Liberated, p.3
Liberated, page 3
part #3 of Master of All Series
As soon as the flash was gone, the rope finally gave way, throwing us on our backs as we pulled the rope with all our might. A split second later, William flew out of the wall, crashing into my chest as I sat up. He was gasping desperately for air and rolled off me onto his hands and knees, his chest heaving with every deep breath. Puffs of red smoke escaped his mouth as he gathered his remaining strength.
“Are you alright, William?” I said as I put my hand upon him. He was cold, colder than he should be. I could not help but think that maybe he was fighting something dark inside of him, something evil that the shroud surrounding Morkanna hid from us.
He could not hope to answer me before he was tackled by Shikun, his dryad, his sphinx, and the bug woman, all of whom crushed him between them as the last puff of the red smoke escaped his lungs. They refused to let go of him even as he pleaded through grunts for their mercy.
I let out a hearty chuckle at the display of affection.
“Dear God, man!” The older knight, Sir Reginald, ran over to the huddle of William and his girls. “We hadn’t finished preparations for your departure! Never go into a dark abyss of magic again without the proper equipment!”
“I figured we had prepared as much as we could for what was supposed to be a simple ten-minute stroll.” William squeezed out a breath.
“A ten-minute stroll through hell!” Sir Reginald said back to William. “Of all the times to exercise caution, this would be it.”
“I mean, what else could he have done?” the grey-haired dwarf, I believed his name was Thornton, said to the knight. “He had his Brand, his sword, his armor, a rope around him, and a sphinx in his head. Do you have anything he could have added?”
“Well…” the knight said, rather sheepishly. “A boxed lunch could have helped.”
“You know, I am rather hungry,” William agreed. “Perhaps you’re right, Reg. A granola bard and a sandwich would definitely helped.” It was an obvious lie, but at the same time, I realized the point of the gesture was to assuage the old knight. Truly, William was a leader I could learn things from.
“We should have pulled you out as soon as I lost connection to you,” the sphinx said to William as she released her hold on him. “It was foolish of us to wait for you to pull on the rope.”
“We wouldn’t have learned nearly as much, then,” William said as the other women released him as well. His breathing was still rather shallow. “Now, we have a lot more to work with.”
“What happened to you, Will?” the dryad said as she checked William’s face with her hands.
“That’s the first thing I learned inside the wall,” William explained as his cheeks contorted in the dryad’s hands. “There’s a red mist that eats away at your body as soon as you breathe it in. I was only able to withstand it when I had my divine aura around me.”
“So, only you can enter?” Shikun said to him, her lips curled into a frown. “That’s not reassuring.”
“Well, not necessarily,” William continued. “I was able to put my arm inside without any issue. It was only when I breathed in the mist that it started to kill me. We’d just have to make some sort of breathing device to keep the mist out.”
“The trek into Morkanna is long,” the bee-woman said to William. Something about her voice itched at my reflex to breathe fire upon her. “How long could we make such a breathing device last for?”
“Well, given the concept, maybe an hour,” the knight said, making some sort of calculation upon his fingers. “That’s if we just make a tank of air, which I’m sure we could pressurize using some sort of spell around here. Scuba tanks last just as long, and that’s essentially what we would need.” He frowned a bit. “Assuming we could duplicate such an intricate technology with Etrian science. Something that I admit is unlikely.”
“Even if we could, we’d also need to outfit an entire army with them.” William scratched his chin. “We wouldn’t be able to take or keep any territory we conquered unless we had a constant supply of these tanks, which would take a while to develop.”
“I can make portable tanks easy,” the dwarf supplied. “I could make a bunch of them, no problem.”
“Could you pressurize them with enough air?” William said to him. “We’d have to take a couple hundred or so just to get a group of us deeper into the desert, let alone the army. Plus, we have an army of zombies to worry about.”
“You mean there’s a horde of the undead behind the wall?” the bee-woman said. “And they’re completely unaffected by the red mist, I assume. Of course, the leader of the Black Runes couldn’t gain the loyalty of living soldiers, so he has to employ forced labor.”
