Chapter 6 – Towerfall

“And who might you be?” Bethil asked, turning to Aeva. “A subordinate of Granhorn’s?”

Aeva glanced over at Linton, unsure of what to say. She started stammering out a response, trying to hide her accent.

“Yes,” Linton said. “A new ensign. He’s a tall one, isn’t he?”

Bethil chuckled, eyes squeezed shut. “Indeed he is! I bet this fine specimen could wrestle a wildkin! A shame you’re not on the front lines, son.”

Aeva nodded to the affirmative.

The lift came to a stop on the 43rd floor, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She followed Linton out of the floating death trap, leaving Bethil behind.

They were in an open hall surrounded by reinforced chambers with workstations running along the center. Scientists in white coats murmured to each other, bent over various mechanical and magical pursuits.

In the corner of her eye, Aeva caught Bethil wandering out of the lift, eyes trained solely on them.

“He knows,” Linton whispered, tugging Aeva along. “Fucker’s an auramancer. He probably saw right through your disguise.”

Linton hurried his stride along the right-hand wall of the room, well away from any of the scientists. He pulled Aeva into the first hallway they encountered, leading to a pair of storage closets.

He pressed himself up against the wall and shut his eyes.

“This really isn’t going to plan,” he muttered.

Aeva heard a metallic rattle, as of chains falling.

Then another.

Then another.

“Do not worry about plans!” Aeva hissed. “How do we survive?”

Linton rubbed his temples. “We’ll just have to move faster.” He opened his eyes again and looked intently at Aeva. “You stay here. Don’t move a muscle.”

Aeva opened her mouth to shoot back a rebuttal.

He didn’t wait for a response. “Svinno. Skolda Agar.”

For a second, Linton’s body flickered with pale light, then returned to normal.

He stepped out of the hallway, facing the way they had come. He looked confident enough, so she let him go.

Aeva peeked around the edge of the wall and saw Linton approaching Bethil. The latter had opened his chest and taken out his wand, pointing the implement threateningly at Linton. A bubble of translucent light surrounded the older truther and followed his movements, leaving burn marks on the floor.

A magical shield. My people use a similar technique in times of war.

“You don’t happen to be harboring a fugitive, do you, Granhorn?” Bethil asked with a kindly smile.

Linton said nothing.

Bethil stopped. “Very well, then. I’ll just have to drag the truth out of you.” He pointed his wand at Linton, then suddenly twisted to the right. “You thought that trick would fool me? Klya!”

The truther swung his wand. A blade of pure, brilliant light formed around it, leaving a trail of dissipating energy as he swung in a wide arc. The blade cut deep into the wall, seemingly with little resistance, leaving a blackened groove.

A copy of Linton suddenly appeared behind Bethil, grinning. He pulled a pistol out of the back of his pants and put his free hand to Bethil’s glowing bubble.

“Missed me,” Linton said. “Svido.”

As Bethil spun, his smile turned into a shocked grimace. The bubble around him cracked and shattered, shards of light fading into nothing with a weak sizzle.

The first Linton rushed him, tackling the truther to the ground and sending his chest flying. It clattered to the ground several meters away. Bethil swiped at him with his light-infused blade and took his head off. The copy of Linton collapsed into a pile of diffuse dust, all semblance of the man disappearing.

The second Linton pointed his gun at Bethil’s head. The older man opened his mouth to speak, presumably preparing some spell, but two shots rang out across the hall before he had time to say a word.

His head was reduced to a bloody mess. Bits of bone and brain matter drifted in a growing puddle of blood beneath him.

“Turns out it wasn’t arrogance after all,” Linton said with a satisfied nod. He replaced the pistol in its holster.

“Come in peace, was it?” Aeva asked, walking over to the human. “You lied to me again.”

Linton shrugged with a sheepish grin. “I needed you to trust me.”

Scientists were running for their lives, rushing to stairs and elevators. One of them hit a large, red button on the wall opposite them. A blaring alarm went off as steel plates began to lower themselves over the reinforced chambers from the inside.

“Aw, fuck,” Linton hissed as he took off in a sprint towards the other side of the room. “Nothing can ever be easy, can it?”

