Shaper of Stone (The Shapers Book 1) (21 page)

I paced or leaned against the wall then
paced some more. Eventually I gave in and found a place to sit and
wait. It didn’t make waiting any easier, but it gave me a
chance to listen to the buzzing in my head. I figured when Vatrale
started the ritual, I’d notice a change in the buzz.

I was right. The buzzing began to
change to a whine as more power flowed through it. In case there was
any doubt, the orb closest to the ladder started to pulse. It grew
lighter then darker. With each pulse it dimmed a little more.
Everyone noticed it.

Talamas looked toward me, “It is
only the beginning. We must wait until he is committed, then it will
be time to leave.”

“How much longer?” I asked
while climbing to my feet. I shook out my arms and legs to get the
circulation going in them again.

“I am not sure. He will need to
drain the orbs to power his spell. We will only need to wait until a
number of them have grown dark.”

On queue the pulsing orb stopped
glowing, and the one next to it picked up the pulse. This time the
pattern was faster, and the light grew brighter before dimming each
time. It took only a few seconds until it also grew dark.

Two more orbs began to pulse in unison.

“Amazing!” Talamas said as
he watched the two orbs burn out and another two begin to flash. “We
must move! Now! Vatrale is performing the ritual more quickly than I
anticipated.”

Tibron was out the trap door before
Vatrale could finish. Garit was close behind him. I grabbed the rungs
on the ladder and pulled myself up into the room above. Talamas was
right. The ladder did lead to a storage room, although the shelves
were bare except for dust and cobwebs.

An open doorway lead into a kitchen,
but like the storeroom it appeared to have been unused for some time.
There may have once been a door although no sign of one remained now.
The ceiling above us was riddled with holes where sunlight seeped
into the area.

The kitchen area didn't seem to be in
any better shape. When the tower collapsed it must have come close to
taking this wing of the building with it.

A newly installed ladder rested against
the back wall of the storeroom. It reached a trapdoor in the ceiling
that was not much different than the one we emerged from in the
floor. Tibron paused near the top, one hand braced on the door above
him as he waited for us.

There was a grunt behind me as Garit
reached through the hole in the floor and helped Talamas up the last
few feet. By help, I meant he grabbed the older man and lifted him
into the air.

“Don't wait for me!” he
ordered as he stumbled free of Garit's grasp.

“What was that?” a voice
said from beyond the kitchen.

I turned to see who it was when Garit
stopped me. “I've got this,” he said, then he drew his
sword and stepped into the doorway. “I'll join you as soon as I
can.”

Tibron didn't hesitate. He threw open
the trapdoor and popped through the gap like he was spring loaded.
“Don't take too long. We have company up here as well.”

I scampered up the ladder and pulled
myself onto the roof. When the tower collapsed chunks of stone had
rained down. Some broke through to the rooms below, but most came to
rest here creating a scattered debris field. A path was cleared from
the trapdoor to the base of a ramp leading to the new tower.

The ramp wasn't much wider than a
normal hallway. Two people could pass, but they would need to be
careful to avoid bumping into each other. There was no railing on the
sides. A fall from here would only be twenty feet or so. It would be
painful, but not necessarily deadly. At the other end of the ramp,
the fall would be at least twice that.

It would have been great if we could
run up the ramp without being spotted. Unfortunately the two guards
waiting at the other end were enough to dash that dream. Tibron had
sprinted up the ramp and was almost to them in the time it took me to
get oriented.

“Attack!” screamed one of
the guards as he rushed forward to meet Tibron. The second guard
grabbed a horn and raised it to his lips to blow it.

As quickly as I could I spun off a pair
of throwing stars from the nerafpan around my wrist and sent them
whirling toward the horn blower. They flew past Tibron as he swung at
the first guard who parried his strike and countered immediately. I
had just enough time to notice that both guards were dracomen before
my two projectiles struck their intended target.

