Part 20 (2/2)
Alin continued turning, examining the room. There was barely enough ambient light to see, coming from the Grandmaster's fireflies and the windows set high in the walls. The vast majority of the room, however, remained in shadow.
”Maybe they just didn't set an alarm,” Alin suggested.
”Or maybe,” the Grandmaster said, ”the alarm has already been silenced.”
Gilad shook his head. ”I wouldn't think so, Grandmaster. They would have to have detected us in Helgard. And there are no long-term installations on the sixteenth floor, so to have an alarm there...”
”That means they would have known we were coming,” the Grandmaster concluded.
Alin felt a chill that had nothing to do with the lingering cold from Helgard. Suddenly, the silent room was filled with a clatter of wood and metal. Alin spun on his heel to see that one of the Enosh soldiers had just collapsed in a heap. Blood spread from under his helm.
”Form up!” someone yelled, and the soldiers' ring around the three Travelers became even tighter.
When they drew together, though, one of the squad didn't move. He stood there, with his back to Alin, as though staring into the shadow.
”Come on!” Alin called, but Grandmaster Naraka seized his arm.
”Quiet, boy,” she hissed.
Why? Alin wondered, but he kept the thought to himself. He's just standing there.
Then the soldier collapsed to his knees, and fell over on his side. Blood leaked from his armor.
Somewhere in the room, someone began to sing.
”Hush, my child. Night is coming. The waking world grows dull and gray.”
Someone behind Alin shouted, and there was a clang like two swords clas.h.i.+ng. He turned, summoning a globe of golden force into his hand as he turned; whoever this attacker was, he was about to face the power of Elysia.
Two soldiers lay on the ground. Both of their drawn swords lay in pieces.
The voice continued, in a haunting sing-song lullaby. ”Leave your fear and leave your pain. I will make it go away.”
”Enough of this foolishness,” Grandmaster Naraka growled. She raised her hands, winced as though experiencing a minor and irritating pain, and then flicked her fingers up toward the roof. More of those red fireflies darted from her hands, but these hovered in glowing clouds at the corners of the ceiling. The resulting light was dim and b.l.o.o.d.y, but more than enough for Alin to see.
What he saw was a dim, swift figure in black darting from shadow to shadow. Alin immediately pulled his arm back and hurled the globe of Elysian light at the shadowed figure.
The silhouette of a man didn't dodge or run out of the way. He raised one arm, and the golden blast struck him just below the elbow.
Alin's light struck a s.h.i.+eld of translucent green light. It was literally a s.h.i.+eld, diamond-shaped and etched with a design that Alin couldn't quite make out, but it seemed to be outlined in semi-transparent planes of phantom light.
The golden blast crashed against that pale green s.h.i.+eld and did nothing. The s.h.i.+eld flickered and disappeared, leaving the room as dark as before.
Gilad took advantage of the moment to step forward, rolling his marked hand in a complex pattern that Alin had last seen from Overlord Malachi. A bright orange fireball seemingly made out of screaming faces appeared from Gilad's hand, streaking straight for the shadowed figure.
This time, the man in shadows didn't even bother to raise his arm. The fireball crashed against his chest, splas.h.i.+ng harmlessly against a ghostly green breastplate that the man most definitely had not been wearing earlier.
It was as though the man was covered in a full suit of armor that was completely invisible until it was needed. Was there anything they could do to get through to him?
Grandmaster Naraka, Alin noticed, had been moving both hands in a complex pattern for some time now. She finally finished, shouldered two soldiers apart to make room, and thrust her hands out toward the man in shadows. She made a sound like a grunt, as though she had repressed a scream, and a scaly red claw the size of Alin's midsection pushed itself out from midair and crunched on the tiles, its claws sc.r.a.ping up a handful of the floor.
”Ah,” the figure in black said. ”At last.”
The creature continued to pull itself into the world, revealing an enormous shoulder covered in spikes and ridges of hardened plate. Alin was almost afraid to see what would come through.
”Bear witness!” Grandmaster Naraka screamed. ”For the first time in a thousand years, this world shall tremble before*”
She was cut off by the single clear, crystal note of a horn. It reverberated through the entire room, echoing and cras.h.i.+ng in Alin's ears, somehow without sounding strident or unpleasant.
The arm froze at the sound. Then it trembled, as though it was stuck in between worlds.
After the note had gone on for only a second, the hand was slurped back through the Gate. The portal winked out, leaving the room in silence.
The figure in black lowered a horn from his lips. It was seemingly made out of gla.s.s, and it had some kind of transparent tube in the middle that swirled with water. How did gla.s.s and water produce a sound like a horn? Alin had always thought they had to be made out of metal.
The man in the shadows...shrugged. ”I'm sorry,” he said. ”Were you not done?”
Alin gave some serious thought to retreating.
Fortunately, someone screamed an order, and the soldiers rushed forward. Five men led the way, spears leveled. Three, to Alin's surprise, stayed back with him and the other two Travelers. The remainder of the troops rushed after the spearmen, swords drawn.
The figure in black waited until the spears were almost upon him before he reached to the side and summoned a sword. It was long and straight, not the slightly curving sword that Simon used.
”I knew it,” Grandmaster Naraka hissed. ”Valinhall.”
A Valinhall Traveler? Alin thought. This man looked very different from Simon.
For one thing, though the swordsman was wearing all black, they were simply dark clothes. Not the billowing black cloak that Simon tended to wear. Also, Alin couldn't imagine Simon fighting without summoning that ridiculously long sword of his.
Plus, Alin didn't see any dolls. He wasn't exactly sure if the little girl's dolls he had seen Simon carrying had anything to do with Valinhall, but he had chosen to a.s.sume that they did. Simon carried a doll everywhere now, so either they had something to do with Simon's Territory or he had developed a disturbing habit.
Either way, Alin saw none of the hallmarks that he had a.s.sociated with Simon and Valinhall. But Grandmaster Naraka seemed certain, and she would know better than he would.
The five spearmen died very quickly. The man in black grabbed one of the spears below the head, pulling that soldier off balance and skewering him on the tip of a sword. Then he stepped forward, inside the reach of two other spearmen, and suddenly he was holding two swords, one in each hand. He struck out to either side, slicing through the spearmen's necks as though they weren't even wearing armor.
The remaining two soldiers with spears leveled their weapons, thrusting them at the man. He cut one in half and spun around the other, drawing his sword across the soldier's throat. The last soldier threw down his half of a spear, screaming, and ran away.
The swordsman in black c.o.c.ked his head to one side, but watched his enemy run.
By this time, the Enosh soldiers with swords had stopped their run and come to a complete stop, hesitating before stepping into arm's reach of the killer in black.
”Fall back!” one of the soldiers next to Alin shouted. She had a voice made to cut through deafening battlefields, and Alin realized she must be the commander.
”We'll handle the Traveler,” she said. She stepped forward, and the other two soldiers that had stayed with Alin stepped forward at the same time.
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