Vainglory 3.46 - Korrundur

Here's the penultimate chapter to Vainglory, Book 3. I'll post the final chapter on Monday.

Hope you're enjoying it,

-Plum

46 – Korrundur

Ward flexed his hand, nodding to himself as he withdrew it from the cloud of anima-laced mana. He felt like he’d absorbed a lot. He felt good, which was a strange way to feel considering the situation. He could still smell the charred flesh of the dead mercenaries behind him. He was alone, or he would be if not for Grace. She was watching him, impatient but not enough so that she’d break his concentration. “I’m done,” he said, standing up from where he’d knelt beside the dead sorcerer.

“Then hurry up! We shouldn’t be alone, and they may need your—”

“You don’t need to tell me,” Ward growled. “I can feel it.” He drew his sword and stalked past the burned bodies of his allies and hurried in the wake of the others. He hadn’t blamed them for moving on. There wasn’t any real threat behind the party—not any longer—and things were urgent. “How long?” he asked, glancing at Grace.

“If it’s the same as the last one, thirteen minutes.”

Ward nodded. “Good.”

“I hope you gathered enough anima. I hope that if things…” Grace trailed off, and Ward knew she was feeling guilty about taking his anima, especially at a time like this when all signs pointed toward a calamity on the scale of Pompeii.

“I’m good. I can feel it. I’d check on the hemograph, but we need to hurry.”

“I know,” she said, her voice small. Ward reached down to take her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Come on, cheer up. We’re going to win this thing. All we have to do is stop a handful more cultists. You saw what Rose is like! They’re probably already wrapping things up…” It was his turn to trail off his words as they rounded a bend and found a dozen corpses. One was another robed figure, this one wearing their Assembly member pendant. At first, Ward thought it was Veylan, but it was a different middle-aged man. His neck was askew, and he wondered who had broken it. Haley? Rose? He supposed it could have been one of the wardens.

The other corpses were twisted, demonic things, other than two—Fitz’s men.

“I can’t believe Fitz is still kicking, considering all the trained fighters we’ve lost.”

“Fitz? He’s been trained in fencing since he was a boy. Don’t you remember him telling you about how his father—”

An explosion up ahead cut her off, and a billowing orange flame revealed a side tunnel about fifty yards ahead. “We’re close!” Ward let go of Grace’s hand and started to run. It felt good doing so; some tension in his gut released as he took action—any action. When he rounded the corner, he came upon another melee; the wardens and what was left of the other fighters, including Lali and True, were fighting sword, axe, and pistol against another four monstrously mutated cultists.

Ward saw no sign of Pallishae, Marie, Rose, or even Haley. Fitz and two Wardens were being driven back by a massive man with an enormously swollen abdomen. The cultist’s arms were like something out of a comic book—boneless and absurdly long, swinging left and right like great fleshy ropes that ended in black, knife-like hooks. The three men tried to block the things or hack them off, but the flesh was malleable and tough, and the creature’s arm would wrap around their swords or axes and still deliver punishing blows.

Fitz was bleeding and limping, but he tried to employ his rapier, diving forward to thrust the tip into the mutated cultist’s enormous belly, but it seemed to have little effect. When Ward saw his plight and realized he and the wardens would lose, the only thing he could think of was how Haley would react if they managed to survive and Fitz died. She’d just gotten back to her usual self; how would she respond to another tragic loss? He wished he’d talked Fitz into doing something back in the city, tricked him into thinking he was helping in some ancillary way.

Gritting his teeth in a fierce snarl, Ward lifted his sword and charged forward, extending his left hand, “Vrakkun, khorvek!” His Mana Bolt streaked out, flickering with ghostly white flames, and impacted the giant mutant right in the chest. Ward watched as the fire ignited behind the cultist’s eyes, and hot, white smoke erupted from his nose and ears. He staggered, grunting like a beached walrus, but didn’t go down. With bloody eyes, the mutant tilted back his huge, thick neck and roared.

Ward hadn’t stopped, however. He hadn’t counted on the Mana Bolt finishing the demon-infested man. By the time the cultist stopped roaring, he was flying through the air, broadsword held high, and before those long, ropy arms could come up to stop him, he came down with a tremendous overhead cleave, splitting the mutant’s giant, melon-shaped skull.

“Ward! Thank the ancient—”

“Help them!” Ward growled, pointing to the other three mutants and the beleaguered fighters. As Fitz and the wardens looked where he pointed, gathering their strength, the last of Fitz’s house guards went down, his skull split even more thoroughly than the creature Ward had just killed.

