Sons of Ironstorm - Book 3: New Alliance

Strategic Repositioning

While the Scattered Kingdom thief was securely trussed in hard cords of tjor'riin make, the guards still kept a careful watch on the lithe young woman who, despite the greater size of her guards, had nearly escaped twice while they bound her. Cut off from the sword that was her physical body and thusly unaware of the events transpiring in the Chamber of Waterfalls, the avatar huddled miserable in one corner of her Abyss-stuff cage, eyes closed as she quietly sobbed in despair.

Eyes closed and her senses stifled by the cage, she was blind when the first blast erupted from the passageway. A flattened lozenge of pure light the size of a man's hand, it darted out of the shadows to hammer into the chest of one of the guards watching Jaeda. The dark soldier flew back as if shot from a catapult, striking a near wall hard before dropping to the ground, a smoking hole where his chest once was. And as he flew through the air, a second blast took out his companion, the lozenge of red light slamming into the tjor'riin with enough force to throw him nearly five paces through the air before he too crashed to the floor.

For a long, painful pause the remainder stared in astonishment at their fallen fellows, the song of powerful magic tingling through their bodies. Then the chamber was filled with lozenges of light, deadly darts slicing through air to scythe shadow soldiers down where they stood.

From the darkness filling the corridor leading to the Chamber of Waterfalls the source of the magic came, wreathed in a shimmering cloak of dancing red tendrils of energy. They mischievously shivered with every step he took along the darkened passageway, the light globes yielding to the greater power of the Weapon hovering between his shoulders.

At the threshold to the small chamber holding the captive desert princess and the caged avatar, nothing more than a slight widening of the passageway to the Chamber of Waterfalls, the figure paused, eyes searching the space for anything still moving amongst the downed enemy. He started forward only when that search revealed only death, satisfied his assault had removed the Tjor'riin presence from the chamber.

Before he could reach Jaeda or the avatar in her cage, he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. A slight turn of the head and the figure watched a handful of tjor'riin charge in from the outer corridor, weapons raised and faces grim. A gesture, however, halted their advance in a flare of red light, another hurling them backwards with cries of pain, a wall of magic crushing them like insects as it brushed over them.

A step later he was beside the cage.

"Are you going to sit in there all day, crying?" he asked hoarsely. The avatar's head snapped up.

"My Wielder!" she exclaimed in surprise. "But the Kaal Eran ... the chamber ..."

In silent reply Patrik reached over his shoulder and drew the Earth Sword from its place a finger's width off his back. A smooth backhand sent the ancient weapon's edge slicing through the Abyss-stuff making up the cage's bars, the shadowy magic no match for the Earth's power. Unable to withstand the ancient power of the Sa'an, the bars simply fell apart where the blade passed through them, the shadow magic holding them together dissipated upon contact with the Earth.

The bars gone, Patrik reached in with his free hand. The avatar gazed at it in amazement for a long moment before looking up into his face. Then her hand was in his and Patrik's eyes closed as he felt her presence slide deep into his soul, emptying the cage and filling his mind with her quiet voice.

- Thank you, - was her soft benediction.

Patrik jerked a curt nod. There'd be time enough to talk later. Now he had to move; beyond the walls of the corridor the Tjor'riin were surging in a frenzy, charging towards where the Wielder and his companion had killed their Kaal Eran mistress and wrested the Earth Sword from the beast deep in its den of fire. And that beast too stirred, pushing against the roof of the cavern that held it in an angry effort to retrieve the weapon taken from its keeping. Already the floor trembled from the force of its fury.