Are you willing to observe the world as it is? Observe reality? Are you willing to confront the truth and all its implications? They had boxed me in and tried to take everything from me, again. I had to break their rules to survive and I had to break their rules to win.

  They kept pushing so I pushed back harder. People must be made to bear the cost of their choices.

  -Harald Erling, as dictated to Leif Olander

  ***

  Five days later or thereabouts as far as he could tell, Leif stood in front of the second door. He had slept surprisingly well and the days had blended together. He didn’t know how long he’d been behind the first door. He didn’t know how long he’d slept. He didn’t know if he should rest longer or if he was going mad. He’d crawled directly into his bedroll and completely left the world behind until he’d awoken to a hunger deeper than anything he’d ever imagined.

  He’d eaten berries and moss and he’d been able to snare several hares between sleeping and cleaning and drying the wolf pelt. He’d given himself several days to ensure he was recovered and now here he stood.

  He wrapped the new cloak Vigo had given him around himself against the cold. He didn’t want to find himself in another cold or stormy environment without one but his old cloak had major tears across the chest and arms.

  He thought of Karalee. He formed an image of her in his mind. He recalled her face and figure as clearly as his mind could conjure. He missed the hope of seeing her, and speaking to her. He wished he hadn’t been such a coward; wished he’d spoken to her more.

  Leif didn’t know if he was going to die here. After the last doorway, he wouldn’t be surprised.

  He took a breath and let it out, then opened the second stone door and walked through.

  Leif stepped into darkness. Almost immediately, he felt the sensation of falling. There was no rush of wind or whipping of his clothing but something pulled him. Light appeared. Blooming rolling clouds of soft light slid past him all around. He looked at his hands. Glowing light melted off of him, like a soft blue fire that didn’t burn. Sparks of the light flicked off of him and danced upwards.

  It lasted for only a few moments. The feeling of movement stopped as quickly as it had started. Leif blinked and the darkness and clouds and fiery light coming from him were gone, replaced with unfamiliar metal, and glass. It was like he had just woken up from a dream and everything around him was alien. He lay on his stomach. Something covered his face and head. Not covered exactly because he could see through it like it was a glass window. It was like a knight’s helmet except his full field of vision was clear. There were small figures of soft light that danced on the glass before his eyes. They seemed to be some language but he couldn’t read them.

  He arched his neck to look around and realized he lay in a small cylindrical tube, like the hollowed out inside of a large tree except this was metal and glass and transparent. His hands each grasped a handle at his eye level. They were gloved in white. He reached over his shoulder and was relieved to feel his sword still there. Before him was a screen of light with the same foreign figures.

  He was just about to start pushing on the walls of his cylinder when someone spoke. It was a woman’s voice. Followed by the voices of men. The sound came directly into his ear but there was no one around him that he could see. The space was tight. Certainly no one could fit alongside him. The speaking grew louder.

  “Raider 7, confirm.”

  “Confirmed”

  “Raider 8, confirm.”

  “Confirmed.”

  “Raider 9, confirm.”

  The voices stopped. Looking around he could see other cylinders outside of his. To his right and left he saw figures in their cylinders wearing his same sort of white helmet and armor.

  “Raider 9, confirm.”

  The woman’s voice in his head was louder than before, more insistent. Leif looked around his shell again then back to the figure in the next cylinder to his right. The figure looked back at him. Leif couldn’t make out the face behind the helmet but he saw the figure raise a white gloved hand. It made a fist with the thumb pointed upwards.

  “Leif! Confirm!”

  The scream hurt his ears and he squeezed his eyes and cringed as he blurted, “confirmed!”

  “Raider 10, confirm.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Before him, beyond the screen of light, through the glass window of his canister, a door opened. The scene beyond took his breath away. He looked out into a scene that was more alien than any of his most bizarre dreams and more terrifying than the worst of his nightmares.

