Deadline Read online

  Since Crux was no longer in her party, the white knight broadcast over brigade chat.

  Lash: Crux, what's your status? Evac's almost done up here.

  Crux: Sorry, boss. I'm not coming.

  Talon: What are you talking about? We're defending the portal right now!

  Crux: I didn't want to delay the others getting to safety so I didn't say anything, but I can't leave Oakengard without her. Not again.

  I was beside myself. The crusaders positioned another unit over the fast travel and I activated the portal. Most of the knights had been evacuated by now, with two more groups to go. Bravo Team fought to clear more space, and Lash traded knowing glances with her crew.

  I rushed up to her. "You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?"

  She cocked her head uncomfortably. "It's both the twins, Talon. We can't leave them. You've got to see that."

  "You don't know what's happening here."

  "I've seen enough."

  I clenched my teeth. Lash was as stubborn as ever, but she was better about following orders these days. The only reason she was pushing back was to keep a promise to Crux and defend her team. I'd lose the respect of Bravo Team if I didn't let them try. Besides, I'd made the same promise.

  I pointed through a set of doors. "He's downstairs, but you'll be hounded every step of the way."

  Kyle's tree form leaned in. "Don't worry, bro. I'll keep them safe."

  Lash and I turned to him, surprised. "You'd do that for us?" she asked.

  "We're in this together, right? Now let's get out of here while we still can."

  As I fast-traveled another group of knights, Bravo Team exited down a side doorway. The keepers followed but Kyle slammed the door closed. He was obviously holding it from the other side because their rock bodies slammed against it, unable to overcome his tree strength.

  "Stop them!" resounded the voice of Hadrian.

  A sea of violet parted as the usurper himself barreled down the main corridor. Wearing his makeshift quartz armor, he was super-powered and super-charged.

  I turned to the room. "Final transport! Everybody in!"

  Grimwart pushed Artax into the center of the fast travel. Crusaders bunched into the warhorse. As purple knights and guardians closed in, Hadrian burst into the portal room. The dev menu was faster. The final group of crusaders blinked away to safety.

  "Get out of my way!" demanded an enraged Whisperer, shoving ineffectual peons aside as he stomped across the portal room.

  With the keepers struggling to pursue Bravo Team, they turned to their brute cousin. The rock giant charged through and bashed the door down. The accompanying hall was empty. Kyle had already split.

  Hadrian turned from that scene and surveyed the rest of his forces. They were confused, surprised, and angered by the turn of events. Some keepers pursued Bravo Team down the halls but others stood scanning for evidence or facing their new Protector.

  The Whisperer was anything but unassuming after his transformation in the Speculum. Blocks of cracked rock plated his skin. Charges of purple magic flowed over him and fumed from his eyes. He casually lifted a hand and a chunk of armor from his forearm thrust forward. I recoiled but too late. Purple magic crackled through me. Even as the physical rock harmlessly passed through, I shivered from the plague.

  But I was unharmed. I braced in place and puffed my chest out.

  "That's the last of them," I stated loudly, keeping the attention away from Bravo Team. It didn't look like Hadrian knew about them and I wanted to keep it that way. I locked Stronghold's fast travel and stood in defiance of Oakengard's Protector.

  Hadrian's chest rumbled low and deep as he fixated on me. "How are you doing this? You found me with the dev menu, I'd guess, but this?"

  He waved harshly at my shadowy body. Then something in his eyes sparkled. Hadrian leaned in and sniffed.

  "Ah... yes... you've got the stink of the void on you."

  I kept a straight face but he chuckled.

  "Of course it's the void. I'm not entirely unfamiliar with its power, as you know."

  I relaxed, growing more confident of my safety, seeing most of the enemy force standing idle instead of pursuing Bravo Team. With any luck, they'd be forgotten in the confusion.

  Hadrian pursed his lips and nodded. "I haven't given you enough credit. Leaving the fast travel unlocked was my mistake, but you were quick to capitalize on it. You're an opportunist. There are worse things in the world."

