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POLYMER UP, POLYMER DOWN. Repel radiation, evade wind-pushed debris, deflect electrical charges. Polymer up. Polymer down. Pellus found himself in that rare position of being fearful yet bored at the same time. To his surprise, his weariness had passed, despite having fought two adepts for more than a twentieth-turn. Thoughts of Barakiel making his way toward Jeduthan had supercharged his awareness. He thanked Balance for it when his adversaries mounted an old-school attack, a jagged bolt of power aimed at the rocks above him that loosed a rain of boulders upon his head. In a flash, he formed a protective barrier and squinted through the churning dust. He sensed the movement of the adepts and detected their energy signatures as they ran towards the ruined entrance to the dungeons.
An admirable use of your weapon, Zan, that half-crumbled entrance. And now the time has come to destroy the rest.
With a series of deafening cracks, Pellus created fissures in the rocks at load-bearing points. What remained of the edifice came crashing down, but the adepts managed to pass inside using a protective barrier of their own.
Demon take you, vile servants of the usurper! I will explode your eyes in your head.
He almost ran to the entrance, prepared to disassemble the blockage he’d created, when he thought better of it. He took a breath and tried to ascertain why the adepts had suddenly abandoned their post. Barakiel’s energy signature was easy to detect, pulsing with aggression far underground, below the center of the mountain. Another warrior was with him, a powerful one. To Pellus’ distress, he also detected the signatures of three adepts. Judging by the signs of particle transformation emanating from Barakiel’s vicinity, the adepts were attempting to stop him.
The battle has been joined! Guardian save him. Even with the help of another warrior, I do not see how he can handle all those adepts, not to mention the enemy fighters I am certain are down there.
Pellus cleared a path for himself through the rubble, covering his mouth and nose as he hurried past a gory pile of dead warriors, determined to stop Borosen and his helper from joining the mêlée.
I am sorry I have no time to mourn you, warriors.
At first, the copious amount of dust and debris on the floor allowed him to track Borosen and the other adept easily, but soon Pellus had to rely on their energy signatures, not an easy proposition when they were attempting to obscure themselves. The effort slowed him down. He could not gain on them, and his slow pace left him far too much time to confront the carnage and realize that not enough warriors were left to liberate the prisoners. Perhaps things were better in the less heavily guarded sections, those with fewer high-value prisoners. He had heard grunts and clangs floating from some of the other hallways, but the path he followed was clear save for the bodies, more of Remiel’s brave warriors than the enemy. On the first landing of the staircase leading to the lower levels, a warrior attacked him with a battle cry left weak by a bloody gash in his chest. Consumed with tracking Borosen, Pellus didn’t see him coming. Thankfully, the strike was slow. After Pellus evaded the sword, he saw the insignia of Kalaziel’s battalion. An ally.
“Please, warrior! I am Pellus. Do not attack!”
The warrior wagged his head and squinted. “Pellus, sir? Oh, we have not prevailed. I am sorry. I am sorry.”
“It is all right, warrior. You have prevailed. Your selfless fulfillment of your duty has given us a chance. Council President Ravellen and Council Member Derisen escaped the dungeons a short time ago, thanks to you. I saw them. And Barakiel has made his way below.”
“Yes, yes, Barakiel will save them.” The warrior fell against the wall. Pellus helped him lie flat and congealed his blood, although he did not think he would survive. Remiel’s forces were too weakened to carry him to safety.
“Rest now, fine warrior, and know that I am grateful to you.” The warrior nodded and closed his eyes. Pellus concealed himself and resumed his descent.
No sooner had he reached the next level then Borosen attacked him using the cold as a weapon. While the dungeons were warmer than the plains and barren hills, the adepts were blocking the transfer of heat and most likely conserving it for themselves. Pellus shivered then shielded himself, cursing the fact that the adepts didn’t even have to know precisely where he was to make things difficult for him in this manner.
You may seek to undermine my offensive capabilities, Borosen, but I have operated long enough in the Wasteland by now. Barakiel was right. This place is child’s play compared with the Destructive Realm.
