Chapter 36

  The Strength Of Stone

  “Often when people see leadership, all that they see is the power and prestige of office. They never see all of this tower blasted paperwork. I don't know if I've ever even seen the bottom of one of these piles,” said Lord Cril.

  The surface of her desk was organized into stacks of the stiff paper made from the farmer’s recycled plant matter.

  She finally looked up to speak directly to her attendant. “It’s never enough. No matter how much we manage to increase crop yields, or dig out more space for the farms or ranches. I refuse to enforce population control measures. Tower knows my predecessor wouldn’t have had such reservations, may he rot in his grave.”

  “Well, any man that could intentionally scar the face of his daughter is unlikely to be the most morally upright leader,” said the hunch-backed attendant.

  “You’re lucky I don’t punch you for bringin’ that up, brother. I have no qualms fightin’ a cripple,” she said. However, the small movement at the side of her lips betrayed her serious tone.

  In all of the stress they were both under, the siblings started laughing together.

  “It wasn’t even that funny, you’ve just been wound up so tight that you’re crackin’ under the pressure. I’ll likely have to call for a mind-healer soon to repair the damage to your poor fractured mind,” her brother said.

  Cril stood from the seat behind her desk, laughing as she replied, “You are really askin’ for it. One more word from you, and it’ll be my fist in your face. If you really want a beatin’ that badly then maybe you should…”

  The light of the mana-torches flickered like they had before the recent quake.

  Bells rang through the city, but this was not the normal ringing of a simple warning bell that might announce a tunnel collapse; these were the tolls of battle. Cril leapt over her desk, knocking the stacks of paper aside. Metal ground against rock as she took up her war hammer. The usual knock at the doors was ignored as they were swung open with no announcement.

  One of her guards burst in to confirm what she already knew was the meaning behind the bells. “My Lord, we’re under attack!”

  “Seb, arm yourself,” she said as she grabbed her shield.

  This very well may have been the danger that Nik had sent his guard, Stics, to warn them about. She moved, knowing that her brother would follow after. He would always fight at her side.

  As they rounded the last corner they found Lower Captain Takk already rushing toward them from the building’s front door.

  “Takk, brief me,” Burrow Lord Cril commanded.

  “Shadow monsters from the city’s main entrance, Lord. We closed off the tunnel behind the three that made it in, but reports say that we can feel them digging. At least thirty-four upperguards and three lowerguards fell takin’ down the initial burst of monsters. One was a healer and seven of them were earth-shapers… And there were six civilians: two women, three men and a child.”

  The burrow lord's steps faltered. “Forty-three lives lost, to three of them? Send a messenger through the side tunnels to every nearby burrow, with warnin’ and those numbers. They need to know how dangerous this threat is.”

  “Yes, Lord,” Takk said, turning to shout orders to another guard who went running once the words had been spoken.

  They walked at a fast pace through the door and onto the streets of Brekk, and Takk had needed to run in order to catch up.

  “Did we get a glimpse of their numbers beyond the mouth of the tunnel?” Cril asked the captain.

  “It was difficult to tell, My Lord. They appeared to have many shapes and sizes. Dozens, maybe hundreds or more fill the tunnels now,” he replied.

  Their ranks swelled as her lowerguard fell into step beside and behind.

  She thought, These are the best warriors that any lord could hope to have fightin’ for their burrow, and depending on how many shadows filled the tunnel, their numbers might be far too few.

  One of Cril's guards moved in closer. The guard bowed her head as she met the burrow lord's pace and said, “We've received word from one of the stone-seers. They looked through the wall and reported sensin’ thousands of footsteps beyond.”

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  “Spread the word, all civilians are ordered to take to the evacuation points and flee for the nearest burrows. All armed forces are to defend the evac points at all costs. We must hold the line as long as possible,” she commanded.

  Switching angles, she made in the direction of the midway point between where the shadows would break through and where the emergency tunnels lie.

  She thought, So today is the day Brekk falls. I guess Dad was right in the end. I would fail the burrow, but I will die twice the burrowlord he ever was.

  The lights of the underground city flared and flickered as vibrations rocked its structures. The sound of a thunderous impact was followed by the sound of splitting stone. It hammered at the city.

  Boom! Crack...

  Boom! Crack…

  The lights of the city flickered and the wall came crumbling inward.

  Shadows moved into the outer edges of the city, creatures hidden beneath revealed and hidden again with the alternating blazing and blinking of light. The streets were a flood of dark shapes and blood. Cold air and the scent of rot rolled through Brekk ahead of their source.

  Those who felt the chill or smelled the vile odor would already be too late to make it to the main bulk of the guards.

  They were overtaken.

  The flashes of light from the torches were increasing in delay, and the shadows moved in bursts through the crowds of running goblins. Each shining of blue flames revealed a new scene of merciless slaughter.

  It only took the span of a few heartbeats for dozens to fall.

  The guards of Brekk ran forward to meet them, too late to save the first casualties of the battle.

