He did not bother to test the armor, knowing his bulky form could never fit into something designed for an elf. Damir refilled his quiver with arrows tipped by the same strange azure-tinted stone that Øyavind’s had. Balin saw Øyavind approach Damir from behind.
“Those are made with
lunamant
, a rare stone we craft here in Myrm. Whoever harnesses lunamant possesses the power of
paleflames
, even if they are magicless.”
“It’s beautiful.” Damir turned an arrow slowly in his hands.
Balin approached Damir and put his hand on his shoulder. “They will make superb arrows for you.”
The shaft of the lunamant arrows were made of bamboo and the fletching from the bright blue feathers of what Damir guessed must be a bird native to the area. Damir slid the final arrow into his quiver.
Zephyr followed Balin’s example and selected a sword and shield, bypassing armor that would not fit. He frowned at the sword, grumbled that he preferred pistols to a blade.
“The cry came from the city. That is where Tamesis is. Damir and Øyavind, I want you to find high ground, and keep the smaller arachnids off us. Zephyr, Israel, and I will take Tamesis. Understood?” Balin instructed.
“Aren’t I the captain?” Zephyr asked.
Israel swatted Zephyr’s arm. “We understand.”
Balin gave the team a long appraising look, then said, “Let’s go.”
* * * *
Myrm followed the curve of the beach, shaped around reefs Øyavind had told Damir were called the Raiserklinge Reefs. It was a city that gave the illusion of floating above the water, constructed from sturdy bamboo and stone. Pillars rose out of the water and braced the streets of Myrm. Grasped in the hands of the Four Great Kings, pointed skyward, were ancient swords crafted of various metals and stones. From the bridge Øyavind led the group into Myrm, his bow strung with an arrow as a precaution.
Damir could hear the shifting of spiders, a faint clatter of feet. He adjusted his grip on his blade-bow, his own arrow-strung as well, and followed Øyavind. They were on a goose chase for a beast that shouldn’t have existed, and Damir knew he wasn’t prepared to face her.
But that doesn’t matter. We must kill her.
The city was filled with the statuesque bodies of petrified elves and piles of bones, flesh still clinging to them. The broken corpses lay discarded on the ground, sucked clean of meat and marrow. Damir turned away, focusing his thoughts on finding Tamesis and not the cadavers at his feet.
A horrific cry echoed off the city towers. Damir froze, tense, and waited. From a spire, a spider the size of a bear crawled out, crushing beneath his feet smaller fiends. Øyavind released his arrow, which struck the side of the behemoth arachnid.
“Prepare yourselves!” Balin shouted as he raised his sword.
Damir released a volley of arrows, knocking the spider from its perch. He reared up, venom dripping from its chelicerae. Balin took a step back and lunged forward, lifting his shield to ward off a powerful claw as it came down, driving his sword up into its cephalothorax. Blood spilled down the shield in a sanguine waterfall.
“Keep moving!” Balin shouted, tearing the sword up and severing the spider’s upper body in half.
A slew of ravenous spiders rushed down the side of the building, sizes doubling until they were like moving mountains. Damir and Øyavind spun around, releasing another round of arrows. A cry pierced the sky. The high sun shuddered as if it were going to fall, and the ground trembled as if it were going to sink.
“Damir, Øyavind! Get to high ground; see how many you can take out!” Balin shouted and then turned to Zephyr and Israel. “She comes! Be ready!”
Over the rooftops, like a black cloud descending over Zoria, Tamesis crawled toward them. She was no spider, but rather a monster from the darkest depths of the ocean. Legs the size of towering oaks smashed into the buildings. A crown of thorns circled her head, and a hundred lustrous crimson eyes watched them like blood moons. She was jagged like razors and black as volcanic rock, a colossus juggernaut that had come to claim them all.
Damir froze. Coldness trickled down his spine as he stared up at the spider queen. Sweat slicked his palms, and his hands visibly trembled. Øyavind grabbed him by his forearm and dragged him into a nearby building, where they climbed some stairs to the rooftop. They spilled out and took posts on either side.
Damir concentrated on keeping the spiders off Balin. Blood beat in his ears as if in a war chant. Balin attacked from the streets. He struck Tamesis’s leg with his sword. His blade cracked against the claw, not leaving even a scratch.
“Shit,” Balin shouted, rolling out of the way of the claw as it came down.
