The world became a phantasmal kaleidoscope of walls, stairs and windows. I burst through rooms and shot out the other end as quick as a fart. Nine floors up I met more company.

My submachine rang a stuttering symphony as it pelted the knights and hunters I pass by aiming for the stairs at the other end of the room. Purple fire blazed out the skeletal maw of a knight blocking the open exit.

I slid onto my back to slide under the roaring purple flame. The pale green motes pushed out from me in a wave and formed a dome to shield me.

I burst up from underneath the knight and snapped my palm up in a strike. My blow snapped the jaw of the helm shut and I pushed some more. The helms jaw crunched, crinkled inward’s and tore off. I pushed the barrel of my submachine gun inside the broken helm and squeezed the trigger.

It fired seven rounds before running empty.

I threw away the magazine and grabbed another. I twisted another using the now headless knight as a shield as arrows shot at me from behind. A loud whump sounded behind and I turned to see a lantern flail knight rushing me from behind.

It had the high ground given the fact it was on the stairs and I wasn’t. The lantern flail whistled shrilly as it streamed an after-image of purple light in the form of a wheel.

Then the knight swung. I vanished as I sprang upwards and bounced off the ceiling. My fist came smashing down and punched through the knights sternum. Black arterial blood sprayed over my forearm and sloshed as I slid my arm out.

An arrow ricocheted off the wall near my head, and I whipped around to hissed at them. My submachine chattered a spray from my hip, and I bent over and retrieved the lantern flail.

I felt myself draw and drain the weapon of the empowered magic inside it. It was like filtering process. I took what was there and changed it to suit what I needed.

I bounded up at the flight of stairs and paused examining the flail. It felt awfully unwieldy to use. But I had a thought. As soon as the weapon was drained I saw the pale green of my own essence webbing along its surface.

I pushed forward an image in my mind and pressed on that trickling vessel I’d been mentally picturing. The pale green veins on the weapon’s shaft smouldered and then started to glow. I felt my vessel greatly diminish as the magic within me began to stream through the crack at the bottom. Like someone had turned up the pressure on a faucet.

The lantern-like head at the end of the flail sparked and burst with pale green flame. It hovered in the centre of the cradled housing. Its ephemeral glow burned coldly. I cut off the press of my vessel and stopped willing the image of the burning lantern in my mind.

Slowly, the pale green light evaporated. Trailing off into tiny dancing dust-motes of viridian light. I nodded and swiped at my forehead. Sweat dotted my brow and neck. It was a useless gestured, all it managed was me rubbing my forearm against my helmet.

I dropped the flail at my feet, rolled my shoulders and nodded again. I started up the floors, moving more slowly now than I was no longer as boosted as I had been before.

I really need better titles for these enhanced effects. Boosted sounds like a chocolate bar. Or an energy drink. “Nikhara, how goes observation?” I asked her through the com-link. Opening the channel back up.

“Marcus! Where the hell have you been?” she sounded pissed. Utterly my fault.

“I drank some more. I drank a lot more, is what I mean.”

“By drink, you mean the hunters, neck-drink-thingy?” she asked dubiously. I nodded though couldn’t she see me.

“Oh yeah. I did a little experimenting too. Turns out my gains better based on whether the victim is alive or not. Dead ones give me a -ugh- boost. Alive ones give me a … major enhancement.”

“I’ll pass it on to the doctor--”

“She’s a psychiatrist,” I corrected. I doubted she could help much in terms of understanding what I am, or have become. The strangest—or not so strangest thing is—that it all feels so normal, and natural. Like I’ve always had this with me. And maybe I have.

If I was a Draugur, but was seen as an abomination by a Draugur. What does that make me. “uncorrupted by the ether.” The man in my dream had said that.

I really needed some bloody answer’s. It was either this ‘master’ guy. Or Ardenai-Prime. And I would rather face this asshole than go home.

I marched up the steps tirelessly. I had enough magic in my vessel to not wane, or slow down. But the slowness still bothered me. What I get for experimenting I guess.

“Captain?” Nikhara asked me. Oh right I had been talking to her hadn’t I. Another side effect I was noticing. My mind was wandering because of the drain. Or the fact that I was alone with my thoughts.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“What floor are you on?”