  A giant colossus filled most of his view through the opening. It was a fortress of metal and adorned with rows of lights, larger even than the castle at Danaria. Far larger. Light beams from above and below him arced through the space and struck the colossus, tearing and searing through the metal. The colossus fired back in kind. Violent flashes of light seemed to burst from all around.

  Beyond the great metal beast was a vast dark emptiness, covered millions in stars. He was beyond the skies of earth, beyond the clouds. He was in outer space. He had left his home world and been transported to this ship, in the middle of some violent battle, floating through the infinite darkness of space. The realm of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the gods alone. It wasn’t possible.

  Terror gripped him. He fought down panic as he heard the woman’s voice in his ears again.

  “Raiding party launch, in 3, 2, 1.”

  A violent concussion slammed through him. The cylinder shifted as he was hurtled out into space and into the silent cacophony.

  “Good luck boys.”

  Leif’s eyes darted around the windows. A pod like his flew next to him on his left. He saw several flying off to his right. They were racing straight for the metal colossus.

  A beam erupted from a cannon on the metal ship. It flashed just above Leif’s cylinder. He gasped. He felt himself sweating. His heart raced as his pod continued flying. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact. He was surely about to die.

  The impact came. The nose of his cylinder buried itself into the metal wall. He felt the impact but his cylinder had somehow absorbed most of the gravity of the crash. A metal sheet slid down before his face blocking his forward view but searing and grinding sounds came in through his helmet.

  He looked out again at the cylinders next to him. Bloody hell. One of them had bounced off the wall and was drifting through the chaos and emptiness. Leif suppressed a shudder as the loud searing and grinding continued.

  Leif didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know where he was or why. He didn’t know how he was going to get back to the door of the temple. Back to his world. Back to Karalee.

  A new movement caught his periphery and he looked up. A metal, spider-like creature was climbing across the wall of the colossus that Leif’s pod was attached to, straight for their line of cylinders. It reached the one to his right and slammed long metallic arms into the pod. Over and over the metallic arms swung. Small cracks formed in the glass of Leif’s neighbor's pod. He saw the figure within begin pounding on the plate before him. Oh no.

  Just then small metallic figures, like birds, crashed into the beast. Explosions were ignited and the violence and light of them forced Leif to look away. Some of the drones hovered in the space nearby, waiting for the creature to rise before crashing into it again. The metal of the beast was bent and twisted from the force of the explosions but it pushed itself back up.

  The creature’s head shifted out of place and a web of light was emitted from its open neck. The light web swept across the hovering drones that remained and each one exploded on contact.

  Despite its warped and damaged frame and limbs, the metallic beast turned and wrapped its arms around the Raider’s cylinder and pulled. The glass and the cylinder cracked and strained, then shattered.

  The figure that had given him the thumbs up, Raider 8 he assumed, somehow held onto the remaining bits of the pod while his legs floated in the emptiness as if he floated in a pool of water. With one hand he slid a device from his back, pointed it at the metal monster, and darts of light erupted from the tip. It was like a crossbow, or miniature cannon but firing bursts of light at a hundred times the speed. The darts of light crashed into the beast forcing it back.

  Just then an explosion sounded before Leif. The noise of it filled his consciousness. The metal plate that had blocked his forward view slid out of his way and he looked through a steaming tunnel and into a well lit hallway, the interior of the colossus.

  Leif looked back to the metal spider just as it slammed the large broken cylinder into Raider 8’s body, sending him spiraling and limp, into space. The spider turned to Leif. It arched its arm back and hurled the broken half of the cylinder towards him.

  Bloody hell! In a heartbeat, Leif summoned his magic, then grabbed the handles and pulled with all his might. He shot through the tunnel and slammed himself into the far wall of the hallway just as the back of his pod was torn off. The plate closed again and he lost his view back into his broken cylinder and the blackness of space.

  “Leif, all good?!”

  Leif didn’t know which of his other raiders had said it. He released his magic, then reached up and pushed and pulled on the helmet until the glass front opened. Breathing through the mask was stifling. “All good.”