“My blade can’t get through!” Zephyr yelled, turning to a horde of smaller spiders that flooded Myrm’s streets. He sliced ferociously through the crowd, tearing bodies in half until his sword dripped with gore.
“Love, I think this one is going to be yours!” Zephyr called over his shoulder.
Israel turned to the rooftop Damir and Øyavind fired from and shouted, “Damir, catch!”
He hurled his collapsed staff up to Damir, his body burning bright. Starlight closed around Israel like lush flower petals just as a horde of spiders swept over him. He shone brilliantly, a blaze of celestial radiance that tore through the bodies. A typhoon ripped up him, blew away the light, and scattered it across the sky with the seared corpses of the spiders. Clouds spiraled down, pulled by a storm, which erupted into a giant swan. The swan’s graceful neck curved as Israel arched his body, made of thunder and lightning. Clouds streamed from his wings as he swooped down.
Tamesis turned her heavy body toward Israel, crushing buildings and cracking the stone ground. Balin leaped out of the way of the falling debris. He cut a spider in half and turned around, shouting, “We have to lead them away from the city, otherwise it’ll be destroyed!”
Israel flapped his large wings in acknowledgment, hitting Tamesis with a blast of wind and rocking her back. She caught herself before she could fall, her foot coming down next to Balin. He narrowly dodged another crushing blow.
“Balin, behind you!” Damir yelled as he shoved Israel’s staff into his quiver. He fired another arrow. It soared past Balin, embedding into a spider. Damir could see from his vantage point that the roads were sealed, blocked by the masses of spiders. Balin turned to face the road leading to the bridge and land, yelling, “This way!”
In the distance, the sound of stone crashing into the sea echoed over the battle cries. The longer they remained, the sooner Myrm would become a memory at the bottom of the ocean.
Israel drew back and hit Tamesis with a second blow, the gust partially clearing the black mass of arachnids. Balin rushed forward, sword drawn back, bellowing a war cry as he surged into the fray.
Zephyr followed, cutting a line down the street, as Damir and Øyavind fired the last of their arrows from the rooftop. When Damir finished firing, he twisted his blade-bow into a double-ended sword and commanded, “Get Israel to lead Tamesis toward land.”
Øyavind nodded, and without further word, Damir ran down the stairs and after Balin, racing into the closing throng. His vision blurred as he struggled to tear through the endless bodies with his sword. He could feel the tingle of power, a flame that consumed his pounding heart and rushed down his veins.
Damir held the double-ended sword tightly in his hand, spinning around and turning the blades until they became propellers that devoured flesh. Blood rained down, a horrific storm of shell and guts. He became madness.
Halfway down the street, another merciful wind scattered the rest of the spiders, clearing the way for them. Balin turned to Damir as he caught up. Relief swept over Damir.
“Øyavind?” Balin asked.
“Getting Israel,” Damir said.
They turned, watching the stampede of spiders. Damir’s arms quivered with exertion, but he held his ground and braced himself for impact. Tamesis stumbled backward, crushing the helpless bodies of her children beneath her claws. A tall tower crumbled beneath the weight of Tamesis’s body, stone and bamboo falling into the sea and onto the bridge.
Balin dropped his sword as he shoved Damir out of the way and slid across the rough stone ground. Damir scrambled to his feet, power careening up his glowing body, an uncontrollable force that erupted once more in an inferno. He dropped his blade-bow as a wall of fire spewed from his hands and devoured the first flood of spiders.
Damir groaned at the pain that seared down his arms. The heady rush of power left him woozy, and he could feel himself slipping. Balin caught Damir as he began to collapse, shouting to Zephyr, “Take him and get out of here!”
“AND WHERE ARE you going?” Zephyr growled as he took Damir. Balin could taste the acrid bite of panic and looked at the sword that had been knocked from the statue’s grip. He picked up the new sword and shouted, “To finish this!”
He climbed the fallen side of the building, his fingers scraping against the rough rock. Israel cried as Tamesis pierced his side, lashing out with his talons. He managed to hook her belly, ripping out a chunk. A crack of lightning shot from the sky, absorbed into Tamesis’s hard exterior. With a hiss she reared forward just as Israel summoned a final gale.
