The Crimson Vault Part 38

"I would try and trick him back here," he concluded. After he paused a moment, he added, "Good luck, son of Kalman. I think that I like you, and I do not want to see you die today."

Simon slipped the mask into one of his cloak pockets, hurrying out of the workshop. Olissa must have left at some point during the conversation, because she was no longer standing by the door.

He started summoning Azura before he was fully in the entry hall, already reaching through her to cut open a Gate.

To his surprise, he almost impaled Andra.

She stood with her blond hair pulled back and tied, wearing a simple outfit of a loose-fitting s.h.i.+rt and trousers. She wore her Dragon's Fang, much shorter than his, buckled onto a belt, and her advisor drifted over one shoulder. He looked like a ghost made out of black yarn, with b.u.t.tons for eyes and a wide-st.i.tched mouth.

"Watch it!" Andra said, jumping out of Azura's way.

Her advisor, Manyu, drifted over to Simon. "You seem, aaaahhh, in quite a hurry. May I ask where we're going, hmmmmm?"

"We?" Simon asked, startled. He looked from Andra to the other person in the room, who was buckling on his sword-belt.

Erastes had been a member of the Damascan army, so it was fitting that he wore a soldier's uniform. He didn't wear the red-and-gold of the royal army*Simon wasn't clear on the details, but apparently only the soldiers under the command of the royal family were allowed to wear the red-and-gold uniforms.

This uniform was mostly blue and gray, with a cap-like helmet and a coat of chainmail over the breast. It would normally be decorated with the colors of whichever Overlord currently commanded the soldier, but Erastes had no decoration. As it was, the steel-grey of his armor matched his hair and eyes.

He loosened his sword in its sheath, giving Simon a glimpse of mirror-bright Tartarus steel.

"Olissa told us that you're working for the Overlord Indirial now," Erastes said, his voice as flat as ever.

"And he was here in the House!" Andra exclaimed. "I saw him. Is he really a Valinhall Traveler?"

"Yeah, he's a Valinhall Traveler," Simon responded. "And I'm working for him, for now."

Unwilling to waste anymore time, he raised Azura and began cutting open a Gate.

"Then you made the right decision," Erastes responded. "We're coming with you."

That didn't sit well with Simon, but he couldn't just turn down help. Still, he wasn't sure he could trust Erastes and Andra to fight without slowing him down.

"I won't have time to look out for you," Simon warned. "And we'll be stepping into the middle of a fight."

"You're fighting with the Damascan royal army against Enosh aggressors?" Erastes asked.

"That's one way to put it, yes," Simon said.

"I have trained for this day my entire life. It has nothing to do with you; this is my job. And Andra's a Traveler now. Isn't that right?"

Proudly, Andra rolled up her left sleeve and showed Simon the black chains. "Just yesterday!" she said triumphantly.

"Congratulations," Simon responded, though his voice probably fell a little flat. The Gate was almost open now, and the sounds of battle were deafening. From what he could see, the entire nearby line of tents seemed to be aflame.

"Remember what we discussed, Andra," Erastes said.

"Yes, sir," Andra responded, for once sounding completely serious.

Azura touched the floor, and the Gate snapped open. Simon strode through, leading the way, with Erastes and Andra following. Now, all he had to do was find Kai.

Then, of course, he had to find and fight an immensely powerful, insane avatar of battle with the strength of an entire Territory, somehow tricking this being into the one place he would never choose to go.

But Simon liked to cross one bridge at a time.

Kai held a sword in each hand, but they both shook. It was a miracle that he had even managed to keep hold of them. His body was covered in sweat, and his breath came in heavy gasps.

Every power he could draw, every force he could summon, had been long exhausted. It took all his concentration to keep holding back the poison from Ragnarus, and the wound in his back felt like someone was driving a new red-hot dagger inside, twisting every second.

Valin stood over Kai, his black-and-silver eyes as emotionless as a machine's. He barely looked like he was breathing at all.

"We can call this my win, then," the Incarnation said. "Now, lead me to your king."

Kai couldn't help it: he started laughing. It was thin, exhausted, wheezing laughter, and with every chuckle a new bolt of pain shot through his back, but something about it felt incredibly freeing.

