I was first through the portal with Ilsa close behind. Russ followed with Laylen and Dale at his sides. I had no idea where Kinso was, but I’d seen him moments before, looking through to the other side, considering something I meant to ask him about but never had the chance to. Maydo had already leapt through in fox form, disappearing out of sight before anyone could say anything.
My group was followed by Vand’s and several other adventuring parties who all got through the portal quickly then stepped aside. In the first seconds after we arrived, our senses were assailed by a coppery smell, chanting from above that a desperate scream broke through. It sounded like an Ondi-Ne was being torn apart, and as I looked up one of the nearly sheer sides of the temple, I saw that the gentler slopes to the right and left had many robed figures standing, looking up at the altar at the top as they chanted. Slaves were being held between them, in line for sacrifice. We were close enough to the flattest side of the temple so those above wouldn’t easily spot us. The courtyard was surrounded by ruined arches and small buildings on one side, and more intact structures on the other with tiered seating at the far side. There were burnt sections of the ground where I assumed the fire mages executed deserters and other traitors. Thankfully, the bodies had been removed.
“I’ll get up there and tear those cursed bastards down,” Vand growled, looking up at the priests.
Heather and Honno emerged from the portal atop their riding dogs. “Hunker can take you, unless Ilsa wants to change her mind?” she asked.
“My place is with the Champions,” Ilsa replied, looking at me for a moment.
“I can hear the muttering and shifting of soldiers not far from here,” said Willa. “Once they realize there’s a small army of attackers here, we’ll be set upon.”
“Then I’ll stay here to watch your back,” Vand said to her before turning to me and my small group. “Someone has to make sure you get enough time to do what you have to here. Besides, I was a little boy last time I rode a dog, and I fell off every few feet.”
Many of the members of the adventuring parties were Ondi-Ne and they had their own riding dogs who stayed out of the fight so far. They rode through the portal with the Syrka Pack now. Even the pair of half-Ondi - Erden and Hyto - who had otherworldly lizard mounts that strode on two legs had joined the Syrka. There were no horses though, I assumed it was because there was no way all the adventurers would fit on the boats that took them south along with anything as large as an equine.
“The Rising of Olur is upon us!” a voice from inside the temple boomed, amplified by a spell.
The chanting atop the temple increased in pitch and volume, then I realized what the ceremony was, and where Marat must have learned it. Written in one of my books was the rite required to raise a God using a wellspring of magic. A natural well of quick amber. This was a perversion of that with the addition of ritual sacrifice and, I was just guessing, but barrels of quick amber to replace the wellspring. They were able to do this because I wrote it down for a game session where my players had to defend a temple while a good god was made flesh. I looked up at the thirty or so figures in red near the top of the temple, then to Heather and Honno. “Everyone there knows what they’re doing is evil.”
“I understand, we’ll stop the sacrifices and free the slaves,” Honno said with a nod.
“And slaughter everyone in red,” Heather added as the riders surged off. Many were still coming through the portal, but they joined in the charge which led them out of the courtyard then up one side of the temple. A shout went up from one of the women in red robes and she silenced her with a yellow-white fireball.
Uden, followed by his dwarves in a tight group, were rushing through the portal last. “They’re at the tower’s main doors, battering,” Uden told me. “Bless the Mages, they lost five of their own at the last minute. Some kind of firestorm overwhelmed the tower top.”
“No time to lick our wounds,” Olsen said, looking up towards the sacrificial altar. No one could see between the circle of priests there, but the screams had stopped. I knew they’d be starting work on a new slave in a moment.
“Watch out!” Akri, an Ondi-Ne sorceress said as she flicked and grasped the air at something behind me.
I turned in time to see two soldiers with bows who were hiding behind broken pillars, about to loose arrows in my direction. Their bows writhed, became snakes, and both archers flung them to the ground. Roots grew and grasped them in crushing, merciless grips that strangled and bound the soldiers.
A squad of over a dozen mercenaries charged through a gap in the old stone tiered seating opposite the temple entrance, Vand and Uden shoved me back. “We’ll keep them from going after you,” Uden said, glancing at Vand and the eleven other tall adventurer’s with him. After seeing that the taller warriors were ready to join the ranks of the dwarves, he shouted; “Fall back to the entrance and form a wall!”