Balin grabbed on to the stone as the wind blasted him, struggling to keep his purchase. He pulled himself onto the ledge as Tamesis crashed backward, landing on her back with her legs kicking out. Balin ran forward, pushed off the edge of the building, and launched himself over the side, his sword gripped tightly in his hand, blade pointed down. He drew it up as he arced, then slammed it down into Tamesis’s exposed cephalothorax.
He dragged the sword down, cutting a deep line to her pedicel. A stench wafted from her, the musk of rotted flesh and bone. He jerked the sword out just as she began to flip over. He was thrown off. He hit the ground and broke into a sprint.
Israel released a powerful bolt of lightning that tore open the gouge in her stomach. Balin was caught in the explosion, which pitched him over the side of the bridge. Tamesis let out a shrill screech that was cut short. A concussion of power whooshed from her disintegrating body, extending out over the sea and jungle. Smoke rose from the city as the spiderwebs dissolved into shimmering dust.
Balin surfaced in the water and watched as Myrm was revived. One by one, bodies collapsed onto the ground, coughing out the toxic fumes from their lungs and breathing in the fresh, salty air. Damir pushed away from Zephyr, his body weak, and crawled to the edge of the bridge. With Zephyr’s help, he pulled Balin out of the water.
“Are you okay?” Damir asked.
Balin nodded and turned to Tamesis. He watched as the last of her blew away in the breeze. Øyavind cautiously approached, crouching to pick up the forgotten sword Balin had chosen from the statue he’d been standing by. He held the weapon out to Balin, hilt first. Balin took the sword. “Are there any left?”
“No, and Myrm returns to normal, or as normal as we will be after this,” Øyavind said, looking over Myrm with a heavy sadness in his eyes.
Damir rested his forehead on Balin’s damp shoulder. Zephyr pushed to his feet and brushed past Øyavind, running over to Israel’s motionless form. He had transformed back while Tamesis returned to the darkness, and lay in the street naked.
“There is much still to do, but we can handle it. Please, come with me so you can rest,” Øyavind said, looking down at Balin.
“What of everyone else?” Damir asked as he struggled to his feet. “We cannot leave them here, not when there is so much destruction and death. Take Zephyr and Israel to rest. We’ll help out here.”
Balin stood, steadying Damir as he swayed. “You will be of no help to anyone, not when a sigh could knock you down.”
“I cannot ask more from you,” Øyavind said. “Please, let me show you to some rooms.”
Damir looked to Balin, mouth open. He snapped it shut with a frown when Balin shook his head. Øyavind turned to the fallen statue of one of the Great Kings and climbed his broken body.
Against the late afternoon sun, with his clothes torn and his circlet lost, Øyavind stood proud. He raised his hands high and shouted to his fellow elvenfolk, “My brothers and sisters, we have woken after a long sleep to find our city ravaged. In a single night, when the winds blew colder than ice and howled like a pack of ravenous wolves, we fell prey to an evil that Zoria has only whispered about. But despite this, we have awakened, and we will rebuild. This is our home, and it has not been forgotten.”
One by one, the elves of Myrm turned, listening as their prince spoke. Damir clutched Balin’s arm, leaning heavily on him. Balin kept a tight grip on Damir, his heart a painful knot in his chest.
“Heroes from afar have saved us from a fate worse than death, and while I would like to show my gratitude, right now, we must focus on the wounded. Please, be patient. We all must do our part to return the Kingdom of Myrm back to its glory.” Øyavind lowered his arms.
“Prince Øyavind!” a guard shouted, pushing his way through the growing crowd.
Øyavind climbed down from the statue and turned to the guard. “What is it?”
“King Haldis calls for you,” the guard said.
A light returned to Øyavind’s eyes. He grasped the guard’s narrow shoulders and said, “The king, he is well, then?”
“Weak, but alive. He is in the throne room.”
“Show these men to a room. Have their wounds dressed,” Øyavind instructed the guard, walking past him.
“I’ll go with you,” Balin said. “I wish to speak with the king.”
Øyavind glanced between him and Damir and then, after a long pause, nodded in agreement. Balin turned to Damir and whispered, “Go with the guard. I will return to you shortly.”
Damir released Balin’s arm. He collected his weapon, which had been discarded on the ground, and then followed the guard, remaining close to Zephyr as they returned to the mountain castle.
“Follow me,” Øyavind ordered Balin, sweeping past the guards that flooded into the city.
Chapter Twenty-Four