The Book of Deacon: Book 03 - The Battle of Verril (26 page)

“Congratulations . . . “ came Bagu's voice
from the darkness, saturated with hatred. “You've earned the third
option.”

Dozens of nearmen bearing lanterns and
torches flooded the room, finally shedding light on the
destruction. A large portion of the wall behind the crystal had
been obliterated, and of the other three crystals only one was
still intact. Bagu himself was oozing black blood from a dozen
wounds torn by pieces of crystal. Half of his face was an
unrecognizable mass of ruined flesh. With his free hand he bashed
at the bars. Despite a build that seemed at best average, Bagu's
attack was enough to rend the metal bars from ceiling and floor
alike. As the nearmen clambered to undo the shackles, he barked
orders at them.

“Make the necessary preparations. Tonight
there shall be a show,” he growled.

With that he placed a hand on Myranda's head,
his will driving the young wizard back into unconsciousness. When
she awakened she was falling through the air, deafening cheers in
her ears. She landed painfully on the dusty ground, her twisted
joints, skewered arm, and perforated skin all making their presence
known once more. After struggling to her feet, Myranda's blurred
vision began to clear. She was in the middle of a large, dirt
covered field. A high stone wall surrounded her. There were doors
large enough to pass a carriage through with room to spare at
opposite ends of the courtyard. At the top of the wall were
downward pointing spikes. Beyond them was row after row of
soldiers, weapons in their hands and murder in their eyes. Those
nearest to the wall were in full armor, faces hidden behind the
face guards. No doubt they were nearmen. Here and there, slung
between spikes, was a large example of the storage crystals.

The wizard must have spent some time away
from the parasitic gems, as a fair amount of her strength had
returned to her. Quickly as she could, to avoid feeding the thirst
of the crystals for any longer that was necessary, she healed the
more grievous of her wounds. The white cloak she had worn was
missing, leaving her only with her thin, hardly adequate tunic.
Around one wrist was a shackle, its lock apparently twisted beyond
opening by the blast that had earned her this fate. A short length
of chain hung from it. An icy wind blew as the setting sun heralded
the beginning of a long, cold night. The breeze chilled her, but
what chilled her more were the deep furrows and crimson stains that
littered the courtyard. There was little question what this place
was, and even less question as to why she'd been brought here.

“Myranda Celeste!” came a booming voice from
high in the stands surrounding the arena.

Her eyes shifted to the source, though the
voice was unmistakable. General Bagu stood upon a balcony isolated
from the crowd. Half of his face was a mass of black scars, a
smooth black orb where his right eye should be. For a moment,
Myranda questioned why he'd not healed himself. Could it be that
they were especially vulnerable to their own magic? His thundering
voice shattered her thoughts.

“You have been judged guilty of the crime of
treason. You have fought against the soldiers of your homeland, and
you are responsible for the deaths of two of the Generals of the
great Northern Alliance,” he proclaimed, the crowd screaming for
blood. “The penalty is death. However, though we value justice, we
value strength still higher. You shall be subjected to trial by
battle. If you prove yourself greater than any challenge we can put
before you, you shall be allowed to live. Do you have anything to
say before the trial begins?”

Myranda's eyes swept over the crowd. The hate
they felt for her was palpable. She looked again to Bagu. To one
side was Demont, a somewhat impatient look upon his face. Her own
father, still clutching the halberd that inflicted Epidime upon
him, stood to the other side.

“I have committed no treason. To commit
treason, one must injure one's own nation, and I have none. The
Northern Alliance is an army, and nothing more. A means to prolong
a war. If I must die for resisting that, then so be it,” she
replied.

“So be it indeed. Let the trial begin!” Bagu
decreed.

The doors at one end of the arena were thrown
wide and a pair of the beasts Myranda had faced when she first
encountered Bagu were released into the arena. Vast, gray
approximations of wolves with stiff, stony hides covered in
needle-sharp rocky spines, the beasts circled around her. Myranda
looked quickly about. There was nothing. Not a weapon. Not a piece
of cover. Magic was her only recourse.