“Damn you!” Fitze cried, charging into the fray with the two wardens.

“I should help,” Ward said, but his stomach told him otherwise. This wasn’t the main event; something terrible was ahead. The thing was, the same voice that told him that was saying he should run in the other direction. “Shut the hell up!” he growled, feeling his wolf surging and fighting for control. Gripping his sword, he ran past Lali, True, and two other wardens, watching as a squid-armed mutant stabbed an oozing barb through Marie’s wererat’s throat. Ward silently cursed himself for forgetting the man’s name.

“What about Fitz?” Grace asked, running beside him.

“They’ve got it. The wardens are tough bastards, and Lali’s there. Something’s happening up here.”

Grace didn’t respond, and Ward focused on his surroundings. The walls were growing close, and the natural stone had turned dark and shiny, almost like obsidian. A deeper shadow on his right told him the tunnel branched, and he could feel the threat from that direction. He rounded the corner, tore down a short, narrow corridor, and emerged into a chamber the size of a pro basketball arena.

Where before the stone had been rough and raw, the chamber was polished smooth—a great bowl-shaped space with ceilings that soared some two hundred feet above the ground. The ground was so well polished that it reflected his face when he looked down. The rear half of the chamber was submerged in water—a dark, underground lake. Nearer at hand, four enormous pillars embedded with crystal rods stood near the center.

Ward was dismayed to find Marie sprawled out, either dead or unconscious, not far from where he stood. Pallishae stood near the center of the four pillars, and he was locked in some sort of mental contest with none other than Veylan. They stood facing each other, both with a blazing golden amulet shining from their chests, both with eyes that shone like miniature suns, utterly still and unmoving.

Haley and Rose were engaged in what looked like a losing battle with four black, reptilian humanoids. The creatures were easily seven feet tall and wielded dark, obsidian weapons—spears and curved swords. Despite their speed and Rose’s unnatural power, the two Gopah artists were hard pressed to keep from being stabbed or cut by those dark weapons.

Ward vacillated. He wondered if he ought to go and cleave his sword through Veylan’s neck. Would that help Pallishae or cause a problem? He glanced at the four pillars and their glass rods. Were those the locks that held the leviathan in its cage? Should he do something with them? Ultimately, it was his concern for Haley that decided his action; she and Rose were tough and fast, and they could probably drag that fight out for a long time, but he wouldn’t risk her dying to a lucky stab or cleave—not if he could turn the tide.

Striding toward them, he focused on one of the shiny-scaled reptilians and threw out another Mana Bolt. “Vrakkun, khorvek!”

The ball of ghostly force slammed into the creature, its eyes flared with bright, white flames, and then it continued its assault on Rose. The spell hadn’t fazed it.

“They’re resistant, Ward!” Rose shouted. “They’re ancient guardians. I don’t know how Veylan captured their loyalty, but—” She had to backflip, interrupting herself.

“Should I kill him?”

“No! Pallishae battles the spirit within him. If you kill him, it will be released.”

Ward nodded. Somehow, he’d figured it was something like that. Just then, Haley grunted in pain, and he watched as she darted away from two of the reptilian guardians, gripping her arm and hissing between clenched teeth.

“Their blades are deadly sharp,” Rose said, surging with speed and landing a thunderous kick against a guardian’s hip as it tried to pursue Haley.

Ward had seen enough. He dove forward and engaged one of the reptiles pursuing Rose. It had good peripheral senses and whirled in time to block his blade with its hard, stony spear haft. Ward growled and drove forward, hacking and kicking, parrying and dodging as he and the reptile tried to kill each other.

Despite his inability to land a blow, taking the attention of one of the creatures was almost enough to turn the tide of the fight. Rose had peeled one of the reptiles off Haley, giving her two to focus on. As Haley downed a healing tonic and leaped back into the fight, she demonstrated how much easier it was for her to fight one opponent at a time instead of two.

Ward knew he was a journeyman, at best, with the sword, but he was unnaturally strong and fast thanks to his lycan bloodline. He knew he’d be dead, otherwise. The reptilian guardian was a master spear fighter. It constantly wove that deadly sharp weapon past Ward’s guard and managed to pierce and slash him half a dozen times. Ward’s speed allowed him to flinch back or twist just in time to avoid a debilitating injury, though, and he kept that dark-scaled creature busy long enough for Haley to work her way past her opponent’s guard and deliver a bone-crunching blow to its sternum.

