That damn force mage just flashed me a grin as he straightened again, as if challenging me to come try it, while the others followed him out through the window. I let out a silent chuckle. Oh I would definitely get him back for that comment.
Shadows swirled around the five of us as Dennis kept his magic up to shield us from view of potential guards. In the dark, the shadows wouldn’t stand out against the buildings too much. At least not unless someone was looking straight at them.
As soon as everyone was on their feet, Mi-ri erected another sound barrier around us. Callan gave her a nod while I scanned the buildings across the street. There was another section farther down that didn’t have any windows or doors on it, so I motioned towards it. Since we didn’t have time to waste on watching the buildings and learning guard patterns, it was our best shot at getting through the second square of buildings without being spotted.
The others nodded in confirmation and then followed me as I started towards the solid wall. Inside the cloud of shadows, it was slightly difficult to see our surroundings, but it still wasn’t as dark as I had expected it to be. When Malcolm’s shadows hit, everything went pitch black. As we made our way down the road, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was because he was more powerful than Dennis or if it simply meant that they could increase and decrease the density of the shadows the way I could with the strength of my poison. I decided that it was probably the latter right as we reached the spot we had been aiming for.
“I have to drop the sound barrier around us to cover the explosion,” Mi-ri said as we stopped a couple of steps in front of the wall made of pale red stones.
“Same,” Dennis added.
Callan nodded and then shifted his gaze to Winston. “Then be quick about it.”
“What if there are guards on the other side?” Winston protested.
He looked about ready to shit his pants as he flicked terrified eyes between us and the wall.
I suppressed the urge to slap him and instead said, “We’ll handle it. Now, hurry up.”
For a few seconds, he just stared at the wall as if praying to whatever he believed in that there was nothing on the other side. Then he forced out a shaky breath and gave us a nod.
At his signal, we moved a couple of steps back. Purple and orange strands spread across the red stones like a web as Winston placed his palm on the wall. It was only visible for a few seconds before Dennis dropped the shadow wall around us and instead used it to cover the coming explosion. A moment later, Mi-ri’s silver shimmer wrapped around the shadows.
My heart pounded in my chest. We were standing out in the open now. If anyone came walking down the road, they would see us straight away. Whipping my head from side to side, I frantically scanned the street while we waited for the glittering web to detonate.
Light from the moon painted the darkened building with a faint silver color, but no torches had been lit. I flicked my gaze between the windows farther down the street. Panic shot up my spine as I thought I saw something move in one of them. Squinting against the dark, I tried desperately to make out if it had just been my eyes playing a trick on me or if a host of guards were about to descend on us.
Time seemed to crawl by with all the hurry of a limping snail.
I wanted to snap at Winston to hurry the fuck up. Right as I ground my teeth together to stop myself from doing just that, the explosion mage waved a hand around and then pointed towards the wall.
Dennis and Mi-ri let their magic fade out.
My pulse thrummed in my ears as I focused all of my attention on the wall before us. If we had just blasted into a room full of people, we were about to find out very soon.
Red stones lay in shattered pieces on the ground, and a few smaller bits crumbled from the edges of the hole.
I barely dared breathe.
Another few seconds passed, and then the dust cleared.
Nothing.
Relief washed over me.
Callan jerked his chin and then ducked through the hole and into the building. I flicked my wrist, motioning for the others to follow, while I cast a glance up and down the street again. Nothing moved.
The opening led to a storage room. I frowned at the boxes upon boxes filled with candles and lamp oil and metal holders that covered the shelves and half of the floor. While I was busy studying our surroundings, Mi-ri put up her sound bubble again.
“Left or right?” Callan asked.
His voice pulled me out of my assessment, and I looked up from the boxes. Following his gaze, I realized that there were two doors. One at each side wall.
“Left,” I said.
He turned towards me and shot me a curious look. “Why do you always pick the left one? You did the same thing in those tunnels inside the mountain too.”
I hesitated for a few seconds as the years of distrust between us rose up and screamed that I shouldn’t be sharing secrets with the enemy. Pushing it aside, I gave him a quick smile and shrugged. “Because I’m left-handed.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes. Have you never noticed that I always stab you with my left hand?”
“What do you mean always?” Crossing his arms, he threw me a highly affronted scowl. “You make it sound like it’s a regular occurrence.”
I smirked back at him. “Because it is.”
Before he could retort, I breezed past him and approached the door on the left. There was no way to know what was on the other side unless we opened it, so I waited for the sound shield to envelop me again before I slowly pushed down the handle and edged the door open.
My own thumping heart was making it difficult to hear anything, but the space outside the door was dark. I waited another few seconds before widening the gap and sticking my head through.
Only a small deserted hallway met me on the other side.
I pulled back and turned to face the others. “It’s clear. We should probably—”
Furious ringing split the night.
“Someone’s blown a hole through the outer wall!” A voice bellowed while the sound of that large metal bell continued echoing through the air. “Sound the alarm!”
“Shit,” I hissed.
Winston let out a whine. “We’re gonna die!”
“Shut up,” Callan and I snapped in unison.
“What do we do?” Mi-ri asked, worry coloring her voice as well.
If we left now, we would never get another chance to break in like this. They would know about the vulnerability in the solid outer wall and would post guards there as well. But if we kept going, we still had to get through this next wall and then somehow get into the third set of buildings in the middle and also find Trevor Gale. All while everyone was looking for us.