He pulled a circular device out of his coat pocket as he reached one of the chambers. He slammed it against the door just as the metal plates snapped into place, covering the window.

Six slender spindles slid out of the circular device, lit up with a red-hot glare, and began to spin, emitting beams of energy that cut into the metal.

Linton let loose a string of colorful profanities, pacing back and forth.

“What is wrong?” Aeva asked.

She retrieved a pistol from the truther’s corpse and approached Linton, gun in hand.

“The Crown is in there, but the rotocutter isn’t strong enough to get through all that shielding.” He pressed a button on the device and the beams deactivated, spindles retracting. A perfectly round cut was left in the metal, too shallow to run all the way through.

“What does that mean?” Aeva asked.

“I don’t have the clearance to open this door,” Linton said, thumping it with his fist, “which means we’re gonna have to leave without the Crown.”

“Impossible! I am not leaving without—”

“It’s not exactly my first choice! We’ll live to fight another day, alright? We’ll get it back. For now, we focus on escaping.”

He gave up on the chamber and set into a jog, going over to one of the walls. He placed the rotocutter on a window, and the spindles extended. They ran almost floor to ceiling as the beams began to slice into the wall.

Aeva heard footsteps in the staircase to her left and spun around to face it.

“Keep them busy!” Linton shouted.

Three men in black coats stormed up the staircase, armed with pistols.

Aeva raised her own and fired off three rounds to give herself some space, catching one of the truthers in the shoulder. He fell with a scream, and the other two dragged him out of sight down the stairs.

She slid behind a heavy workbench, peeking up over delicate metal parts and stacks of scribbled-on notepaper. She couldn’t see anyone, but she heard the truthers conferring below. It sounded like more than three at this point.

“I will not be able to hold them off for long!” Aeva shouted. She glanced to her right and found Linton still working to make a hole in the wall. “Make haste!”

A truther popped his head over the staircase. Aeva fired at him but missed. He discharged several rounds and she ducked behind the workbench. Wood splintered around her and she screwed her eyes shut as she said a quick prayer to Gjurin.

“Okay! All done!” Linton called.

He removed the device and kicked free a section of the wall, wide enough for both of them to stand side by side. He motioned urgently for her. “Come on! We need to jump at the same time!”

Aeva shook her head and took a deep breath, the alarm still blaring in her ears.

Utter madman. Gjurin, please see me through this insanity.

She leapt up from her hiding place, firing wildly as she ran. She hit a truther in the leg as he came up the stairs. He fell back down, but five of his compatriots were already running past him.

Aeva rushed towards Linton, discarding the empty pistol.

“I’ll count to three!” Linton said. “One—”

Aeva ran into him and they went out of the window together. She tumbled through the air in his thin human arms. The world spun around her as she fell, seeing blue sky, then green gardens, then black paneling. Around and around she went.

Linton tucked in close to her, coat flapping around his head. He contorted himself so that they both straightened out, facing downward.

The ground was coming at them fast. Aeva thought she might vomit if she didn’t pass out first.

“Don’t let go of me!” Linton shouted, his words barely audible over the howling wind.

Aeva kept a firm grip on his coat. Her claws pierced the tough fabric. The blue-haired human extended one hand, fingers splayed.

“Knuph!” he shouted. They lurched as if they had made contact with a massive, soft pillow, a billowing force that slowed their descent. They were getting close to the ground. She could make out the faces on the people below.

“Knuph!” Linton repeated as soon as they started regaining speed. Once more, they were caught by an invisible hand which halted their momentum.

“Knuph!” They bounced off one final cushion and Aeva landed on the asphalt, scraping up her hands and elbows. Linton rolled to a stop, hissing as he clutched his right shoulder.

“Fuck!” he said. “I think I broke something!”

Aeva slowly stood, wincing at the cuts and bruises that had been exacerbated from the fall. She pulled Linton to his feet by his collar, ignoring his complaints.

It was only about a hundred meters of open ground between them and the outer walls, but there were several truthers in their way who had noticed their little tumble.

“We need to go,” Aeva said firmly. “Quickly. What is the plan?”

