Dawn of the Dreamsmith (The Raven's Tale Book 1) (83 page)

“Wait,” Cole called out. “What god? The Order worships no deity. You tell your followers that humanity stands supreme.”

The Archon smiled. “A convenient lie. But whether they know it or not, they take part in His communion, and bring us ever closer to His glorious return.”

“All this talking. Why not just kill us?” Cole blurted. He instantly regretted his words.

“Oh, but you are too important to my schemes, Dreamwalker. My power is great, but together...” He grinned. “Together we could crack open the heavens themselves. If I had only known you would deliver yourself to me in my moment of greatest triumph, I would not have gone to such lengths to track you down. As for you,” he continued, addressing Raven, “all that remains is for me to reintroduce you to an old acquaintance. As our young friend so keenly observed a short while ago, I prefer not to sully my own hands if I can help it.”

The Archon’s eyes travelled past them, and as Cole turned he saw a huge form shoving its way through the throng towards them.
I’m sure that the floor isn’t really quaking beneath his feet,
Cole told himself.
I’m absolutely positive that it’s just my imagination.

Raven swore under her breath when Dantes, the Archon’s giant manservant, stood before them. Baleful eyes burned through the narrow slits of his mask. Considering those were the only features revealed, they gave away a surprising amount. Eyes that said
I have followed you from the edge of the known world, across countless miles, through haunted forests, over mountains... and now you are mine.

The giant’s metal arm hung loosely, though the steel fingers twitched menacingly. In the other, the one that at least remained human, was clasped an enormous warhammer. A normal man might have been able to wield it two-handed, but for Dantes it seemed to require no more effort than a child would need to hold a stick. His great chest heaved, sucking in huge, powerful breaths. Not from exertion, Cole realised with a sinking feeling, but from sheer, barely contained fury. As he appeared before them, the hands that had restrained them up until now released them.

“Two against one hardly seems fair, I know,” the Archon said. “But I’m sure you’ll offer him some small amusement at least. Dantes,” he called to the giant. “Do as you wish with the girl, but try to ensure the boy has a few wits remaining in his skull when you are done with them.”

“Cole, get behind me,” Raven told him, drawing her swords.

Feeling like a coward, but not sure what else he should do, he obeyed. And then, at the summit of the Order’s tower, pandemonium broke out. It proceeded to do so for some time.

*      *      *

All things considered, Raven decided, she would rather have faced another of Builder’s metal creations than the Archon’s giant. Their last fight ended before it had begun, by the Aevir’s intervention... and it was not something that numbered among her many regrets.

With a grunt, Dantes swung the warhammer down towards them. Raven shoved Cole backwards and rolled under the blow, which smashed into the floor of the chamber. When the weapon was lifted, she saw that where she had been standing the ground was dented and tiles had been shattered into hundreds of shards.

The giant growled and swung again, this time sweeping the heavy weapon around in a chest-high arc. Again Raven ducked, and heard cries of pain as it mowed down a row of Brothers that had been standing too close. They flew lifelessly into the air, and soon their fellows were tripping over one another in their haste to get away.

While the giant’s huge frame was still twisting with the follow-through of his swing, Raven sprang forward and slashed her blades down his side, feeling a small glow of triumph as rivers of blood welled instantly.

The giant howled in pain, then flicked out his metal arm and struck her flank with inhuman force, knocking her from her feet. The breath was knocked out of her as she landed. The ribs she had bound tightly, hoping to protect, throbbed with pain. This time, when the warhammer swung down, she was barely able to roll aside in time. The aftershock as it hit empty tiles reverberated around her body.

He’s too strong,
she thought despairingly.
I can wound him, but a single strike from him will end it.

Gasping to fill her lungs, she scrambled to her feet, keeping herself out of the range of his hammer. The giant circled with her, following her every step. Blood trickled from his flank, but she did not fool herself that she was winning this contest.

Something about the way he moves,
said a voice in her head. Then, before she could think on it further, the giant charged and she plunged once again into the fray.

*      *      *

Cole dithered. He watched helplessly as Raven and the Archon’s giant flew at one another a second time, wanting to help his friend but unsure how to do so.

Raven ducked and weaved past his powerful swings to get in a few cuts of her own, but so far it did not appear to have weakened her enormous foe. Meanwhile, his metal arm seemed to operate almost independently of the rest of him, its steel claws snapping at her whenever she ventured too near. Cole remembered his own bout against him on the training square; the giant was unlike any other human opponent, and he hoped Raven would find a way soon to defeat him.

Just then a beam of green fire pierced the room, shooting down from the sky through the portal in the roof. It struck the top of the great crystal, which began to pulse with sickly light. He watched open-mouthed as the strange metal contraption atop the Archon’s chamber began to spin faster, the metal bands rotating with an audible
whoomph
as they passed one another. As he looked on, tendrils of green smoke began to waft through the chamber’s archway.

“It’s happening!” he shouted, as Raven jumped out of the way of another hammer-blow. “What do I do?”

“A little busy right now!” she shouted, as she flew backwards from another sweep of the giant’s prosthetic. The force of her landing made Cole wince. “Can’t you think of anything?”

“I don’t know,” he wailed. “I just assumed that when we got here something would occur to me.” He stared uselessly at the scene unfolding around him. “I thought Mother said I would be faced with a choice? I’d give my left arm for a single option right now, let alone alternatives.” The giant turned to glare at him through the eye-slits of his mask, and Cole swallowed. “No offence meant, of course,” he added.

As Raven charged forward again, the blades of her swords a blur, Cole turned back to the device and the men standing around it.
Think Cole!

