Dawn Of The Blood Sovereign

CHAPTER 7: THE ARCHITECTURE OF WAR

The golden arrow struck the Warden's obsidian blade like a siege wall collapsing.

A blinding explosion of kinetic energy and white hot sparks blasted the center of the chamber. Vanya was hurled back into the granite steps of the dais, raising her arms before her eyes as jagged shrapnel of volcanic glass rained down on her.

A deafening roar like grinding iron ripped through the hall. Kaelen's projectile, the Sun-Cleaver, pushed the seven-foot tall behemoth back, its gigantic armored boots carving huge furrows in the polished floor. The sharp-edged, glass blade on its right arm was destroyed, broken into smoking black sand.

Yet it couldn't bleed. Instead, raw molten magma bled from where the blade had been and immediately began solidifying into a new jagged edge.

Kaelen didn't allow it to rest.

Before the smoke could clear, Kaelen crossed the shifting floor in three blurry steps. He wasn't aiming to reload or fire another arrow. Instead he gripped his heavy dragon-bone bow in both hands and used the reinforced celestial silver tips like twin blades in a dual-bladed weapon.

His bow spun upwards in a furious arc. The silver edge whined and ripped through the air, striking the Warden directly under its featureless iron helmet.

Crack.

A seismic shockwave blasted outwards. The Warden's head snapped back, and the enormous weight of its body lifted inches from the floor before crashing back down with a resounding boom onto the fractured stone. Bright orange magma spouted from the crack in its armor and hissed as it touched the cool granite.

"Kaelen! The pillars!" Vanya yelled, coughing through the sulfurous, sulfurous smoke. She struggled to get back to her feet, her fingers slipping on the grey dust of the floor.

Kaelen looked up. The massive black roof was held up by support pillars, each covered in spiderwebs of cracks. The sheer weight of the Warden and their violent confrontation was tearing the structure apart from the inside. Three more minutes of this fight and the entire fortress would be crushed, along with them and the beasts of the abyss.

The Warden was already rising up from the floor, its helmet's crimson slit glowing with a furious and insane rage. It held up both arms and the molten magma was now being tempered and forged into twin obsidian greatswords dripping with fire onto the floor.

"The blood... Cannot bind us... Not again," it hissed. Its voice vibrated in Kaelen's very lungs.

"I am not my father," Kaelen replied, his voice now chillingly cold and quiet. "He wanted to lock you away. I just want you dead."

Kaelen didn't back away. Instead, he sank lower and stomped his right foot down onto the stone.

His mother's divine bloodline, the bloodline of water gods, responded to his fury.

The moisture in the air condensed and froze not just into sharp shards but into a dense vortex of high-pressure water that sprayed forth from the fissure at Kaelen's feet, wrapping around his arms and the Sun-Cleaver like a roaring, transparent armor.

The Warden charged, swinging its twin obsidian swords in a cross-shaped motion aimed to cleave Kaelen in two.

Kaelen stood his ground and met the attack. He raised the dragon-bone bow, the pressurised water casing it absorbed the immense heat from the magma blades and the two met with an explosion of scalding steam.

Through the obscuring white mist, Kaelen maneuvered and slid beneath the Warden's guard. He drove the silver tip of his bow into the crack at the center of its chest armor-directly over its magma core-and unleashed the power of his father's sun lineage through his weapon without limitation. A localized burst of pure, solar golden energy erupted from the tip of his bow and expanded within the Warden's hollow interior.

The Warden shuddered. The crimson light in its helmet blazed white hot and then erupted outwards in a flash. Boom.

The Warden exploded inwards, its obsidian armor dissolving into cool black shards, its pressure blasted the steam room wide open and left only a smoking circle of ash where the general of the deep had been. Kaelen stood in the middle of the destroyed room, his lungs heaving and his black robes burned at the cuffs, the golden circles in his eyes glowing with the residual and frantic light of spent divine power.

"Is that it?" Vanya asked, carefully stepping out from behind the broken pillar, her dagger held at the ready. Her white fur cloak was ruined, but her eyes were sharp and already assessing the structural integrity of the hall.

"No," Kaelen answered as he walked back to the shattered glass wall and looked out over the valley.

The sky remained unnaturally crimson, but the massive stone automatons filling the valley floor had ceased their movement. Frozen in place, their golden veins flicker like dying embers; without their Warden, they were no longer animate. But their rest was fleeting. From across the hills, past Malakor's retreating vanguard, another sound reached Kaelen's ears. It was the rhythmic booming of heavy war drums.

Kaelen narrowed his eyes against the haze. Emerging from the northern mountain pass, seemingly untouched by the rifts, was a new and immense army. Pristine, gold-and-black armor gleamed: the Emperor Guard of the High Kingdom, Prince Malakor's own personal army, led by himself. Malakor hadn't used his entire army against the valley; he had merely sent a suicidal vanguard to probe Aethelgard's defenses and wait for Kaelen to become exhausted.

"He's a coward, but not an idiot," Vanya whispered, standing at the edge next to him. She looked at the thirty thousand fresh soldiers marching towards their weakened walls. "Our defenses are breached. Our men are scattered. We cannot hold a siege."

Just then, frantic shouts echoed from the service tunnels behind the throne. Oi staggered out from the dark passage, covered in soot, his breathing labored. Ye So-ya and the boy were not with him.

"Kaelen! Vanya!" Oi gasped, leaning against the shattered map table. "The lower tunnels... It wasn't just a tremor. The south supports were blown from the inside."

Vanya stood rigid, her jade eyes becoming slivers of ice. "What did you say?"

"The Jade Falcon guards... Those who were supposed to be escorting Ye So-ya and the heir," Oi managed to force out through a tight throat, looking directly at Vanya, his eyes blazing with a desperate rage. "They were corrupted. They took the boy, Yuri. They did not kill him, they took him out through the hidden valley gate. They are to deliver him directly to Malakor's lines."

Kaelen turned slowly. His gaze settled on Vanya and the heat that did not rise in the room now, but plunged to a glacial cold. "Your men, Vanya," Kaelen said in a flat, expressionless voice. "Your house."

Vanya did not flinch though a muscle in her jaw ticked. "I did not issue that order, Kaelen. But my clan leaders... They are traders. They saw a house that had fractured and made a deal to preserve their own skin."

"They stole my son." Kaelen whispered.

From outside, the drums of Malakor's army could be heard steadily beating louder, the mocking rhythm of the slow beat heralding the demise of the High Fortress.