My group, which consisted of Ilsa, Laylen, Russ, Dale and now Kinso, who seemed to come from nowhere, rushed to the main floor entrance of the temple. It was a large arched passage with double doors that were firmly closed. The Dwarves and the humans who joined them were right behind, with soldiers charging after all of us from thirty yards away. “Those doors are a problem,” I said, not seeing a way to quickly get through them.
“Let’s see how good their wards are,” Kinso pondered aloud as he raised his hands. “From wood to earth, water and light; I command these things to become as they were.”
It was a spell I didn’t know, but it worked. The thick double doors collapsed into a pile of mud, revealing four guards in heavy plate mail behind them. “That was amazing,” Dale said.
“I’ve had time to imagine a few new tricks. That one just turned the doors back to what they were before they were wood - earth and water,” Kinso said with a grin so wide you could hear it in his words.
“We’ll use the door as a choke point, hold a shield wall here,” Uden said as Ilsa and I got ready to engage the sword wielding guards. They were in matching full plate armour, and it had the look of something that was made in a factory, not by hand. Too perfect, too uniform, and stronger than all but enchanted armour. Their swords matched the one I was given when I first came to Nem. and I hoped that the cracked blade in my hand would stand up to them.
“We’ll push these guys back,” Ilsa said, wielding both her swords, glancing at me before joining me in an aggressive attack.
I brought my sword up high and waited until my enemy telegraphed his attack. It came as a thrust that would have pierced through my middle, but I stopped running towards him just in time, bringing my sword down. I expected that to be parried, and it was. I stepped to the side then closer to my opponent’s left. Russ came through the gap, swinging his double bladed axe down hard, catching that guard squarely in the chest and knocking him on his ass. “God, I miss my hammer!” Russ shouted, ready to swing again if the downed soldier got back up.
As I moved onto the next guard, deflecting a slash that was meant for my neck, Kinso leapt in, stabbing the soldier Russ knocked down rapidly, finding chinks in his enemy’s armpit and neck with a slender dagger. As the sound of the dagger piercing skin and pushing into flesh, and the sight of blood starting to flow out of the soldier onto the ground reached Russ, I could hear him retch. “I’m fine, just a little shock.”
“We’re going to bleed many men who offend my sister today, my friend,” Kinso said as he got back to his feet. “Steel your nerves.”
“It’s steel, it’s steel, don’t worry,” Russ replied.
The second guard I faced was much more talented than the first, squaring off with me after his initial attack, blocking my first three rapid strikes as his expert footwork let him strategically retreat. This was not a good thing. If the fight went on too long reinforcements would join, and he would have a chance to find flaws in my technique, which I was sure there were plenty of.
Ilsa was supported by Laylen, who cast one shield after another on her right side, for one soldier to uselessly batter at with his sword while she attacked another. Her enemy wasn’t used to quick two weapon fighting, and by the time my first opponent was down, she deflected an attack, made several that were stopped by the soldier’s shield and sword before stabbing one of her blades through the armoured man’s throat. Then she was onto the guard to her right. As Laylen’s shield failed for the last time, she went on the attack, clanging her enemy’s helm hard with one sword as a distraction as she directed the soldier’s next swing away with the other. “Ilsa! Stop!” The defender cried.
“Marjorie?” Ilsa asked. “What are you doing here?”
The fighting stopped, I could see Ilsa’s assailant at a glance; a human woman in her twenties was pushing the visor of her helm up. “They made me. I would be kicked out of the Farland Society if I didn’t help. Your friends just put Joss down. That boy from Sudbury? You remember? He was friends with Fredrick.”
That was immediately confusing, and my opponent chose that moment to go on the attack, putting his shield up at the right instant to block one of my blows then follow it with one of my own. Ilsa was stunned at seeing an old friend, Kinso looked like he didn’t know what to pay attention to, and Russ looked down at the man on the ground.
“Ilsa!” I shouted as my opponent’s next attack grazed the belly of my scale armour. I swung for his shoulder and when he raised his shield I kicked the bottom of it as hard and as fast as I could.
“Joss? I remember him. He trained with us for a few weekends before the Tourney back in the day,” Russ was saying in the background.
I was in a different reality, fighting to the death with a soldier. “Stop, Will,” Majorie told the man I was clashing with.