A mournful sound made him glance down. Around the flap of the pouch at his waist was a thin sliver of light. As he opened it, his face was bathed in the green glow from inside. “Grume?” he asked uncertainly. “Are you all right?”

“I... feels... funny.” Came the hesitant reply. Cole watched, startled, as the boggit slowly floated up from the depths of the pouch. Every hair on his head and body stood to attention, like the spines of a hedgehog. His arms were outstretched, his yellow eyes wide and glazed over. Tiny ripples of green lightning crackled along his limbs and hair.

If it hadn’t been for the thunderstruck expression on the stricken boggit’s face, as he hovered uncertainly in the air, Cole might have laughed at the ridiculous sight. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Gonna burst...” the little creature moaned. “Can’t... ‘old it in.”

Cole thought about how the boggit had reacted to the crystal pillar in Strathearn, and even the small pendant around his neck the first time they had met. “Of course, it’s the big crystal, isn’t it?”

He wondered whether it had been such a good idea to bring the creature along.
Poor Grume,
he thought.
His kind seem to react to the stones even worse than humans.
He thought then about his power, how he seemed to be able to be around the crystals and not be affected by them like others.
That’s why I’m here
. He stared at the great green stone, all around which chaos seemed to be breaking out.
That’s why it has to be me.

“I know what I have to do,” he shouted at Raven, as she ducked beneath a swing of the giant’s hammer.

“Well, whenever you want to get started, that’s fine with me,” she replied, breathing hard.

Grinning, Cole began to run to the spinning metal sphere, the revolutions of which carried it near to the top of the great crystal.
I hope it travels close enough,
he thought.

*      *      *

Grume was not having the best of days. He’d been bumped around, jostled, told to keep quiet... and no-one had thought to throw even a morsel of food his way.

And now he was going to explode.

He’d felt it again when The Boy had started to climb, like an itch in his brain that he was unable to scratch. Growing more and more unbearable the higher they went. Then, the feeling of fullness. Not like after a meal, no. More like feeling like a pair of bellows had pumped air into him until it started to leak out.

Only, instead of air, it was lightning.

Wrapped up in his own bubble of misery, trying with all his might to hold it inside, he saw The Boy go running towards the stone. He watched as one of the other biggers, the one who spoke as if he was the leader but pretended he wasn’t, pointed and shouted. Other biggers in brown robes started to run after The Boy.

Despite the pain, Grume growled. As much as he was a pain in his rump, The Boy was still the only bigger that had ever shown him kindness.

He stopped trying to hold the feeling inside.

*      *      *

Raven saw the light first of all. It was as if a sun was exploding beside her. Then, after the light came heat.
Why am I flying?
she wondered, light-headed.

A few moments later she landed, crashing hard onto the tiles of the great hall. Her ears were ringing, but when she heard the screams she sat upright.

At first, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Bolts of green lightning crackled around the room, jumping between the Brothers. They shook and juddered as it touched them, their agonised screams echoing around the hall. Acrid smoke began to fill the air, while the stench of burning flesh made her stomach lurch.

The giant had not escaped the storm. He still stood in the same spot he had been when the light touched her, his metal arm reaching for her. The lightning coruscated along it and across his powerful body. Even lacking a tongue, his howls carried above all the others.

At the centre of the chaos, she saw a ball of green light floating above the ground, and it took her a moment to recognise the squat figure within.
Grume?

The little boggit’s hair and clothes whipped around him as if he was caught in the midst of a mighty gale. The lightning poured forth from his outstretched claws. For the first time since they had encountered him, the little creature appeared to be enjoying himself.

*      *      *

Cole halted his charge towards the crystal to briefly to take in the carnage behind him. Despite the seriousness of their situation, he couldn’t help but grin. “Grume!” he shouted towards the little floating ball of destruction. “I think I’ve worked out what you’re impending of!”

Amid the screams and shouts that filled the hall, there was no way he could have heard the boggit’s reply. And yet, as he turned back to the Archon’s device he was sure a faint “faggorf” reached his ears.

A struggle seemed to have broken out among the men clustered around the glowing, smoking chamber at the base of the device. Ignoring them, Cole ran past and threw himself at it, clutching hold of the metal struts as they rushed past.

As the sphere span, it carried him closer to the giant crystal. When Cole judged the moment to be right, he jumped, clutching at its smooth surface. He landed near the column of green fire that was still streaming through the opening in the tower roof. To his surprise, there was no heat to it.

Steeling himself, he reached out towards the crystal with his mind, as he had done so many times before.
I can do this,
he told himself.

*      *      *

Jarrod’s mind raged. He stared with unconcealed hatred at his father’s back as he stood conferring with the Archon, laying their schemes. Ignoring him.
You always like me best when you can neither see nor hear me, don’t you father?

A lifetime of slights both great and small, real and imagined, raced through his brain. Hearing himself referred to simply as ‘the bastard’ when it was thought he was out of earshot. The years spent in his noble brother’s shadow. Adelmar, who barely spared him a thought at all, so secure was he in his position as heir. Oh, Jarrod teased and plucked at his pomposity, but both knew in their hearts where they sat in their father’s affections.
I shall not mourn you, big brother.

A sly smile crept across his face at the thought, but faded instantly. All the while he had schemed with the Archon to bring him within a hair’s breadth of the Crown, the confounded man had plotted with his father to rob him of his birthright. All his dreams had turned to dust before his eyes, and he was expected to stand there and lap it up with a moronic grin. Him! It was intolerable.