Liberated, p.1
Liberated, page 1
part #3 of Master of All Series
Liberated
Master of All Book 3
Simon Archer
1
“So, to sum up all of our extensive knowledge after a week of searching for answers,” I said to the council, “we know close to jack-diddly squat.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose in frustration. All the leaders from the local clans, including the draconians, kobolds, and dwarves, had gathered in one tent, and none of us could even begin to find a solution as to what to do about the giant red wall of evil that surrounded the northern country of Morkanna like the world’s nastiest jar of Tupperware.
“Well, it’s big,” Thorton, the grey-bearded, barrel-shaped mayor of Hillrock and de facto leader of the dwarves, chimed in with his simple way of speaking. “And it’s red.”
“Thank you, Thorton, for your insightful commentary.” I sighed as I placed my hands upon the map on the table in the center of all of us. He had been equally helpful throughout the meeting.
“We know that things can pass through it,” Voe, a tiny lizard-looking woman and the kobold’s elected representative, added in to try to lift the mood with her equally tiny voice. “It’s not some kind of wall protecting them.”
“That’s especially concerning,” I responded. “If it’s not protecting them from us conventionally, then it’s doing something else entirely. Something deadly.”
“Perhaps it’s a bluff,” Karkaros, giant scaled beast of a man and Great Dragon of the draconians, pointed out with his thunderous and slow speech. “With his hold on his conquered lands slipping, he may be getting desperate. So, he puts up a shroud and keeps us all too scared to act upon it while he prepares an ambush behind it.”
“That’s a lot of effort put into an illusion,” I countered. “If objects can pass through it, the wall has to be made of some kind of energy, which needs to be maintained. There are much easier ways to go about tricking us. Khaba wouldn’t go through all the trouble unless it was doing something else besides covering his whole country. Plus, I’m not going to sacrifice anyone I don’t absolutely have to in order to call his bluff. Even if it’s just a wall, he could have an army behind it as we speak.”
“Unfortunately, the moment I sent one of my drones through, my contact and control of it ceased immediately,” Baroness Solanna LXVII, leader of the bumblebee-like anthophilans, explained. Her species lived in a hierarchical hive mind, from the nearly mindless drones to the magically powerful and intelligent royals. “I sent a second with a stout rope tied about it, and when we pulled it back, there was nothing left, the rope itself cleanly cut.”
“Then we can’t waste any more lives on that,” I mused before directing everyone’s attention to the map. “We’re positioned at the only viable opening in the stone plateaus that an army could pass through. If Khaba wants to move any of his troops out of Morkanna, it’ll be through this passage, and if they can see out of the wall, we don’t want them to know that we don’t know anything. They could take the opportunity to launch their attack earlier than we’re prepared for, especially since we’re still waiting for the Kauldan reinforcements.”
“Perhaps your sphinx can help?” Voe said, hope springing up in her voice. “She has that magic library in her head, right?”
“The Khalati Record, and that’s a dead-end, too,” I reported regretfully. “Amalthea’s been checking all week for some reference to a giant red wall, but it turns out this might be the first time this has happened. Or, if it happened before, no one wrote anything down about it. The closest we got was a force field spell that covered a castle, but that was distinctly blue. Even if it is the same spell, whatever modification turned it red isn’t written down anywhere.”
“You’re telling me that no one’s mentioned something like this in all the written works in the world?” the Baroness said, hardly believing the thought. “Not even a passage or a poem?”
“Without a lot to go on besides big red wall, it’s hard to find anything definitive.” I took my hands off the table. “You may be right. We have to get some intel on this fast. It’ll have to be discreet, to avoid tipping our hand and starting a fight we can’t win.”
“Wait, is somebody going in there?” Thorton said frantically. “It ain’t going to be one of my people, no sir. That wall is evil. It took some convincing to get them here to armor up the soldiers, but a death field trek is a dealbreaker.”
“If it must be done, I will go,” Karkaros said, already stepping towards the exit to the tent. “I’ll take a group of my Magma Guard with me.”
“Hold up, there, big guy.” I stepped between Karkaros and the exit. Even at my six-foot height, I’d have to stand at least a young teen on my head to reach the Great Dragon’s height. We had to make the tent twice as tall as normal just to fit him. Even so, he stopped in his tracks. “First off, we need a little subtlety, and that is not your forte. Second, we’re not throwing some of our best soldiers into a place we know nothing about. You could be walking to your death.”
“It would be better than waiting for death to find us,” he rumbled as he settled back to his original position.
“We won’t be waiting,” I assured him. “I’ll be going. I have the best chance of making it out of whatever Khaba has behind that wall.”
“That’s ridiculous!” the Baroness blurted out before quickly regaining her composure. “You’re more important than any soldier. We need you here to organize the war effort.”
“You’ve saved all of us from the Black Runes, William Tyler,” Voe said as she stepped forward. “If you’re not here, who will save us then?”
“At the very least, we need a Brandwielder to fight Khaba,” Karkaros said. “If they were to attack without you here, we would have little chance of winning this battle.”