  He looked around to take in his surroundings. The other raiders who had made it out of their cylinders were pushing themselves up or taking up positions in the hallway, but Leif’s eyes were drawn to a body on the floor.

  It was the body of a man but the neck had been blasted open, leaving only a few strands connecting the head to the body. His skin was covered in inflamed boils and burns. A sticky, inky black substance slid off the body onto the floor. It stretched and expanded outwards. The black oil seemed to be reaching for something, anything, in any direction. Its expansion slowed quickly then it stopped, nothing more than inert goo on the floor.

  “Always with the neckshots, Ren.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The hallway they were in was brightly lit but by some sorcery, small lights strobed red over and over. The bottom half of the hall was an earthy shade of green while the top was a sterile white. There were arches every twenty feet or so that framed the hallway which he guessed were support for the structure.

  “Ren to Saxin, we’re in. All right boys. We take the bridge. We do it before the Saxin loses her shields, and we don’t get infected. Henrik, you’re lead, I’m two. Leif and Aelred you’re seven and eight. Watch our backs. The rest of you, fall into the stack. Aim for the CNS and watch your depth. Let’s go.”

  The eight of them formed into a line and started moving through the hallway.

  “Leif, this is a private channel. You all good?”

  The voice in his head spoke. He wished he knew all their names so he could figure out who was speaking and what everyone was supposed to be doing.

  “I’m good.”

  “Why aren’t you holding your rifle? Is something wrong?”

  Leif looked at the others. They all held the miniature cannons he’d seen earlier. Leif reached back and felt the one strapped to his lower back. He slid it around to his front. The sling moved smoothly around his body. He mimicked how the other raiders held theirs.

  Leif wanted to ask where he was, who his companions were. What was this strange place? Was this still part of the temple? How would he get back? He felt so far from Vigo and Karalee, from his mother and father and sisters. “Head’s a little fuzzy from hitting the wall back there. ‘All good now, let’s take the bridge.”

  “Copy, good to hear.”

  They moved in unison down the hallway. Their leader, Henrik, must’ve known their path somehow because he abruptly turned through a doorway and led them up several levels of stairs.

  They paused in front of a new doorway at the top of the stairwell. Henrik pressed his finger against a panel on the wall and the door slid open, revealing another empty hallway. They waited a moment, weapons trained through the opening, then Henrik pressed himself against the wall to see as far as he could down the new hallway. He leaned away and the second raider, Ren, did the same from his side of the opening.

  “All clear. I’m one.”

  “I’m two.”

  Ren dipped his rifle. Henrik cut across the opening through the doorway. Ren crossed through the other direction. The next two raiders followed immediately.

  “Contact.”

  From the stairwell, between the heads of two other raiders, Leif couldn’t see what was happening but the sounds of rifles firing tore through the air. Instinctively Leif channeled his magic. He didn’t know what he had gotten himself into or what evil he was about to encounter but he’d be fully prepared when he met it. In the throes of his power he could see the darts of energy ripping across the hallway, particles of light swirled in their wake.

  “Get your guns in the fight!”

  “Since when do they use shields?!”

  The two raiders before him that had been framed in the doorway rapidly crept through. Leif moved up to the doorframe and looked after them.

  Down Ren’s end of the hallway, stood a small platoon of the enemy fighters. They were shaped like humans but were covered in an inky black sludge like what he’d seen slipping off the body earlier. The sludge waved and swelled and shifted with their movements. They held long armored shields that covered their bodies. Energy cannons jabbed out from between their shields, firing rapidly and haphazardly.

  The raiders were hunched behind the cover of a hallway frame. Ren was a frame closer to their sludge-covered enemies, pinned down. The blasts from the raiders rifles were absorbed into whatever metal made up the enemy shields.

  Leif leaned out to attempt his own shot. He pressed the trigger as he’d seen his fellows do but nothing happened. The trigger wouldn’t move.

