IGS #4, Chapter 57

Leonis

This couldn’t be considered sacred ground, yet somehow it still felt like it. Leonis inhaled deeply, trying to come to terms with what he was seeing all around him—the endless biers, the still forms, their missing legends—and failed. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

Had they been lying here for centuries? In the dark, lost to their own kind, trapped by the Herdsmen in a living mausoleum? Why? The question resonated deep within him, a single, plangent cry: why deprive their ranks of these warriors, these leaders, these geniuses?

Everybody seemed equally stunned. He’d drifted alongside Jova to gaze upon the body of Iulius the Golden, and then moved past the first row, to the second ring, and stopped before one of the ornate platforms to gaze in fascination upon the severe and handsome features of a woman. Even in repose her lips were pulled into the slightest of frowns. BEREKERAH was all the plaque read, but for some reason the name caused him to shiver, as if he recognized it on some ancestral level, something beyond the limits of human memory.

Then they weren’t alone.

The eidolon turned abruptly to stare into the darkness, and the rest of them oriented in the same direction. Movement, and then a stylishly clad… automaton? Construct? Could it be a fiend? emerged from the gloom to stand before them, as alien and inscrutable as the purpose of this tomb.

With a flicker of intent, Leonis Ignited his Heart and glanced back and around their group, ascertaining everyone’s location.

“Who are you?” demanded Jova, tone cold and imperious.

The impossible figure remain stock still, observing them, taking their measure. Leonis could sense its foul intent, yet—could this be considered a Herdsmen? No.

“It’s a guardian,” he said, voice low.

Everybody was tense, frozen, unsure as how to proceed. The creature gave them nothing. No movement, no means of divining its intent.

“It’s not a fiend,” said Xandera softly. “And I can sense more of them around us. Many more.”

“What do you think, Jova?” Druanna sounded almost amused. “Strike while we can?”

“Who are you?” demanded Jova again, but Leonis could sense her growing impatience, born, no doubt, from her awareness of having died here before. “Answer, or we’ll—”

The figure didn’t move, but its will became manifest in an undeniable dark totality. The mana around them, the air, the world, abruptly shifted in a manner Leonis had never experienced. It was as if a pane of glass had slid between him and his Heart, which abruptly guttered and went dark, his grasp on power vanishing right before his eyes. He could still sense the mana, the great Silver banks of it wafting slowly in the air, but his frantic attempts to grasp it were as fruitful as if he’d attempted to grab at distant clouds.

Druanna’s eidolon disappeared.

“It—it claimed Dominion?!” Druanna’s shock was total. “But— that’s a Charnel Duke power, it doesn’t have a Heart—”

The air around the construct grew turgid and wrong. Leonis didn’t hesitate. “Get down!”

He dropped behind the bier even as he roared his command, heart hammering, one hand steadying him on the jeweled side, and crimson light flashed above him, diffuse, radiance from an attack that hadn’t been directed at him.

Kelona screamed, more from horror than pain, and he heard the sound of someone falling bonelessly to the ground.

“Druanna!” Kuragin’s yell was fierce, panicked, and the man rose to charge at the construct, only for Nyrix to tackle him and knock him down just as red light flashed from the construct’s rectangular head to sweep through the air where the other large man had just been.

Damn it! Again and again Leonis reached for his Heart, tried to connect with the local mana, but it was utterly impossible. The construct’s will loomed over them all, clamped down on their ability, and the lack of flying rocks showed that even Jova was affected. Leonis bit his lower lip, glared out at nothing, gaze darting back and forth. What could he do? The raft was dead. Even if they raced back to the shaft, there was no climbing back out. They were trapped, powerless, and facing a foe that could lance them from a distance.

But only if it saw them coming.

Leonis was a big man, but he’d always been light of foot. When he wasn’t hung over, that was, but now he felt alive, lethal, lithe as a jaguar and with a single clear mission: to circle around, using the biers as protection, and come at the construct from behind.

Hunched over low, he snuck swiftly from bier to bier, heartbeat making it nearly impossible to hear anything that was going on. The others were shouting to each other, but clearly were out of sight; no more flashes of crimson seared the air.