I was fast. I didn't hesitate. I
immediately recognized the threat and responded. Normally I would
have been proud of myself. It was too bad that fast just wasn't good
enough today. The horn already to his lips, he managed one long,
powerful blow before the stars plunged into his chest.

The guard fell from the ramp. The only
other sound that comes from him was the crunch when he slammed into
the ground below. Not that he needed to make any more noise. He had
already made enough. The camp in the courtyard was stirring. There
was no way we could hide from them exposed as we were on the ramp.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be
many guards in the courtyard, a half dozen at most. Two had bows, and
they were already aiming at us. The rest rushed toward the building's
entrance. It looked like Garit was about to have more company.

At the center of the camp stood the two
gargoyles. They looked like statues. Unmoving even as the dracomen
scurried into action. For the moment, they didn't seem to be
interested in what was going on around them.

There was a second crunch as another
body hit the ground. For a heartbeat Tibron was standing alone on the
ramp.

The archers both fired at the same
time.

“Get Down!” I shouted, but
I was too late.

A cloud of stone and dirt rose up from
the rooftop to form a swirling vortex directly in the path of the
arrows. The cloud trapped the arrows, splintering them between the
rocks. The next two arrows were destroyed in the same manner.

“Quickly, you fools!”
Talamas stood at the opening in the roof. His hands outstretched
before him as he guided the shield cloud. “I will not be able
to hold this for long.”

Tibron nodded before turning and
charging up the last quarter of the ramp. He struck the door at the
top hard with his shoulder and broke through with a crash.

I spun up another pair of throwing
stars and launched them at the archers on the ground. The missiles
were guided with my mind, which made it easy for me to avoid the
shield cloud. The distance wasn't really an issue with the nerafpan
weapons. If I could see it, they could reach it.

One archer managed to dive for cover
behind a tent. A star slashed through the material, but once it left
my field of vision I had no way of knowing where it would strike. The
other guard wasn't as lucky. He fell with a star sticking out of his
neck.

For the moment, the way was clear. I
rushed up the ramp with Talamas trailing behind. We reached the top
without any more arrows coming our way. The old man looked pale and
was having trouble breathing when we reached the door Tibron burst
through.

I was just about to tell him to wait
here when he waved me forward. Gasping he said, “Go. I'll join
you as soon as I can.”

Like Tibron, I simply nodded to the old
man before turning to follow the warrior into the tower.

-o-

Garit stepped to the entrance of the
storage room as a guard appeared at the other end of the kitchen.

“What the!” said the guard
when he first spotted Garit, then he screamed, “Intruders!”
before rushing forward.

The guard was armed with a spear. He
lowered it and rushed Garit.

Garit leaped into the room and slammed
his sword down on the front of the spear as he stepped to the side.
The spear dropped but didn’t break under the blow. Garit had
moved beyond the tip, and before the guard could pull the spear back
for a second attack Garit turned his own blade and drove it into the
guard.

Garit pulled the blade out and
continued moving forward without pausing.

A second guard rushed in behind the
first. This one threw his spear instead of lunging with it. Garit
slashed at it with his sword, knocking it to the side.

The spear was only a feint. The
guardsman had drawn his own sword and lunged forward, slashing Garit
across the upper leg before he could recover from the spear attack.

Garit brought his own sword down and
caught the attacking blade before the guard could regain his balance.
Already overextended to make the first slash, the guard could not
recover fast enough. Garit rushed in. He ignored the pain in his leg.

There was a flash of steel and the
guard fell back with blood pouring from his neck. His sword dropped
with a clatter against the stone floor.

The fight lasted only a few seconds.
Two guards were down, and Garit had pushed through the kitchen into
the dining area.

Talia stood facing him. She held a
knife in each hand and loose strands of rope hung from her wrists.

“Garit!” she gasped when
she saw him rush into the room.

“Talia!” he answered before
they embraced. Each careful not to stab the other.

“Carvis took Abella. We have to
help her.” said Talia as she pulled free of Garit.

“The others are already on that.
Let’s go.”

