Keith Baker - The City of Towers

Teral howled with rage. But even as Daine braced for the attack, Lei was moving. Her staff lashed out, catching Teral dead in the chest. The councilor stopped in his tracks, screaming in pain. To Daine’s astonishment, he saw that Teral’s unnatural armor had pulled back from the point of Lei’s blow.

“Come on!” she cried.

They charged. Teral had regained his balance. Moving inhumanly fast, he snatched up the leg of one of the shattered ’forged scouts and flung it at Lei. It caught her full in the chest and she fell. Daine kept moving, and with one smooth motion he struck the bare patch in Teral’s armor. There was a slight resistance as the dagger pierced flesh, scraped between the ribs, then it slid in the councilor’s chest up to the hilt.

Teral howled. He grabbed Daine by the throat and lifted him off of the ground. Blood was streaming from Teral’s mouth and down his chest, but his strength was inhuman. His hand was crushing Daine’s throat, the world began to fade-

And then Teral’s head exploded.

Pierce had come up behind Teral and brought the full force of his flail on the councilor’s skull. Teral instantly turned to dead weight, dragging Daine to the ground. Even in death his grip was strong, and Daine struggled to pry the grasping fingers from his throat.

“Pierce …” he gasped. For a moment, relief washed over him. Then he realized Chyrassk was nowhere to be seen.

With one curt kick, Pierce knocked Teral’s body aside, then planted his steel foot on Daine’s chest, slamming him back to the ground. Without a word, Pierce raised his flail for another killing blow.

Lei groaned. The coppery taste of blood filled her mouth, and her head was a throbbing anvil. Gripping the staff, she forced herself to her feet, trying to ignore the pain in her ribs. She found her footing just in time to see Pierce shatter Teral’s skull. But as she moved forward, Pierce knocked Daine to the ground and pulled back for a second swing.

It was clear to her in an instant. As difficult as it was to influence the thoughts of a warforged, it was not impossible. Chyrassk must have found a way to twist Pierce’s perceptions. Pierce had struck Teral first, and Lei surmised he was seeing everyone as enemies. If so-she prayed she was right-at least Pierce wasn’t under Chyrassk’s direct control. If that were the case, she knew beyond doubt that she and Daine were both dead.

Lei lunged forward and put her hand on his chest. She concentrated and time seemed to stand still. Pierce became the center of all her senses, the rest of the world fading away as his binding web of energy came into view. She sharpened her focus, trying to find some way to sense what Chyrassk had done, to break his mental hold. Her talent was with mending metal and stone, not thought and spirit, but desperation drove her to act on pure instinct, and she pushed deeper and deeper. But there was nothing to be done, and for all that time seemed frozen she knew that she only had moments to act. Filled with remorse, she hardened her thoughts and struck at the heart of the web, the light that gave Pierce life. And her world exploded.

For a moment she thought she had gone mad. Pierce’s lifeweb had replicated, and she was looking at four different variations of the same pattern. Then she realized that changes were being made, that someone else was thinking with her mind and making minor adjustments to each of the four webs, discussing the shifts with another whose thoughts she couldn’t feel. She couldn’t hold onto any of the words. It was as if she forgot them the moment she heard them. But there was a sense of self, a recognition, and she realized these were the thoughts of her mother, preserved in the very essence of Pierce since the moment of his creation. In that instant, that mere fraction of an indrawn breath, she knew what Pierce had been built for.

And just as suddenly, she was back in the material world, falling to her knees. Pierce stood stock still for a second, wavered, then collapsed. Lei retched, both from the pain in her ribs and head and the horrible ache in her mind. The memories were already fading, and she could no longer remember exactly what it was she had seen. But she knew that her parents had built Pierce the same year that she was born, and looking down at the fallen warforged, she wondered if she had killed her brother.

Daine struggled to his feet. Lei was looking down at Pierce’s inert form. “Is he dead?” he said, reaching out and putting his hand on her shoulder.

“I … don’t know.” Lei wiped at her face, brushing aside the mingled blood, tears, and bile. “I tried. I tried to destroy him. I had to. But something … something happened.”

Her words were lost in a new round of tears. Daine didn’t know what she was dealing with, but he didn’t have the time to find out.

“Lei,” he said. “We need to keep moving. That thing, Chyrassk, it must have fled while we were fighting Teral. We need to find it. We have to finish this. If Teral was telling the truth, there are dozens of those warped warriors up above. We need to destroy Chyrassk before it can reach them. Otherwise, all of this-Pierce, Jode-it’s been for nothing.”

Lei had a gift for turning grief into anger, and it came to her aid now. In her mind she saw the monster leaning over her, its piercing tongue descending to devour her brain. She imagined Jode suffering the same treatment, and fire burned in her blood. She blinked away her tears and nodded.

Daine led the way. He was weak from loss of blood, but he ran as fast as he could. Before long they emerged from the long room. Identical hallways stretched left and right.

“Which way?” Lei said.

Pierce had always been the tracker for the unit, but Daine had had to hone his senses in his first career. “There,” he said, pointing. A few patches of green-black blood could be seen along the floor to the left. “It looks like Pierce managed to get in a few good blows before Chyrassk overwhelmed him.”

They ran down the dark corridor. The cold fire torches were few and far between, and the air was damp and cold. The hall twisted and turned. It was ideally suited to an ambush, so Daine was hardly surprised when one finally came.

Daine turned a corner and found two Cyran refugees-a half-elf woman and a scarred, elderly man-waiting for them. The moment Daine came into view, the woman began to sing. Her voice was the sweetest sound Daine had ever heard, a music beyond mere words. For a moment he forgot the devourer of minds, Teral, the old man. The world vanished in the purity of the sound. But a moment later the sound came to an abrupt end-just as the old man was leaping at Daine, a mouth full of needle teeth descending towards Daine’s throat. Instinct was all that saved him. He sidestepped the attack and planted his dagger between his enemy’s ribs. The warped man hissed, clawing at Daine, but he did not possess the vitality of Teral, and a moment later he collapsed to the floor.

Pulling his dagger free, Daine found Lei in battle with the woman. Even as he turned to face them, Lei delivered a powerful blow to the throat, and the half-elf fell.

“Harpy’s voice,” Lei said, looking at the unconscious woman. “Lead on.”

They passed a few open portals, but the trail of inhuman blood continued on down the hall. Through the open arches, Daine caught a glimpse of a room filled with stone slabs. A barracks? Crypt?

At last, the hall came to an end. Stepping into the final chamber, Daine had to catch his breath.

A labyrinth of steel catwalks was suspended above pools of glowing fluids, a kaleidoscope of colors and scents. A hot wave of air washed over Daine as he stepped onto the catwalk, and the sweet, cloying scent filled him with dizziness. He almost lost his balance, but he managed to pull himself together just in time. The catwalks were barely three feet across, and there was no railing. Any loss of composure would result in a fall into the churning reservoir that lay below.