The thought energized him. Barakiel’s voice of encouragement echoed in his mind. Thoughts of his friend battling a throng of warriors and adepts to rescue his beloved Jeduthan lent speed to his step. He had pulled within a level of Borosen and his helper when he felt vibrations in the stone steps and wondered what fresh aggravation was coming his way. Still charging downward, he waited for the vibrations to become sound. He guessed a gang of warriors ran towards him, so thick in the stairway they could not help but locate him even when he was concealed. With a barrier pointless considering he needed to proceed down the stairs himself, and no time to make it to a corridor to hide, his eyes darted until he settled on the thick rock of the wall at a sharp corner. Fists clenched with concentration, he turned a body-sized area to sand, tucked himself inside, and managed to gather a flimsy curtain of particulate matter just as the noisy bunch of guards turned a corner below him, arms locked, so certain their wall of flesh would detect him that they ran right past.
Thank Balance they were lesser warriors. Warrior of the Rising would not have rushed up here so myopically.
Angry now at these petty attacks, Pellus emitted a growl worthy of Barakiel.
Time to stop fucking around, as Zan would say.
The next landing. Pellus had reached the seventh level. A jumble of noise rose from the lowest level, only one flight down. He heard crackling and sizzling, faint clicks of stone and clangs of metal, not directly below, but far within the mountain in the buried chamber meant as a trap for him and Barakiel. At times, the walls rumbled. Narrow fissures puffed grit and he thought he could hear Barakiel’s yowls of determination.
Desperate to reach his mate, it took all the self-discipline Pellus had left to pull up and carefully scan the last set of steps and the network of hallways below, which radiated off a central foyer. He knew only one was the right path. Sure enough, Borosen’s helper crouched just inside a corridor stretching from the right side of the foyer, holding a fireball of energy in abeyance. Pellus had no doubt Borosen had lent his power to its construction and left his helper to deliver the blow.
Afraid I would kill you, Borosen? You merely postponed the inevitable.
When Pellus strode into the hallway of black stone reinforced with steel, the hapless, unknown adept loosed the fireball. Taking a mere pulse to remove the adept’s protections, Pellus caught the fireball with an electromagnetic wave and swatted it back. His foe was incinerated.
I regret killing you without ever having seen your face.
On he charged, towards the alarming sounds that came from somewhere down the dark and gleaming corridor, his strides punctuated by steel trusses that glowed in the cold light from the orbs overhead. Standing just beyond the archway leading to the deep-buried chamber, Pellus penetrated the thick walls with his vision. A chaos of particles and waves, transforming and joining, colliding and careening. But through all that quantum noise, he could detect his adversaries. Pellus had expected four active adepts, now that Borosen had joined this fight, yet he sensed only three.
Thank Balance for small favors.
With a deep breath and a last reinforcement of his personal shield, Pellus burst through the archway into a hellscape of a fight. Barakiel appeared as a blue blur of flashing armor and flying blade as he gutted enemy fighters, his flanks protected by High Commander Camael. Explosions of color, rafts of thick smoke, and a heavy stench like brimstone filled the black octagonal chamber. Several of the steel support beams that crawled up the walls to join in the center of the high ceiling were ripped from their places, some jagged, others melted. A heap of burned and blood-crusted robes lay near the entrance.
An adept foolish enough to get too close to Barakiel.
Limbless and headless bodies were strewn everywhere. Nearly half of the fifty warriors who’d been stationed there were dead. From where he stood near a heavy steel door at the far end of the chamber, High Commander Galizur ordered more forward to confront Barakiel.
Jeduthan! I can see you in your prison, beloved, but I cannot feel you with all this quantum noise.
Abruptly, Barakiel stopped dealing death. Covered in blood, his hair singed and soaked with sweat, he glared off towards the left side of the chamber as Camael slashed at the warriors who tried to surround them. Pellus watched in amazement as Barakiel absorbed a wave of electrical energy sent by a concealed adept meant to burn him where he stood. At the same moment, Pellus knew that Borosen had joined the fight and that all the enemy adepts in that chamber were aware of his presence.