Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) (34 page)

Kranor swung the katana in a vicious stroke, but Seb
teleported
again, vanishing and reappearing on the other side of the fiend’s reach. He cracked down on its elbow joint with all he could muster. The staff juddered and flew out of his hand, the pain rippling up his arm. He threw up a shield as Kranor kicked out. Seb smacked into an overturned table, cracking his head on the edge. His staff bounced uselessly away.

Kranor
blurred
before him, katana in hand.

‘Too easy, all too easy.’ He raised his katana. Seb tried to summon the Scripts but his mind still reeled from the impact.

A black blur shot across Seb’s vision. His view changed as something hefted him off the floor at pace. He heard the clang as the sword hit stone, Kranor howling in frustration.

Cade looked down at him.

‘What have I told you about playing big boy’s games?’ the warrior said, a wry smile on his face.

‘Don’t let him touch you, Cade,’ Seb whispered.

‘I know what he is.’

And with that Cade vanished into shadow.

‘I can sense you, half-breed,’ Kranor said, stalking the room, silver eyes darting back and forth, his katana raised into a defensive position. Sylph edged under a table, cradling her arm close to her chest, a wide wound oozing blood onto the floor. Seb began crawling across the floor towards her. Only Cade remained unaccounted for.

‘Perhaps you need some persuasion?’ Kranor
teleported
again, appearing next to Sylph. He gripped her by the collar and hoisted her up, Sylph glaring at him with bloodshot eyes. She lashed out with her one good hand but the dagger just clanged off the daemon’s armour. Kranor raised his blade.

The shadow behind the daemon shimmered. Cade appeared. Kranor struck out, sensing the sudden appearance. Cade ducked, a blur, and came up inside the daemon’s longer grasp. Twin swords, runes ablaze, sliced against the fiend’s jagged armour. Sparks flew, but some found their home, black blood splattering the walls. Kranor howled and shot out his hand, sending Cade somersaulting backwards over a pile of broken benches, landing on his knees by Seb.

‘How are you feeling?’ Cade hissed, not taking his eyes off the fiend as it stomped across the room towards them.

‘Like I’ve just been going one on one with a ten-foot deamon.’

‘Can you fight?’

The Weave was there. Avatari removing the fog from cracking his head. He nodded. ‘I’ll bloody fight this thing.’

‘Okay. Keep your distance, try to get him mad.’

‘Mad? You mean he’s peachy right now?’

Cade scowled. Then he was off.

Seb followed, Weave-energy filling tired legs. He called the Script and Cian’s staff smacked into his hand.

Cade charged from the front. Kranor slashed with the katana at speeds that belied his bulk. Cade parried some, sparks flying, the daemon’s speed supplemented by superior strength. Every parry shocked Cade, sending him staggering backwards.

Seb
blurred
behind Kranor. Sensing his presence, the daemon’s armour suddenly flared with a blue fire that scorched Seb’s skin. He jumped back before launching in with a vicious combination of high and low strikes. Under both onslaughts, Kranor was forced to readjust to allow him to deal with both assailants. He parried and dodged, any attack that slipped through his defences sparking harmlessly off his armour.

They couldn’t beat him.

The thought hit Seb like a sledgehammer. The daemon was too skilled, too powerful. It was fully channelling the Weave, resulting in powers that were immense.

The hesitation cost him. The katana lanced out. Seb jerked, more on instinct than anything. The blade sliced through his cheek and the entire side of his head exploded with fiery pain.

He threw himself down as Kranor
teleported
between them. A lightning jab nearly impaled Cade, who dived out of the way as the katana struck stone, cracking the wall. Cade took advantage, cleaving downwards with a vicious overhand strike. Kranor howled and stomped back.

His armoured hand lay on the floor, black blood pulsing onto the floor.

‘Now, Seb!’

