Throne Hunters Book Four, Chapter 20

The stairwell opened three revolutions below onto a pocket balcony that overlooked a cramped hall below. Stone steps descended from the balcony’s side to a tiny landing, ninety degree turn, then broader steps descended the rest of the way to the flagstones, these smooth, a thick heavy patterned red rug, no furniture. Torches burned brightly in wall sconces on the ground floor below, while vertical windows filled with stained glass depicting the Fallen Angel were inserted into the thick walls around the balcony.

A carriage would have barely fit in the room below, and it was in that space that Kársek and Nessa were doing battle against two knights. Harald burst out onto the balcony, bellied out over the railing, stared wide eyed at the brutally close quarters fight taking place below, then laughed in panicked hilarity.

This was madness.

The rope of smoke was already easing over the balcony to spear down at where Nessa fought a knight, grasping her blade two thirds of the way up with her off hand to use it as a shoving edge.

By the angels and demons both, she could move.

For the briefest of seconds all Harald could do was marvel. Weaver’s Rhythm was in full effect, escalating Nessa’s stats as she flowed within the brutally constrained space, parrying and dodging and ducking as Kársek in turn traded blows with the second knight, his rune hammer sending sparks flying each time it slammed into the descending blows of the cleaver sword.

This second knight was trying to treat Kársek like a tent pole, was just hammering down at him again and again and again with greater fury, and the dwarf was already down on one knee, fighting to not get battered aside.

Harald sought a means of getting involved. There was literally no room for him to jump into the melee. A Demon’s Edge would hit Nessa and Kársek, too. Abyssal Grasp?

“Khazadrok.”

A dozen small runes burst out into a circle around Nessa and Kársek, each the size of small heater shield, to spin clockwise around the dwarf and slam one after the other into the two knights.

The concussive detonations were deafening, and the knights were slammed sidelong by the blasts, flung into the stone walls, and in that moment Harald saw his opening.

He vaulted the railing as Vic and Anna came rushing in behind him and dropped with a yell.

Down past the questing rope to bring the Scourge wailing down upon the knight directly below, and the stone edge, cloaked in Abyssal Attunement, cut right through the knight’s huge pauldron so that his huge arm and tower shield were lopped right off, the wound crystalizing into a spray of frozen purple.

For the briefest of seconds Nessa was back-to-back with him, but then she pushed off him, using him as a spring board, and dove into a roll that carried her clear across the tiny chamber into a lit alcove that housed the stairs down.

The rope.

It curved down gently, innocently after her, forming a column Harald dared not touch.

His enemy phased into green miasma and flowed after Nessa, but she was gone, down the steps, alone.

“After her!” roared Kársek, whose turn it now was to hammer at the knight he’d partially blasted into the wall.

Starfire Bastion dropped over the room.

Harald didn’t waste time on words. He flung himself after Nessa, three long strides and into the alcove, into the spiral staircase heading down, running so fast his boosts barely touched the steps, slipping around, hand on the central stone column, to break out into a much large room.

Everything was happening so quickly now that he was having trouble thinking, strategizing, planning.

There simply wasn’t time.

This next level down was a miniature complex, heavy rafters overhead with thick crossbeams, the stairs opening to a stone catwalk with a wooden balustrade that speared across the center of the room below to T-junction against the far wall, each side offering a different broad staircase that doubled back and descended to the floor below.

Free standing candelabra, heavy rugs over black flagstones, ponderously huge columns forming archways beneath the catwalk, four knights striding out of the broad chamber’s corners, swords already aflame.

Four knights.

No time for doubt, no time for hesitancy.

This was where their paths had led. Their every decision, every fight, every resolution.

This moment, now, in freefall, their crew strung out across two or three distinct levels of this Eternal Tower, and with a joyous shout Harald vaulted over the balustrade to drop the fifteen feet to the flagstones below.

Thronebound Mantle.

His presence suffocated the chamber, dimmed the hordes of candles immolating themselves to death upon their manifold candelabric prongs. The knights hesitated but a fraction of a moment, strides hitching, and then the Goldchops came screaming down from above, splitting up and slamming into raised shields like warning tolls of a neighborhood watch bell.

Harald summoned all three Servitors, not having time for delicacy, and Shadowpaw manifested with a baying cry that echoed from the rafters as the Shadow Scarecrows immediately went to engage with their long, cruel talons.

Abyssal Grasp wreathed the legs of one knight, Shadow Dominion enveloping another. Aura of the Aching Depths dropped the temperature to freezing as Harald raced at the fourth knight, Scourge yearning and moaning as it tore through dimensions, only to be met by a skillful parry which was followed by the knight throwing a gauntleted punch that Harald barely swayed aside from.