  Frustration spiked through him. He didn’t know anything about the energy weapons but wasn’t going to sit in the doorway and wait. He needed to get through. He was done hiding in the back feeling like a coward.

  Leif unslung the rifle and set it on the ground next to him. Then he ripped his sword out from over his shoulder. He was surprised to realize that the article he’d just drawn wasn’t his sword at all, but it was a blade. It had a long handle and the momentum from his draw had unfolded the silver edged piece out from where he gripped it. The length of the handle and the blade were roughly two feet each.

  Leif dragged the point across the floor next to him. The edge of his strange metal blade left a deep cut. That’ll work.

  He drew deeper on his magic. He closed his eyes for only a moment to feel the energy pouring into him. He felt the familiar jolt of confidence bloom up through his body. He was a vortex of strength and violence and power. He was pure sunlight and who could think to defeat the sun? He laughed at the thought.

  His fellow raiders were still pinned down and attempting to fire back into the enemy shields. Darts of energy whizzed across the hall. He could see them. He could feel them. Particles of energy spiraled through the air off them. He thought of what Vigo would do and he acted.

  Sword out, he darted out from the doorway. Energy bolts flew all around them. He spun as he sprinted, whirling through and around them. His magic-enhanced body reacted to his will. He passed where Ren was stuck behind the arch.

  “Leif!”

  “Ha! There he is!”

  “You idiot!”

  But he continued. He kicked off the wall and arched back as three rounds passed through the space he’d just occupied. Almost there.

  He threw up a shield of magic and ran straight at the figures of moving sludge. The bolts of energy from their rifles pounded into his shield. In the back of his mind he abruptly realized how easily his fellow raiders could have shot him in the back.

  He ran at the enemy shields. At the last moment, he withdrew his own shield and dropped to his knees. He slid and whipped his blade beneath their shields. Feet were severed at the ankles. The middle figure dropped to the ground, shield abandoned. It howled a guttural, terrifying cry of pain but Leif didn’t stop. Now behind the shields, he carved through them. The single edge of his blade sliced through the alien figures as easily as it cut through air. Blood and black sludge sprayed onto the floor as his sword weaved. They were packed too close together to respond to the demon he became in their midst. Leif severed arms and slid his weapon through ribs. He cut through a mass of black sludge that had once been a human head, before the creature could slam its heavy shield into him. The violence coursing alongside his power was exhilarating.

  “Leif!”

  He spun towards the last enemy. It arched back then spat at him. Inky black sludge shot towards his face. Leif fell backwards trying to avoid it touching him. It moved too fast. He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t catch it; couldn’t grip it with his magic.

  He hit the floor. The thick black droplets stopped. They floated in the air, less than a fingers-width from his exposed face.

  In his periphery he saw the raider’s energy bolts rip through the head of the last enemy who had spat at him. Leif’s team ran to him and either shot or cut through the heads of each of the ones he’d dropped.

  Leif looked up past the ink drops to see Ren standing above him, hand extended towards the inky sludge.

  “You lucky psycho.”

  Ren was a wizard. He waved his hand. The droplets zipped through the air and slapped harmlessly into the wall of the hallway.

  Leif got up as the dark sludge peeled off the dead human bodies, before curling and drying and dying. Ren stepped forward. He grasped Leif’s hand and pulled him into an embrace.

  “You’re lucky I’m a bloody good wizard, cousin. Don't do that again.”

  The words struck Leif. He let out a breathy, and winded laugh. “Thanks, cousin.”

  Ren then said to the group, “Let’s move. Leif, get your damn mask on. Next time I’m shooting you myself. Stack up!”

  One of them, whose name he didn’t know, handed him his rifle. “That was awesome.”

  Leif chuckled and motioned towards the rifle. “It doesn’t work.”

  The raider flipped a switch, then pointed it backwards down the hallway and fired a dart of energy. “Did you try the safety?”

  “Heh, it must’ve been stuck.”

  “Mm-Hmm.”

