Morgan Rice - Night of the Bold

Alva’s words still rang in Kyle’s ears. Beneath the Tower of Ur lies the secret chamber. The ramifications of his words were staggering. Could it be true? Kyle wondered. Could it be that the Tower of Ur had never been a decoy after all? That its most precious secret lay not above ground all this time – but below? A secret chamber which controlled the very fate of Escalon?

Kyle swung with his staff and smashed one troll in the face, then spun around and jabbed another in the throat, while Kolva ducked from a halberd swing and smashed a troll across the chest with his staff. The two of them pushed back the trolls as dozens more appeared every moment, bridging Alva’s fissure. It was a never-ending stream. They swung mighty halberds; one troll neared and swung broadly for Kyle’s head, and Kyle ducked, the blade whistling in the air above him, and realized that if he were but a second later it would have decapitated him. He swung his staff around and cracked the troll in the ribs, breaking them, then brought his staff down on the troll’s back, smashing its neck and dropping it. Beside him, Kolva stepped forward and jabbed a troll between the eyes, and the beast dropped to its knees.

Kyle heard a snarl behind him, and he turned, aghast, to see a troll lowering a halberd for his head. Kyle was too late – he had missed this one. And with Kolva and Leo preoccupied, he braced himself for the end.

Suddenly, a vicious snorting noise came as Kyle detected motion out of the corner of his eye. His heart flooded with relief to see Andor appearing, galloping onto the rubble. Before the troll could lower his halberd, Andor threw himself at him, trampling him to death. Andor pinned him down, crushing him, then sank his sharpened teeth into the troll’s throat, killing him for good.

Kyle looked back at Kyra’s horse in awe of this magnificent creature, his fearlessness, his loyalty.

Kyle fought his way once again for the center, this time, Andor fighting beside him. They had almost reached the center of the rubble, yet every time they dropped one troll, ten more appeared. They were losing momentum.

“Go!” Kolva called out, as he slashed at a troll’s chest, sending him flying back through the air. “Make for the center! I’ll hold them off!”

Kyle leapt over a halberd swing and cracked two more in the chest.

“If I leave you,” he called back, “you won’t last long!”

“Then go quickly!” Kolva called back.

Leo lunged and sank his teeth into a troll’s chest, Andor trampled several more, and Kolva stepped forward, creating cover for Kyle, distracting the trolls, and Kyle knew this was his chance: he turned and ran for the center of the rubble. He jumped and climbed his way over massive boulders, the debris from the tower’s collapse. This ancient place where he had once lived, once so magnificent, its upper levels grazing the sky, was now, it pained Kyle to see, nothing but a mountain of rock.

Kyle finally reached the dead center of where the tower had once stood, and, with Kolva distracting the trolls, he had a monetary lull in the battle. He bent down and clawed at the rock, anxious to find the opening to the lower levels.

It was futile. He could not even budge the massive boulders, his hands chafed from the effort.

Desperate, Kyle raised his staff, closed his eyes, and summoned his ancient power, the power that always coursed through his blood as a Watcher. He used it rarely, yet he knew it was needed for a time like this. He opened his eyes, raised his staff, and brought it straight down. He felt it smashing through rock, and he kept on going until he had created a hole. He shoved his staff side to side, widening it, creating an opening in which to enter.

Kyle looked down at the opening in the earth, felt the cool damp air flowing up at him, and was stunned to realize he was staring into the very foundation of the Tower of Ur. The lower levels, previously hidden beneath the rubble, were now visible to him, a gaping hole in the blackness.

Kyle glanced back and saw Kolva still fighting off the trolls. He knew Kolva’s situation was precarious, with more trolls streaming in every moment.

“GO!” Kolva urged. “You are the last hope.”

Kyle leapt, jumping down into the earth.

Kyle felt himself falling deeper and deeper into the very depths of blackness, the cool air enveloping him. He finally landed with a painful thump, rolling onto his ribs, feeling as if he had broken them.

Kyle crawled to his hands and knees and gathered his wits about him in the darkness. He had fallen a good twenty feet, landing in a puddle of water on a smooth granite floor. He breathed, slowly coming back to himself.

A cold draft ran over his hands, and water dripped somewhere. High up above he could hear the muffled fighting of the trolls. He marveled that he was back here, in the Tower of Ur, albeit in the sub-levels. All the years he had lived here, no one had been allowed to descend. Kyle had never thought much of it. He had always assumed that the tower’s secrets lay in the highest levels, not the lowest.

But now he realized he had, all this time, been wrong. What could he expect to find down here? What had Alva been alluding to?

As he squinted to adjust his eyes, Kyle spotted a small, flickering torchlight in the distance. He saw smooth, ancient corridors of black marble before him, and he felt a vibration within him. He felt a great power, and sensed something momentous lay just around the bend.

Kyle followed the corridors, turning down one after the next, his bootsteps echoing, until finally he reached an arched, stone door, twice as tall as he, framed by flickering torches. It was carved from one slab of marble, engraved with ancient inscriptions, and he ran his finger along the symbols in awe. He hadn’t seen the lost languages for centuries. He knew that something momentous must lie beyond that door.

Kyle reached out to the marble knob and tried it. To his dismay, it did not work.

He put his shoulder into it, pushed with all his might, yet it would not budge.

Kyle, determined, felt a great heat rising within him as he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and summoned his power. He then raised his staff, let out a cry, and smashed the door with all his might. He smashed it again and again and again, blows that would have been powerful enough to knock down a mountain.

Yet to his shock, the stone door still would not budge.

Kyle stood there, sweating, stumped. He recalled the legends of his ancestors, legends he had been told as a boy, and in the back of his mind, he recalled the myth of the sacred chamber. Could this be it? He had never fully understood it at the time, yet now, as he examined this door, it began to make sense to him. He recalled the ancient chanting he had heard as a boy, aimed at summoning the core power of the universe.

Could it be? he wondered.

Kyle set his staff down on the ground, then reached out and touched the door with both palms. A power greater than the staff, he knew, would be needed here.

Closing his eyes, he chanted, softly at first, then with greater volume and conviction. He began to feel an unbearable heat on his palms, as if his hands were really on fire. It was as if he and the door were one.

And a moment later, to his shock, there came a soft click.

Kyle looked down, amazed to see the door had opened. Ancient air, trapped for centuries, slowly released.

He pushed the door open slowly, looked into the chamber, and froze.

He could not believe what lay before him.

Kyra slowly lowered the flickering torch to her father’s dead body as it lay on the raised funeral pyre, at eye level with her, and as she did, she felt as if she were lowering the torch on herself. Inside, her heart was breaking. She wept quietly, surrounded by his hundreds of warriors, all of them crowding in close, her weeping the only sound in the thick silence, complemented only by the howling of the wind, making the flames ripple. Kyra felt the tears pour down her cheeks, as they had for hours, and she no longer tried to stop them. She felt numb to the world, hollowed out. Seeing her father dead before her, she felt as if all that was best in her had been stolen away.