“Others? Who else is here?”

“Talamas, Tibron and Devin. If we
hurry we can catch up with them.”

Garit began to lead Talia to the ladder
in the storage room when the outside door swung open, and four more
guards rushed into the room.

“Damn!” said Garit, “I
knew this was too easy.”

-o-

The inside of the tower appeared to be
thirty feet across with no windows or doors other than the one I
entered through. A wooden staircase alongside the wall spiraled up
toward a closed hatch in the ceiling. Tibron was at the top of the
stairs, or at least as high as he could go without hitting his head
against the ceiling. He was hammering at the hatch above him, but it
wasn’t moving.

“Help me!” he yelled as
soon as he saw me. “Carvis escaped through this. I think it is
just him and Vatrale up there.”

“What about the girls?” I
asked while working my way up the stairs.

“I don’t know. I didn’t
see anyone but Carvis, and he ran as soon as I broke through the
door.” Tibron stepped away from the trapdoor to stand next to
me on the stairs. “I can’t budge it. Whatever is blocking
it is doing a damn good job. We need to find another way.”

Standing on the stairs I could touch
the ceiling. It was made of wooden planks stretched across heavy
beams that were inset into the walls. In the center of the room were
four posts that appeared to be load bearing supports. If we took them
out it might cause the ceiling to collapse, but that would take too
long, and I had no idea how much longer Vatrale needed to complete
his spell.

We needed something quick. Focusing on
the nerafpan around my wrist I created a circle of stone the size of
a large dinner plate. While it floated before me, I shaped the edges
creating a series of peaks that looked the way I expected saw teeth
to look.

Tibron watched me work. When I neared
completion he asked, “What is that going to do?”

“If I do it right, it will cut a
hole through the wood.” With a thought I set the stone plate
spinning. It started out slow, but after a few seconds it was moving
so fast that the teeth along the edge were just a blur.

Tibron slashed twice with his sword
scouring a pair of lines along the hatch in the ceiling. “It is
braced at those points. Cut there and our path will be open.”

I nodded as he stepped back and willed
the spinning saw blade to the first of the two lines. When it hit the
wood there was a terrible shriek as it began cutting. The wood was
green and it grabbed at the blade. The rotation of the saw got slower
as it bit deeper into the hatch.

Sweat began to pour from my forehead as
I focused more energy into the nerafpan. It took all my concentration
to keep the saw spinning fast enough to cut through the wood. Then
suddenly the resistance was gone. The blade had made it through. I
paused to catch my breath and let the spinning blade slow down while
I repositioned it below the second line.

I had thought I would be able to cut a
hole right through the ceiling. The wood was more resistant to the
saw blade than I had expected. If Tibron hadn’t suggested
cutting along the brace I wouldn’t have been able to get
through. Even with what little I had left to do, it would take a lot
of energy. By the time we were through, I would be exhausted.

The blade began to build up speed as it
approached the second point. The shriek of the blade digging through
the wood sounded even louder this time. I was breathing heavy. It
felt like I just ran a mile, and my chest was burning from the
exertion.

The hatch flew upward. The spinning saw
blade shot through the opening once the resistance pushing against it
was gone. There was a clatter as it bounced off something before
falling to the ground. It was gone before I could stop it. The stone
blade would probably spin off the energy poured into it, but without
purpose.

I didn’t have too long to worry
about the missing saw blade. Once the hatch was ripped open a
crossbow bolt flew through it.

Tibron reacted an instant before I even
knew what was happening. He shoved me out of the way.

Before I could catch myself I was
falling off the stairs.

I landed on my feet. My right ankle
buckled on contact with the ground, and shearing pain shot up my leg.
I tried to roll out of it, but all I managed was a face plant on the
floor.

Above me there was a grunt followed by
Tibron tumbling down the stairs. He wasn’t alone. He was
tangled up with a second person. They hit the ground hard with Tibron
on the bottom, a broken crossbow bolt sticking out his shoulder.