“Two Arkks, you say?”
Vezta stood at the table. Her eyes—the ones in the usual spot on her face—swept over the group of five. Olatt’an, Kia, Claire, Zullie, and Hale. Everyone else was busy with the operation. Vezta had half a mind to put an end to it, to focus on uncovering what happened to Arkk, but Fortress Al-Mir had enough personnel to carry out multiple operations at once these days.
The real problem was that of an imposter, period. If the story the dark elves told was true, an Arkk could show up, order people around, and cause all kinds of havoc if the rest of the minions weren’t made aware. At the same time, informing them would undermine authority, damage trust, and harm morale. Was it better to inform them or try to solve the crisis quietly while everyone was distracted by the compromised teams stranded behind enemy lines?
“They both looked exactly the same,” Kia said, taking the silence as a prompt to elaborate on her story. “Green tunic, scruffy beard, glowing red eyes. Everything. We appeared next to one of them, who raised his hand to point at the other. ‘Seize the imposter,’ he said. We turned to face the other Arkk, started toward him, and were immediately teleported away. Don’t remember much after that.”
“Their contract was broken,” Zullie cut in. “We rehired them, mostly to keep them conscious over a longer period of time without draining my vault of glowstones.” The witch paused, then added, “Without the fortress providing a steady supply of magic, the changes to their bodies drain them near instantly.”
Kia’s dark brown eyes narrowed as the dark elf shot a glare at Zullie. “Which is a complication we were not made aware of before agreeing to your experiment.”
Zullie didn’t look bothered in the slightest. “It wasn’t a problem as long as the contract remained in place. Don’t know why you’d care.”
“Arkk is human,” Kia said. Her hands’ afterimages slammed into the table just before her actual hands. “We’re dark elves. We may not live as long as Ilya and her mother but we’ll outlive Arkk easily. What are we supposed to do then? Fall over and die?”
“I hardly see how that is my problem.”
“You—”
“Enough,” Vezta said. “What you say isn’t accurate. As long as Arkk’s connection to the [HEART] remains unbroken, he will outlive the oldest elf, the most ancient dragon, and possibly the entire world. Your concerns are unfounded. As long as Arkk stays alive,” she added with emphasis. “If he dies, you’ll have a problem. So let us focus on ensuring that does not come to pass. You can bring up your long-term future once your immediate future is secured.”
Kia’s lips curled into a snarl while Zullie simply shrugged and turned aside.
Claire was the one to lean forward, getting the briefing back on track. “We were tricked.”
“The Arkk they appeared next to was the imposter,” Olatt’an agreed with a firm nod of his head. “They turned on the real one and started to attack him, thus breaking their contracts.”
“Likely,” Vezta said. She could see no fault in that reasoning. “But currently irrelevant. I will be able to tell apart Arkk no matter how convincing of a disguise this other has. The important thing now is to locate them.” Vezta looked between Kia and Claire. “Well?”
Despite looking like she was in the midst of licking a particularly sour lemon, Kia took a breath and said, “It was a darker room. No windows. Air was a bit stale and foul-smelling. Somewhere underground, I think, though still part of the fortress.”
“Considering the labyrinth that Arkk has dug out underneath Elmshadow, I would prefer something a little more specific than ‘underground.’”
“The air smelled like death,” Claire said. “Not recent death. No coppery blood. But death just the same.”
“Undeath?” Hale asked, perking up for some reason.
Claire just shrugged. “A corpse smells like a corpse,” was all she said.
Olatt’an stood, moved off to one side of the meeting room, and started perusing a thick leatherbound notebook. “There are no maps of the Elmshadow underground,” he said as he flipped a page. “But Arkk did note down the locations of a few important areas in case we needed to know while he was busy elsewhere. Ah. Here we are.”
Walking back to the table, Olatt’an placed down the notebook on an open page.
Undead Storage
There were three large chambers where Arkk stored his undead, according to the notebook. All were out far beyond the borders of the actual Elmshadow Burg. All were also to the west. If the Evestani army ever approached the burg and undead hadn’t already been used, there were instructions in the notebook to open several passages that would allow the undead to emerge right underneath the army’s feet.