“I’m on the…” I wondered as I topped the next flight of steps and saw the floor marking on the wall opposite me. “Fifty-third floor, why?”

“That ‘master’ asshole just reached the roof. And he’s not alone.”

“What’d ya mean not alone?”

“There’s about twenty-to-thirty knights surrounding him. And maybe half that number in hunters.”

“How the fuck did he manage that many…” I wondered and shook my head.

“Well I don’t know about that. But he is doing something with his sword,” she informed me.

“Like what?” I huffed and beat feet up another flight of steps, turned, walked thirteen paces, turned again and bounded up some more steps.

“I don’t know. But that purple smoky tendril stuff, he does. He has a circle of his knights bowed around him and that purple stuff is arcing back and forth between him and them.”

“Okay … I don’t know what it means but its probably bad. Can you shoot him? keep him distracted for--”

“Hey guys,” Andrea cut in. “I’m picking up quite a few signatures.”

“What in the city?” I asked her with some surprise.

“No. In outer orbit of the planet. I’ve got three smaller readings of what I could guess was part of a larger one.”

“Are they coming this way?”

“No. They seem to be heading towards the depowered Zarian fleet of ships,” Andrea replied.

“Okay. Keep us updated,” I told her. “Wait,” I said aloud in sudden realisation and smacked the front of helmet with my palm.

“What?” my wives asked in unison.

“Not you guys,” I shushed them off. The power in the building was working. So why the hell was I using the stairs? I hit the next floor, saw the door to exit out and did so. I blazed through the floor without really looking around. It seemed to be some sort of physical mail section of the building.

With all the advancement’s in technology, some people still either cashed checks in the bank or sent paper mail. And I thought Zarian nobility were strange because of their fad for older décor and costumes.

I stopped before the elevator and pressed the button. It dinged in replied almost instantly. The doors slid aside to reveal a cramped row of eight knights. Their ranks filled with either spear or mace bearing knights.

“Going up fella’s?” I asked them, and snapped my submachine gun up to pulverise their helms. I squeezed the trigger and played the gun across their skull helms. The two of the spear knight’s flopped backwards as I decimated their heads.

The mace knights held shields and the bullet pinged off to sprayed around the tight cabin. My gun clicked empty and I darted forward to wrench the spear from a thrusting knight. He came along with it and I kicked him in the crotch. My foot crunched solidly, and I cursed as it felt like the armour had crumpled around my foot, pinching it.

As I stumbled backwards I kept a hold of the spear and drew my heavy pistol. I spend four rounds point-blank into its helm. That did the trick. It helmet crumpled around the bullet impact sites.

Unfortunately for me the others didn’t wait for me to finish. My head rang loudly, and I slammed to the side as a mace pounded it.

The world tilted and flopped down onto the floor, stunned and dazed. My handgun barked in response and tore my attackers leg off at the shin. At such a close range, the chitinous plating of its foot fractured and broke off in several ricocheting directions.

A piece tore up my left leg, easily cutting through my armoured suit and bounced off my hip. I clenched my teeth against the pain, and titled my handgun up to blast the fucker in his face. The last spear knight took the opportunity to stab me through the stomach on the floor and try to hoist me up.

I yelled in pain, brought my forearm down on the black bone shaft of the spear. Tore the broken half out through my gut and shoved it through the knights neck.

A mace swung for my head again, and I blocked it with my bare forearm. I felt the bones in my arm pulverise and lost my grip on the handgun. I caught it with my right hand though and slammed the butt of it into the knights neck. It stumbled away but was otherwise fine.

My whole body ached fiercely with an intense burn. I was almost completely drained of magic. I felt my left arm bones repair, realign and mend.

“Oww,” I groaned out with a hissing grimace.

I bent down and grabbed the spear I’d been wrestling over when my head got domed. A knight rushed me at that instant and bashed out with his shield. I spun to the left, and wobbled slightly, my leg was still healing. I thrust the spear out and stuck it between the knights legs. It fell down and I raise my pistol to fire three rounds into the back of its head as it tried to get up.

Two mace fuckers were left.

They circled me and I ejected the magazine from the handgun and replaced it with a fresh one. I pointed my spear at one as my pistol aimed at the other.

