The Chimera Summoner – Traitor (part 2/2)

Part two--

Squinting, I could make out more black armbands. There were dozens of these guys… maybe a hundred??

And where was Marok…? If they had someone that could kill or capture her, we could be in real trouble.

Why weren’t the gods damned faculty back?! Valant and principal Maule would paste these losers in a heartbeat for threatening their students.

“Join?” Jennie asked, as we pressed our noses to the bottom of the high window of the bridge.

“Obviously.” I said. What else would we do?

Jennie hesitated.

“What?”

She looked torn. Then steeled herself. “I'm just saying we should consider hiding you.”

“WHAT?”

Jennie blanched. “I'm just…look these people might be here for you. Ok? You and Hera. And there are seniors down there. Pissed off seniors. Maybe the best thing we can contribute right now is keeping them from their objective.”

“It seems like their objective is rounding up our friends?!” I pointed down at the escalating scene below.

Jennie snatched my hand urgently. “I think that’s BAIT, Eir! I've only met two heralds but knowing you both, that is EXACTLY how I would go about finding BOTH of you. This place is a labyrinth. There's nothing we can–”

“I agree with Jennifer.” Lorna announced.

“Likewise.” Sang Serenity in a haunting, terrible tone. “This conflict is beyond our scope of influence, but to deny them your capture. Wise retreat is more useful to those below than appearing brave.”

I hesitated… did it really make more sense to. “– LOOK!”

I gaped out the window in horror.

Large metal cages had been produced somehow on the green. Someone’s Class, or a storage Skill. Fuck maybe one of them had portaled them in. I had missed it.

"These evil fucking fuck–” I lost my ability to speak.

My skin was boiling at the sight of CAGES. Not even animals belonged in cages. Fuck fuck fuck these guys.

“Who would dare attack Bayloft? Who would bring CAGES to Bayloft??” Jennie whispered in horror.

“And knows that the most powerful faculty members are conveniently absent to negotiate on behalf of our Netherim guests.” Lorna added.

My skin prickled. “Night Blessed?”

“Or the people who called the faculty away.” Jennie said.

“Who’s to say that isn't the same thing?” Lucy said.

A chill ran down my neck at that thought. It had crossed my mind and then out again, rejected by sheer weight of how much I didn't want it to be true.

Night blessed in positions of trust and power in governments. Sending what was looking an awful lot like part of a fucking army to my school.

A careful peek out a window showed me that there was not going to be a peaceful resolution to this.

The familiar and dreaded figure of Margarite Taymore, the second year from the student council who hated me for besmirching the reputation of the school or whatever, strode out of the line of students blocking the soldiers from the Netherim.

She was waving a finger at some soldiers and shouting. A very specific finger.

“Gods damn it!” I grumbled.

“You can’t deny she stands up for what she thinks is right.” Jennie grumbled grudgingly.

“She’s going to start a–” I said.

A sword appeared in her hand. A long, graceful rapier, glittering in the torch light.

An explosion rocked the stones beneath our feet.

“Fight.” I finished. I grabbed Jennie’s hand. “Go hide. Try to find–”

I wasn't sure what I was going to say. Jennie would make a better plan than me anyway.

She looked terrified. But her grasp on my arm was iron.

“I'm sorry.” I said. “I can't.”

“I know.” She whispered.

“I'm going to surrender. Maybe if they're really after Heralds, they'll just leave if they have one.” I said, the resolution coming to me in a single clear burst.

“We’re going to go watch the seniors kill these fuckers, and then finish our fucking date night with a crazy gods damned orgy, and our neighbors can fuck off or join the fuck in.” Jennie snarled, gripping my hand with her own cold and clammy one.

I hesitated. Then nodded. Jennie would be safest if I could get her as close to the seniors as possible. They'd protect her better than any walls. Then….

“Are you with me?” I asked, looking around at the five women who had become my whole world.

I knew the ones connected to my soul knew my intentions.

One by one, I felt them set their wills behind mine.

Jennie nodded sharply. Fear dead and buried. An expression like warpaint firmly in place.

Wow. That's one hell of a woman in front of me.

“I love you.” I said.

Then I dashed.

Our feet hit the cold grass of the green, opposite the escalating brawl between Bayloft students and black masked soldiers.

Magics streaked in every direction, from both sides. A sizzling arrow whistled towards me. Lucy kicked it away with a gust of wind from our shared special attack.

A muffled explosion and the sudden smell of tar made me exceptionally happy it had missed.

“Thanks baby!”  I yelped.

She nodded fiercely, patrolling a little ahead of our group and letting Serenity take over defence.

The soldiers, unlike the idiots we’d fought earlier, were fighting with worrying coordination. The Bayloft students had many third and fourth years who were more than holding their own in terms of power.

But fighting as a Wayfinding team was completely different from fighting as part of a military.

We trained to kill monsters. They trained to fight people. And the difference was already showing as the soldiers methodically backed the students into the Netherim, and all of them subsequently into the sheer side of the mountain pass.

The situation was tipping from dangerous to dire. We poured on speed, dead sprinting around the outskirts of the green, still unnoticed by most soldiers.