Linton prodded his dangling right arm and sucked in a sharp breath. He neglected to answer.

Two truthers were coming up on them, hands on their holsters.

Aeva grabbed the pistol out of Linton’s leg holster, aimed at one of the truthers, and fired. She missed, but the men started at the gunfire and scrambled to find cover.

She slapped the human across the face. “We need to go! This is not the time to hesitate!”

Linton blinked sluggishly, looking up at her. “Right.” He shook himself out of his trance, eyes focusing. “Let’s go.”

Aeva took the lead, running across the tended gardens and weaving between carefully pruned bushes. Linton came behind her, barely keeping up.

Truthers in front and behind opened fire on them. Linton conjured a floating shield, similar to the one she had seen around Bethil, to protect their front.

A bullet smashed through it and took her in the chest. It barely broke the skin, however, the shield having absorbed the brunt of the impact. She kept running, sparing only a short glance backward.

She caught sight of a man stepping out of the front entrance to the Arcanex, followed by an entourage of black-coats. Even from this distance, she recognized the face of the man who had killed her mother.

Storm.

Aeva slid to a halt, throwing up lush soil, and turned back towards the tower.

Her body ached with the desire to kill.

“No!” Linton shouted. “Don’t stop now, we’re so close!”

He pulled at her arm, but she shoved him away. A truther was advancing on their right. She took aim and shot him twice in the chest.

“Aeva!” Linton insisted, scrambling in front of her and spreading his arms. “If you go for him now, he’ll kill you. If you really want revenge, you have to come with me!”

She looked at his dumb, smooth, human face, then back at the man who had killed Soeva and the others. Bullets whizzed over her head.

“I have a plan,” Linton said. “Now come on.”

He started closing the last few dozen meters to the high wall. Aeva growled and went after him, sparing frequent looks back at the advancing line of truthers and their mustachioed leader.

Linton reached the bottom of the wall. He pulled out his rotocutter and pressed several buttons along its edge. It began to shake violently, spewing red light, and he threw it on top of the wall before ducking down.

Arcs of energy raced off the wall’s peak. There was a dull boom, and the rotocutter disintegrated in a ball of red lightning, followed by several smaller pops along the top of the wall.

“Okay, that should have overloaded the wall’s enchantments for a minute or two,” Linton said. “We need to get climbing.”

Aeva leapt onto the wall, her claws finding grooves in the stone that bore her weight. She scaled it to the top and looked down to see Linton still at the bottom, struggling to get any grip with his broken arm.

Aeva took aim at an advancing truther and shot him dead.

“Can you launch yourself into the air?” she asked.

“What?” Linton asked, looking up.

“Can you do it?”

“I mean…” Linton looked numbly at his hands. “I guess so.”

Aeva got down on her stomach and reached out her hand. “I will catch you.”

Linton took a deep breath. “Okay…” He held his arms to his sides, palms horizontal. “Knuph.”

He was thrown upward, ascending several meters in an instant. Left hand outstretched, he tried to reach hers, but it was too far.

Aeva pushed herself further, torso hanging over the edge of the wall, and grabbed his wrist. He dangled in the air, held up only by her strength. Her arm strained with the effort, every muscle tense. She thanked Gjurin for her wildkin blood.

“You have much to answer for, human,” Aeva said. “I will not let you die.”

She pulled him a little higher, grabbed his coat with her other hand, and heaved him on top of the wall. He lay there for a second, panting, before rolling over onto his hands and knees.

“Thank you,” he said breathlessly. He pointed to an unmarked white truck parked in the street on the other side of the wall. “There. My companions.”

Aeva stood. “Let us both leave the ‘thank yous’ for later. We need to—”

A sharp tug sent her stumbling backward, almost tripping over the edge of the wall. She looked down, noticing a growing red stain in the center of her shirt.

Curious.

She looked up numbly. Storm, standing some fifty meters off on one knee, was already lining up another shot with a scoped rifle.

The pain set in, a cold steel wedge shoved through her chest. She howled, head thrown back, legs buckling.

Linton pushed her over the edge of the wall, and they fell together.

Her body had finally reached its limit, and everything went black before they hit the ground.