“This coming from the woman who commands an army of thoughtless drones with her mind?” I said to her, venom in my voice. I could not help myself, the scars of our long wars ran deep. “Still, there must be thousands, William, if there were enough to notice and grab you away from my strength.”
“Aw, did the big bad dragon perform poorly?” the vile bee woman spoke back to me. “It’s okay. It happens to most men.”
I was about to say something else to her, but then William shot a look at both of us, silencing me in my tracks. I felt like I was back in my childhood, being reprimanded by my father. At half my height, William commanded a presence unlike any I had seen. I should have known better than to let my temper overcome me.
“Couldn’t we make some sort of armored carriage or vehicle to deal with the zombies?” the knight said to cut through the silence. “With the dwarves’ powers, we could easily fashion a few spikes to it. And with Karkaros’ strength, he could push it right through the horde like a hot knife through butter.”
“That’d be great if it weren’t for the soldiers,” William explained. “They’re undead, like the zombies, but they aren’t some shambling thing out of a horror movie. They have speed, they fight like highly trained warriors, and they’re armed and armored to match their skill.” William grabbed at his shoulder, rolling it as he massaged it.
They must have some talent to give William such trouble.
“The undead do not have fine motor control,” the sphinx said, her eyes glowing with symbols as she spoke. She must have been accessing that Khalati Record they spoke about. “Every conceptual resurrection spell can’t bestow the semblance of the old life within the body. The spirit is always gone.”
“These ones fought like they knew what they were doing, believe me.” William rolled his neck. “Especially the big one.”
“The big one?” the dryad said to William. “That sounds bad.”
“It very much is,” William said. “It spoke to me, too.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Khaba just speaking through it, somehow?” Shikun said to William. “I’m with Malthy on this one. All the zombies the Weaver was allowed to have when I was under him couldn’t do much more than chew on things and shamble over to something else to chew on.”
“Unless Khaba’s prone to speaking in the third person, I’d say it was speaking of its own will,” William retorted. “Not that I’d put it past the bastard. Even if it’s just a mouthpiece, the big one’s not to be trifled with. It held me back on its own with one hand, and I only broke free by unloading all the divine essence I had left to blow him back.”
I could not believe it. Of all the humiliating things to hear, to find out that one of the few stronger than me was a cadaver working for the Black Runes was almost heartbreaking. Not only was it stronger than me, but it was also dozens of times stronger. If it was an Uplander, a dwarf, an elf, or even one of the bee people, I could revel in challenging it to battle, but this foe was shrouded from me. I couldn’t even look at it in its eyes.
“So, we’d have to fight a giant with immense strength and a battalion of skilled warriors, along with a horde of the undead, all while protecting our tanks of air that only protect us from an excruciating death for an hour.” The knight summed up the predicament. “And that’s just at the front gates. Who knows what else Khaba has deeper inside?”
“To be fair, only you guys would have to protect your tanks.” William pointed out. “I wouldn’t have to worry about one and could spend my energies protecting…” His voice trailed off.
“Um,” the dryad spoke up, “You were saying something, Will?”
But he did not respond. Instead, his face seemed to light up for a moment.
“What is it, my boy?” The knight walked up to William. “Speak up, let us know you’re alright. All of this ridiculousness is bad for the ticker, you know!”
“Libritas has a better plan,” William finally said. “I’ll have to take some time to prepare it, but we should be able to bring my team inside without much hassle, and we’d wouldn’t have a time limit.”
“Do you have another miracle for us, William?” I asked.
William’s victory over Tharnox was a miracle, to be sure, and apparently only one of many that William had managed to bring about in his time in Etria.
“You could call it that, yes,” William said as he walked towards the war camp. “We should prepare some tanks in the meantime while you guys have to wait for us to deactivate the wall.”