Thunder rolled out over the mountains.

My eyes shot up. There was no storm.

Hera was high atop one of Bayloft’s castles, easily recognizable, even from a distance. Javelin crackling with lightning, each flash illuminating her golden tresses streaming in the winter winds.

She leapt in a great arc from the rooftop. Her javelin glowed brighter and brighter and she streaked downward in a growing incandescent bolt of lightning.

I had seen her use a descending strike skill. But I had never seen her with so much height to work with. The faster she fell, the greater the lightning that surrounded her.

The hairs on my neck stood up, as she split the night. I could imagine her fierce, joyful grin, somewhere in that meteoric conflagration of lightning.

I bet she had been waiting for an excuse to try this exact jump.

Nyke would be furious at her recklessness.

Just before impact, a dark figure streaked into the fray, right into Hera’s path.

The great bolt of lightning that was Hera crashed into the center of the soldiers’ formation with a titanic, bone rattling boom.

Grass flattened in a widening ring over the battle.

Hera Edel, you insane doofus… that bitch is scary as fuck.

We crouched, bracing as the shockwave rolled over us in a crackling breeze.

I winced, waiting to see soldiers’ bodies emerge from the smoke.

But instead, I saw something impossible.

Something that made absolutely no sense.

When the smoke cleared, in the center of a charred ring of earth and armor, was Atalanta Carmine.

And she was holding a shocked, struggling Hera by the neck like she'd plucked her out of the air with the ease of plucking an apple.

Carmine’s flaxen hair glowed darkly as she channeled an aura of power. Dark light bloomed from her like a foul lantern.

The roasted soldiers’ wounds healed, their injuries washing away in her light as if they had been illusions. They scrambled back from the pair as they came conscious.

My heart was still. But my feet were pounding on the grass.

I didn't even register when I had started running.

But I was passing dazed soldiers and breathing the smell of ozone.

I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.

I felt a hand try to stop my approach, but I wrestled free and ran up to Hera and Carmine.

“Professor!” I shouted.

Fix it. Fix her.

She turned, and regarded me.

“Good. Here is the other one.” She announced.

Soldiers turned on me.

“Leave her to me. Round up the Lizards. Leave the students unharmed, on pain of death. We’re leaving.” Carmine barked.

I took a step forward.

This was wrong.

Carmine would heal Hera. She was a great healer. She would fix Hera, and we would be safe. She was here. She would fix everything.

Atalanta Carmine, the dusk sage, the famous healer, the youngest Ascendant in a hundred years, Bayloft’s pride and joy – come home to teach! She could not be holding my friend Hera, her student, by the neck like a fish on a hook.

Hera lifted a foot, and kicked at Carmine’s face.

Carmine didn’t even look.

She gave Hera’s neck one, vicious shake.

Hera was a strong first year Wayfinder. Maybe the strongest in the year.

Carmine was first Ascension.

Hera’s head hung twisted at a gruesome angle as she dangled limply from Carmine’s grasp.

Her eyes, unfocused.

My ears rang, drowning out the cacophony of screams, and the symphony of magical combat.

Carmine started walking towards me, dragging Hera by the neck like a ragdoll, her legs trailing limply in the grass.

Jennie was dragging at my arm, screaming something in my ear.

I stumbled back.

I’m going too slow.

I need to fight.

Lucy crashed into a soldier. But he was replaced, and the closing ring of them pushed her back. A spear caught her in the chest.

I felt a flash of pain. I launched [Paramore’s mending] at her instantly. But it was too late. Her vessel broke, and she dissipated in a shower of green sparks, returning to the astral.

Serenity fell next, a bolt of magic shattering her shield like glass and tearing away half of her torso. She too vanished.

I wheeled about helplessly.

Jennie was thrashing between two soldiers who were struggling to put restraints onto her.

Violette stepped around my shoulder, firing her [splinter shot] into the sky. A mage snuffed the conjured arrow from existence, and a crossbow bolt appeared in Violette’s throat an instant later.

She spluttered, wide eyed.

I managed to heal her, covering her body with mine, clutching her shocked body. But she shook as something else hit her, and her vessel burst into sparks.

I didn't even see what it was.

I’m helpless.

All this work. And for what?

It’s Emberdome all over again. And I am just as useless as I was then.

Carmine raised a hand at me, only feet away.

Lorna appeared in front of me. She was swathed in icy magic, her hair streaming up like rain falling in reverse.

Carmine tilted her head, examining my ghost Familiar with something like surprise. Then greed.

A sickly pale needle appeared in Carmine's hand. It was nearly a foot long and suffused in an unhealthy pale aura.

A second later, it pierced Lorna through, trailing a glowing magical thread in its path.

The pain through our bond was indescribable. All consuming.

When the others’ vessels had broken, they had experienced some pain, then returned to the astral. I could still feel them through our bonds just fine. They were afraid. But still aware, and working to remake their respective bodies.

Lorna’s bond, however… Something was profoundly wrong. Something was so impossibly wrong.

My face hit the grass. Hand wrapped around my neck and lifted me.

“Well, my curious little Herald.” Carmine murmured. “We have much to discuss.”

Darkness and pain obliterated me.