Cade’s shout pushed the dark thoughts from Seb’s mind. They launched as one. Cade from the front, Seb from one side. Sylph joined the fight, her dagger not able to pierce the daemon’s armour but proving another distraction.

Whilst Cade pressed from the front, Kranor struggled to regain his momentum, and Seb aimed his attacks at the joints at the back of the fiend’s legs. The armour wasn’t as layered there, and every few attempts a strike got through, the runed weapon sending a pulse of pain that rocked the daemon.

Perhaps they had a chance.

Kranor was at the wall now, nowhere to run. Cade, his yellow eyes alive with the hunt, pressed on, trying to sneak in the strike that would end the daemon’s life in this realm.

Seb’s
sense
flickered a split second before it happened. A thought, from Kranor, that slipped past the mental shield the daemon maintained.

Just a little closer
.

No!

‘Cade! Hold off!’

But the warrior didn’t hear. Kranor sagged against the wall, one arm hanging uselessly, black blood pooling by his feet. The other battered and rendered, blood seeping through the cracks.

He looked beaten.

Cade leapt. Kranor looked up. His good arm shot up, catching Cade by the throat, halting him mid-jump.

‘Cade!’ Sylph screamed.

Kranor squeezed. Cade’s eyes bulged. Runed swords clattered to the floor.

‘Seb, do something!’

What could he do? He scanned the room. His staff wasn’t making a dent. He didn’t have the physical strength. He needed something sharp, something that could pierce the daemon’s armour.

He looked to the wall. The katana, now lying on the floor surrounded by rock and dust. He
blurred,
appearing by the weapon. He picked it up, the blade was light, almost weightless. He looked back.

He couldn’t do it.

Cade was in the way, thrashing in Kranor’s grasp, his fists batting uselessly against the daemon’s mailed glove.

There was only one other option.

Teleport.

Seb channelled. From somewhere Sylph screamed. Kranor was doing something to Cade. His mouth was open, and a strange, silver cloud of energy was seeping from the daemon’s mouth, vanishing into Cade as if it were some kind of gas.

What the hell was he doing?

‘Seb!’ Sylph screamed.

Now or never.

Seb called the Script. The one that had got him and Caleb to Osgog in the first place. The location? Well, there was only one place he could go if this was going to work.

The Weave came. Seb
teleported.

He appeared directly in front of the giant daemon, in between Kranor and Cade. Kranor dropped Cade instantly, Sylph scurrying over to drag the motionless warrior away. Kranor looked down at Seb, then further down.

At the katana that was hilt-deep in his stomach.

‘No!’ Kranor growled, disbelief growing on his scaled face.

‘Believe it!’ Seb yelled. He twisted the blade. Black blood flowed. The weapon pulsed as if it were feeding on Kranor’s life force.

Kranor roared. He swung the remains of his other arm, surprising Seb, knocking him away, skidding on the floor, crashing into the portal’s stone base.

‘You will die, mageling!’

Kranor staggered forwards. He pulled the sword from his gut, the blood gushing now. Seb backed up against the platform. From somewhere beyond the door there was an almighty bang, then something rocked the doors on their hinges.

Sedaris.

It was over. They had failed.

‘What was it all for? This death? This meaningless death?’

Kranor flipped the blade up, catching the weapon in his good hand. He inverted it, the weapon pointing downwards, towards Seb.

The lunge came. Seb threw all he had, a blast of force that deflected the weapon just an inch, away from his heart, into his shoulder.

Pain exploded from the wound. Seb screamed.

‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ Kranor grinned.

Then Cade was there, barely standing, behind the great daemon. Kranor was unaware, focused on twisting the sword that fed on Seb’s life force, sucking the Weave from him. Cade crawled forwards. One hand pulled him along, the other held one of his runed blades.

Just a few more seconds.

Kranor yanked the blade out. Seb’s blood splattered the daemon’s armour. It squatted down on its knees, the katana drew back, ready for a killing strike.

‘I know you, mageling, do I not?’ Kranor growled.

