Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

Bruenna raised one finger to her blue lips and flung her other hand forward as if hurling a stone. The quicksilver wall shimmered and a shivering, circular dent appeared in the center. As Glissa watched, the dent folded in on itself and then opened inward, forming a long, glowing silver tunnel just large enough for a crouching human and elf to fit through single file. The long cylinder ended perhaps a hundred feet ahead.

“This will get us past this first group,” Bruenna said softly, sweat appearing on her brow as the quicksilver solidified. Finally, she exhaled, and urged Glissa forward.

Glissa expected the magical metal to be slippery, but her boots found solid surface. She bounded down the tunnel, her sword held in front of her. Bruenna followed close behind. Glissa looked back over her shoulder and saw that the entrance was closing behind them as she ran, preventing unwelcome pursuit.

At the exit ahead, Glissa saw a pair of pale humanoid shapes standing crouched, ready to pounce. “Vampires,” the elf girl cried over her shoulder, pointing. She heard Bruenna mutter the beginnings of another spell as the vicious creatures stepped into the quicksilver tunnel. They looked even more ghastly than usual in the eerie magical light.

“Just keep running,” Bruenna said. “Get past them, they’re in for a surprise.”

Glissa raised her sword in both hands as if she was going to bring it down on the head of the lead vampire, which she was sickened to see had the lithe form and distinctive face of an elf. The vampire fell for the bluff and charged at her low to take advantage of what it perceived to be an opening. Instead of following through with her swing, she slapped her other hand onto the chain wrapped around her swordarm. “Fly, fly, fly!” Glissa shouted then jumped into the air. She was relieved when she didn’t come back down, and soared on over the diving creature’s head.

“Right behind you,” she heard Bruenna shout, “Keep going!”

As she shot from the end of the magical tunnel with Bruenna hot on her heels, Glissa slowed and looked back. The quicksilver wall shimmered, the surface perfectly smooth. The vampires were nowhere to be seen.

“Nice trick,” Glissa told Bruenna as the mage caught up.

“It should hold them long enough for us to get away,” Bruenna agreed.

Together, they bobbed and weaved through a surprised group of nim and goblins engaged in a life-or-death struggle. Glissa wished she could stop to help the defenders, but Bruenna was right. Yert was all that mattered. In the end, getting her hands on the Miracore would save a lot more people than one more sword in the fray.

“We’re getting close,” Bruenna said. “I can’t believe he’s made it this far into Krark-Home.”

The pair veered off at a three-way intersection where leonin and goblins were knocking an unending wave of nim into the smelting pools below. Bruenna steered them up a rising path that Glissa noticed was more brightly lit than the rest. It was also strangely empty.

“I don’t like this,” Bruenna said. “I know where this tunnel leads.”

“Where?” Glissa asked, ducking to avoid a hanging copper stalactite.

“The nurseries.”

The higher up the tunnel they went, the closer Yert felt. Glissa no longer needed to concentrate to feel the vampire necromancer.

The tunnel ended just ahead. They had yet to encounter anyone in this passage, friend or foe. Bruenna and Glissa slowed and pulled up short, hovering just in front of a set of double-doors that the elf girl would have to duck to get through. Bruenna shook the door latch, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I’ve got an idea,” Glissa said. “Stand back.” She floated back a few feet and reached out to the Tangle energies, calling on the strength of the forest. She felt a surge of physical power and felt her armor and tunic tighten around her muscles. Glissa felt strong enough to take the top off of the mountain with her bare hands.

Bruenna, impressed, floated aside. Glissa clenched her fists and flew straight at the door, fists held in front of her, a living projectile. Halfway there, she heard Geth scream.

The elf girl’s gloved fists connected dead center and shattered the crystalline locking mechanism, sending the small iron door flying inward with a tremendous crash. She plowed headlong into a stunned vampire. Glissa’s fists drove straight through the creature’s torso like a hot knife through lead. She kept going, willing herself onward, and ripped the vampire in two. Greenish-black gore blinded the elf girl momentarily.

When this was over, she was going to bathe in hot oil for a week.

“Stop!” a familiar, slithering voice bellowed. Glissa whirled in midair to face the voice and wiped foul, stringy goop from her eyes.

Yert stood in the center of the room, flanked by a quartet of vampires. He stood over a pair of leonin corpses in bloodstained white robes. Tiny figures-human children, goblin kids, and leonin cubs-were huddled in terrified clusters around the wall. Nim warriors blocked every exit except the one Glissa had just forcefully opened.

In one raised hand Yert clutched a crying leonin cub, in the other an even smaller goblin infant that wailed and kicked its tiny, flapping feet. Yert smiled and showed two rows of razor sharp teeth, and locked his blood-red eyes with the Glissa’s. As she watched, frozen, he licked his lips with a forked, leathery tongue.

Glissa raised her open hands wide and descended until her feet touched the ground. “All right, Yert. You’ve got me. Again. Put the children down.”

“The children are quite safe at the moment,” Yert replied. “I can’t say the same for the nursemaids.”

Glissa felt the chain wrapped around her wrist slide down her arm, and it gave her a terrible idea.

“You will come with me, of your own will,” Yert continued. “You showed me mercy, once. It was foolish of you, but I still feel ever so slightly in your debt. You helped make me the man I am today. And you did share that lovely repast with me.” Glissa felt a twinge where the wound in her neck was still not quite healed. Her heart leapt. With Yert’s arms spread wide, his robes parted and revealed a sliver of the Miracore on his chest, glowing a faint greenish-blue. So close …

“And so I swear,” Yert hissed. “These children and infants will not be harmed, if you come with me. Besides, I’ve discovered I have a bit of a sweet tooth. And you can’t enjoy your sweets all at once.”

Glissa nodded, but was doing her best to make eye contact with Bruenna, who finally caught her look. Glissa gave an imperceptible nod that Bruenna returned faintly. The entire exchange took a little over a second, and Yert didn’t seem to notice.

“I guess that’s the best offer I’m going to get,” Glissa said, casually lowering her arms and edging her left hand closer to her right. “But what are you going to do to me?” she asked, trying to inject fear into her voice, which wasn’t difficult.

As Glissa spoke, she rubbed her right wrist with her left hand as if trying to get her circulation going, but instead working her fingertips slowly up her arm to the gemstones. “Now hold on, Yert,” she almost drawled, “How do I know you won’t Bruenna catch the kids YERTYERTYERT!”

As the last “Yert” left her lips, she gulped a deep breath of air. The nursery, Yert, the vampires, and everything else flickered out of existence for a millisecond. When she reappeared, she was inside Yert’s body. And Yert’s insides suddenly had no place to go.

Corroded bone, brackish blood, wiry muscles, fetid tissue, and withered organs exploded violently through Yert’s ruptured skin and robes in every direction, tearing his body into tiny chunks of flesh, metal, and blackened bone. The elf girl punched upward, sending what remained of Yert’s head flying, then thrust her upturned hands out to catch the Miracore before it could hit the ground. She blinked foulness from her eyes for the second time in as many minutes and found herself in the center of the room. A quartet of very surprised vampires, horrified children, and Bruenna, who held a blood-spattered but still healthy pair of infants in her arms, stood gaping. Everything was covered in stinking bits of Yert.