The guardian stumbled, and that was all the opening she needed in order to deliver a tremendous round-house kick, smashing her boot heel against the side of its skull with enough force to crack stone. Ward wasn’t sure why the creatures could resist his mana bolt and Haley’s fiery, mana-fueled blows, but, apparently, their bones could still break. It fell to the ground, limp and dead.

After that, the fight had a foregone conclusion; she distracted one of Rose’s opponents, and it was over. Rose shattered the creature’s bones with three rapid strikes, and then the two of them destroyed the third reptile. The final one, still focused on Ward, was dead before it sensed Rose approaching. The sound of her fists wetly smacking its scaly hide and the resultant crunch of bones shattering would have been disturbing if Ward hadn’t been so thrilled to see the deadly creatures defeated.

“Yes!” he hissed, prodding the oozing slashes on his arms. They were slow to heal, even with his regeneration.

“Those blades are infused with entropic forces,” Rose said, coming to stand beside him. “The water here, too. Don’t step foot into it.”

Ward nodded, wrinkling his nose as he turned to regard Pallishae and Veylan. “What do we do now?”

“I think—” Rose started to say, but then a sound came to Ward’s lycan ears. A soft scraping sound that reminded him of a glass sliding on a marble countertop. He jerked his gaze toward it—up high on the back right pillar—and saw another cultist there. A spider-like mutant, clinging to the top of the pillar and carefully sliding one of the glass rods out of the hole that cradled it.

“Look!” he shouted, then he pointed and threw out his last Mana Bolt. “Vrakkun Khorvek!”

The cultist hissed and hunkered down behind the pillar, and the ghostly ball of flame smashed into the black stone harmlessly. Before Ward could think of another solution, Rose leaped through the air, her feet flickering with embers and smoke as she scaled the pillar like it was lying flat on the ground.

Ward clenched his fists, holding his breath as he watched her close on the cultist. She was fast, and Ward knew the cultist wouldn’t be any match for her, but still, it gripped that glass rod and yanked it out of the hole. As she delivered a death blow, igniting the creature’s flesh, it hurled the rod toward the dark lake, and the world began to shake.

“Ward!” Grace shrieked, pointing toward the tumbling rod. At first, he wondered why she was screaming about that; there were other, bigger problems. But then he realized that it was the only rod on all four of the pillars that he’d seen before the cultists had moved them. If he could get it and put it back, would it close the lock? Before he could think, he started sprinting toward that dark water, but Grace grabbed his wrist. “Ward! The entropy!” By then, the rod had hit the surface and sunk.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” he yelled. Haley had run with him, and the last thing he wanted was for her to get some kind of wild, heroic idea. Was it ironic that his concern for her made him do exactly that? He’d always struggled with irony, but as he kicked off his boots, he felt like that was a good example.

“Ward!” Haley cried, watching him.

“Ward!” Grace said, echoing her. Meanwhile, the ground shivered. Idly, as he took a deep breath and dove for the dark water, Ward considered the fact that this was the third quake and yet it felt far milder than those that came before. Did they amplify as they rolled away from the leviathan’s prison? Then the ice-cold water engulfed him, and he went down like a stone.

It was dark down there, but the light from above filtered through enough for his lycan eyes to make out the bottom of the underground lake. It was smooth but littered with things—skeletons, rusted chains, weapons, hunks of stone. He wondered at the ancient tales each of those discarded, buried objects might tell. Strangely, despite the cold, he didn’t think the water was particularly deadly. If it were infused with entropic forces, shouldn’t he find it hard to move? Hard to think?

Maybe it would be more subtle than that. Maybe he’d lose himself to stupid thoughts about how he was going to lose himself… Ward shook his head and focused on the bottom of the lake, looking for the glass rod. To his relief, he saw it right away—pale blue and glimmering faintly with an inner light.

He wondered how deep he was. Thirty feet? Forty? It was deeper than he’d ever swum before, that was certain. Still, when he closed his fist around the rod and pushed off the stone bottom with his legs, launching himself upwards, he felt like he had plenty of air left. Then, a deep, sonorous voice, hard-edged with anger, entered his mind:

A mind—open for my probing thoughts. Are you the one who works to free me?

Suddenly, the entropic forces in the water surged, growing thick, draining the strength from Ward’s arms and legs, smashing his desire to flee. He couldn’t speak without losing some of his precious air, so he tried to think a response. Are you the leviathan?

Korrundur is my name. Long have I slept. Long did I rail against my bindings before that. Why do my bindings slip free? Why does the rage once more boil in my heart? I found peace in my sleep.