She rushed to the wall, as far between the
crystals as she could manage. Gathering her mind, she waited as the
beasts circled together and charged at her. In a swift, monumental
thrust of her mind, she wrenched one of the creatures into the air,
one of Deacon's tricks. The heavy creature's momentum carried it
into the wall behind her with a sickening crack. There was a rain
of the spines that protruded from the creature's back as the beast
dropped to the ground to struggle a few last times. After a final
twitch, the beast crumbled into a pile of spikes and stones.
Myranda attempted to repeat the attack on the other creature. She
managed to get it off of the ground, but the draw of the crystals
robbed the spell of the strength it needed, sending the beast
tumbling to the ground.

Myranda tried to gather herself for another
attack, but the crystals drank everything she had before it could
be put to purpose. It was as though the gems were able to attune
themselves to her magic, something that they had never done before.
There was no time for her to ponder this new discovery, however, as
the creature had rolled to a stop and was struggling to get back to
its feet. Running was useless, as it would quickly overtake her.
With no other options, she ran toward the beast. Just as it got to
its feet, Myranda jumped to the creature's neck, slashing one of
her legs on one of the few spikes that was intact after the tumble.
She whipped the chain dangling from her wrist over the creature's
neck and pulled it taught.

The wolf bucked, tossing her about like a rag
doll, but Myranda held firm. Alas, while it could not throw her
from its back, neither did the chain do even the slightest damage.
Desperate, and knowing that if she were thrown free it would be the
end of her, Myranda raised her hand and summoned a bolt of black
magic. The bluish black ball of crackling energy struck the beast
on the head, bringing a sudden and complete end to its rampage. As
it slid to a halt, Myranda dismounted. The lingering aftermath of
the attack was quickly drawn into the nearest crystal. Already it
had taken on a discernible glow, and the others were not far
behind. Myranda shook with anger. It was brilliant, in a terrible,
sinister way. They had found a way to turn any outcome to their
favor. If she fought, they would have her strength. If she didn't,
they would have her life. As the doors began to creak open again,
Myranda thought feverishly. There had to be a way out of this.

In the balcony, her tormentors looked on.

“I'm genuinely concerned about the selections
you've made,” Demont warned.

“I don't know. The spiked wolf has always
been a favorite of mine,” Epidime remarked.

“They are meant to be beasts of burden. The
spines are defensive,” Demont countered.

“It is not my intention to kill the girl
quickly. We need to wring her out first,” Bagu assured him. “When I
feel she's given all that she is worth, then we shall end it.”

“I don't see why we don't just kill her.
Revision IV alone will satisfy our needs in just a few weeks more.
We could kill this one, and the rest, and still be assured
victory,” Demont objected. “But instead, you would prefer to waste
several of my best creations.”

Bagu turned to Demont. His scarred face bore
a disquietingly collected expression, though the gleam in his eye
screamed in rage.

“You've got a thing or two to learn about
leadership. Disobedience must be dealt with quickly, harshly, and
visibly,” he said. “This world will shortly be ours. I intend to
show its people what becomes of traitors.”

The ground rumbled faintly. A line of churned
up earth traced its way slowly over the arena's floor. Easily a
dozen more followed. Myranda knew the sight well. The worms that
had protected Demont's fort. She held perfectly still. Last time
they only attacked when something shook the earth, even something
as light as a footstep. As the beasts wove intricate patterns along
the ground, the riotous crowd quickly drew their attention. The
creatures scattered, colliding with the stone wall, that it would
seem continued well beneath the arena floor, and surfacing. They
were as grotesque as she had remembered them. Horrid overlapping
plates of gray leathery hide with a blossom of snapping jaws at one
end and a rapier tail on the other. They writhed briefly against
the wall before plunging themselves into the earth as easily as if
it were a pool of water.

Myranda held perfectly still, scouring at her
mind for some semblance of a plan. They traced quick, ambling
paths, crisscrossing the courtyard. The scraps of information were
gathered together in her mind. Her spells would work, but only
briefly, and at great expense. She would never be able to hold a
spell of levitation long enough to clear the wall. Her eyes turned
to the wall. It looked ancient, mortar and stone weathered to a
smooth finish. Nothing even hinting at a finger hold. There would
be no climbing it. What else was there?

