Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

“Uhhhh... what’s it called... Shattering Darkness! And make the Spear Dark-element! It’ll do some bonus cold damage and weaken the door!”

I jumped off her and sped to the ground, dashing forward just before I hit dirt. The Spear of Nine Spheres burned with a brilliant deep indigo, coils of dark energy building up around my arm and the haft of the weapon as I roared and plunged the blade deep into the shattered oak.

[You deal 628 Darkness damage to door! -15% Damage Reduction!]

The wood buckled and squealed as it froze solid. Frost and cracks bloomed over it, spreading as I backpedaled and made room for Karalti. She pawed the ground with a back foot, and then charged the door a second time. She smashed into it with the full force of her ten-ton terrestrial weight, and the frozen wood exploded around her head and caved into the hall beyond.

“Ugh.” My dragon groaned as she pulled her head free of the wreckage. “I need to pay more attention to Vash’s khiig-channeling lessons.”

“You alright?” I looked back at her.

“I’m fine! I hit my head harder than that all the time. You know, doing... uhh... dragon stuff.” She cocked her head at me, her eyes a little unfocused. “I’ll go and try and stop the fighting, force the soldiers to surrender.”

“Go. Just watch out for artillery.” A nasty acid burning sensation churned at the back of my throat at the thought of what mortar shells could do to a dragon. “Artillery and Ix’tamo will kill you stone dead.”

“I will. I’ll be fine. Go get Zoltan!” Karalti rumbled, then pivoted and stalked back toward the wall, broadcasting her telepathy across the battlefield. “Guess what, fuckers?! It’s dragon time!”

Chapter 27

With Karalti keeping the infantry busy, I ran for the door of the Keep, glancing over my HP and Adrenaline. The door was smashed into the dense barricade of furniture the defenders had piled up behind the door. Some of it had been shoved back by Karalti, but not all of it—not enough that I could Shadow Dance past the blockade.

[Solar Burst II deals 351 reduced Light damage to Lesser Shades!]

[Raven Helm protects from Blindness!]

I winced as the spell went off like a clap of lightning, briefly turning the hall white. Ears ringing, I resolutely shoved my way past a wardrobe and six tumbled chairs, then crouched down to survey the entry hall from concealment. Ten dead men lay sprawled on the ground, killed by the shadows crowding in front of the grand staircase. A pair of terrified mages were trapped on the first landing. One of them was holding some kind of barrier that kept the shadows from attacking them. The other was winding up to cast another offensive spell.

“You two! Stand down!” I called to them, looking out just far enough to get a proper line of sight on them. “I am Count Dragozin Hector, the Voivode of Myszno! Surrender now, and keep your lives!”

“The Dragonlord? Pah!” The mage holding the barrier spat at me. “If we wanted a necromantic monster ruling Myszno, we would have kept the first one!”

“For Myszno! For humankind! Ori’ha’kal!” The other man swung his glowing hands toward me, spellgloves discharging another burst of light. It engulfed three of the shadows, vaporizing them, and seared the varnish off the furniture I was using for cover.

“We’re here to restore Kitti Hussar to her rightful seat!” I called, after I’d finished ducking. “This is your last chance: stand the fuck down, or I’ll overrun and kill you both.”

The remaining shades pressed in closer to the barrier.

“The Hussars are dead: destroyed, by the likes of you! Die, demon spawn!” The elementalist’s lip curled, and this time, he swung his hands directly toward me.

I threw myself forward as a bolt of lightning lanced through the barrier and struck where I’d been crouching. I snarled, throwing out a lasso of darkness from my fingertips. It streaked toward the mage, but hit the barrier and dissolved.

“Your foul magics cannot defeat the holy fire of Khors!” The mage holding the barrier, an older man in the red work robes of a priest, panted in desperation as half a dozen shadow spears rained off the shield.

“For fuck’s sake.” I concentrated on the crowd of shades. “Get out of here! All of you! Go to the damn Caul of Souls, and say hi to Lahati for me!”

The shadows stopped clawing at the barrier and drifted back. One by one, they stretched out like black candle flames, then vanished.

“There! Hold your fire, for fuck’s sakes!” I said. “If you’re Hussar men, the Countess needs you, and I need Zoltan Gallo.”

“Countess? You’re installing Hussar’s little greensick brat as countess?” The elementalist’s face contorted with disdain. “Hold that shield, Torvan! For Zoltan!”

I sighed. “Well, okay. Can’t say I didn’t try.”

A fireball warped into existence at the mage’s fingertips, then shot at me like a meteor. I dove, rolled, and raced forward with Blood Sprint, changing the Spear from Dark to Light on instinct. The weapon blazed with pure white-gold radiance as I drove it into the barrier. The blade caught against the field of energy, which turned bright blue, then white as the Spear surged the shield until it exploded. The blast pitched the other mage into the railing. I carried the combo through, and drove the blade all the way through the priest’s unarmored chest.

“Heretic! Murderer!” Torvan’s comrade shouted in horror, stumbling back as I pulled the spear free and spun around to face him. “He was a holy man!”

“Both of you are outlaws who refused to surrender,” I said. “So now it's execution or arrest. Your pick.”

“Myszno is for Vlachians!” Before I could react, he put the knuckles of his spellglove against the underside of his jaw and snarled a word of power. Within a split second, a ball of