Then I dove into the open elevator, tumbled across the cabin floor and shot at both knights. They bore their shield and rounds pinged off. But the distraction gave me enough time to stumble onto my feet and press the top floor button.

The doors instantly slid shut, as the knight charged it.

“See ya at the top,” I panted at them and waved. The doors dented inwards with several quick blows and then the elevator ascended upwards.

I was on the fifty-ninth floor. The top floor was still thirty-four floor’s away on the ninety-third floor. I suspected that the roof was the floor above that one.

“Man am I stupid,” I muttered to myself breathlessly. The reflection of my armour was coming off of the elevator doors was quite the contrast. I looked haggard, like I had found an armoured suit in a trash can somewhere.

“Babe?” asked Andrea suddenly.

“Yeah,” I replied tiredly, and began to methodically reload my submachine gun with the last magazine.

“Two small ships on their way here,” she informed me.

“Okay. I’m almost at the top now. Has Nikhara engaged them yet.”

“Yes,” came Nikhara’s grunt. “I’ve shot twice at him. But his knights keep blocking the rounds with their bodies. Oh, wait! something happening.”

“What?” I asked tersely.

“They’re turning towards the elevator,” Nikhara replied and dread gut punched me in the stomach.

Was. A. Fool.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Twenty-seven knights turned in unison to face me. “Ah, the abomination is here at last,” came the master’s voice from somewhere in the centre of the crowd.

“Nikhara, take the shot!” I yelled suddenly and sprang to my left, barrelling into the nearest knight with a greatsword. I slammed bodily into him and we down in a tumble. My submachine gun rattled in my right hand as my left hand drew my heavy pistol out and began popping heads, legs and arms at close range.

Thunderous booms sounded distantly and echoed far off. Two or three knights when down dead, as their chests cratered open one after the other. Black arterial blood sprayed out coating other knights rushing me.

There were too many. A sword slashed through the back of my legs and I when down rolling. My rattling submachine gun, clicked empty and I began to club feet with it, even as more knights delivered blows and slashed across my body.

They parted and a knight swept through them, the jaws of its skull helm yawning wide open and erupting with purple fire.

Weakly, those motes of pale green flame sluggishly poured off my body to form a semi-transparent verdant-green shield around me. The purple fire spewed forth and blazed over. More green motes, sparks, and tiny flickering flames radiated off of me to reinforce the shield.

It bowed inward as if some great force was pressing down against it. A knight stepped up on my right and swung his double-sided great-axe up and around. It chopped down and wedged into the shield with a crunch. Small spirts of purple fire ignited through and began to spread through the shield.

“Marcus! what the hell is happening?” Nikhara shouted in my ears. I felt drained, weak even. Everything I had in me was fountaining out to keep that shield up. To maintain and long as possible.

My hair began to fall out like withering leaves. My hands when ridged and stiff. I looked at my left arm and saw it thinning out, going frail, like I was aging at an accelerator rate. My skin mottled a brownish freckled colour. My fingers curled as if I had arthritis.

I was bone weary.

“Let him up,” commanded a voice I only partly recognised. When had my helmet been torn away? Oh, it hadn’t. The glassy featureless faceplate had been melted and smashed open.

“Marcus please, respond,” crackled Nikhara.

“Nikha--” I tried to say, but words choked as they left me.

“Bring him to me,” said the ‘master.’ Knights roughly dragged to my aching fumbling feet. I sagged and flopped forward as they started dragging me.

They parted around me quietly as if I was some sacrificial lamb being brought forth to the altar. The blonde-haired man, stood stoically before me. His black decorative long sword rested tip down before him. Currents of powerful magic ran in veins along its black glassy length.

He wore split purple robes over a black skeletal armour. A cowl rested around his neck. His light purple eyes regarded me keenly, with a hint of amusement.

“So cousin. How goes the lesson?” he asked me. My neck strained to hold my head up.

“Who are you?” my voice crackled with an age I felt but didn’t welcome.

“I am Makkian, cousin. I’m the Architects first and last, his pupil. I doubt an abomination such as yourself knows of what I speak,” he said and lifted his sword point up beneath my chin to tilt my head up to meet his eyes.

