Mark of the Fool

Chapter 423: Awakening and Arrival

Alex lay against something hard and cold.

Actually, the cold seemed to be swirling all around. It bit into him, a deep pit of exhaustion was calling him to come drown in it. All he wanted to do was sleep...

...but he couldn't...

...he was...

What was he doing again?

Some sort of growling? Crackling? Spells?

He shook his head.

Something far below was moving.

Something important...or maybe not. Maybe this was all just a bad dream, and he was still in his room in Generasi, bedding down after a shift at Shales. Yes, that was probably it. All the excitement lately must be giving him strange dreams.

'Well, that's not the kind of dream I want, now is it?' A groggy thought came to him. 'Be much nicer to be dreaming of a warm beach somewhere. One with Theresa, Selina, ClayNo, you know what? Just me and Theresa, alone...with...wait, Theresa?"

The tunnels.

The Ravener-spawn.

The attack.

Everything came back with a start, his eyes flew open.

"Theresa!" He cried.

Snow and lashing wind stung his face and he clenched his teeth against the chill, trying to figure out where he was. He couldn't see the castle or much of anything. And he was flying, moving fast, clutched in a grip of stone. No, not stone.

Clay.

"Claygon?" Alex murmured weakly, his eyes resting on the golems face above him. The four-armed construct held him in a tight grip with one of his lower arms, keeping him close, shielding him from the chill.

His upper arms were busy: one was unleashing lines of flame through the whiteout, spraying spear-flies and leaving trailing infernos in their wake. The other struck with the war-spear in powerful strokes, cutting through Ravener-spawn.

Beams shot from his forehead andaround themAlex's air elementals lashed the swarms with crackling lightning, and blasted them with blustery winds. Ravener-spawn gave chase, trying to pounce on the Thameish wizard, but his guardians were fending them off while the ferocious wind blew them about like tattered rags.

But something was strange about how the spear-flies were flying.

Most were below him and Claygon, straining to catch up.

A few were alongside, but none were above.

As he looked around, it struck him. The monsters were struggling and the wind was so strong because they were soaring high in the sky. Unusually high.

The hive-as-ones beam hadnt hit him with its full force and had only clipped him, but its power had knocked him into unconsciousness. Claygon must have sped away to protect him.

And then kept going upward.

How far are we above the castle? He wondered. "Have...have to get back down there. Can't get lost in the storm, I'll freeze to death." He looked at Claygon and the water elementals. "Protect me for a second! Jeez, Isolde and that explosion from the...oh by the Traveller, the teleportation building!"

He fell into himself, guiding his mind past the Mark's interference as he cast Mana to Life. Power raced through him, leaping from his mana pool and filling his body with new warmth. Exhaustion and the aching pain of bitter cold were chased away, vigour returned to his limbs and core. Alex took a deep breath, centering himself.

Then he rose from Claygon's grip, taking flight under his own power. His green eyes scanned the swarm below, searching for holes in their formation, and there were many. The driving wind tore at the small creatures, breaking their lines apart.

"Alright, everyone, we're going back down. Cover me."

They turned in mid-flight, racing down through the blizzard. Alex opened his mana senses, feeling the power of the spells being cast below. Power raged in the distance and beneath it, a deep mana that made him shudder. More of the dungeons' power had coalesced beneath the earth; he could feel it, even from so high in the sky.

His hands balled into fists.

He had to find Isolde. He needed to reach the teleportation building.

They raced through the swarm, lashing out with lightning and flame. Alex's force spells caught spear-flies coming at them, he deflected them into the wind, and tossed them aside. This might be a longshot, but he whipped booby-trapped potions into his Wizard's Hands and though the spells caught and crushed them, the mist dissipated into the howling wind.

It had been worth a shot.

Downing another potion of haste, he caught spear-flies, pulling them from the air at speed, throwing them into the wind. Below, the sounds of battle and flashes of magic grew louder and brighter. Wind's bite lessened the closer he came to the wind mages power, and the white-out eased.

Wavering images of massive buildings in the courtyard wicked in and out of view, until Alex finally broke through the haze of stinging snow, and soared down past the keep. He hovered in the air, squinting through the white, trying to catch his bearings and take account of the battle below. The wizards were tearing through the enemy, cutting them down with abandon, but the spawn seemed endless, pouring from below ground in droves.