  Even as he commended me, keepers hovered into a tight circle around me. The Whisperer wanted to test his plague against my shadow. The whole time, my eyes were on the three glass triangles hanging from his neck.

  "Where are the soulstones?" I asked.

  "That's what you're here for then?" He snorted. "If it wasn't for you, I'd have all three. But it was the kraken's defeat that lost the Squid's Tooth. He's the weakest of the titans. Don't think you'll take the others the same way."

  Trafford: Talon, you just about done over there? I'm getting itchy fingers to call you back.

  Talon: The evac's complete. Stand by.

  Hadrian's mouth crooked as he recognized me interfacing with the chat. "Still scheming, I see." He waved a hand in the air and the heavy contingent of guards dispersed. Violet knights formed up and marched away. The keepers who crowded me, who a second ago had been ready to strike, backed away and wandered off in all directions. Hadrian, alone, studied me for a long moment. "I'll enjoy ripping you apart."

  I scoffed and opened my mouth to respond, but the Whisperer abruptly turned and marched away.

  "Goodbye," he said. "For now." With a flick of his hand, I reappeared in the Pantheon in Stronghold.

  "Clear the circle," ordered Gladius. Centurions helped straggling crusaders off the fast travel to make room for more.

  "That's all of them," I told him. "No one else is coming through."

  Talon: Damn it, Trafford. Why'd you call me back so soon?

  Trafford: I didn't touch anything. I swear.

  I winced as the post-shadow hangover itched at my skin. So Hadrian had forced me back then, but how was that—

  The last crusader walking off the portal keeled over, gripping a bloody stomach.

  "He needs a medic!" cried Grimwart.

  The downed knight coughed motes of magic. His back arched and his cloak energized with a purple glow. He pushed to his feet and drew his sword. "Long live the Violet Order!" He hacked at the back of a fellow soldier.

  A ring of centurion spears came forward and impaled the newfound enemy in place. Gladius stepped in and stabbed him through, the fire from his sword blazing over the corrupted knight's body. He fell to the floor, dead. Centurions and crusaders traded panicked stares. Some raised their weapons.

  "Hold!" I yelled. "Hold! We're all on the same team!" I charged between them, feeling out of place in my own skin but shoving soldiers away all the same.

  The collected mood in the Pantheon went solemn. We stared each other down with baited breath, and slowly the weapons went idle.

  "We're okay," said Grimwart, dismounting from his stallion. "Let's attend to the wounded. We have more allies to save." His helmet turned to me. I had helped the colonel save his men, and now he was gonna help me save mine.

  But I feared we'd already played our hand. The complexities of extracting a small team surrounded by a hostile force aside, Hadrian had somehow rebuffed my shadow form. With growing knots in my stomach, I referred to the dev menu.

  "There'll be no rescue mission," I muttered. "Hadrian locked Oakengard's fast travel. Bravo Team's on their own."

  Kyle blindly jogged through the unlit hallways of Oakengard's lower floor. He could hear Bravo Team ahead, but just barely. Louder were the hums of the keeper brute behind him. While he wanted nothing more than to light a torch, it'd be counterproductive given the current circumstances.

  How did an extraction turn into an infiltration?

  The sprinting was taking a toll on his stamina. Kyle s
uspected the tree form was more ponderous than a plain old human. It was built to stand ground—to fight not to flee.

  Kyle pressed down the dark corridor, a branch tracing the wall to act as his eyes. He skidded to a halt as he almost ran headlong into a dead end.

  Impossible. Conan had waved him this way. Behind him, faint purple glowed against the shiny stone floors. The brute was approaching.

  Screw it. Lash and the others had gotten away. Kyle had done what he'd come to do. The hefty treant faced the coming light and readied to take it on.

  "Kyle, you dumbass, get in here!"

  The treant turned to the dead end and squinted. A diminutive thief was hunched beside an open hatch on the floor. "Crux?"

  "Get downstairs before you give away our position."

  The brewmaster hurried into the hole. Although his form was large, the access hatch was of industrial size and design. Kyle easily descended into the makings of a mine. Lash, Conan, and Glinda waited below.