"Don't make me kill you, Kai," Valin said. "I've earned this."

With the last drops of steel in him, Kai launched forward and struck at the Incarnation's chest. Effortlessly, he swatted Kai's attack away, but Kai's momentum carried him close to his former master's face.

"Poor, lost Wanderer," Kai whispered. "That's not how the real world works."

The Valinhall Incarnation kicked him away. It was almost gentle, as these things worked: Valin could just as easily have put his foot through Kai's ribs. In this case, Kai just tumbled backwards to land in a heap on the dirt.

"Then I have wasted my time with you," Valin said. He blurred as he moved toward Kai, drawing on some of that Nye speed. He pulled Mithra back, barely paying attention, likely planning to slit Kai's throat as an afterthought.

Well, Kai thought, at least I stalled for a while.

Kai let himself relax. He was full of regrets. In fact, he wished he had lived most of his life differently. But somehow, right now, none of that mattered.

He just wished he could have seen his little ones one last time.

The Valinhall Incarnation pulled his sword back for a swing, ready to slash through Kai's body.

Then he stopped, almost immediately, staring in front of him. Kai turned on the ground to see what had delayed his execution.

Simon stood there, his black Nye cloak falling around him. He was flanked on either side by a pair of fighters: one a girl, younger even than Simon, wielding a Dragon's Fang.

Oh, she must be that new Traveler girl, he thought. Agnos, he thought her name was. He had met the family on a few occasions, but they had never made much of an impression on him. He had never expected the girl to make it, but there she was, with the chains crawling up her arms.

Truth be told, he had never expected Simon to make it, either.

She currently had her Dragon's Fang buried up to the gullet in the throat of some flaming black lizard-thing from Naraka. She barely made a face as she slid its body off her blade and turned to face the next threat: a nine-legged crab with spinning blades for mandibles and a s.h.i.+ning steel carapace.

On Simon's other side, the soldier spun and danced with his s.h.i.+ning sword of Tartarus steel. He would make an excellent Valinhall Traveler; Kai regretted that he had never learned the man's name.

Simon himself held Azura in one hand and Caela in the other, letting Caela's lovely dress wrinkle in the worst manner. He ignored the battles behind him, walking up to the Incarnation.

No, to Kai. He knelt and delicately placed Caela in Kai's arms.

"Hold her for me," Simon said, trying to smile.

Kai nodded, too choked up to speak. His wish was granted: now he could die with one of his precious little ones in his arms.

Though he wished that he didn't have to watch Simon die as well.

Simon pulled something else out of that cloak of his: a waterskin. Kai almost gasped. Maybe, if that was what he thought it wasamaybe he could be saved after all.

"I don't have time for this," Valin said. He thrust Mithra straight at Kai's chest.

Mithra met Azura in a clash of sparks.

"I've fought you before, young dragon," the Incarnation said. "Stay out of my way."

Simon held Azura against the Incarnation's blade with one hand, and with the other he reached into his cloak one more time.

He withdrew a mask.

"Why don't we try one more time?" Simon said. Then he pressed the mask against his face.

The eye-slits flared briefly with white light, and then the mask stuck to Simon's head without any visible means of support.

"What is that?" Kai whispered.

As he had hoped, Caela answered him. Something new.

Once again, when Simon called power through the mask, it felt simultaneously like waking up and like trying to inhale a blizzard. His lungs practically froze from the Nye essence, and he wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was leaking light with every breath. His muscles pounded with the strength of cold steel, and he could barely feel the chains snaking up his arms.

The world seemed to crystallize: a diving white eagle from Avernus paused with her claws an inch from the skin of a blue-skinned Helgard giant, which had its icicle-club poised to smash one of the Nye into the ground. The flames looked like jagged orange spikes, and puffs of dust hung in the air like they had gotten stuck on a canvas.

Time's not moving fast, but it's still moving, Caela warned him. You've got to finish this fast.

In response, Simon pushed himself forward, launching at roughly the same speed of a crossbow bolt. He slammed into the Incarnation with Azura's edge, putting the weight of his body, the force of his momentum, and all his strength into the blow.