The magic radiating off it burned me at its touch. I clenched my teeth against crying out in pain.

“You’re a strange one indeed,” he mused. His neck exploded open as a booming shot thundered a second after. Makkian hissed in agony, one second the next his neck mended. “That one is an annoyance,” he stated and turned his head to regard the Erebus hovering out of range of the building.

His sword lifted in the direction of the Erebus. Purple coils of magic tethered up the blade and a pulse of destruction thrum through it veins.

“Don’t--” I said weakly and tried to struggle against the knights holding me. Makkian didn’t care. A black and purple beam shot out from the tip of his blade and streamed across my ship. The Erebus banked to the left as if to avoid the shot, but it was too late.

Except, nothing happened.

“Huh,” Makkian grunted in surprise and his gaze narrowed towards the Erebus. “You have a Sovereignty ship,” he said in surprise. “Now that is certainly interesting. But it doesn’t matter.”

Even as he said that, the Erebus twisted swiftly in the air and turned around to face us. It accelerated for the agency building.

“We’re coming to get you, hon,” Nikhara’s warm voice reached me. “Just hold on.”

“S-stop,” I commanded, to whom though I didn’t know. My head fell forward, my eyes fluttering close. The rooftop quaked and all was thrown aside in a wave of heat as scores of plasma globes exploded on the ranks of knights.

The knight on my right, shielded me from most of the blazing heat rushing out of the blasts. I saw Makkian hissed angrily and scream at the wave of intense heat.

“Grav’nion!” he shouted, and a bright orange lance fell from the sky to shear off the starboard thrusters of my ship.

“No!” I yelled, as a forest green figure leapt from the back of the Erebus as it sailed trailing smoke over our heads in a chaotic spin. Nikhara’s tower sword cleaved four knights in half as she landed, rolled and backflipped into skidding crouch.

The whole agency tower shook as the Erebus crashed somewhere in the city below us. Makkian blurred and all that was left behind was a buff of dust where he’d once been.

My hand weakly pulled my revolver out and cocked the hammer. The knight still tangled on my left side, lost his head as my revolver boomed through his helm. His dark blood sprayed up in a geyser jet that rained down around my face.

My mouth opened and droplets fell down to splash and patter across my contorted features. An electrical chill swept down my spine. My limbs popped and my body rippled, tensed, and rippled once again. My fangs extended and I buried them in the gory stump of the dead knights neck.

Then I stood, my mind racing as the world narrowed dangerously around me. It rubber banded back out in a visual wave. Like it had been stretched out and pinged back to me.

My breaths came coolie, each one a new invitation of sense, smells and tastes. My hearing pierced as Makkian’ and Nikhara’s blade scraped along each other.

“Stop,” I ordered him. His head moved at normal speed, twisting to face me. Everything else seemed just a fraction slower than I could perceive.

“Fumble all you like infant. I’ll kill this one and then I’ll take the rest of your thralls for my own,” he sneered at me.

My revolver retorted twice. The side of his head exploded in twin booming cracks. The muscles, tendons and the skeletal jaw bone were laid raw and bare for me to see.

He started laughing, a harsh rough thing. He whipped around and kicked Nikhara in the gut sending her flying off the edge of the building.

“Nikhara!” I yelled in fright. I ducked as Makkian appeared before. He sword sweeping over my head I punched out with my hand into his crotch.

He folded with the blow and I leapt up to kick him in the head. He caught my foot and twisted to throw me. I bent, grabbed his hand to halted my momentum and flung him with me to the ground. My revolver jammed against the front of his neck and I cocked the handle.

“Heal th--” I tried to retort but his sword pierced through my chest and out of my back. It burned and I screamed even as my revolver boomed and blasted his neck apart.

“Marcus!” Nikhara yelled to me, and I twisted my head to see her sword stabbed into the roof as she dangled off the edge.

“If you survive this, cousin. I hope we’ll meet again,” Makkian said to me and I looked back down to see his neck and face had healed over completely. My chest seized as his sword twisted inside me. “Grav’nion--” he hissed out, and I cocked my revolver, and pushed the barrel up beneath his chin.

I pulled the trigger, a split second before everything was filled with a bright orange light, and unimaginable heat.

Then, I dreamed.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]