David Wells - Linkershim

Alexander lit up Luminessence like the sun. The light felt warm and soothing, not too bright, no glare, just clean pure light. But the men facing him dropped their weapons, covering their eyes as if they’d been gouged out with hot pokers, shrieking in pain from the sudden onslaught. Two of the group running to join the fight recoiled so violently from the sudden brilliance that they threw themselves over the railing and into the void.

Alexander strode through the men cowering on their knees and holding their hands over their eyes. Once past the immediate threat, he dimmed the light since it took an effort of will to maintain such intensity, and continued toward his objective.

Seconds later, he saw the Andalians reach the platform where Grant’s men were recovering from temporary blindness. The three men who’d faced Alexander were quickly overpowered and thrown from the balcony, while the remaining brigands in Grant’s employ held back, launching a volley of crossbow bolts at the soldiers. A few Andalians fell, but most defended against the attack with their heavy shields.

Alexander left them to it, noting that Grant and a number of his people hadn’t descended down the ropes and were now moving back into the warrens of the underdark, leaving those who had moved to intercept Alexander to fend for themselves against the platoon of soldiers. The fight was a stalemate until the Acuna wizard arrived and killed five of Grant’s men with a series of red-hot force shards. The remaining brigands broke and ran. The soldiers and wizard laughed at them, mocking their cowardice, but didn’t pursue.

Alexander reached the final pillar standing between him and the last platform before the guardian chamber. A sentinel stood in his path, eyes glowing, spear and shield at the ready. He marched toward it, assessing the field of battle with each step. This platform was different than the rest in that there were no railings, just a thirty-foot-diameter circle of stone with three bridges joining it on one side and a single span without railings arcing away on the other. A guardian before the guardian.

He stepped onto the platform, stopping to face the sentinel.

“You shall not pass,” a distant voice said. “This way is forbidden.”

Alexander stretched out with his all around sight. Soldiers and brigands were converging on his position from a number of directions. The Acuna wizard was nearly in position to throw a spell. Then a man went flying off the near edge of the guardian chamber, screaming into the dark.

Soldiers had reached the guardian ahead of him.

He strode toward the sentinel, reaching into the moments to come with his mind, seeing the thrust a moment before it became reality, spinning around it and past the sentinel, then breaking into a dead run, leaving the inanimate sentry behind as he sprinted across the bridge that would deliver him to the guardian chamber.

Danger flared in his mind an instant before a blow hit him square in the middle of the back, hard as a hammer. It knocked his wind out and sent him sprawling on his face, Luminessence clattering across the floor, coming to rest on the edge of the bridge, three feet of the enchanted staff hanging out over the void.

Alexander scrambled forward, all other thoughts pushed aside as he dove toward the edge of the bridge, catching the staff just before it slipped over, rolling onto his back and holding Luminessence to his chest with both hands. He lay there for a moment, schooling his breathing and calming his heart.

A man’s scream was cut short by a loud thump, then another man went over the edge of the open-ended chamber that Alexander was struggling to reach. He staggered to his feet just in time to see soldiers lumbering toward him, struggling to move quickly under the weight of their armor. Then the Acuna wizard began casting a spell.

He unleashed Luminessence again, filling the chamber with a flash of light so bright that everyone nearby had to look away or cover their eyes. The wizard’s spell went wide, a bubble of liquid fire whizzing past him into the guardian chamber and splashing against the ceiling, dripping orange-hot fire into the room below. A solider screamed.

Alexander was up and running again, pain in his back jolting him with every step, but he pressed on, reaching the guardian chamber just as Grant and a dozen of his brigands stopped at the threshold of an oversized door on one side of the room. A dozen soldiers were already dead, their bodies broken and burned. A dozen more were surrounding the guardian, trying to bring it down while trying harder to avoid its stone fists.

Alexander skirted to the right of the guardian, putting it between him and Grant’s men. It lunged, striking at a nearby soldier with both fists in unison, catching him in the chest and blowing him backward scores of feet, his still, dead corpse coming to rest against the wall. Another soldier stabbed the guardian in the knee, his sword sinking into the red-hot magic joining the stones and melting in a shower of sparks. A backhanded swat by the guardian sent the man flying silently off the far edge of the open-ended chamber.

When Alexander reached the midline of the room, the guardian spun toward him, hurling a lava-red stone the size of a man’s head. He turned to avoid it, but it grazed him across the chest, burning his tunic and heating his dragon-scale chain to the point of searing. He cried out, pulling the chain away from his skin, then emptying his waterskin on it, turning his face away from the sudden cloud of steam.

The Acuna wizard and his men reached the chamber’s edge, stopping to assess the situation before the soldiers began to advance toward Alexander. He flipped Luminessence to his left hand and drew the Thinblade.

“McGinty!” he shouted.

He inched toward the far edge of the chamber, drawing the guardian’s attention again. It threw a stone at him, the rock heating to orange-hot in an instant. Alexander dodged, feeling a wave of heat as it zipped past his head and hit the wall behind him, shattering into scores of glowing pebbles.

The guardian started lumbering toward Alexander.

At least it isn’t fast, he thought to himself, watching it sweep aside two Andalian soldiers with a single backhanded swipe of its misshapen hand. They fell still and smoldering. With each step, it gained speed, a juggernaut bearing down on him.

Alexander held his ground, reaching into the coming moments, waiting for the right time to move. The guardian seemed intent on simply running him over, building speed with each step until it was in a headlong dash that it couldn’t stop if it wanted to.

Alexander could feel the heat of the unnatural creature, see the magic holding the stones together, feel the thump, thump, thump of its footfalls … and still he waited, watching the advancing soldiers as well as the guardian. The soldiers hesitated, waiting to see if the guardian would do their work for them.

He calmed his mind and closed his blind eyes, waiting until the last moment. The smell of singed hair filled his nose, heat washed over his skin-he spun left, Luminessence filling the chamber with brilliance, blinding everyone except Alexander and the guardian, the Thinblade whipping around and catching the guardian across the back of its legs, cleaving them cleanly in two and toppling the creature into a clattering jumble of stones skittering across the floor. Alexander stopped, facing the jumbled mess of glowing stones spread out before him, letting Luminessence dim to a gentle glow. Everyone else stopped as well, all of them watching Alexander … until the glowing stones started to move, coming together, reassembling themselves.

Its movement dispelled the moment of stillness and the battle resumed, a crossbow bolt fired by one of Grant’s men shattering against Alexander’s back, his dragon-scale chain shirt preserving his life yet again. The six soldiers nearest him charged as one, a line of shields and swords moving in unison.