T. Lain - The Death Ray

It was no man, Regdar realized, but a suit of armor come independently to life.

The armor hacked down with its broadsword and Regdar bashed the blade away so hard the broadsword whirled out of the animated gauntlet and clattered against the ceiling before sliding to a stop behind the pile of rubble.

The animated armor turned at the shoulders, as if it still had eyes or even a head to house them, and looked for its sword. Regdar chopped into its pauldron. The force of the blow drove the armor suit down to the rubble.

It reached out a hand for Regdar's throat but the lord constable jerked back, freeing his sword from the twisted metal of the thing's shoulder, then punched through with the point of his greatsword into the thing's breastplate. The wide, heavy blade sank into the space where the dark knight's heart should have been, and the armor twitched in response, then fell still.

Regdar withdrew his blade with a tooth-rattling shriek of steel on steel and stood ready for several heartbeats until he was satisfied that the thing wasn't going to get back up.

"Drahir," Regdar called back over his shoulder, "take its sword."

Vargussel was beginning to get nervous. The intruders had dealt with the dread guard too easily. He'd hoped it would kill at least one of the watchmen but Regdar hadn't even given them a chance to fight. The young mage had wasted a spell on it, at least, and Vargussel could take that as a minor victory, but overall the construct that had cost him forty thousand gold Merchants had hardly even frightened them.

"Think you killed it, Lord Constable," Vargussel hoped aloud. "Think that's what came for you in your bedchamber."

If Regdar was stupid enough to think that the dread guard was the assassin they were looking for, they might take their wounded and their assumed victory and go home.

This wasn't it, Regdar said to his men.

Vargussel hissed out an exasperated sigh.

"You may be suffering from late-onset intelligence, Lord Constable," he said to the image of Regdar, "but you've a long way to go before you get to me, and I've been smarter than you for a long time."

Grinding his teeth, Vargussel watched in silence as one of the watchmen retrieved the broadsword that alone had cost him nearly nine thousand Merchants. Regdar gathered his party around him, leaving his two wounded men in the anteroom, and pressed on.

The mage watched as they explored the ruined wing of the basement. They found the stairs leading up to the ground floor that had caved in and been blocked for decades. He watched them run through their elaborate rituals of listening, touching, feeling, thinking, and pondering at the first of two intact doors. Finally Regdar just kicked it in and Vargussel had to tap his fingers waiting for them to satisfy themselves that the room beyond was indeed empty.

They did the same for the second door, and Vargussel found himself yawning. They found the old stairs behind the second door blocked by another cave-in. They wouldn't get down to the killing floor that way.

"You'll have to come in the front door," the mage whispered, "just as planned."

Vargussel briefly wished for the confidence to laugh maniacally but instead he just set his chin on his hands and watched.

They regrouped in the anteroom, all eyes on Regdar, and Naull took a deep breath.

"What we encountered in the inn," Regdar said, "and what was described by witnesses was much bigger, much stronger than that suit of ghost armor."

"Dread guard," Naull said.

Regdar looked at her and she felt herself blush but didn't know why.

"It's a magical construct," she said. "Powerful mages use them as guards."

" 'Powerful' mages?" said Jandik, who could stand without leaning on the wall, though he still kept one hand pressed to his bruised midsection. "How powerful?"

Naull shrugged and said, "I'm not sure how to answer that. Its not as if there's a scale that assigns someone a number so you can immediately know the extent of his abilities."

"On a scale of one to ten," Regdar offered with a wink.

Naull shrugged again, and said, "Fifteen?"

The watchmen visibly sagged.

"Great," Asil whispered. "That's just great."

"You think someone's building these things and sending them out to kill people?" Regdar asked.

Naull shrugged a third time and said, "I have no idea. All we can know for certain is that the dread guard was built by someone and left in there with instructions to attack. The parchment with the explosive runes was put on the door by an equally skilled wizard. I don't know how long they sat there, but now that we're here, it seems they weren't guarding much of anything."

"And the dread guard, as you call it," Regdar added, "is smaller than what we're looking for."

Jandik took a deep breath and said, "It was a decoy."

Regdar nodded. Lem, Asil, and Drahir each took a step back. If Naull didn't know any better, she thought it looked like they were ready to run. She realized then that she didn't actually know better and they might be.

"There's only one other way out," Jandik continued.

All eyes were drawn to the door Naull and Regdar had been about to open when the parchment exploded.

Regdar, his greatsword still in his left hand, strode to the door in question and stopped within arm's reach of it. He glanced back and Jandik limped forward, holding a lantern. Lem and Drahir followed with their new magic swords, if a bit reluctantly. Asil staggered to Jandik's side and they ended up leaning on each other.

Naull ran through the spells she still had at her command. As if on cue Regdar asked, "Can you open this door like you did the one from the stairs?"

She had cast that spell and would need time before being able to cast it again.

"No," she said. "If it's locked the same way, you'll have to break it down."

"Anything on the other side," Jandik warned, "will know we're coming."

"There was an explosion in here that killed two men," Lem said.

"Yeah," Drahir added, "and some kind of snow storm."

"It was rain," Asil corrected.

"Actually," Naull said, "it was sleet."

The watchmen nodded and Regdar sighed.

'"Whatever's behind that door," the lord constable said, "already knows we're here."

Everyone but Regdar went pale.

Regdar, greatsword still in one hand, kicked the door and kicked it hard. It didn't open but Naull heard the wood crack at least a little. She knew enough about the magic that was likely holding the door closed to realize that it would be hard, but Regdar could eventually kick it in.

The lord constable sighed and gave the door a second kick. Jandik held up his lantern in a hand shaking from fear, pain, and loss of blood. The effect was a flickering light that sent shadows twitching across the walls. Naull's hair stood on end. Lem and Drahir held their swords up and ready, their own shaking hands sending flashes of reflected light flickering across their enchanted blades.

Regdar kicked the door again, and there was a louder crack. One side of the door was bent outward, the wood cracking around the iron bands.

One more kick and the door broke inward with an echoing crash. Regdar shifted his greatsword into a two-hand grip and swung the blade over his head as he stepped boldly through the door.

Naull closed her eyes, tense, waiting for the sound of steel on steel or of another explosion, or the roar of some fell beast, but none of those things came.

"Come in behind me and watch your step," Regdar said. "There's something strange in here."

Vargussel absentmindedly rolled a piece of parchment between his fingers until he'd made a long, thin tube of it.

They're in, he thought.

His mind descended into a flurry of unspoken curses, many of which he was embarrassed for even thinking.