As the random twisting paths drew ever
nearer, her eyes darted urgently, dancing from wall to roaring
crowd to churning earth to shattered spikes of fallen stone wolves
. . . the spikes. A desperate, foolish, incomplete plan came
together in her mind. She held out a hand and conjured a quick
tremor on the far side of the arena. Instantly the tunneling worms
carved arrow-straight lines toward it. The ravenous crystals wasted
no time drawing away the spell. The beasts reached their target and
whipped themselves into a frenzy, churning the earth below the
tremor into a rolling boil. The young wizard had taken barely a
dozen ginger steps toward the remains of the wolves when the last
of the spell was wicked away and the first of the worms turned to
her.

With just a few more steps and no chance of
another tremor to distract them, Myranda had no choice but to run.
Some of the worms burst spindly legs from their sides, others dove
below the surface and surged forward, but all rushed toward the
girl amid a deafening roar of approval from the crowd. Myranda
scooped up a pair of the spikes and threw herself at the wall. The
stony tips bit into the mortar of the wall and held tenuously. With
terror-fueled strength Myranda hoisted her feet from the ground.
The worms burst from the ground beneath her. They snapped with jaws
strong enough to cleave stone and jabbed with sharp tongues. The
ground below her was a cauldron of razor edges and needle
points.

Myranda took a shaky hand from one spike to
change her grip. As she did, the other twisted and drooped
threateningly. She pulled herself higher, pushing down on the one
well planted spike and scrambling with her feet. Just above her was
the point of impact that had cost the first wolf its life. A few
spines had been driven deep into the stone of the wall. She whipped
her hand up, yanking along the jangling chain that still hung from
it, and closed her fingers around the nearest one. The cries for
blood grew louder as she pulled herself further out of the reach of
the creatures. Above her, soldiers left their seats to peer down at
the object of their hatred that infuriatingly refused to die.
Humans spat at her, screaming incoherent profanities. Nearmen gazed
with unthinking eyes hidden behind crude helmets, handcrafted
instincts drifting to the surface of their minds.

The hero caught hold of another spike and
held the shackled hand low, eying the downward pointing barbs that
lined the top of the wall. With measured precision, she swung the
full length of the shackle’s chain up. A handful of links tangled
themselves in a barb, but the probing hands of the spectators
struggled to dislodge it. The cocktail of custom tailored thoughts
that served as a mind for the one nearman finally coaxed it into
action. The mindless creation climbed on the barbed wall and drew a
sword as those around it cheered in approval.

The weapon came down, chipping away the barb
that held Myranda's chain. He then looked down upon his target. The
chunk of stone he broke free fell to the ground, driving the worms
to new heights of frenzy. Their chaotic writhing shook the very
wall. Myranda's grip barely held. The nearman's footing did not. As
the helpless creation plummeted to the eager jaws of his fellow
monstrosities, flinging his sword from his hands as he did, Myranda
swung herself to the next spike. It was not nearly so firmly seated
and pulled free from the wall, sending her tumbling to the ground
again to land just a few paces away from the swarming worms.

The beasts were busy tearing apart the
nearman, but not so busy that they did not take notice of this
intriguing new set of vibrations. A pair peeled off from the rest
and skittered with spidery speed toward her. Myranda ran, conjuring
a short-lived flame before them that the beasts swept through
without notice. Her eyes locked on the nearman's sword. It had
speared itself into the ground just past the tangle of worms. The
girl whirled the chain hanging from her wrist and lashed it at the
ground to her left as she skidded to as stop. The worms shifted
their path to the site of the impact and Myranda dove. She landed
behind them and rolled to her feet, not missing a step. The beasts
scratched to a stop and turned to follow, now digging into the
earth.

A creak of metal and a flash of light
signaled the nearman's end, rendering it nothing more than a pile
of twisted armor and pale dust. No longer occupied, the remainder
of the worms turned with great interest to the footfalls of the
girl as she snatched up the sword on her sweep past. Myranda flexed
her mind. If she wanted this spell to be effective, it would have
to be fast, and it would have to be strong. She pulled together
most of what remained of her swiftly fading strength and formed it
into a tight ball of enchantment. The timing had to be perfect. She
reached the opposite wall and turned. All of the creatures were
beneath the earth. She let the spell loose.