I stabbed at his thigh and my sword glanced off an armour plate. When he brought his sword around to drive me back, I was already there, my blade crossing his hard near the guard, flinging it back. I had him. “Hold! Hold!” my opponent cried.
There were closed doors further down the hall that acted as an extra barrier for the main floor of the temple. I could hear people coming beyond it. I didn’t want to stop. Every instinct told me that it was the wrong thing to do, but Ilsa caught my eye and I stepped back, relenting with my sword up but protesting; “They’re buying time.”
“But, it’s Joss,” Russ said as he lifted the visor of the first soldier who fell.
The man was still alive, but blood spattered upward from his mouth with a wet cough. “Hey, Russ. Hope that guy’s a healer.” He nodded towards Dale.
“The Society wants you, Ilsa,” Majorie said, reaching to take her hand. “They’ve seen what you can do, and are convinced you’re ready to enter the inner circle.”
My heart started to break as Ilsa’s expression softened. The clash of soldiers charging the shield wall that held the door only fifteen feet beyond her seemed to snap her out of that moment though, and all my faith was restored as Ilsa stepped back and pointed both her swords at Majorie. “You’ve always been a good soldier to the Society, but I still don’t understand how you can let yourself be part of this.”
“We tried to bring technology to this world, and it failed. Now we’re taking control another way. You can be part of that. Ed still wants you back, he hasn’t been the same since you left. We’ll all be Kings and Queens within a decade,” she replied with a firmer tone. “Olur has promised us great spoils. Wait, are you with him now? That idealistic, clueless white knight?”
Ilsa’s expression grew stonier; “Who I’m with has nothing to do with which side I’m on. Surrender and I’ll let you leave.”
“No, she’s held a sacrificial dagger,” Kinso hissed. “She deserves to be as helpless as the people she killed.” He flicked black liquid from a small broad mouthed jar up into Majorie’s face. “Ehvim orikin sihet,” were the magical words he spat.
The colour in her eyes faded until there was nothing but white and she screamed; “I can’t see! What did you do, you little Ondi shit!”
“A curse I learned from the spirit of my mother. You won’t see again unless it is by my leave,” he told her, turning his attention to Joss, who was still on his back, struggling to breathe. “You know this person?”
“Yeah, he went to England after the tourney Grant won,” Russ said.
I studied the face, and the soldier looked up at me. “Hey, Grant, I’d get up but I’m waiting on heals down here. You’re looking good.”
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t remember him. “No, doesn’t ring a bell.” It was frustrating because he seemed familiar. “What are you doing fighting for a dark god?”
He shuddered and as he began to convulse, Dale healed him. Majorie reached for Kinso and nearly caught him. Maydo leapt over the shield wall and ran down the hallway in a streak of white and red before catching the woman’s ankle, pulling her off balance so she fell to the bricks. Maydo the Fox stood on her chest, nose to nose with Majorie, growling. “What is that? Get it off!” Majorie begged.
“Thanks, healer-man,” Joss said, recovered. In the next instant he drew a dagger and stabbed Russ in the thigh. Russ, in a reaction purely driven by anger, brought his axe down on Joss’ shoulder before the soldier could get to his feet, then took a second swing that caught him across the face.
“You were always a prick!” Russ said as he stepped away, clasping a wound that was already healing thanks to Dale’s quick casting.
Ilsa put one of her swords through Joss’s neck under the chin, finishing him off.
My attacker was already renewing his assault, and I was ready. He was good, sure, but I’m guessing he wasn’t prepared for me to respond so well, because he paused after I deflected his first attack. That was a mistake I was ready for, and before he could do anything, Nerxis was in my other hand, then the tip was in his eye socket, pushing right into his brain. The inner temple doors opened and I turned towards them, ready to face the next rush of soldiers wearing Farland Society armour. “Are you with me, Ilsa?” I asked in a shout that was more of a demand than I intended.
“Always,” she replied, stepping into place beside me and offering a little jar with a yellow pepper inside. “No more hesitation.”
We both took a potion, and I bit the sweet, spicy pickled pepper, realizing it was a potion of furious alacrity. It felt like time was slowing down, that I could move faster than the world, and my body had never felt stronger.
“You fucking bitch! I could never figure out what Ed saw in you! You didn’t deserve him!” Majorie cried as Maydo left her to join us.
“Sleep,” Dale said as he cast that spell, silencing her.