Fuck. To keep going now would be suicide, but if we didn’t, we would be back to square one.
“We—” I began right before another voice cut through the blaring alarms.
“There’s another hole here!”
Boots thudded against the stones outside the opening as people ran towards it. I yanked the door open and shoved Callan through it while gesturing for the others to follow as well. They sprinted in after the force mage.
I barely managed to yank the door shut before shapes moved right outside the hole in the wall.
“Out,” I ordered while pushing the handle up as far as it would go, holding the door closed. “We need to get out. Winston, blow a hole through that wall right now.”
The explosion mage looked to be on the verge of tears, but he ran over to the wall on the same side that we had come from and immediately placed a hand on it.
“Dennis,” Callan said. The command in his voice pulsed through the air. “Don’t bother with the explosions. Focus on keeping all of us covered. If they find out who any of us are, they’ll come for all of us.”
Color drained from the shadow mage’s face, but he managed a nod before summoning a thick cloud around us. Mi-ri’s hands were shaking as she threw up a sound barrier around us too.
Orange and purple strands spidered across the stones while Winston darted back inside the shadow cloud. They glowed brighter and brighter with every second.
Someone tried to shove the handle down from the other side of the door.
Gritting my teeth, I put all of my strength into holding it up.
The handle shook as someone tried to rattle it again.
“Why’s this door locked?” a man’s voice snapped. “Get it open!”
Glittering light sped towards the ground as Winston’s magic raced to complete its task.
The door trembled as someone kicked it.
Callan wrapped his hand over mine, helping me hold the handle up as the guy on the other side shoved at it with all his might.
A boom split the air as the wall exploded.
Purple and orange light flashed through the room like fireworks, and pale red stones crumbled. Without the shadows around the explosion, a few stray pieces of debris flew towards us before the twisting dark shield stopped them and they clattered down on the floor.
“Go!” Callan shouted.
Dust sailed through the air and gravel rained down from the opening as we sprinted through it. Shouts rang out from the building we had just left. They were answered a second later by people on our left.
“Make another one!” I called to Winston as we darted across the street.
A group of guards were hurtling down the road towards the hole we had just made, and the ones who had been inside began pouring out. None of them had spotted us inside the shadows yet, but they were so close now that it was only a matter of time.
Grabbing Dennis by the shoulder, I hauled him up next to me. “Make holes to let my magic out.”
Fear shone on his face but he managed a jerky nod.
I touched my palms together.
Glittering green magic snaked down my arms. My gaze darted between the two groups as I tried to estimate which one would spot us first. After deciding on the ones coming from inside the building, I flicked my wrist and threw a snapping tendril. It had barely left my hand before I sent another. And another. Until they barreled towards each person in the group.
“Winston!” I snapped. “Hurry!”
“He’s outside the sound barrier,” Mi-ri replied.
The group that had been coming down the street screeched to a halt as they spotted the green tendrils shooting through the air. But the ones who had poured out of the building had been standing too close, and since they hadn’t seen me shoot them, the attacks hit before they could react.
Thudding sounded as four people crashed down on the ground, dead on impact.
“There’s a shadow mage!” someone from the other group called. “In there!”
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Dennis whined.
“Callan,” I began.
“Got it,” he replied, knowing exactly what I wanted. “Dennis, open holes for my magic too.”
An explosion pulsed through the night, informing us that Winston had gotten through the first wall. But we still had five guards on our tail and we couldn’t run with them chasing us because we would get stuck at the next wall.
“Dennis!” I snapped.
“I know!”
Sweat ran down the shadow mage’s brow as he manipulated his twisting shield.
A massive spinning force arc shot out of the darkness and barreled straight for the group. They screamed and dropped the attacks they had been about to throw at us as they were forced to dive away to avoid getting decapitated.
Two seconds after Callan had released his attack, I shot a massive cloud of poison towards the distracted group. Dennis barely managed to open a hole in time for it to pass through, and I sucked in a sharp breath as the edges of it slammed into his shadows.
But the bulk of the attack flew through the air.
The five guards were just hitting the ground and rolling away from the force arc when my poison hit them.
They died instantly.
Another boom washed through the night.
“It’s open!” Winston yelled from somewhere inside the building.
“Go, go, go,” Callan called as he grabbed me by the shoulder and practically threw me towards the first hole.
Boots thudded against stones as more guards raced towards our location, but everyone around us was thankfully dead so they wouldn’t be able to identify the magic type that had attacked them.
My pulse thrummed in my ears, drowning out the noise of the clanging alarm bells and the shouted orders, as I sprinted across the empty room and towards the final opening in the wall. Winston had already disappeared through it.
I leaped over the pile of broken stones and skidded out onto the moonlit street beyond barely in time to see Winston’s mop of light brown hair round the corner into the alley up ahead. After casting a quick look behind me to make sure that the others were following too, I darted after him.
Callan shoved Mi-ri and Dennis into the street and then jumped over the crumpled remains of the wall.
Giant metal bells echoed into the night.
Pushing myself to go faster, I raced down the darkened alley with the others behind me while the guards tried desperately to figure out what was happening.
Anger crackled through my veins as I ran.
Hell damn it all.
This had gone exactly like I had feared. We had gone in practically blind and it had ended in total fucking failure.
And now, we were back to square one.