Another behemoth climbed onto the surface, and was met by a stone golem's fists, and Alex's flicker dogs, teleporting around it and appearing then disappearing, chewing on bone armour like it was a soup bone. A hive-as-one launched a deadly orb of magic at a Watcher that was deflected by a spell from the woman's staff.

Earth mages were channelling their mana into the stone below, sealing the dungeons' breaches while wind mages were guiding the blizzard, channelling its winds into gale-paths that swept swarms of spear-flies over the walls and into the frozen beyond. Any wild animals desperate enough to be out, would eat well tonight.

Summoned monsters carried the wounded into icy bunkers where blood mages tended them, but for every wounded defender, there were a dozen dead bone-chargers, and an order of magnitude of dead spear-flies.

The wizards were beating back the enemy...so far.

But the monsters' numbers showed no sign of thinning. And Alex didn't see Watcher Shaw, orfor that matteranyone evacuating toward the teleportation building. He turned, flying in that direction getting closer to the keep.

A spear-fly shot from the sheeting snow, but he caught it in one hand.

"Hah." He prepared to toss it to the wind. "Nice try"

And that's when the clawed monster leapt.

The creature had been clinging to the keep, crouched against the wind, claws biting into stone. The monster looked like it had been waiting

And now its claws were racing for his throat. The young wizard reversed course, and by reflex, tossed the spear-fly like he was playing fetch with Brutus. The much larger Ravener-spawn took the spinning spear-fly right to the face.

Proboscis first.

A screech followed, curved claws raked at the clinging blood-sucker, both monsters tumbled through the wind.

Alex watched them soar past and plummet to the battle below, landing in a soft mound of snow before his water and ice elementals set upon them, freezing the pair solid in heartbeats. He stared at the stilled forms, dread rising in his chest.

"Oh no," he whispered.

This was a new clawed monster, but of the same type that had attacked him at the windmill. The same as the three that attacked Patrizia DePaolo's ball. Now, he had no doubt that back then, they were there looking for him.

And now, here they were, hunting for him again, still intent on killing him.

And, if by chance, they were here because he'd controlled a dungeon core, then

A cry rose from the distance like a bullhorn. It came from the direction of the teleportation building. Scores of Ravener-spawn turned and rushed toward the cry like a tidal wave.

"Oh no," Alex murmured, taking potion bottles out and soaring after the enemy. He took a quick look downward, shouting instructions in a tongue of celestials, and one of devils.

"Flicker dogs! Hell boars!" He called. "Follow me and Claygon, there's a fight up ahead! I need you with me!"

His voice reached a group of hell-boars that had cornered a bone-charger after pulling it down with goring tusks and powerful bites. They glanced up at his voice, squealed ominously and charged, kicking up clouds of snow. A pack of flicker dogs that had been racing through the snowsnapping spear-flies from the wind and teleporting around the battlefieldbarked at his command and loped after him, flickering in and out of the white haze.

A bad feeling spread through the young wizard. If clawed monsters were here, then what other deadly surprises were waiting?

As Alex flew past an area of the courtyard, he searched the ground below, looking for a massive monster and found itbut not as hed left it.

There in the stained snow lay the behemoth and hive-as-one that had attacked him, causing him to black out. He'd assumed they would have wandered away when Claygon had taken him out of reach, but the only place they had wandered to...was the afterworld.

Their bodies had been utterly mutilated: the larger beast was carved up like a Sigmus bird and the remains crushed into bits of bone and red jelly. The smaller one was little more than a streak of ash on the grey and blackened snow, its mass of spear-flies scattered like gravel.

Alex swallowed. The attack on the behemoth looked like it had been personal. The wounds repeated and were excessive. Ragged. Wild. Final. He glanced at Claygon.

'I gave him an instruction to protect me, but I didn't tell him to make that thing into ground meat...but I never told him not to either. I've never known him to act out of emotion. I also didn't tell him to take me so high. What in the name of the Travellers happening?'

This was the second time Claygon had acted on his own during this battle. Something was going on, and Alex didn't like it. The Ravener-spawn were behaving in ways that were unheard of. The clawed monsters were here. His golem was acting on his own.

What if something bad happened at a critical time?

His mind flashed to the dungeon core explosion and how Claygon shielded him against the blast. That time he'd been fine, but... His eyes travelled to the golem's war-spear, remembering how easily it had carved Claygon's body like hot butter.

What if some other horror attacked now? Something unknown, like the clawed monsters, but even worse, even more dangerous?