“But without a shred of information, we have no chance of winning,” I pointed out astutely. “I’m the only one who has protection against whatever dark magic the wall could be.” With a quick breath out, my golden aura flared around me, and strands of bright lights twisted around my arms and legs. I had been practicing using my divine energy most nights after my fight with Officium. Now that I had a better connection to it, I’d found it also made for a good parlor trick. As quickly as the aura swirled to life, it faded as I dropped focus off it. “This needs to be done now. We’ve waited long enough.”
“Can we still tie a rope around you?” Thorton said. “You know, just in case. You can tug on it if something goes wrong.”
“Sure, Thorton,” I said. Despite his simple, strange, and frankly unhelpful nature, he did care about this.
“I will prepare my troops to fortify the forward position,” Karkaros announced, heading out the tent entrance. “We must be prepared for whatever happens to William.”
“I’ve already begun preparing a contingent of my drones there,” the Baroness added. “You can help them out if you like.”
“Should you not be in the Marches, locked up in your Solspire?” The giant draconian glared at the yellow-skinned Baroness. Even after agreeing to come together in this time of need, bitter grudges from old wars still lingered.
“Why would I need to do that?” the Baroness said, “My drones are my eyes, ears, and hands wherever they are. I’ll know if something is happening at the Solspire as soon as it does. Besides, it’d be a waste for me not to be here, focusing on fighting the greater evil.”
Karkaros grunted as he exited the tent. Thorton and Voe followed shortly afterward, no pun intended, as the tent quickly emptied.
“Is there a specific reason that the draconians are here, William?” The Baroness caressed my arm. “We don’t need those brutes to fight Khaba. I have more than enough drones to fill the ranks.”
“They helped me save your life, for starters,” I told her. “You would still be mindlessly biting the end of a cursed Brand if it weren’t for their help. Secondly, we need every soldier we can get. Please, play nice. For me.”
“Oh, alright.” The Baroness kissed me on the cheek. “Age-old grudges can be put aside for the sake of saving the world, right?”
“I would certainly hope so, or we’re more screwed than we thought.”
The Baroness chuckled at my attempt at humor as I led her out the tent into the hot sun.
Though we weren’t technically in the Morkanna desert, we were certainly close enough for it to be a goddamn scorcher. Wisps of dead grass tickled our shins as we walked through the little tent town the soldiers had made. Our camp was set up on the bordering edge between the Marches of Solanna and Morkanna, blocking off the chasm between the ring-shaped set of plateaus that surrounded the desert. The red wall had covered parts of the plateaus, even reaching towards the northern mountains of the Marches. Behind us, roaming green fields stretched far beyond the horizon.
“Are you sure about this, William?” Libritas whispered in my mind as she hung on my belt. “Khaba is cruel when he feels safe. He’ll be even more so now that we’ve cornered him. This wall will be a manifestation of that cruelty.”
“He hasn’t been able to keep me down, yet,” I sent back to the Brand of Freedom. “This wall is the last desperate act of a dying man. The sooner we can strike him down, the better.”
The Baroness and I walked deeper into camp, where drones stood at almost every tent, standing watch. Above us, red draconian soldiers clad in black armor flew, sparring with one another in aerial combat as the clanking of their weapons filled the air. We walked over to Sir Reginald Thorpe, my British and knightly mentor, in his own sparring session with one of the draconian soldiers, a tall and
“Oh, William!” Reggie said as he pulled his sword back from the draconian’s neck. “What news? Are we storming the wall or not?”
“Not us, just me,” I said as I patted Reggie’s back in celebration of his victory. The draconian unsheathed his blade from the ground and took off to the sky to find another sparring partner. “It’ll be just a little reconnaissance. I’ll be in and out before anyone notices I’m gone.”
“Gone where?” Petra, my powerful dryad, walked up from behind me. “Are we going into the wall?”
“You are not going anywhere,” I corrected as I turned to her. “I am just gathering some intel, so we have something to work with.” I was feeling a serious case of deja vu from having to explain all this again.
“By yourself?” Petra grabbed me by the shoulders. “Into the scary red wall of doom?”
“You could turn to jelly!” Reggie exclaimed in the middle of the camp. “Or dust! Or a spongecake, for all we know! Nothing’s come back from inside it, my boy.”
“Solanna’s drones disappear on the other side, that’s true, but the fact of the matter is that we need to know more,” I explained. “Somebody has got to go in there, and I’ve got the best chance of surviving.”
“He seems set upon it, my dear,” the Baroness said to Petra. “I wouldn’t waste the energy attempting to deter him.”
“I will deter however much I feel I need to, Your Ladyship,” Petra said, whipped up by the thought of me turning to jelly, dust, or a spongecake. “We’re going with you, and that’s final.”
“Be rational about this, Petra,” I said to her, holding her face in my hands. “If the field is dangerous, we need someone who’s protected, and if it isn’t, we need someone who can move quietly and observe. Even if I’m not the only one who fits the bill for the second one, I definitely am for the first. Once I’ve determined that it’s safe, we’ll all go in together, okay?”
“Where are we going?” Shikun, my draconian warrior woman, swooped down from her sparring victory to join the conversation at just the wrong time. “Are we going beyond the wall now?”
