Reign (Land of the Elementals Book 4), page 18
She caught the murderous intent a split second before she acted, and even as she opened her mouth to shout a warning, she knew it was too late.
Karria’s hand flashed up, rainbow-colored light flaring around her. Until now, she hadn’t used a speck of her Mythic magic, but now, she showed just how much stronger she’d grown in their time apart.
Shining silvery needles appeared from nowhere, flashing through the air in glittering streaks. There were cries of pain as they struck, slamming into the dwarves with unerring accuracy. The kneeling dwarves fell, clutching at their necks where the long needles protruded. However, it wasn’t the needles themselves that dealt the fatal blow but rather what Karria had put inside them.
The dwarves who’d been struck began thrashing, their eyes bulging wide as foam frothed at the corners of their mouths. Their faces began to grow red, some clawing bloody furrows into their own flesh as they tried to breathe.
“Nasty stuff, isn’t it?” Karria said, watching the dwarves struggle and kick. “Although it would have been more efficient to kill them right away, I decided that punishment was in order. They will choke, their bodies feeling as though they’re burning from the inside out. Normally, they would lose consciousness from such a horrific poison, but mine is special.
They will remain awake and conscious for the full five minutes it will take for them to die. They can try doing whatever they like. Rip the needles out, cut off their limbs, pull the poison from the entry wound. None of it will matter. They will die, and horribly so. You, however, will not be so lucky.”
She held up a hand, halting the gray-skinned dwarf as he took a step forward.
“All of my loyal minions may stand in place and watch as I dismantle this pathetic force just in case you are doubting my supreme power. Allow me to demonstrate why I will one day be the supreme overlord of these lands!”
Kya took a step back as Karria rose from her throne, stepping smoothly down the steps. She could now feel the intent to kill practically oozing off her. This monster would kill everyone here. She wouldn’t enjoy it. She derived no pleasure from it. She would do it because it was necessary, because she viewed them all as bugs that needed to be stepped on.
“We need to leave,” Kya said, taking an unconscious step back. “We can’t win.”
“Form up!” Akkard yelled. “Get that illusion up now!”
“Please,” Karria said as Ramona used her magic. “You may be able to fool lesser minds with that sad parlor trick, but you can’t fool me.”
Karria flicked a hand, and a gleaming red dagger flashed across the distance between them. Ramona dodged right into the path of the dagger. She screamed as it sank into her left thigh, passing straight through the gap in her armor presented by the movement and slicing into her femoral artery.
She collapsed to the ground, clutching at the wound and trying to stanch the bleeding.
“Stay together, men!” Akkard yelled, gritting his teeth. “Take that bitch down!”
Kya rushed over to Ramona as the gremlins and Akkard charged Karria. They couldn’t win, and she knew it. This mission had been doomed to failure from the start, and Karria’s last attack had proven why. She wasn’t just smart or think ten steps ahead. She had the power to act on her desires, and she had more of it than any of them.
“My magic!” Ramona screamed as Kya sank down next to her. “I can’t feel my magic!”
More than the pain, Kya could feel the overwhelming terror pouring off her, the sheer empty feeling of nothingness coming from within. This wasn’t like being shackled with Reflum. You could still feel your magic but were unable to access it. Now though, when Ramona felt for her magic, she felt nothing.
“Hold still,” Kya said, grabbing hold of the handle. “This is going to hurt.”
Ramona wasn’t even listening, her eyes wide in terror. By the feel of the dagger alone, Kya knew it was a forged construct, which told her that Karria had grown far stronger in their time apart. Of course, she’d already known that, but if she could forge constructs that could sever magic, then they could be in real trouble.
The dagger came free with a wet squelching sound, and blood immediately began gushing from the wound. Kya had prepared for this and bound the woman’s upper thigh tightly, cutting off her circulation.
“I can feel it again,” Ramona said, the panic leaving her eyes.
She turned to look at Kya, her sweat-streaked face pale from blood loss and pain.
“I don’t know what that was, but we need to get out of here. If I can’t hide us from her, then we don’t stand a chance.”
“I know,” Kya said, grabbing the taller woman’s arm and heaving her up.
She wasn’t physically strong, so it was difficult to even hold her upright, but with Ramona’s injury, there was no way she’d be able to walk on her own.
Kya turned to the others who were engaging in battle with Karria and knew that leaving was their only option. Soldiers were falling quickly as Karria continuously maintained a distance between them. She moved lithely and perfectly, placing her feet and weapons exactly where they needed to be in order to hit her marks and avoid taking any blows.
To anyone watching, it would appear that the dwarves were simply walking into her attacks, which, for all intents and purposes, was exactly what they were doing.
Kya continued hobbling over to the Reflum cage, eyeing the steel sheet that had slammed across their exit. That was their only way out. She just hoped they would have enough time to get the sheet open.
The dwarves who’d been hit by the needles were still spasming, and although Kya felt extremely guilty for doing so, she needed their help. Using her magic, she forced two of them to their feet and sent them running ahead to get the stairway open. They moved jerkily, their hands still clutching their necks and foaming at the mouth.
