of rot billowing from its mouth.

She pushed her head back, extending her neck away from its lick, her jaw held high. The Dragon had left her alone and hope was a distant memory. Something glinted in the corner of her eye, a long splinter of the black sword, like a dagger.

Not like this. No, she would not die like this.

She twisted her body against the talon through her leg, muscle fibers tearing and snapping, pain like lightning shooting up her spine. Her fingertips pulled at the blade and snatched it into her grip. She clamped down tight creating a new gash across her palm beside the other. She punched with the splintered sword, stabbing it into the monster’s tongue. The beast shrieked, and tried to pull away, pinned by its own talon lodged in the stone.

“No!” it screamed, its pincers hissing open.

She punched again into the middle of its eye, its body, lips, tongue, eye, body and eye over and over, rending black holes everywhere, jets of blood spewing from the punctures like a fountain in the King’s garden. The pain vanished like a summer’s breeze, her only focus putting as many holes as possible into this stealer of life. Death would not take her today.

“I cannot die,” the monster hissed, keeling over onto its back, pincers sliding open, blood bubbling from its wounds. The leg pinning Nyset cracked as it fell, its knee popping over to one side, the tubby body strewn out flat.

She dropped the wet splinter, breath heaving in her chest, arm covered in the monster’s blood from fingernail to forearm. “Your lack of breathing says otherwise,” she snarled, dragging herself to her feet. She worked her fingers open and closed, forearm tendons tight as the skin on a drum. The spike of adrenaline started to fade, wracking her body up and down in shivering pain.

The air whirled around her, bitter cold raking her broken skin. A din of voices spoke at once. She picked up the sounds of some, all moans and bellows, a mix of delight and terror.

“We are free!” a child celebrated.

“She killed the master,” an old man hooted.

“The Shadow Realm welcomes us,” cried a squat apparition of a woman.

More figures stepped from the suffocating darkness, whitish-blue and translucent against the black, their light growing ever brighter. They circled around Nyset, arms raised as if praying to the heavens. She felt her lips tugging into the beginnings of a smile, the stark weight of despair at what she thought would be her last moments fading away.

Her dream was still intact and a future with Walter still possible. She could see him now, his bright green eyes twinkling across the table from her, the corners of his thin lips twitching before he smiled. Screaming children rolling elixir barrels to the market. The salted air of the sea pushing through her old hair. She was alive and the day was beautiful.

A soft warmth like the kiss of sun prickled at her cheeks. She realized she had closed her eyes, the sticky warmth dripping from her chin. Her feet were light, like walking on the air itself. She parted her eyes and turned her head, one sealed up by congealing blood.

Her jaw dropped open as the brutal cobbles dropped out below, the veins between them becoming indiscernible and then a sheet of gray.

The spirits below smiled up at her, a ring of tranquil faces, shoulders pressed together. The lifeless body of the beast lay in the center of the ring, hacked up tongue lolling from its yawing mouth. The blackness pressed away from them as their brilliance intensified, bright as the corona of the sun.

She caught the eyes of a man that could have been her father who mouthed ‘thank you,’ and she nodded at him. Realization was dawning on her now, the pieces snapping together in her churned brain. These were the souls that the sword Blackout had stolen, preventing them from moving into the Shadow Realm where they could live in peace. They would be free now and that was a comfort in the sea of pain.

The warmth on her skin was coming from somewhere above. She looked up and had to shield her eyes. A searing white orb had torn through the black, darkness melting away like hot oil. The orb of white spread into a saucer, dilating like a pupil in the night. That blinding white washed away the last tendrils of despair she felt but a moment before. She let her arms and legs relax, sagging towards the ground a hundred feet below. It felt like an enormous finger was supporting her from her head to her hips, cradling and bringing her towards the brightness. A smile curled up her mouth at the feeling of weightlessness of the body and heart.

W
alter dropped to the ground
, Blackout plunged into the wall above him, a hair’s breadth from splitting his skull like a melon. Mortar dust tumbled down the back of his shirt and into his gasping mouth. He spat, seizing his only chance to stop the butchery, his hands slamming around the hilt of the blade. The sword vibrated between the stones, wedged in mortar, violently trying to rattle its way out. Walter twisted up to his feet, hands slick with sweat, his fingernails digging into the leather wrapped handle. He sunk all his weight into the blade, his teeth grinding together, driving it deeper into the stone. His hands were burning from the force to keep the blade in, fighting with all it had to resume carving a path of chaos.