“Wait, you’re going all the way to the center?” the bee woman said as the rest of us followed William. Even I had to admit a similar concern for the hero and his women. Shikun is a great warrior, to be sure, and the sphinx and dryad should not be taken lightly, but numbers can overwhelm the greatest warrior. We would have no way of knowing their status while they were inside. “I wish to come along as well. You’ll need as many warriors as you can get. I may not look it, but I am quite the fighter. I gave you a run for your money even when I was completely out of my mind.”
“You can’t come, Baroness.” William grabbed the bee woman by the waist. Shame. I would have enjoyed the peace of her absence. “My connection to the Khalati Record was cut off as soon as I entered the wall, same as what happened to your drones.”
The bee woman became frantic as her emotions get the better of her. “Surely, there would be some spell in the Solspire’s libraries that could help protect us from this evil magic?”
“Do you happen to have one ready?” the dryad asked her.
“No!” The yellow-skinned woman said in defeat. “Can’t we wait until we’ve found one, though?”
“I’ve thoroughly searched the Khalati Record for just such a ward,” the sphinx submitted, stepping over the ropes of one of the outer tents of the camp, “and found nothing safe. Every ward must be tailored to what it is supposed. We would need time to invent one for this field, and even more to implement for the numbers we seek to cloak in it.”
“The longer we wait, the more time we give Khaba to come up with a plan if he hasn’t already put one into motion,” William spoke. “If you manage to find something, you can come in after us, but we’ll be heading inside to turn it off. It’ll be the fastest way to deal with it.”
“Do not fear. We’ll make sure that William is safe.” The Ghostwing walked up to assure the bee woman, weaving around a rope as she did so. “We are going, right? Me, specifically?”
“Yes, you’re coming,” William told her. “I have just enough energy for my group. We’ll head out as soon as I can drum it up.”
“Can you do that?” the dryad asked William, perhaps with a little disbelief.
“Apparently, yes.” William nodded reassuringly. “At least, Libritas thinks so. I just have to unlock the ability, so to speak, as well as rest to regain the energy I expended in there.”
“Won’t your strength drain at a much faster rate in the act of protecting all of us than just you?” The knight’s words were filled with almost fatherly concern. “You barely lasted half a minute before you were coughing up red mist.”
“That’s because I had to expend the energy to increase my strength,” William explained. “Calling upon my Divinity Form for just a second can get out of tight jams that my regular strength couldn’t. If I keep flowing the energy into my muscles, or using it to float, or destroy things, or whatever, the energy burns up quickly. The aura I used to protect myself didn’t take up any energy to keep once I summoned it. That big soldier was a tough one, though, and took up the rest of what I had to get away.”
“You should hurry,” I urged William as I side-stepped a tiny dwarf walking past me. “Khaba’s strength can only grow the longer he remains untouched in his self-made cage.”
“Yeah, something is bothering me about it,” William mused as we entered further into the camp. “If he had this special ‘screw you, living things’ wall in his back pocket the whole time, why wait until now to use it? Why not have it up all the time?”
“Maybe it requires too much energy to keep up, like your angelic strength?” the dryad conjectured.
“Perhaps it is his failsafe against all the odds,” the sphinx added. “His way of making sure that no one, not even his subservient Black Runes in the countryside, would be able to reach him if he ever found himself in a position of weakness, like now.”
“Maybe,” William said, shaking off their suggestions. He obviously was not satisfied with those answers. “Something still doesn’t sit right with me. This whole conquest thing just seems so… aimless.”
“You’re questioning a madman’s reasons for taking over the world?” The old knight’s words held an air of sarcasm. “He’s hungry for power, like all crazy dictators, especially ones that don’t have to worry about food or water if he truly is undead.”
“Do you think he’s up to something more?” Shikun said, grabbing onto William’s arm. “What else could he possibly want besides, well, all of Etria?”
“I don’t know, but my gut tells me he’s still trying for something,” William said with a fire in his eyes. “Khaba doesn’t strike me as someone who sits in a corner and waits for death. This wall is involved in it somehow. I can feel it.”