Can I help you sleep again?

My fury must be vented. I feel your life force slip from your tiny form. It gives me some relief. Not enough to sate my hunger, but a taste.

Ward’s lethargic mind snapped into focus at those words. Was he dying? Of course he was! He was deep underwater. His air was running out and this damn leviathan was using its entropic power to suck the life out of him! He couldn’t even find it in himself to feel anger; the wolf was asleep. As for his dreadmarked bloodline, it had finally grown quiet, almost like it had resigned itself to the destruction it had felt coming for the last few days. In that moment, he nearly gave up. He almost allowed himself to drift into that dark, comforting nothingness. Wouldn’t it be easier to stop the constant fighting?

Something in him remembered why he’d jumped into that water, though. A flicker of pale eyes and a smile that lit his heart up whenever he saw it. He’d done this for Haley, and if he failed now, she was going to die! With a final effort of will, he tried another argument. I’m not your enemy, though. Is it just for me to pay for the crimes of others?

Justice? A concept I haven’t contemplated for eons. Was it just that I was bound here and left to wither through the centuries?

No, but I didn’t do that to you.

Your life fades, and yet I still have an interest in speaking with you. Here.

Suddenly, a spike of warmth touched Ward’s chest, and he felt something like the opposite of the cold, entropic grip of the water. It spread to his lungs and heart, and he felt his chest thump with his heart’s renewed efforts to keep him alive.

I believe I can breach the final lock. Tell me, small thing, what has the world become while I slept?

Ward began to think of a response, but it wasn’t necessary. The leviathan reached into his mind and explored his many memories of Ordo Caelus, the living ship, and the cities on Cinder. A world on fire! And my cousins carry you from world to world? What wonders! So many small lives! And you didn’t lie; neither you nor the people you know had a hand in my imprisonment. There is one, however.

Ward knew who he meant. Pallishae.

I feel a familiarity with him. What is this you grip? You think to reseal my cage?

Ward felt the rod in his hand and decided to be honest. Before you spoke to me, I thought you were a monster—something that couldn’t reason.

And now?

I know you think and feel. Will you destroy the city? Will you wage war on humanity?

I have no grievance with humanity. If that ancient spirit will help you open the final lock, I will return to the sea and leave this city in peace. Do you agree? If I must open it myself, the city will crumble.

In answer, Ward opened his hand, and the glass rod fell back to the bottom of the underground lake. More of that warm energy flowed into him, and then he was buoyed by invisible forces to the surface. Hands grabbed his shoulders, pulling him toward the stone shore, and then he was pulled out, dragged over the stone away from the water. When he looked up, he saw Rose and Haley each had one of his arms.

“Pallishae,” he grunted, blinking to clear the water from his eyes.

“How are you not dead?” Rose asked.

“Ward!” Haley stooped to grab the sides of his face, peering into his eyes.

“I’m fine. It spoke to me!”

“The world stopped shaking!” Haley said, speaking over him.

“It’s waiting,” Ward said, shaking his arms to fling off some of the frigid water.

“What?” Rose asked.

“Who?” Grace asked, appearing beside her.

“The leviathan, dammit! It wants us to let it out. It says it won’t destroy the city.”

“Ward…” Grace said, leaning close and gently rubbing his freezing shoulder. “I would have heard that, wouldn’t I have? I think you passed out in there—”

“Dammit!” Ward growled, pushing himself to his feet. “You feel that?”

“What?” Haley asked.

“Exactly! It’s waiting!” He stormed past her and Rose, approaching the two sorcerers still locked in their deathly struggle. Pallishae—in Gwen’s diminutive body—was staring up into Veylan’s eyes. They were just three feet apart, and Ward could see Veylan had been reaching for Gwen’s throat, like he meant to throttle her—Pallishae—before they’d gotten locked into their contest. “How long is this going to take?”

“Their struggle grows one-sided,” Rose replied, turning her blindfolded face from one to the other. “Pallishae is winning. The spirit within Veylan grows dim.”

“Mmph,” a soft moan sounded from behind him, and Ward turned to see Marie weakly lifting her head.

“Marie!” Haley cried, darting toward her. Ward was relieved the sorceress wasn’t dead, but it got him wondering about the others, and he felt some dread in his guts. Had Fitz survived? He hoped so.

As if she’d read his mind, Rose turned toward the tunnel. “I’ll go see to the others. I can sense several of our allies yet live.”

Ward nodded. “I’ll wait for Pallishae.”