Unfortunately, the three chambers were not right next to each other. It would take time to search them. Given that it had been a quarter of an hour since Kia and Claire regained consciousness, and a good quarter of an hour after having disappeared in the first place, meant that this imposter had at least a half an hour to run amok and cause havoc.
“Arkk is still alive.” Vezta knew that without a shadow of a doubt. “The fact that the fortresses still function is evidence of that,” she said. But even without the fortresses, Vezta had a connection to him. A little strand of Stars that said he was alive. “But I do not know for how long that will be the case. Anyone not already out in the field should report to search the rooms and corridors on the lower levels near Undead Storage—”
“Hold up,” Zullie said, looking back. The little twinkling lights in the backs of her empty eye sockets dazzled with a fresh thought. “The fact that he pulled these two, out of everyone in the fortress, to come to his aid has me… concerned.”
“Does that matter?”
“It does when Project Liminal was specifically designed as a counter-demon project,” Zullie said, shuddering slightly. “He didn’t pull anyone else to try to help him, even after these two ended up tricked. That makes me wonder just what he thinks he is up against.”
“A demon,” Vezta hissed, unable to unclench her teeth.
“I mean, Arkk can teleport anyone instantly, can’t he? Priscilla was still here when these two did their thing,” Zullie said, pointing a thumb at Kia and Claire. “If it was someone normal, why not try to use Priscilla against them after the dark elves failed.”
Kia bristled at the accusation but didn’t speak. Probably because she couldn’t exactly argue.
“Or anyone else for that matter,” Zullie continued. “Dakka and the orcs with shadow armor can take on just about anything, gorgon can stall just about anything long enough to do something about it, Lexa can sneak around and stab people in their backs before they know she is there, I know a plethora of magical spells which includes a collection of esoteric spells derived from a god, so on and so forth. This fortress contains a collection of some of the most dangerous beings I can think of all in one space, all available to Arkk at a moment’s notice. So why these two and no one else?
“Look, I don’t want to admit it, so I’m happy to hear of alternate possibilities, but tell me that doesn’t make sense.”
Vezta looked over the group with a heavy scowl. Her skin bubbled in anger and irritation. Nobody had any alternate possibilities. She could see it in their faces. Olatt’an had his brow furrowed as if he were deep in thought. Kia stared at Zullie with wide eyes, her earlier anger at the witch seemingly forgotten completely. Hale scowled to herself, glaring at the table as if it had answers. The final dark elf was as blank-faced as ever.
And Vezta couldn’t blame them. She didn’t have a better idea either. Zullie’s words were logical. They weren’t necessarily correct. Arkk could be facing something that he had mistaken for a demon.
But Vezta couldn’t take that chance.
“I have a few other items from our counter-demon research,” Zullie said. “Most back at Fortress Al-Mir. If we equip—”
“What are you waiting for? Get them. Immediately. The moment the thought of a demon crossed your mind, you should have—” There was no time. Vezta clenched her teeth. “Go. You,” she said to Claire as Zullie pulled back from the table. The witch stared a long moment, almost as if frightened, until Hale took her hand and started leading her away.
Vezta paid them no mind, focusing on Claire. Claire was the most sociopathic of the two dark elves, the one most likely to carry out the job Vezta needed her to do without question. “Your new task is to enter the [HEART] chamber. You will kill anyone who approaches. You will kill Arkk, you will kill Kia, you will kill myself. You will do so immediately upon seeing anyone and without so much as speaking to them. The only way you are relieved of this duty is when Arkk teleports you out of the Heart chamber. Do you understand?”
“Protect the Heart,” Claire said with a nod of her head.
“Go,” Vezta said, turning to the rest of the room. Olatt’an and Kia sat, fully alert. Which was good. The seriousness of the situation could not be understated. She looked to Kia first. The [HEART] here was at the highest risk, but there was a possibility that the [HEART] at Fortress Al-Mir was in just as much danger. It would take traveling through the teleportation circles to reach, which were under guard. But no guard would stand against a demon.
If only there were more like Kia and Claire. But, unlike Vezta’s former master, Arkk asked for volunteers.
If she sent Kia away, would Zullie’s trinkets be enough to get the demon away from Arkk? Did Zullie have anyone trained in using her trinkets? Which was the greater risk? That the demon would go after the [HEART]s or that they wouldn’t be able to rescue Arkk?