“Come on, I thought you were going to win this fight,” Karria taunted, sidestepping a sweeping spear and tossing a dagger to her left without looking.
She stepped back, throwing two more daggers, then did a perfect backbend, avoiding a mace. She twirled back, her legs whipping up into the air just before a mace smashed into the ground. Her hand flashed up as she performed this acrobatic maneuver, and another dagger was forged and launched.
All of the gremlins she hit went down. Not all were dead, but her attacks were precisely aimed to either kill or incapacitate. Not a single target had more than one dagger lodged in them, and anyone who was hit was effectively out of the fight.
The gremlins began to grow more and more erratic as they tried to be unpredictable, breaking up their formation. Several, thinking themselves clever, tried double, triple, or quadruple-bluffing, turning one way, then the other, pulling attacks and changing angles at the last second to try and defeat Karria’s counters.
Of course, none of them succeeded, and they continued walking right into her daggers. A couple of the gremlins even ended up taking each other out, both trying to avoid being hit and catching one another with their spears.
In less than half a minute, Karria had reduced their force by over two-thirds, leaving less than eight fighters still on their feet.
“Stand still and fight like a man!” Akkard yelled, swinging his mace with all his might and missing her by a mile.
“But I’m not a man,” Karria said, throwing a dagger to her left, the blade taking a gremlin in the eye and killing him instantly.
Akkard roared, charging and swinging again. Then, he hurled his mace, trying to catch her off-guard. But, as always, it was impossible. A shield appeared, stopping the mace in its tracks less than a foot from Akkard’s body. It rebounded, the mace head swinging around and catching Akkard in his left shoulder, breaking the bone and knocking the dwarf to the ground.
The remaining gremlins tried to reach her, but Karria took them out with ease, either killing or crippling them badly enough so they couldn’t stand.
“Well,” Karria said as Shukle went down with a dagger in his ankle. “I think that was a wonderful bit of exercise, don’t you?”
The groans of pain from gremlins and dwarves bleeding all over the place were her only replies.
Kya had watched the entire battle unfold as she crouched next to the steel plate, watching with bated breath as the strangled and dying dwarves poured some of the remaining acid on one edge of the steel plate. She was terrified that they wouldn’t make it in time, but as Akkard was going down, the plate shifted, and the dwarves pulled it aside for her.
“Thank you for your help,” Kya said, “Now sleep.”
The dwarves immediately fell into unconsciousness. It was the best mercy she could give, allowing them a reprieve from the pain and suffering until their bodies perished.
“Come on,” she said, dragging Ramona down with her. “We need to get out of here and back to Arbor. He’ll know what to do.”
“I don’t know if anyone can help that girl,” Ramona groaned as Kya dragged her down the stairs. “She’s a monster, a creature without a shred of remorse or decency.”
“I know what she is now,” Kya said, biting her bottom lip. “But I also know the person whose mind is trapped in that body. She is kind, sweet, and one of the greatest people you will ever meet. We just need the right person to bring her out.”
Ramona’s body slumped then, and Kya felt her slip into unconsciousness. She was pretty confident that she’d be able to get away, even if she had to drag Ramona along with her. The reason for that was simple; Karria didn’t view her as a threat, so she wouldn’t waste resources going after her.
She had the king of the dwarves, the only man who might be able to challenge her rule. In coming here, they had given her exactly what she needed.
26
Karria sat back in her throne, watching her minions clear away the bodies of both the living and dead. They would be tossing them all into the same cage, a reminder of what happened to those who opposed her. It had been nearly two months since Akkard’s escape – she had been away at the time – and she was glad he’d been stupid enough to come back.
What troubled her was that Kya had been there. Logic dictated that if she were back, Arbor should have returned as well, but despite the elf’s claims that he was, she couldn’t bring herself to believe her.
Had Arbor returned, he would have come for her in person. The only logical conclusion was that there had been a way back, but her darling brother, selfless as always, had pushed Kya back to Laedrin while he remained trapped within the Lower Realms.
“My lady,” the gray dwarf said, bowing to her.
“Are the prisoners comfortable?” Karria asked.
“Yes, my lady,” the gray dwarf said.
“Good,” Karria replied. “I want them all questioned. I trust you can handle that?”
The gray dwarf nodded, and Karria waved a hand to dismiss him.
“You,” she said, directing her words at one of the few dwarves who’d remained steadfast in his loyalty. “Go fetch Jek. I want an update.”
The dwarf gave her a smart salute, then quickly made for one of the hidden passageways she’d had made. There was a reason Jek wasn’t here, and it was the same reason why two gray-dwarves were never in the same space. If those she imbued with power came within fifty yards of one another, they would expire violently.
It was an odd effect, one she had yet to figure out. Regardless, they were still extremely useful, especially seeing as dwarves normally never had any magic. It was only thanks to her Bestowal magic that they had power at all, and it was for that reason that they were absolutely loyal to her.
Karria’s eyes flicked around the room, noting that the steel door over the stairway was corroded and slightly ajar. Of course, she knew that Kya and that human/elf woman with the ability to turn others invisible had run. But, seeing as Kya couldn’t control her mind and the other woman couldn’t fool her with her pathetic magic, she wasn’t going to bother going after them.