A Charnel Duke power. No doubt it was incredibly strong. He couldn’t count on wrestling it into submission. He’d have to angle his tackle so that when he drove it down its stone head would hit a bier. Perhaps it was fragile? If he could shatter that stone, then—but damn it, Xandera had said there were many more out there.

If he stopped to think about it, he’d freeze up. The situation was so bad it didn’t bear thinking on. So he moved instead, going out wide, trying to ensure it never got a clear line of sight on him.

But where was it?

He risked a glance over the top of a bier, peering past the body that lay on it in time to see the black-clad figure leap like a cricket into the air.

Frustration seized him by the throat. It was leaping toward his friends — “Watch out!” he roared, just as it landed neatly atop a bier, feet on either side of a corpse, and unleashed a blast of crimson light upon the person cowering behind it.

Kelona’s scream was brutally cut off.

“Damn it!” He couldn’t help himself. He rose to standing, his whole body vibrating with fury and frustration. “You! Hey—”

A bolt of red, viscous lava flew through the air with unerring accuracy at where the fiend stood. But it swayed aside with impossible dexterity, its entire upper body bending back and over without shifting its legs at all so that the lava flew past it to spatter down between the biers.

“I grant that you have Dominion,” said Xandera, stepping into view. Her long mane of golden hair glowed in the darkness, swept down past her shoulders near to the ground, its very tips darkening to orange then crimson. Her eyes blazed, each a pool of effulgent gold, and slender seams of orange had appeared where her skin showed, as if her core were heating up to a tremendous degree. “That marks you as a lord, and are owed some measure of respect. But I am a queen, and I decree that you shall die for hurting my friends.”

Leonis froze, wonder and fear and concern warring in his heart. He wanted to call out to her, to rush to her aid, but not only where they a good thirty yards away, but what could he even do?

The black-clad construct made no answer. It straightened from its impossible bending pose, and seemed to consider Xandera. Then the facet of its blocky head closest to her flashed, an a plane of crimson light flew forth to strike at the blazeborn queen even as she ducked aside.

It cut through her torso and severed her left arm, so that it fell away as glowing gold blood spurted forth.

“Xandera!” Leonis didn’t care if he could help, he broke into a run, racing down between the biers toward her, only to stagger to a stop.

Xandera hadn’t fallen over like any normal person would.

Instead, a new arm pushed its way out of her shoulder, the whole of it forged from living magma, resplendent and delicate, its blazing glow such that it looked fresh forged.

“I told you,” said Xandera, voice growing low. “I am royalty.”

And then she blasted the construct clear off the bier even as it sought to turn and leap. The magma lifted it off its perch, engulfed it, and brought it crashing down upon an empty bier to roll off and hit the ground.

Leonis sprinted forward and saw that Jova had the same reaction. She closed on the fallen foe from the other side, and they reached the construct simultaneously. It was jerking and sitting up, its finery covered in great dollops of cooling lava, the geometry of its head now pitted and imperfect.

But not dead.

Leonis roared and brought his booted foot down on its shoulder, knocking it prone, and Jova stomped its head a moment later.

The construct seemed disoriented, but it was clearly still in the fight. It flailed its arms, then a flash of crimson flew forth from its head, the intensity lessened, the light snarled and pocked with darkness as if its fundamental nature had been warped, but still strong enough to catch Jova in the chest and near slash her apart.

Jova didn’t scream. She simply reeled for a moment, eyes wide, and then staggered, looked ready to collapse.

Leonis lunged for her, over the fallen construct, wrapped his arms around her waist and carried her away, ducking low and bringing her to the ground a few biers over and out of the monster’s sight.

“Damn,” he hissed, rearing back and taking in the damage. A line had been seared from the base of her neck down over her chest to one hip, her clothing cut open, her flesh cooked, with the white of bone showing through over her ribs. Blood bubbled at her lips, and she stared at him with helpless fury, shivering and if suddenly freezing.

Her Heart was guttered. Her resilience was neutralized. She tried to speak but could only make a choking sound.

“Wait here,” he said, horrified, desperate, resolute. “I’m going to help Xandera.”