“We’ll keep our eyes open, William,” I pledged. “Any darkness Khaba plans to bring upon us won’t catch us by surprise.”
Just at that moment, one of my Magma Guard soldiers, as powerfully built as any draconian, came to me from the direction of the dark wall. He bowed on one knee as he called my attention, as is customary.
“Great Dragon, the scouts have reported ill news,” the guardsman addressed me. “It appears that the barrier’s reach has increased since we first began keeping tabs on it a week ago. As of now, it's four claws’ distance.”
“Claws?” William asked, our people’s units of measurement a completely foreign entity to him.
“It is typically described as the length of a fully grown dragon’s claw,” I explained to the Uplander. “It would be a little less than the distance between the plateaus in this chasm.”
“Oh, shit, that’s like twenty yards,” William said with a tinge of worry.
“Or eighteen meters, you bloody Yank,” the old knight said with a sense of disgust I didn’t quite understand.
“So, you say that it’s increased this distance since the wall first appeared?” I asked the Guardsman.
“Yes, Great Dragon,” he respectfully answered. “What’s more, the rate of its increasing radius also seems to be increasing. Four days ago, it had gained ground by a couple of hands. Last night to this morning, it grew by a tooth.”
“Dragon’s tooth, I imagine?” William clarified.
“Indeed, William Tyler,” the Guardsman said to him.
“So that’s his game,” William said, a look of satisfaction on his face for a moment before it turned to dark realization. “He wants to coat all of Etria in this Miasma. We forced him to start early, so it could only cover his desert.”
“If we left this alone, everyone would die,” the dryad said, her chestnut brown skin paling at the prospect. “No trees, no birds, no flowers. It’d be a world of death.”
“More tactically urgent, it’ll force our camp to move, and we’ll lose our chokepoint here,” William pointed out as he headed into the war camp we had just arrived at. “We’ll have to deactivate the wall before the zombie army can move about freely in the plains. I’m not taking the chance that the zombies need the wall to stay animated.”
“William must meditate, people!” The knight ran in front of William, waving his arms in front of him in a swimming pattern of sorts. “Make way, William’s got some chanting and humming to do to save the world.” He pushed two dwarves, a draconian, and a bug soldier away from William’s path as they walked towards the host of tents. “Move out, step aside, pick a lane, hero coming through.”
William had none of the urgency that the knight exhibited as he casually walked through the crowd. Then the old knight ran into one of the tents. In only a moment, the knight had a dwarf by the collar of his shirt, forcefully leading him out of his own temporary abode.
“We’re commandeering this tent for hero business,” the knight told the dwarf who didn’t seem to understand why he was evicted by this tall, elderly man. Before William could object, he was being pushed in by the knight so he could complete his meditation.
“Does the knight realize that William has his own tent?” I whispered over to Shikun beside me. “A better tent than that one?”
“He’s very easily excitable,” she whispered back to me. “It’s best to let him finish, as long as he isn’t hurting anyone.”
“That dwarf would contest the ‘hurting anyone’ clause,” the bug woman pointed out as we witnessed his dejected walk away.
“Yeah, what the hells?” the grey-haired dwarf leader said, his hands up in defiant bewilderment. “That was his tent!”
“Perhaps he could be in William’s tent for the time being?” the sphinx offered. “He won’t be using it.”
The evicted dwarf perked up at the sphinx’s suggestion. He ran over towards the large tent, clicking his heels with glee.
4
“Are you all settled in?” Reggie said as he put his hand on my shoulder. I had a fluffed pillow under my butt, a blanket on my lap, and somehow, by the power of his Britishness alone, a hot cup of tea in my hand. I could only assume that these were all the items from the previous tenant who we just kicked out of his own place. At no point did I ask for these things, by the way. My own tent was much more equipped to relax me as I prepared to meditate, but Reggie seemed insistent upon this one, god knows why.