Cutting into Valin's skin felt like trying to saw through a boulder, but Simon could not be stopped. The blow didn't slice Valin in half, as Simon had somewhat hoped, but it knocked him into midair with a b.l.o.o.d.y slash across his bare chest.

As soon as the Incarnation's feet left the ground, he began to drift, and Simon didn't give him a second to recover. He had no doubt that Valin could draw on just as much Nye essence as he could.

So he jumped over the Incarnation and reversed his grip on Azura, driving the sword down at Valin's face.

He met Mithra instead.

Valin knocked Simon's blade aside, suddenly moving equally fast. His face, beneath the dark chains, was both stunned and furious.

"How are you*" he began, but Simon wasn't about to let him finish.

Simon focused the Nye power through his mask and moved even faster, slamming the hilt of his blade into Valin's forehead, then ducking underneath the Incarnation's still-floating body and driving his blade upward.

Duck! Caela called, and Simon obeyed instantly, dropping almost p.r.o.ne as Mithra's edge pa.s.sed through where his head used to be.

Valin twisted in midair, his momentum still making him float. But now he was apparently drawing on enough Nye essence to speed him up to Simon's level, because he launched a series of midair attacks that Simon only blocked with Caela's help.

Then it was Simon's turn to attack, and he slammed Azura into Valin's blade with such force that Valin was blasted forward.

Simon loosened his grip on the Nye essence to watch the event at something approaching normal speed. The Valinhall Incarnation hurtled through the air at blistering speed, his pa.s.sage tearing the air apart behind him. He ended by cras.h.i.+ng into the trunk of a tree almost a hundred paces away, shattering its trunk.

The top half of the tree toppled to the ground.

That went better than I expected, Simon noted.

No time for that! Move, now!

Tightening his focus on the Nye's cold breath, and building up another surge of steel, Simon dashed off after the Incarnation.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:.

THE END OF A DRAGON.

Alin was glad he'd worn the armor.

It was heavy, hot, and absolutely no good if he wanted to sneak up on anyone, but he felt as though it had made the difference confronting the Grandmasters. Grandmaster Avernus had been most apologetic when she realized that Alin had been left out of the decision-making process, and had seemed happy to include Alin from then on. In fact, when she had received a message from Overlord Lysander telling them that the time for their strike had come, Alin was among the first to know.

Along with Gilad, Grandmaster Naraka, and about a dozen other Travelers of various stripes, Alin followed Grandmaster Avernus through the t.i.tanic forests of her Territory. The trees were so vast that he could scarcely believe they were trees at all, the lowest branches seeming a mountain's height above them.

He barely went five seconds without seeing a bird of one kind or another: sparrows chittered as they flew through the air, projecting their happiness directly into his mind; eagles soared overhead, their calls causing half the Travelers to look around for danger; tiny, two-legged birds with stumpy wings squawked as they scampered through the underbrush. The entire forest seemed alive, and practically every living thing Alin saw had feathers.

Grandmaster Avernus, after an hour or two of conversing with the owl she had on one shoulder and the raven on the other, finally managed to pinpoint exactly where they were supposed to come out.

Once she did, she turned to address the group.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I trust you all to know your roles, but I would like to describe the situation. We will find ourselves just outside the Damascan camp, slightly south of our city. Our comrades are risking their lives to keep as many Travelers distracted as possible, so we should have little difficulty locating Heir Talos at his rendezvous point, which I will indicate. We are to proceed to that point and enter the Gate to Ragnarus as soon as possible, without waiting to engage any enemy force that does not directly threaten us."

She paused, primly adjusting her clothes, as if to give them time to ask questions. No one did.

"Very well, then," she said. She pulled something out of her pocket that Alin couldn't see, and suddenly a white-bordered Gate swirled open over the forest floor.

The sound was what Alin noticed first. It sounded like two thunderstorms. .h.i.tting each other with clubs the size of mountains. He resisted the urge to clap his hands over his ears, though Gilad did so. Grandmaster Naraka frowned at him, seemingly unconcerned by the noise.

On the other side of the Gate was a sea of white tents on a huge rocky plateau. He could see patches of gra.s.s here and there peeking out among the tents, but the vision was spoiled somewhat when the tents were on fire, and crawling with monsters.