  "Good job, Crux," said the Bravo Team leader. She extended a hand to help him down.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It's for your own good." The access hatch shut.

  Kyle surged forward to hit the door, but the crystal lock clicked into place. Lash and Conan held him back.

  "Quiet, you idiot!" she hissed. "The keepers will hear you."

  He huffed and pushed them away, scowling at the locked hatch. "What the heck, bro?"

  The thief's voice came from the other side of the door. "You'll be safe in there. With the mines abandoned and locked from the outside, the keepers won't bother searching within. It's the only way."

  Kyle bit down on wooden teeth. "And what about you?"

  Crux didn't answer and the hum of the keepers drew near.

  1780 Hail to the King

  An hour passed since escaping Oakengard. Kyle and Bravo Team were safe, their pursuit called off. With Hadrian based in a new city, Stronghold was likewise left alone. The marauding bandits retreated east, the goblins west past the forest. Their presence no longer served a purpose, and city residents were now blanketed in quiet unease.

  My gaze flitted from my notification bar to the void pearl display on the sanctum master panel. Crux and Kyle were black dots in the middle of a blank map, and I was still having trouble teleporting to them.

  "Get me over there, Trafford."

  The old shopkeeper at my side grumbled. "It can't be done, Talon. We've tried three times."

  "Then try again. Black Hats are stranded over there."

  "I don't know what to tell you," he snapped. "Kyle's the jewelry expert, not me. Bah, to hell with it! Do it your damn self if you're so determined to waste your time." Trafford retired to his seat at the war table.

  Izzy rested a hand on my back. "Time's almost up," she nudged.

  I swallowed hard and cold against her tenderness. "I need more."

  "You have to say something to them."

  "I need more time."

  The shock of recent events had worn off, and with it went the numbness. Grating anger was the only thing I had left. I wasn't pissed at myself, really. I hadn't allowed the horde to overly distract me. I did what I could to protect the city and was back in position when Hadrian needed to be stopped. With the destruction of the servers occurring in the real world, there really was nothing we could have done from the inside.

  The resulting actions, however, were on me. Being too slow to save Lucifer, too confident to foresee Hadrian's suicide. The Oakengard incursion was a response based on fear and anger and desperation; the blind charge into the unknown exacted a terrible price on Kyle and Bravo Team. My friends were stranded. Things would continue falling apart unless I started thinking more tactically, like a leader.

  Then why the hell couldn't I let this go?

  In between checking the display and my notifications, my eyes fell on the top half of Lucifer's witchwood staff in my inventory. The power in the artifact was long gone; the blue gemstone that had been set in its head shattered days ago. Lucifer must've been on the dregs of his magic, up against an angel. No wonder he'd been downed so easily.

  "I'm just saying," reminded Izzy gently. "The faction needs to see their leaders. They need to see that we're in charge and have a plan."

  I set my jaw firmly. "We don't have a plan. We need to wait until Tad replies to my Everchat hail. Which means I'm staying close to my private quarters."

  "At least let's move deliberations to the guildhall. We have private rooms over there too."

  "But we don't have the void pearl." I zoomed into the section where Kyle was, a black dot in a sea of unmapped gray. Beside the display, the black pearl roiled with charcoal smoke.

  "I don't think teleporting now's a good idea," said Izzy.

  "It'll be fine. The fast travel's closed so it'll only be me. No more casualties."

  "That's not what I meant and you know it." She pressed her cheek into my shoulder in an attempt to capture my gaze, but my eyes remained on the black pearl. She sighed. "Too much time with void magic is taking a toll on you. Your body needs rest."

  I worked my jaw. The itchiness from the last visit was mostly gone now. I was tense, sure, but who wouldn't be in this situation? Without a word of answer, I activated the void pearl and attempted to teleport to Kyle.

  Error

  Hostile location unmapped

  "What does that mean, unmapped?" I hissed. "It worked before."

  Trafford ignored my grumblings, but Bandit clopped down the steps from her rooftop perch. She came to my side and put her muzzle in my hand.