Nessa’s blade flashed bright as lightning and Harald saw her foe stumble, its bond to the abyss no doubt severed. Her speed and agility were such that her knight looked a clumsy child in comparison, with only its obscenely thick armor preventing her from lacerating him to death in moments.

Harald ducked a sweep of his enemy’s leg-sized sword, hammered the Scourge into his shield, leaped aside just as a Goldchop flew straight into his helm, bouncing off and causing the knight to momentarily look upwards, giving Harald the chance to hew a great cut down the center of his cuirass, opening him up but not killing him.

Shadowpaw barked in warning.

Harald lunged aside as a second blade cut down through where he’d been, only for the mastiff to pounce on the new arrival’s back and send him staggering past. Harald dropped into a spinning crouch and the Scourge took one of the off-balance knight’s leg at the knee, but a kick to his back sent him sprawling, a fall he managed to turn into a roll.

He came up, disoriented, saw his original combatant above him, burning sword raised, but then Vic fell upon the knight from above, The Point extending at the last moment to punch straight down through the knight’s gorget into his thoracic cavity.

The knight staggered, Vic bouncing off his huge back, but before he could die completely Harald cut off his head entirely with the Scourge and harvested the knight’s essence with Grave Concordat, erasing one of his scarecrows in the process.

Reeling, rising to his feet, wide-eyed, Harald saw that the smoke rope had been chasing Nessa all this while and leaving its trail of fixed smoke in its wake which now looped and dove about the room.

Nessa? Her foe was dead, two knights remained, but she was gone.

“Damn it,” Harald gasped, sweat prickling his brow as he summoned a Shadow Knight from his Cosmos. “This isn’t going to end!”

“Let it never stop!” laughed Vic, his gaze febrile, his manner antic. “Dex boost! Con boost! I’ve never felt so alive!”

Sam appeared on the catwalk above, face flushed, eyes darting about the huge chamber. “Nessa?”

“Below! Finish these off—Vic, with me!”

Kársek and Anna appeared behind Sam as Harald raced through one of the catwalk’s supporting archways, leaped a rope of smoke, and darted into the distant alcove, commanding his Servitors to follow even as he ordered the Goldchops to fly ahead.

The spiral staircase wound around and around, Harald taking the steps four or five at time, leaping at the last when he heard fighting below to hit the curvature of the wall and half slide, half bounce around the final turn to emerge into a feasting hall, just one floor, no balconies, a table as huge as a barge running down the length of the broad chamber. Alcoves along both walls, bright firepits in each, the far wall a mess of blackly burning windows that looked out into the void.

Six knights were closing in on Nessa who’d taken to the table and was dancing amidst the laterally swept blades, her black hair whipping about her, Twilight Crown glimmering, the Aureate Master turning her into a figure out of legend, and in that moment Harald swore that he’d die for her, die for this figure of battle incarnate without a regret in his heart.

“Oh shit!” laughed Vic as he rushed out behind Harald, but without hesitation they charged the closest knights. Harald sent the Goldchops to help Nessa, ordered all three Servitors to each engage a knight, and then the battle was on.

The math wasn’t adding up.

One knight on the first floor, though Harald, ducking a beheading stroke.

Two knights thereafter. The Scourge bounced off the tower shield.

Then four. Harald tripped on the raised edge of a flagstone, crashed onto his ass and then rolled aside and under the table before he could be split in twain.

Now six?

He popped up on the far side just as red-tinted knight whose mask was cast into the visage of a howling wolf swung a huge war flail at him.

Wait, a war-flail?

Fuck, a Level boss.

Harald flung himself backward, prostrating himself on the table as the flail screamed through the air just inches above him, trailing a comet tail of flame behind it, then ensnared the red-armored foe in Abyssal Grasp and Shadow Dominion both. Sweet abyssal energy began to flood into him, but this knight was faster, tougher than the others. The flail didn’t stop its flight, but went around, came up, then crashing down where Harald yet lay.

He rolled aside and the table erupted, shattered right down to the stone floor. Up Harald came, off-balance, right into slam of the tower shield that lifted him off the ground, would have flung him across the table if he’d not managed to grab the upper edge of the shield’s rim with an outflung hand.

Instead, his body went horizontal out from under him as he fell stomach first onto the wreckage of the table, dragging the shield down just enough that a Goldchop blurred through the opening to hammer into the knight’s snarling helm.

Up, up!