Jesus, I’d have to explain this at least a couple more times, wouldn’t I?
“I’m the only one who’s going,” I reiterated for her. “We need info, I’m getting it, I can survive whatever’s inside, end of discussion.”
“Alone?” Shikun almost scoffed at the idea. “What kind of plan is that? If you get caught or surrounded, no one would be able to find you.”
“I’ll try to stay connected using the Khalati Record,” I assured her. “And Thorton wants me tied to a rope. I will be more than safe.”
“You’ll be far from safe, dear champion,” the Baroness pointed out, “but you’ll be as prepared as we deem necessary.”
“We’re setting a time limit,” Petra added. “No more than fifteen minutes, then we pull you back out. No questions asked.”
“Capital idea!” Reggie said in approval. “Shan’t be letting those Black Runes getting a scrap of you.”
“I still don’t like it,” Shikun said, her hands on her scaly hips as she shook her head. “We don’t know enough about it. This could all be a trap.”
“No one’s saying anything I haven’t already considered,” I said with a shrug. “We need this. It’ll be quick, and we’ll have more information to move forward, and a definitive answer for how we can storm Morkanna.”
“We’re storming Morkanna now?” Amalthea, my knowledgeable sphinx, stepped into the conversation from one of the tents. “Shouldn’t we learn more about Khaba’s barrier first?”
If I had to explain this to every person in this camp…
“William thinks it’s a good idea to jump through the wall himself and find out more,” Petra said with more than a little sarcasm.
“With the proper precautions, that would be supremely beneficial to our cause,” Amalthea reasoned. Thank God for that wonderful big brain of hers! “The information we gather could give us the guidance we need to move forward.”
“Malthy, how could you not be worried about this?!” Petra raised her voice indignantly. “William could die!”
“Oh, I’m absolutely terrified at the prospect,” Amalthea said with a stone-cold expression. “I’ll be spending the entire time he’s inside gnawing on a chunk of wood to calm my nerves. But, regardless, we need the information, so those feelings will have to be pushed to the side while we try to win this war.”
“I don’t know if I’m impressed or terrified that you can suppress your emotions like that, Malthy.” Shikun looked at her and backed away a couple of steps.
“It’s a talent developed by expectation, my dear,” the Baroness explained on Amalthea’s behalf. “When your actions are closely observed by others, you learn to hide your true intentions in order to survive.”
“So, we’re all in agreement?” I said to the group. “I’m going in, alone, with a couple different safety nets and only for a short time.”
“I wouldn’t say ‘agreement,’” the Baroness clarified, “but we are willing to allow you to proceed with your plan in light of the circumstances.”
“That’s all I ask.” I pecked each of my girls on the cheek in gratitude for their understanding.
“I’ll have to pass, dear boy,” Reggie said with a grin. “Not that I don’t like you, but I think we should just stay friends.” I playfully jabbed him in the shoulder as we moved to put our plan into action.
2
The group of us moved to the plateau left of the chasm, out of the line of sight with the wall. The setup for my excursion was elaborate, but not because I wanted it to be. The other leaders had gathered to help out however they could, leading to one of the most prominent examples of ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ I had ever witnessed. While most of them agreed on the basics of the plan, the particulars were in constant flux and debate.
For example, the rope. Everyone agreed that I needed to be roped down so I could be pulled out at a moment’s notice. The knot to be used in securing the rope, however, was clearly an important issue with multiple viewpoints as to the most effective one to implement in this specific scenario.
“A Kauldan slipknot would be most effective in making him secure,” Shikun reasoned as she tied one out of the ropes laid at my feet. “It tightens as you pull it so that we won’t lose him in the event we have to pull him out.”
“A harness of knots would hold twice as well,” Reggie said as he measured my chest with his hands and compared it to the lengths of rope he had near him. “It would also ensure we don’t rip off a limb in the process of pulling him out.”
“We don’t have infinite rope, Reggie.” Petra inserted herself into the fray. “I can extend the rope a fair distance with my powers, but we still should conserve what we have. A Treison fist knot provides the least likelihood of coming undone while using the least amount of rope.”
“Why don’t we just clamp down some iron chains to secure him?” Karkaros added, already holding some. I didn’t even question where he got them from. “You can tie any ropes you need to the chains.”
“We’re not looking to crush him if he gets stuck anywhere!” the Baroness cried out incredulously. “If he gets pinched between the links, we’d never know!”
“I can search the Record for any knots or securements that could help us in this instance,” Amalthea said calmly, trying to keep the peace as best she could. “There could be a host of usable knots--”
“The Kauldan slipknot is perfectly fine!” Shikun interrupted, caught up in the heat of debate.
“He needs a harness!” Reggie butted in.
“We’ll use the Treison fist knot!” Petra called out.
“Chains!” Karkaros shouted.
“We want him to return alive!” the Baroness rebutted.
At that point, it was just shouting. Everyone’s voice became indistinguishable, blurring into a cloud of noise. Fists were shaken, gestures were made, a few slurs may have slipped out. Maybe I was disconnected from the emotional side of the whole situation myself, being the test subject in the matter. They were all just worried and lashing out. I almost couldn’t believe how they were acting, though.