Seb spat a globule of blood onto the floor. ‘Do I? You seem like all the rest of them to me.’ He leant closer, the blade only an inch from his eyeball. He fixed Kranor in the eyes. ‘Just a bunch of rotting, cancerous parasites that are a plague upon the shards.’

Seb did something then that took more effort that he’d imagined it would.

He smiled.

Kranor frowned in confusion. Then his eyes went wide when he saw the shadow looming behind him.

Too late.

Cade was a blur, one hand up and inside the daemon’s jaw, forcing it up.

His hand. Bare skin clamped on Kranor’s throat

‘Cade, no!’

Cade didn’t listen, even as the toxic magic spread into his hands and up his arm. His other hand came round, sword at the ready. Kranor made to stand but then Sylph was there, jabbing a bladed staff through his knee joint, forcing him back to the floor. Seb stood, using the frame for support. As he watched, Cade inverted the sword, then thrust it into the daemon’s throat. Kranor’s eyes widened, his good hand reaching up but to no avail. Cade twisted and dragged the blade downwards. Blood poured from the gaping wound.  The fiend stood and thrashed his arms. Cade fell, crashing in a heap on the floor, Sylph only just avoiding an armoured foot as it smashed into the ground by her head.

Kranor spun wildly, blood spraying in a wide arc. He clutched his one good hand to his throat but the wound was too big, and black blood just poured out. His movement slowed and he dropped to his knees. He raised his head, looking directly at Seb.

The silver light in Kranor’s eyes faded, turning the familiar sheol black. With one final gasp his arms dropped to his side. The daemon toppled over, crashing through a bench, splitting it in two.

Sylph raced over.

‘Seb, are you okay?’ She pulled at his arm. He rose to one knee, the fire in his shoulder not subsiding.

‘I think so.’ He looked beyond her, towards Cade, who’d now collapsed to his knees, head dipped low. ‘Cade?’

Seb ran over and crouched next to the warrior. Cade’s hands were pressed flat against the stone floor. The blackness where he’d touched Kranor was tainting his skin, but unlike the effect on Seb it didn’t seem to be withering his flesh, instead it was doing something else.

‘Cade?’ Seb gently reached out and touched his friend on the sleeve. Cade’s head snapped towards him, revealing a contorting, twisting mass of scale and human. His yellow eyes were filling with silver threads.  Seb fell back and scrambled away.

‘Holy shit!’ Sylph said, edging away.

‘Get away!’ Cade growled. He hunched over and clutched his arms across his belly. Something rippled down his back, then black, armoured plates burst out of his armour. ‘Leave me!’ he roared.

‘Seb, what’s happening to him?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘What do we do?’

‘We get out of here.’

‘Cade?’

Seb swallowed. He could see what Sylph couldn’t, the warrior’s aura changing, morphing from that of his friend to one that more closely resembled Kranor’s.

This was more than possession.

It was conversion.

‘We leave him.’

Cade rose to one knee. He looked up. Silver eyes glared. A black tongue flicked over fanged teeth.

‘Seb,’ Sylph sobbed quietly.

Seb looked at the portal. It was still open. On the other side of the Manyway the sheol swarm continued to gather, the volume of the horde growing with every second.

He looked at the portal. Then Cade. Then Sylph by his side, weapons ready to use on their former companion.

There was only one option, even though it pained him to even think it.

‘We need to go. Caleb is waiting in the valley.’

‘Caleb?’ Sylph’s eyes widened.

‘Yes, no questions. No time. Just go with him. He’ll take you to the Croft.’

‘What will you do?’

Seb bent down and picked up Kranor’s katana. He looked at Cade.

‘What I need to.’

Sylph only lingered for a second. She liked Cade, but she was a survivor above all else. Her life was based on making snap decisions. This was another one of them. Grief could come later. She made as if to hug Seb, but at the last minute changed her mind. Instead she took hold of his upper arm.