Harald sprung up, head ringing, and hewed the red knight’s arm off at the elbow so that its flail dropped to the ground, the Epic-level Chyron Scourge unstoppable. Another Goldchop clanged off the knight’s helm, staggering him to the other side, but the knight simply thrust his stump into Harald’s face, torn metal tearing open his cheek and nearly putting out his eye as familiar abyssal energy flooded out, icing his face.

Shouts, screams, the sound of battle from all around.

Harald spun the Scourge about his head, slammed it down upon the raised shield, then the Shadow Knight was there and with a huge slash brought his black burning blade down upon the red knight’s shoulder.

Whose shield dropped, allowing Harald to backhand the Scourge across his gorget and burst open his throat. The red knight’s head lolled back, black smoke billowing out from the neck wound, but still it reeled, staggering to stay upright till a Goldchop clanged into the loosened helm and tore it clear off.

Grave Concordat harvested the red knight’s essence.

The Demon Seed Has Stirred

Your Strength has risen from 13 to 14

Your Constitution has risen from 14 to 15

Harald didn’t have time to cheer. Sobbing for breath he spun about, drawing his newly acquired Servitor from his Cosmos and erasing the last scarecrow as he did.

The red-tinted knight with the hound mask appeared beside him, but spun all out of black shadow and glass, noticeably different from the other Servitor knight only in bulk.

Nessa had fought her way to the far end of the table. Four knights yet did battle, two pursuing her, two flanking Vic who was ducking and dodging for all he was worth, his illusionary second created by his Phantom’s Gambit no doubt the only reason he’d not yet been split in twain.

And the shadow rope?

Coursing after Nessa, forcing her back, unstoppable.

“Help Vic,” commanded Harald, and both knights pounded through the wreckage of the feasting table to engage their brethren. Harald then willed the trio of Goldchops to sail to Nessa’s assistance, and shoved his hand into his scale pouch.

Shadow Fortitude prevented his feeling any pain, but he could tell from the unfocused nature of his vision and the loose, weird way his back felt that something was wrong. He absorbed handfuls of Golden Dawns and began jogging down the length of the chamber toward the next set of stairs down.

Nessa would be fleeing soon.

He might as well prepare the way for her.

But for the first time his mania began to recede: this was going to be the death of them. Sam and the others had yet to appear on this level.

They were moving too fast, getting strung out.

Accidents were inevitable now.

“Nessa!” Harald pitched his voice to carry over the din of combat. “You need to ditch the Crown!”

“I can’t!” She leaped backward off the table to land only a few yards away from him. “My Ego’ll drop to 8! I’ll—I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it!”

“What choice do we have? Drop the Crown, let the others catch up, we can’t keep running like this!”

Agony tore at Nessa’s features, but then with a wordless cry she tore the glimmering crown from her brown and tossed it away from her. Immediately her eyes widened in horror and panic, her features turning waxen, and her blade faltered in her grasp.

The rope of smoke curled away from them, however, to sniff after the crown that was rotating in circles upon the flagstones.

“Hell no!” Vic leaped the table in a prodigious feat of athleticism, leaving the sole remaining knight behind to battle Harald’s Shadow Servitors. “We’re not leaving this behind!”

“Vic!” shouted Harald in protest, but the Rapier Regent scooped up the Legendary Artifact without breaking his stride and angled his run toward the next alcove down. “We can’t keep—”

“This is our only hope of changing the world above!” shouted Vic back over his shoulder. “I’ll die rather than let it go!”

“Vic!” cried Nessa, tone forlorn, arm outstretched.

“Next level down, darlings!” shouted Vic, and plunged into the stairwell.

“Damn it,” hiss Harald, and took after his friend.

He left his Servitors and Goldchops behind to help demolish the remaining three knights so that Sam and the others wouldn’t be ambushed, and descended the steps. A quick glance back showed a haunted-eyed Nessa stumbling after, her breath coming so rapidly she looked like she was drowning.

Leaving her behind, he chased Vic into the next chamber, running out again onto a balcony.

Three stories.

The uppermost, his, was half the room, with huge windows in the walls. A second balcony wrapped around the interior just below, then the flagstone floor below that.

The drop was easily forty feet.

A central spine was built into the corner of this vertical chamber, hollowed out to contain its own spiral staircase which opened out at the base, steps emerging to give access to the ground.

Vic?

He’d already leaped down to the second balcony and was fencing brilliantly with a black knight who was refusing to give ground.

Where were the—?

Shit.

Two knights on this high balcony, both closing on him from either direction.

Two on the second balcony below, one fighting Vic, the second making a beeline for him.

Four gazing up at them from below, all of them tinged cobalt blue, the edges of their huge plate limned silver.

A crushing sense of futility befell Harald.

They couldn’t keep this up. The Fallen Angel was clearly growing irate at their power disparity on the 28th Level.