“You two,” Vezta said, coming to a decision that she wasn’t sure she liked. “Are going to come with me. Kia is not to leave my side. I can identify the real Arkk and point out the imposter. We three are going to stick together. If any of us is separated from one another for even a moment…”
They had to find Arkk.
“Now this is the life! Don’t you think?”
Leda didn’t think. She didn’t think at all.
The poor fairy grasped the harness as Priscilla tucked her wings behind her. They plummeted straight down. Wind rushed past fast enough that it felt like someone grasped the back of Leda’s hair and yanked. Her tiny frame felt like she was a mere hair’s breadth from slipping out of the leather harness.
And the stupid dragonoid was cackling. Cackling!
When Leda claimed the Heart of her very own walking fortress, she had figured she was done with this kind of work. She was supposed to be living the high life, relaxing in her tower with the magic flowing around her fingertips. So why was she here? Why did Priscilla need her anyway?
The dragonoid spread her wings, abruptly turning their hasty descent into a swift horizontal sweep. Priscilla blasted the ground beneath them with snow and ice. A sheet of sleet covered plants, trees, and animals that had just barely recovered from winter. As soon as her sweep finished and her icy breath ran out, Priscilla angled her wings, sending them soaring straight back up into the sky, far out of range of any bows, crossbows, or even most magic while she waited for the elemental crucible in the core of her chest to recover enough for another run.
Even if Leda knew that what went up had to come back down eventually, the going up wasn’t as mind-shatteringly terrifying. That gave her the opportunity to look around down below. She could see the streak of ice reflecting what little starlight there was, shining bright white against the otherwise dark forest. And she could see, off far in the distance, glowstones that belonged to the enemy forces.
The ice had come nowhere near the glowstones.
Not even close.
Leda let out a groan, wondering how that witch saw without eyes. If Priscilla could do that, Leda wouldn’t have to be out here screaming her little head off.
“We’re off target!” Leda shouted over the rushing wind. Grasping a strap of the harness, she gave a firm tug to point the direction. “That way!”
“On it!” Priscilla shouted back, dipping one of her wings, banking their flight.
Leda waited, peering over Priscilla’s shoulder, watching the glowstone lights approach underneath them. She just needed the right moment, and… “Go nowahhHHH!”
Priscilla tucked her wings back, making them drop like a stone.
A gale of ice joined the wind, forcing Leda to burrow her face into Priscilla’s back. The dive only lasted a few seconds before Priscilla pulled up again. Once again, as had been their continued pattern, Leda looked down below to see if they hit their target.
They had. Partially. It had been a large group of glowstones, each of which presumably belonged to someone out searching in the forest. About half of the glowstone lights were coming from the icy area. The other half had managed to escape or were on the edge of the icy run.
Leda was about to tug on the harness again to get Priscilla swinging around for another pass.
A thought occurred to her.
This wasn’t like the other times Leda had helped guide Priscilla. She had magic of her own now. She was strong. Maybe not as powerful as Arkk, but…
The words to most of the spells Arkk taught her were all jumbled about, tossed and turned by the constant up and down arcs of their flight. But one of the shorter spells didn’t have enough words to be so easily forgotten.
“Electro Deus!”
Hanging from Priscilla’s back, Leda threw her hand downward. A bright, blinding blast of lightning coursed from her fingertips. A larger blast exploded out from where the lightning hit, blinding her even more. She had to blink the streaks out of her eyes as she wondered what happened. Electro Deus wasn’t supposed to explode. Maybe she had hit some remnants of the alchemical bombs?
As her vision returned, she realized that she might have overdone it a little. In fairness to her, it wasn’t like she had much practice in high-stress combat environments.
A hole big enough for three orcs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder had been blasted through the tree canopy straight to the ground where a shallow crater formed. A scattering of glowstones had been left behind along with a few toppled suits of armor. There must have been something else there to have caused that explosion but Leda didn’t care what it was.
She grinned as Priscilla leveled out their flight, angling such that the dragonoid’s body obscured the view of the ground.
“Did you see that?” Leda called out with a laugh.
“No.”
The utterly flat tone in Priscilla’s voice choked the elation right out of Leda’s throat. “Oh. Sorry.”