He swallowed, trying to clamp down on rising doubt since there was no time to think about things now.

As he reached the teleportation building, he found it besieged on all sides. Bone-chargers swarmed into broken hallways. Spear-flies slipped into cracks in the stone. Behemoths rampaged, smashing through walls, firing spears and bone-shards into summoned monsters and wizards flying above the roof.

A part of the ceiling had collapsed andwhere the teleportation circle was supposed to bean enormous, gaping hole yawned open, and a wild melee surged around it. Warriors. Wizards. Watchers and summoned creatures alike met endless tides of Ravener-spawn boiling from the wound in the earth, and down every passage in the broken structure.

The defenders had formed a circle, and he spotted Isolde, Ripp and Watcher Shaw among them. His cabal mate looked ragged, but she fought with the frenzy of a cornered beast, pouring lightning bolt upon lightning bolt into the surging horde. Within the middle of their defensive circle huddled the researchers, blood mages and other civilian staff.

And among them?

Carey London.

The young woman was screaming, even as she fired first-tier force bolts into spear-flies above them. Her clothing had been torn, and beneath the rips, bright pink marks in the shape of long cuts and gouges showed; wounds that had been knitted together by blood magic. Alex winced: she'd been mauled, those scars looked like they could have been deadly. She was lucky shed escaped with her life, but around her neck, above the pink scarring of a healed injury, something was conspicuously missing.

Her holy symbol of Uldar was gone.

He winced again, swooping down to join the fight...but spied something that chilled his blood worse than the wind's bite.

Like prowling wolves, two clawed monsters were stalking along the rooftopkeeping low and moving slowwith claws curved and teeth bared, using spear-flies and blowing snow for cover. Every muscle in their powerful bodies were tensed, prepared for a deadly spring that would carry them into the battle.

He had a feeling he knew just what they were going to pounce on.

"Let's try giving you a target with more bite," he whispered, arcing his body toward them and drawing a pair of sleeping potions. As he flew, his eyes scanned the roof: the clawed things seemed not to notice him at first, but now, one spotted him through all the swirling snow and wind.

He sensed a trap.

"There's going to be another one," he thought. "There's definitely got to be another one."

And, he was right.

A glimpse of movement through a curtain of snow; a third monster lay pressed against the castle roof, watching him intently. If he hadnt known what to look for, he wouldnt have seen it in the white haze, and it would have been on him.

Too bad for them.

'Claygon, get 'em,' he thought.

The golem turned, dropped, and swept his war-spear in an arc. The clawed thing sprang away, the weapon sparked off of stone instead. As the creature fled across the rooftop, Alexs forceballs spun after it, entangling its feet, throwing balance to the wind.

It tumbled through the air.

And Claygon's war-spear awaited.

Hearing their siblings dying shriek, two clawed creatures heads looked in the direction of the panicked cry. Words seemed to pass between them, then snarling and sliding along the keeps roof, they dove toward Carey.

Alex sent a thought to Claygon just as Watcher Shaw raised his staff.

Neither warrior nor golem had a chance to act.

Two silvery Hands appeared in mid-air, each caught a Ravener-spawn in an unshakeable grip. Both creatures went limp.

"No more of that," Baelin's voice boomed above the wind.

The chancellor of the university appeared, wreathed in power, suspended above the battle.

With a single word, he cast a wave of magic, striking the horde with a prismatic spray of lights. Some melted. Some turned to stone. Others froze, encased in ice.

The rest were blinded by piercing light.

With another word, he raised his hands, the air shimmered around him, and a dozen war-spirits appeared. The creatures of shining metal surged, standing shoulder to shoulder, cutting through Ravener-spawn like dried wheat.

"Filth." He scowled at the attackers, then drifted down to hover beside the defenders. "Watcher Shaw, what is our status?"

The chancellor gave Alex a nod as he and Claygon floated down to meet them at the teleportation circle. Isolde began checking herself over and Carey wavered on her feet. Tears of relief ran down her cheeks; and she was not alone.

Alex felt tension bleed from his spirit.

Baelin was here now, all would be well.

The petrifier crawled from the lower caverns and up through the shaft in silence.

"Leader," the Hunter hiding in its mouth whispered. "A great mana source has appeared. One that feels very hostile."

The immense Ravener-spawn growled. "Then we will be quick and subtle." Its eyes looked down at the shaft.

"And we will need to sacrifice."

It sent an order to the two dungeon cores below.

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