But what choice did they have?

“Fuck,” hissed Harald, placed one hand on the stone balustrade, and leaped over it to plummet down past the second floor right into the center of the knot of knights.

The floor came rushing up, the air in hair, and hadn’t it been for his Strength and Constitution of 22 he’d have shattered his legs, pulverized his hips, and died right there from the fall.

Instead he hammered down into a deep crouch, Scourge propped over his shoulder, then rose to standing, insulated by Shadow Fortitude so that he could detonate his only hope of surviving this encounter.

Tenebral Surge.

The abyss exploded out from around him, a wall of furious black energy that sapped the will, the flesh, that made armor brittle and dimmed the light so that for a wicked few seconds the ground floor grew dim and aqueous as if they stood upon the ocean floor.

The four knights were lifted off their feet and hurled away in all directions by the sheer power of his blast.

Harald reeled, almost collapsed, his vision growing dark.

Abyssal Grasp.

He needed raw energy, his Thrones were nigh exhausted.

Black tendrils formed around two of the knights, and with a gasp Harald straightened as fresh power flowed into him, fueling his Abilities, renewing his grip on consciousness.

The four knights were picking themselves off the ground, intent on him, their armor bleached of color so that they had become mostly ashen gray, their swords now without flame.

Harald took a deep breath.

Abyssal Grasp was feeding him might, but not enough.

Not enough for what he intended to do next.

Harald dropped Dark Vigor so as to gain just a fraction more extra power, and with a cry he smote the ground with the Scourge as he unleashed another blast of Tenebral Surge.

Again the power roared out of him, fuligant and fearsome, blasting out in all directions to wash over the knights and again slam them to the ground, causing one to roll completely as he lost his sword and shield.

Harald couldn’t catch his breath. Sweat was blinding him, burning his skin. Heaving for breath, he staggered back, the Scourge’s splayed tip dragging across the flagstones.

Vic was fighting for his life one balcony above, and even as Harald glanced up to check on his status his friend leaped over the railing to fall the remaining fifteen feet and land beside him.

Four knights gazed down dolorously from above, and as one smashed the stone balustrades apart with blows of their swords.

“Oh, hey Harald,” said Vic, wiping at his brow with his sleeve. “Fancy seeing you here. The ale any good?”

The smoky rope was easing its way down the center of the chamber toward them, a few kinks along its length showing where it had changed trajectory to track Vic.

“We can’t keep this up. Vic. You have to ditch the Crown.”

“That I can’t do, Harry boy.” Vic took a deep breath as the four knights kicked rubble clear and stepped into their respective breaches. “Look, it’s a Demon Seed thing. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

Harald snorted. There was the slightest chance he could wrest the Crown from Vic, hurl it away, but even as he pondered this move, an attempt that would no doubt turn Vic against him, the four knights stepped out into the void and dropped.

They crashed down around the pair of them, each creating a small crater where they hit, and then as one rose to swing their tower shields before them, burning swords held high.

“On second thoughts,” said Vic, swiveling around so that he stood back-to-back with Harald, “maybe we should pick a different watering hole.”

Harald glanced upward, hoping to see Nessa, to see Kársek, someone who might help them. He could dimply sense his Servitors and Goldchops one floor above.

Another Tenebral Surge?

No. He’d as likely pass out from the attempt.

His lip was wet. Reaching up, he realized he was bleeding from the nose. And the ears? He checked. And the ears.

Shit.

“Well, if this is where it ends,” Harald began, but Vic cut him off.

“Fuck your goodbyes. Nothing can stop us. Just watch!” And Vic leaped to engage his two knights, The Point extending to clang off one shield even as he ducked a burning swipe.

Digging deep for more energy, Harald unleashed a Demonic Edge at one and moved to engage the second.

But he felt heavy. Abyssal Grasp was feeding him power, but he could barely channel it. He slammed the Scourge again and again against his enemy, but couldn’t find an opening.

“Damn it!” cried Vic, and when Harald glanced back he saw his friend’s spectral double had disappeared. “Thrones are out!”

“With me, then!” Harald backed up to where Vic was gulping for air, bent over as exhaustion swamped him.

The four knights closed.

Harald circled, Scourge held before him with both fists. He willed the Goldchops to come to his aid, felt them course correct and begin flying toward the stairwell.

But they wouldn’t get here in time.

“How does one summon one’s demon patron?” gasped Vic, hands on his knees. “Because right now some demonic help would be dandy.”

The knights raised their blades. Their attacks would be simultaneous.

Harald shifted about, eyes darting from side to side, and that’s when the rope of smoke finally reached down and touched Vic on the crown of the head.