Priscilla let the awkwardness hang in the air just long enough for Leda to wonder if she really offended the dragon woman, only for her to bark out a laugh of her own. “I’m messing with you! I felt that blast in my bones, and that isn’t easy. Congratulations!”
“Thanks…” Leda mumbled. The joy of casting magic felt a bit diminished but, at the same time, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. The normally frosty dragonoid was joking around with her? That was a good thing, right?
Or maybe she was just in a good mood since she got to unleash her icy breath on all the humans down below.
“Can’t let you have all the fun though. Where next?”
“Just a moment,” Leda said, trying to look around. There were still a few moving glowstones back at the previous spot. But their task wasn’t to wipe out one or two people. They needed to cause a big commotion, get eyes on them, and buy time for the other teams to rescue the people who needed to be rescued.
It was dark. It was night. A golden glow sufficed throughout the burg in the distance, but Arkk had insisted they keep well away from the avatar. There were supposedly other targets near the forest edge, large constructions hidden by magic, but Leda wasn’t sure how they were supposed to find them.
At least, she wasn’t until a massive explosion, orders of magnitude larger than the one her lightning bolt had made, ripped apart a portion of the treeline just to the north. Leda started to tug on the harness but Priscilla was already banking in that direction.
Leda squinted, trying to peer ahead of them. A dark cloud of dirt-filled smoke blossomed up into the sky, but her eyes were focused on the ground as she searched for fresh targets. Or, she supposed, for anyone from Company Al-Mir in need of a distraction.
A heavy gust of wind rushed outwards from the site of the explosion, well after the blast had finished. Priscilla jostled and jolted in the turbulence. Her wings thumped as she fought to stay in the air. Whatever good mood Leda had been in vanished in an instant as she grasped hold of the harness for dear life.
The wind cleared away the smoke and dirt from the explosion. There was a wreckage underneath. A twisted heap of scrap metal and splintered wood. A lone figure stood next to it, dwarfed in size yet somehow standing taller. A woman in a fine black outfit with blonde, shiny hair. Something hovered just behind her head. A ring of knives.
Despite the distance, despite her being as big as Leda’s thumb in perspective, when the woman turned, it felt like she was right in front of her. She could see that ever so slight frown of disappointment cross her features. Bright white glowing eyes looked up, staring directly at Priscilla and Leda. One of her hands rested atop the hilt of a long, straight sword at her hip. The other hand, she slowly raised to the level of her shoulders.
A loud snap from her fingers echoed out.
Priscilla swerved, turning in the air hard enough that Leda was almost thrown from her back despite the harness.
Something rushed past them, flying through the air faster even than Priscilla at her best. An orb of darkness surrounded by a ring of white light. It shot off into the sky, vanishing into a pinprick.
Not that Leda got a chance to watch it for long. Priscilla dove and climbed and twisted and turned as more and more of the black orbs flew toward them. She curled up, her wings wrapping fully around Leda and herself as she spun, barely managing to avoid two of the orbs streaking by at once. Her wings unfurled, catching them in the air.
Leda, eyes wide and covered in a fearful sweat, twisted in the harness. She looked backward. Despite having flown off for several seconds now, the woman was still there, still staring directly at them with those white eyes.
“Electro—”
A black orb rushing straight at her cut her off. Thanks to twisting, it skimmed right past her without hitting her.
Priscilla wasn’t so lucky. The orb tore through one of her wings, her shoulder, and the harness all in one.
Leda didn’t even have a chance to make a squawk of surprise before the harness came completely undone. Priscilla went one way, slamming into tree after tree before finally thumping into the ground. Leda went the other, beating her little fairy wings—fueling them with as much magic as she could—to try to stop herself from suffering the same fate.
She still struck a tree branch, snapping it in two, then another, and a third. The remnants of the harness looped around a fourth branch, finally bringing her to a stop. The harness, wrapped around her legs, her waist, and her shoulders, saved her from a hit to the ground.
Fire still burned through her chest. That first hit against the tree felt like it broke something in her ribs. Her heart hammered as she swung back and forth, dangling from the tree. When the swinging harness finally settled to a stop, she slumped, too hurt to try to keep upright in her harness.
Leda didn’t know if Priscilla was still alive.
Watching little lights from glowstones swarm through the forest, Leda didn’t know for how long she would be alive.