  Attacks flew through the darkness, only cutting beyond shadow when light laid sections of the inky blackness bare. The head of Cril’s hammer swung in a mighty arc as the light flashed. It struck with a crack as Seb’s blade bounced off of black chitin.

  Wait, I know that sound… Skitterbugs, there are blasted skitterbugs under the shadows, she realized.

  “Defend the civilians and hold the line! This is a colony invasion!” Her voice fought to climb over the rising sounds of battle.

  In response, Seb shouted out a call for the guards to use an ability, “Let them know the strength of stone!”

  Green skin turned to grey, skin growing thick and cracking as each of the lowerguards activated their Stone Skin ability.

  These creatures were a menace to her people before they'd been swathed in black, but there were methods to fight against them, for a time. They would match the insects’ defense with their own.

  Their line was tested as goblin men and women, some carrying children, raced through openings between the guards, while others were cut down. It was a massacre the likes of which Brekk had never seen.

  We should have had more warnin’, what happened to the guards on tunnel watch? She thought.

  A shadow-wreathed claw rid her of distracted thoughts with a sharp slicing pain across her already scarred face.

  She screamed in anger, blood wet and warm flowing down her cheek. She slammed her hammer down, crushing the body beneath the shadow as flickering light revealed its form. Her blow was lucky to have landed its mark, however, as that same light made her realize she was now only seeing the creature through one eye.

  The cost of battle, and not the last sacrifice I’ll be makin’ this day, she thought.

  “Come on! Give me everythin’ you’ve got!” she cried into the darkness that would soon devour everything that she knew and loved.

  She hefted her hammer and brought it around for a shot at the next enemy’s side. It was sent stumbling, but two more took its place before her.

  Their numbers had only increased as her people fell trying to escape. Smaller shadows swam across the ground. They slithered in rapid fluid movements to cover the fallen, and in between flashes of light, raised them to join in the attack.

  Goblin warriors were forced back; moment by moment they’d lost ground to their enemy. Forced down alleyways and toward the edge of the city, the goblin warriors poured everything they had into giving the others whatever time they could to gain distance from these monsters.

  Each powerful strike against her shield sent her feet sliding across the floor; it was all she could do to just keep her feet beneath herself.

  Stone Skin abilities had allowed her elites to survive those same blows, pushed back instead of being killed outright.

  In the short time since their arrival, the shadows had taken the city.

  The openings of the exit tunnels boomed as they collapsed in rapid succession. They'd been shut to the civilians and warriors who remained.

  Good, our deaths will have meaning. There will be survivors and a warnin’ for each of the other burrows, she thought.

  A shadow-sleeved skitterbug leg knocked her shield aside and the leg of another glinted during a flashed heartbeat of blue light.

  It speared through her gut.

  She felt the punch of the strike and then nothing at all. Not even pain. The world tilted and she found herself looking toward the cavern ceiling from her back.

  Seb's voice screamed from somewhere nearby. Her name and the word no repeated again and again.

  Had he not realized that this would be where they would die together? He always was slower on the uptake, her angry, proud, and loyal little brother. I wish I could have kept him safer, she lamented.

  Then she fell.

  The ground felt as though it had vanished from beneath her, and left her falling. No… sliding. She was still lying against a surface, but she was moving rapidly at a downward angle.

  Grunts, bangs, and shouts of pain and panic surrounded her. The sound of others tumbling down the slope beside her bounced off of the smooth, curved surface of the funnel that had swallowed her whole.

  Light shone below, and she raced toward it at gravity's whim as well as that of the one who'd carved it.

  The light grew brighter as she neared its source, and the steep slide of earth leveled out.

  Her body, no longer responding to her will, slid across the room toward the light. She was joined by Seb, Takk, and several other members of her guard before shadow-cloaked masses of chitin came chasing after.

  The opening came to a crushing close as the earth was slammed down on the monsters that had come too close to entering the chamber.

  A shadow slid through a remaining crack only to burn away under the scorching light of multiple yellow flames, and then the crack was sealed shut.

  “What in the tower are you doin’ here, Raike? What machinations have you set in place, traitor?” she heard Seb scream out.

  She managed to turn her head enough to see the middle-aged goblin shut the tome held in his hands. He stood from his earthen stool that had been pulled up from the rock of the floor, and he placed the tome into a bag that was strapped over his shoulder.

  His voice was as gentle as ever as he said, “Good to see you, too, nephew. It has been, what, little more than a week since I sat in your cells? Bah, that's in the past now, and it looks like your sister desperately needs a healer. She'll need to be fit for travel if the burrow is to keep its current lord.”

  Her vision faded as he spoke, until hearing was the only sense that remained.

  She was dying, and the last sound she would ever hear was the voice of their uncle. The voice of the assassin who murdered the former burrowlord. The kind, nurturing tone of the goblin who had killed her father.

  Seb shouted something, but the world was far away now. The sound of his voice was too faint to make anything of the words.

  And then there was nothing.