  "Thanks, girl," I said, patting her head. "At least someone supports me."

  "She just wants a peanut butter cup," grunted Trafford.

  "No she doesn't, she—" I paused as Bandit's eyes shimmered. Her nose sniffed my pockets. "Oh, all right." I pulled the piece of chocolate from my inventory and stuffed it in her mouth. She chewed gleefully.

  I frowned at the sanctum master panel. The teleportation mechanics were straightforward. The operator at the master panel chose a party member to teleport someone to. I wasn't sure who could be teleported, but I knew they needed to be in the city, and probably a Black Hat. None of those details mattered, however. I just wanted me, right here. And Kyle was still selectable as a target on the display.

  I stared deeply at the void pearl, lost in my thoughts, wondering what Hadrian could've done to block this magic, wondering if it was a simple question of willpower. Of evolution. After all, upgrading and overloading skills were built-in mechanics. I'd managed impossible feats before.

  As I concentrated, the swirling darkness contained in the pearl seemed to shiver. I blinked and peered closer. Was it broken? A bit of shadow was definitely leaking off the pearl. It folded over itself like smoke. My attention captured, I hesitantly reached forward. Wisps of shadow coiled around my wrist. It tickled my skin right through my glove. Slowly, it tightened.

  I was stuck. The shadow felt like a physical cord, cutting off my circulation. It pulled at me. Drew me near. It—

  "Watch out!"

  Izzy's winter staff rapped my knuckles hard. She shoved me to the floor and the dark presence retreated to the void pearl.

  I gritted my teeth, putting pressure on my wrist to stave off the pain.

  Trafford's chair scraped against the stone. "What in the hell?" he said, stomping over. "What was that?"

  Izzy helped me up and Bandit stood close, concern welling in their eyes. I rubbed my temple with the ball of my hand. "I... I don't know. It pulled at me, like it was alive." I blinked. The pearl onscreen flickered.

  "This is dark magic," said Trafford. "It's Hadrian." He exchanged a grim look with Izzy.

  I stretched my fingers. There didn't seem to be any lasting damage besides a nagging itch. "Don't be so dramatic, guys."

  "And don't be so dismissive," countered Izzy. "Shadow magic is a corrupting force."

  "Who says?"

  "The legends, the lore, just about every book in the library that mentions i
t."

  "Including a heavy dose of trashy romance novels, I'm guessing?"

  She ignored the jab. "Remember how Hadrian merged with the shadowguards?"

  "I don't think this is the same."

  Trafford frowned. "I think she's onto something, son. Hadrian's proved his influence over the shadow. He kicked your shadow form out of his city, didn't he? The real question is, did Hadrian corrupt the shadow or did the shadow corrupt him?"

  "Thanks for your concern, guys, but I'm fine. Really."

  Izzy pressed her lips together, hopeful, but Trafford was a born skeptic. "That's exactly the type of thing you'd say if you weren't fine. How can we be sure you're not compromised?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. Punch me."

  Trafford socked me in the jaw and laid me out before I could count to one. The grumpy bastard was nice enough to help me up, though.

  "See, no shadow armor. I'm not the same as Hadrian." I rubbed my jaw and smiled. "I am kinda surprised by how fast you punched me. No hesitation or anything."

  "What can I say? I'm a team player." The old man chuckled and appraised me for a moment before shaking his head. "Keep your wits about you, Talon. The last thing we need is for something to happen to you too." The buildmaster general huffed and headed down the tower stairs. "I'll do my best to stall for time at the guildhall, but I don't do dance numbers so hurry up."

  Izzy chewed her lip when we were alone. "You have been especially grumpy the last hour. I think the old man has a point."

  "You gonna hit me too?"

  "Don't tempt me. I don't think you should be messing with the void pearl directly."

  "But Kyle and Bravo Team—"

  "All I'm saying is let Trafford be the go-between. He's proven he can safely use the sanctum master panel without being swallowed by shadow." She sighed. "I'm worried about you. Just stay in good spirits, deal?"

  A notification pinged my menu. An Everchat hail. Tad had finally—