They were both terrified of her and wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. Though she really wanted to know how Kya had gotten back, she could probably find that out by interrogating Akkard and Shukle. Those two would be in the know, and she was confident her methods would yield results.
A small door in one of the walls slid aside then, and Jek trundled in. He looked the same as he had since the day she’d imbued him with power. Corded muscle ran over his short frame, his eyes glowing an odd yellow color, and his skin, a dark blue-gray. His hair and short beard were a stark white, standing out against his darker skin.
“How is it coming along?” Karria asked, lounging back on her throne.
“The engineers are confident they can get it up and working within the next few months,” Jek said, falling to his hands and knees and pressing his forehead to the ground.
“Why is it taking so long?” Karria asked, feeling a flash of annoyance. “I told them exactly what to do nearly three months ago.”
“Forgive me, my lady,” Jek said. “Though you have given the engineers exact instructions, a genius such as yourself cannot expect those of lesser intelligence to perform adequately.”
“Obviously,” Karria said. “A brilliant chef can tell a peasant how to cook his dishes, but that doesn’t mean they will know how to replicate it. I expected this. But my calculations put this project in its end phase a month ago. What is the holdup?”
Although Karria had only been in charge of the Jagged Peaks for a bit over three months, it felt as though it had been a lot longer. In her time here, she’d started on several projects, the most important of which was a portal designed to break through the dimensional barrier so she could pull Arbor back to Laedrin.
Once he was back, the two of them could set out on a campaign together. First, to crush the elves who’d sent him there in the first place, then against the humans and gremlins. With their combined strength, the two of them could crush all who stood in their way and rule Laedrin together.
It wouldn’t be difficult to convince him to join her side once she brought him back. She was his darling sister, after all, and he would do anything for her. When she told him of all the horrible things she’d been through after escaping Ramson’s clutches, he would happily help her crush everyone who stood in her way.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” Jek said, keeping his head pressed to the floor. “The engineers are a bit…wary of me and don’t tell me everything they should. My appearance is off-putting, so they don’t trust me despite the fact that I am their rightful king.”
Karria felt another flare of annoyance. This farce was seriously starting to impact her plans. Ruling these pathetic creatures from the shadows was so tedious. If she could only go down in person, she was confident she could encourage those dwarves to work faster.
“I need an exact date,” Karria said, crossing one leg over the other and interlacing her fingers. “If Arbor isn’t back by then, tell them that they will all be dying horrible deaths.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, my lady,” Jek said. “It would be out of character.”
“For every second my brother languishes in the Lower Realms, I will kill another of your pathetic kind. I’m done playing nice. Tell them that. The longer they drag their stubby little feet, the more of their kinsmen I will slay.
“If you need proof, drag a few of the corpses from the new cage I’ve set up for our latest batch of visitors.”
Jek pressed his forehead to the ground once again, then rushed off to follow her orders.
“All of you, get out,” Karria said, snapping at the dwarves who were busy scrubbing the floors clean of blood.
They obeyed without question, rushing out and leaving her alone for the first time in days. Karria let out a long breath, steadying herself. She needed to think more clearly, and to do that, she needed to move up another Tier.
Currently, she was at Tier 5, two Tiers higher than she had been upon entering the Jagged Peaks. She was on the cusp of something great; she could feel it. Her power had grown by leaps and bounds, but another Tier would sharpen her mind further and give her access to even more of her astonishing power.
Closing her eyes, Karria concentrated on the myriad of tiny, rainbow-colored lights flashing through her nervous system. She could see her two Origins in her mind’s eye, the rainbow-colored Mythic Origin at the back of her skull and the brilliant, orange-colored Bestowal Origin sitting right in the center of her brain.
She could see the small tendrils extending from that Origin, reaching into several parts of her mind and lighting them up. There was still so much more to explore, and Karria knew that if she continued to push, she would only grow smarter.
She used her considerable mind and interposed a scene over the throne room, reaching into her Mythic Origin and pushing her magic outward, allowing millions of tiny lights to stream from all over her body. She could feel the strain it placed on her mind, even though her Bestowal magic compensated, removing a great deal of it and easing her aching head.
When her eyes flicked open, she was sitting in a familiar forest clearing. Flowers bloomed all around, and the scent of spring was in the air. Trees grew small buds, some containing flowers themselves, while others were tipped with green. She could see her house, feel the inviting warmth as it called to her.
Karria knew what she would find inside. Nothing. Her power did not afford her the strength to forge human constructs. Not that she hadn’t tried. She’d tried forging her mother first, picturing the woman in perfect detail and attempting to force her likeness out into the world. But as soon as she’d tried, she’d run up across a wall.
In other words, it was possible to forge human constructs, but not at her level. She estimated that her strength needed to be somewhere in the high 20s to low 30s for her power to be sufficient.
Karria looked around, feeling absolutely nothing at all. She didn’t forge this place out of a sense of nostalgia. Feelings and emotions were for the weak. No, she’d simply forged this place because it was the most familiar to her. She’d hoped that forging a scene like this would be more strenuous, but it appeared that without the moving bits and pieces, it wouldn’t be enough.