Walter spared a glance over his shoulder at Juzo, writhing like the man who had been brought to his mother after trying to kill himself with Fang Cress. His lips were bubbling with foam, blood seeping out his ears and hands clutching at things that weren’t there. His hair was matted across his face, puffing from his lips with each rapid breath.

“No, no, no,” Juzo muttered, his eye rolling around the room with madness. “I need you. You need me, but you make me do bad things,” he groaned. “Bad, bad, bad things,” he whispered.

“Damn it! Where is Nyset?” he screamed at the sword, hoping it could reply. The sword pushed harder, inching out of the mortar and forcing his boots across the stone. Walter slowly inhaled, relaxing his heart rate, soothing the terror billowing from his trembling hands. He channeled the Phoenix, using it in tandem with his body to hold the sword in the stone. Help would come, wouldn’t it? Where was everyone?

“Help!” he screamed for the fifth time, doing his best to project his voice through the parted door at his back.

To his left was the healer, sprawled out on the floor and surrounded by a pool of scarlet. The poor man’s throat had been cut wide open, blood still trickling from the wounds. He had seemed like a nice man, not much older than him. Every man had to fail at some point, unfortunately his was fatal.

The sword tore through the small room like a cyclone after Nyset vanished. He wasn’t able to control it alone and using the Dragon wasn’t an option. The healer’s surgical box was inverted on the floor, metallic instruments everywhere. The handle of the scalpel was submerged in his blood, the blade sterile and bright like someone was using it the wrong way. Yellow powder had been spilled on Juzo’s arm, dotted with pink flowers. Jars filled with various liquids were sent crashing to the floor, sizzling in a corner and producing an odor of rotting eggs mixed with vanilla. He really hoped the resultant mixture wasn’t toxic. It was a producing a thick cloud of blue smoke that clung to the ceiling, hopefully it stayed there.

Something smashed him in the chest, blowing the air out of his lungs, crashing into the adjacent wall with a thud. His vision swam with black dots, his breath heaving, something glinting in the air. He let out a ragged cough and wrapped an arm over his chest, vision returning, back aching like it was stomped by Grimbald’s boots. Shards of black glass were falling like feathers to the floor, some gleaming in the shaft of light coming in through the window.

Panic lashed at his chest. Where was the sword? His eyes darted around the room, his hand clamping down on something firm. He looked down, the sword’s hilt was in his hand, broken splinters of Blackout jutting out like a porcupine from the top. He squeezed the hilt harder, eyes drawing down, jaw sore, but it didn’t resist an iota. He tentatively released the tension from his grip, slowly lowering the cursed thing. The handle wasn’t vibrating or pressing against him with the strength of a giant. It was motionless, like a sword should be. He released it from his hand and kicked it across the room, sliding with a hiss against thousands of tiny shards of glass.

“Let me out. Walter? Anyone?” Juzo groaned, his head craned over the side of the bed and finding him.

“Juzo,” Walter said, dragging himself up, coughing, still finding it hard to breathe right.

“Where am I?” Nyset moaned from across the room, where Walter had been fighting against the sword. She was strewn out on the ground, smiling like it was her day of birth, her face red as death.

“Walter? What’s going on?” Juzo asked.

“Wait—” Walter wheezed, stumbling over to Nyset’s crumpled body, kneeling next to her. Her arm was badly dislocated, an ugly looking compound fracture through her forearm. Where were those damn healers? It looked like she had gone through war and not on the winning side. Her face was swelling with trauma and her nose bubbling with blood. He traced his hands along her little body, searching for other critical trauma. The arm seemed to be the worst of it. She would survive this. The worst thing he had to worry about was infection. There had to be Ribwort oil around here somewhere.

“Help!” he tried to scream, but the sound wasn’t more than a whisper, his breath still not right.

“Walter? Is that you?” Nyset whispered, one brown eye regarding him, the other matted shut with blood.

“It’s me darling. Okay, okay. I’ll figure this out,” he said, pushing her hair back over her head.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. You were here, then you weren’t. Blackout killed the healer, almost got me,” he said quietly, wincing at that last thought.