He tore himself away and rushed back, only to see the young blazeborn queen step into view as the construct levered itself up to one knee. It lashed at her with its crimson light, but this time she stepped and turned away, so that the weak blast missed, then raised her palm to flood it with fresh lava.

The black-clad monster went down, buffeted and drowning under the glowing deluge, and Xandera raised her chin to stare imperiously at where it lay. “You die for your transgressions.”

The effects of Dominion dropped, and Leonis instantly Ignited. He summoned his gold armor and Nezzar, and never had he taken so much comfort from wielding his mythic club. This meant Jova was no doubt already stabilizing, perhaps even healing, through he wasn’t completely sure how her power worked.

Still, if she could get the raft up, if they could get everyone on board and flee-

Dominion dropped on them again like a leaden shroud. His Heart guttered, and with a cry he lost Nezzar and his armor.

“Damn it!” roared Kuragin from the near distance.

“This isn’t good,” said Xandera, tone distant and she turned to gaze about them.

“No,” agreed Leonis. “Not good at all.”

Then she turned and smiled, the expression luminous and gentle and kind. “Don’t worry. I’m here. I’ll do what I can.”

Leonis went to answer but movement in the dark dragged his gaze away. More constructs were appearing.

Many more.

They emerged from the farthest reaches of the vast tomb to draw close, illuminated by the ghostly radiance of the candles. Ten, twenty, too many to count.

Leonis’ lip peeled back in a silent snarl as he turned in a slow circle. More than fifty, easily.

Utterly silent, they strode ever closer, closing the net.

Xandera’s expression turned solemn as she observed them all.

“What can I do?” asked Leonis helplessly. “How can I help?”

“Sometimes, you can’t.” Her tone was gentle. “Sometimes, you have to depend on your friends.”

And Xandera moved forth to meet them.

She skipped between the biers, light on her bare feet, and the closest constructs leaped to engage. Mid-leap, as a dozen of them were at the height of their arcs, she waved her arms and from each palm gouted a great blast of lava that flew up in a thick, sludgy spray even as the black-clad figures blasted back down at her with their crimson light.

The lava parted, but was mostly inured to the attack; it hit half the constructs with enough force to turn them mid-air, so that they fumbled the descent and crashed down upon the biers or the interstices between them.

But enough of the crimson light got through that Xandera took several of that attacks across the arms and torso. She cried out in pain and staggered backward, deep lesions oozing her burning blood.

More constructs were closing in from all sides. Twisting, loosing more bolts of lava, Xandera gave ground and entered the large open space before the Archspire. Leonis clenched his fists as he watched her topple one figure after the next, but there were always more to replace them, and they kept scoring her with their blasts, so that soon she was a mess of ruins, her dusky skin wet with blood, one arm hanging down by her side, chunks of her flowing hair falling free only to be replaced by fresh golden growth.

There was no way she could win.

It was just a matter of moments now.

What could he do?

Kuragin and Nyrix were yelling at Xandera to flee even as they retreated hunched over into the dark. Jova—had she healed enough? Nothing from Druanna and Kelona. His stomach was a twisted ball of acid and pulsing bile. He had to see if they yet lived. He couldn’t—wouldn’t abandon them.

If only Scorio were here!

But he wasn’t. Which meant Leonis would do what he could, meager as that was.

Xandera went down. The black-clad figures closed about her, flashes of crimson light erupting again and again as they blasted her where she lay.

He wanted to bellow his frustration, to find a weapon, to be able to do something. But then a great flood of heat blasted out from where the constructs were gathered, and though it wasn’t a wash of power, exactly, and though Leonis was parted from his Heart, he could intuit, could sense the sheer power that had just blasted out from that locus.

Something had just happened.

Something that caused the scores of black-clad figures to hesitate and draw back.

Then, like a leviathan emerging from the depths, a new figure arose into view. Twin ridged horns easily a yard in length speared upward from an adult feminine face whose eyes were twin suns in a mask of ebon black. Solid black hair hung about her horned shoulders, and all of her was armored in thick black plates whose seams blazed with a infernal inner light. She rose, swaying in a serpentine manner from side to side, and Leonis had never someone more august, more imposing, more regal in his life.

