Realm Raiders – Chapter 16, 17, and 18

Chapter Sixteen

Wherein our heroes enter the Sanctum of Chains

Frank Dorrian

Everything was fucked.

Mage-fire exploded across Damon’s screening arm in a rapid staccato wave, spraying chips of marble across the Sanctum of Chains, smoke and dust billowing, stinging Lute’s eyes and driving him back into cover. ‘Fucking ballbags!’

Around the corner of a broken column, eyes watering, Lute glimpsed Damon as he charged through the hail of Mage-fire. Stone limbs grinding, cracked joints trailing rubble and dust, Magi scattered before him. Damon’s fist pounded the sanctum floor, put a crater in it, and sent Magi bodies spinning through the air. Mage-fire bounced from his shoulders, charring white marble, another blow rumbling through Lute’s stomach as he hunkered down behind the column.

Above the melee, behind the flare and smoking trails of hurled Mage-fire, Vouring’s eyes watched, flitting back and forth like a puppet-master’s. Lute shuddered as he felt the thing’s gaze slide across him like a rotten grave shroud.

Fucked, and fucked again.

‘Fuck. Nicky.’ He jabbed the necromancer in the side with an elbow. More of Vouring’s Magi were spilling from the antechamber ahead, leaping down from broken balconies upon shimmering waves of power. Nicky cowered, bloody head cradled in her shaking hands. ‘Nicky! Eyes up!’

Lute staggered to his feet as the first of the Magi charged him, narrowly swerving a hurled bolt of white-blue power that tore another chunk from the broken column and spilled Nicky on her side. Lute parried the swipe of the Mage’s spellblade, countered, opened the bastard like a bag of grain, turned to parry, and found himself on his knees clutching at his bleeding face, his sword a smoking ruin before him. Vouring’s

Mage reared, eyes bulging behind his mask, and aethereal blade held high, while the weight of the Fellgod’s gaze pinned Lute.

A clumsy body slammed into the Mage as the blow fell, tackling him to the ground in a flurry of half-witted blows. Lute caught a glimpse of the Mage’s face, the one he’d just opened up, before a spellblade swept its head from its shoulders. Nicky’s shriek was like a bolt through Lute’s ear, then, sharp enough to pierce him through. Dead Magi were rising, trading blows with their former comrades, while shadows peeled themselves from the walls to fall upon others like palls wrought of misery’s own fabric.

Vouring distracted, Lute shuffled away, watching the chaos unfold for a heartbeat. Nicky was spasming on the floor beside the column while the Magi struggled against themselves, Damon, and things wrought from nothingness. Her eyes were rolling, face smeared bloody, mouth wedged open at the climax of a scream long since silent.

Where was Yas?

Lute’s eyes scanned the madness unfolding in the sanctum, looking for any sign of the light-conjurer. A flicker caught his eye through a cloud of dust and smoke, somewhere past the shadows of Damon’s stomping legs. Vouring’s Magi darted back and forth, dodging narrow beams of light that cut through the murk, bounced from rippling aether-shields. Lute caught a glimpse of Yas’s face, bloody and twisted in a grimace of terror and effort, before the smoke obscured her again. She was surrounded, Magi shadows darting in and out, closer with every assault.

‘Damon!’ The statue’s head swivelled toward Lute, its massive fist splattering a Magi into the stone floor. ‘Help Yas!’

There was no time to watch. Lute flung himself at the Mage that had broken free of Nicky’s web of shifting shadows to stand over her fallen form, spellblade falling for her neck. Lute’s fist collided with the side of the Mage’s head with a crunch, flopping him like a ragdoll, a jolt of pain shooting up Lute’s fist. He swallowed it down behind a snarl, grabbing Nicky’s collar and dragging her away from the fight.

‘Come on!’ The last of her puppet-Mages went down in shreds, Vouring’s Mages turning their attention toward them. Nicky spasmed in his grasp. ‘Get on your fucking feet!’

Lute dropped to his knees, screaming, hands over his head, as a Mage bore down on him, blue blade cutting the air, the hum of its power a sickening rhythm.

There was a splat, and cold blood spattered across the back of Lute’s hands. Damon’s foot tore through the air before Lute and Nicky, a knot of Mages bursting into a cloud of red mist. The sanctum shook as Damon’s weight came crashing down, his vast form sinking into a wide pugilist’s stance as he faced down the Magi. ‘Back, you motherfuckers!’

The sanctum shaking again as Damon charged, granite voice screaming, Lute dragged Nicky into cover at the edge of an impact crater, the two of them cowering beneath a rim of shattered stone. Lute passed a hand down his face, body shaking, and sweat and blood dripping from his chin, when Nicky clutched at his chest. ‘I… I can’t do it, Lute.’

He looked at her, the necromancer’s eyes wide, brimming with terror, her voice barely a reedy whisper. ‘It… it sees me.’

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