“Very well,” intoned the blazeborn queen, her voice hollow with power. “If you wish to test my might, I shall gladly reveal its extent.”

The base of the Archspire erupted. A surge of lava flooded forth like a wave, picking up and carrying away the closest constructs who contorted and reached and arched their backs as they sank into the burning rock. Others managed to leap up and away with terrible agility, loosing blast after blast of red light at the queen. These scorched her armored form, but failed to cut through, or best landed lacerating cuts.

Xandera, in turn, extended her palm and began loosing precise bolts of lava as slender as arrow shafts, and which flew forth just as quickly. They lit up the heavy gloom like dawn rays, flying forth to connect with the constructs to either send them spinning away or punch clear through their chests or shatter their heads.

Leonis felt a shout of victory rise in his chest, wanted to laugh, to cheer her on. Xandera wove from side to side on her great serpentine tail, her form burning bright between the plates of black armor.

They were going to win this thing. Nothing could stand up to Xandera Sextus.

Abruptly, the remaining constructs drew back, and Xandera must have sensed something for she ceased her assaults and narrowed her blazing eyes as she peered into the darkness.

Leonis followed her line of sight, and saw three new figures approaching. They were identical to each other, but distinct from the first wave, three men with chalk-white chests and huge, armored shoulders made from overlapping black iron plates. They drifted forward as if floating, their lower halves seeming to disappear into black armored skirts, and their heads…

Leonis gaped.

Black necks rose to black heads that were cut off just above the bridge of the nose. There was simply nothing above that, no eyes, no brow, nothing.

The three figures floated forward, two splitting off to encircle Xandera, who watched them warily, waiting for them to draw closer.

Then, simultaneously, that same crimson light flared from the severed tops of their heads, spreading out to form a flat triangle whose surface shimmered as if smoke were passing through it, and they burst forward, flying through the air toward Xandera.

Who let forth a cry of defiance and flung herself to one side as she willed a wall of lava to erupt from the ground, so bright it banished the darkness. The three figures simply pulled up, their mobility perfect, to fly over the top of the surging wall and then fly around the blazeborn queen in peerless symmetry, the triangle of light atop their heads flexing and extending to form static beams of red light that extended down to where Xandera stood.

Leonis couldn’t see what happened, for his sight was blocked by the wall of lava, but he heard Xandera scream.

“Shit,” he hissed, casting around. He wouldn’t just stand there any longer. A weapon, a piece of rock he could throw, something -

His gaze fell upon the closest bier.

An older man lay upon it, his features craggy and worn, his mane of graying black hair draped upon the bier about his head, the same silver spike punched up through his chest.

But he looked familiar. Even in death he had an arresting presence, a striking mien, an aura to him.

But he wasn’t dead.

Leonis’ eyes widened as he saw the chest rise subtly, and then fall.

The blood on the silver spike glistened. It looked fresh.

How?

Almost tripping over himself, Leonis rushed around to the base of the pier. The plaque bore one name: PLASSUS.

For a second Leonis hesitated. The Charnel Duke from the Fury Spires. He’d never spoken to the man, but remembered Scorio’s duel, how he’d led their forces across the Bone Plains—if anyone could help—

But how could he free him? Frantic, Leonis studied the bier, searching for a mechanism, buttons, a lever, anything.

Of course there was nothing. This was an artifact, wasn’t it? It was probably activated by mana, would respond to some command, or—

“Damn it!” roared Leonis as Xandera cried out again, and in sheer frustration he hammered his fist down upon the plaque.

Which made a buzzing, grinding sound, and retracted an inch into the bier, Plassus’s name vanishing from its face.

The silver spike that protruded from Plassus’ chest sank and disappeared.

A moment later Plassus blinked, scowled as if by reflex, then raised a heavy hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose and sat up.

Leonis stared, unable to think much less act.

The Charnel Duke dropped his hand heavily into his lap, then quirked a dark brow and stared right past him as the fight that was taking place before the Archspire.

Then he dragged his burning gaze back to Leonis, and demanded, his voice little more than a rasp, “What in the fucking fuck is going on?”