  The raiders encountered two more platoons on their way up to the bridge. The oil slick enemies didn’t have the energy-bolt-absorbing shields so the raiders moved through them quickly. Leif managed to get a few shots off this time but hadn’t actually hit anything other than the walls. He realized however that his rifle was drawing energy from him. With each shot, the rifle was firing bolts of his magic. It was just like the beams that he and Vigo shot from his hands, only more concentrated and faster. He was amazed at the device, even more amazed that his group of raiders were all wizards.

  Channeling his magic for so long had begun to wear on him though. He could feel his fatigue creeping into his arms and back. Hunger gnawed at him. He imagined the rabbits he would snare when he returned. He glanced out a small window into the blackness broken only by the tiny spots of light. He found himself missing the sun.

  “Bridge ahead, eyes up…contact.”

  Leif looked past the bobbing heads before him. A single figure, covered in the black oil, stood in the large open doorway to the bridge. It held the same blade that Leif and the other raiders carried on their backs. The blade was extended.

  Henrik was back in front followed by Ren then Leif. Henrik raised his rifle as they moved forward and fired. The figure dispassionately raised its hand. A shield of magic shimmered in front of it, absorbing the energy darts from Henrik’s rifle. Bloody hell. Henrik stopped shooting for a moment. The infected enemy wizard dropped the shield, and light bloomed in its palm. It laughed maniacally. It was a deep, hollow, guttural sound that chilled Leif to his core. Shields appeared before Henrik and Ren but Leif knew what he had to do. He’d seen Vigo do it before.

  He forced his weariness down and stepped out from behind Ren. He gave them plenty of space, he needed to draw the beam to himself. He slung his rifle behind him and drew his blade.

  “Dammit, Leif, get back in line!”

  Leif sprinted forward. The evil laughter continued as the beam of light sprang from the palm of the oil covered humanoid directly towards him. Leif threw up a shield of his own before his outstretched hand. It devoured the searing light. He leapt forward, closing the distance between himself and the enemy. Just as Leif reached it, just as he began arcing his blade upwards to sever the outstretched arm, the light stopped. He felt a force slam into him. He was launched backwards through the hallway and his body pounded into the floor.

  The inky figure leapt after him, sword cutting through the air, poised to strike. Leif was stunned but he scrambled to his knees and whipped his blade forward to catch the attack. The clash of their blades reverberated through the hallway and up through his arms and neck.

  “Contact rear!”

  It was Aelred’s voice. Darts of light flew past him from behind but his enemy didn’t give him a chance to look back at his crew. The blade that cut through metal zipped mere inches from his throat. Leif rolled back and parried the onslaught of brutal attacks from the figure. He quickly realized it had no skill. It was all power and wild furious magic-fueled strikes. This creature had once been a wizard but whatever now controlled its movements was no swordsman.

  “Leif!”

  Leif dragged his aching arms up and around. He sidestepped and let the enemy blade soar past him. Vigo would have laughed. In his weariness, Leif tucked that away, to remind himself to laugh later. He lunged forward and thrust his own sword through the sludge covered ribs, before sliding it outwards, as easily as cutting through water.

  The figure froze, sputtered a cough, then looked at him and swung again. Leif caught the swinging arm with his left hand then pushed his sword through its throat. The figure shivered for a moment and collapsed.

  Leif turned back to his companions. Two of them were on the ground, inky black sludge climbed up their legs as they tried to scramble away. Some had their own blades out, cutting through infected creatures. Beyond, more and more of them poured into the hallway throwing themselves at the raiders. Leif rushed to help.

  “Leif! Get in there and seal the hallway!”

  Leif turned and stepped across the threshold of the bridge. Immediately his vision began to swim. It was faint at first, and through the blur he could see the bridge, an open space with lights and great windows to the stars and the Saxin beyond. More black figures appeared on the bridge before him. He did not know if they’d been concealed from sight or had come in from another entrance. They moved towards him with their gargling sputtering laughter grating on his ears.

  “Hurry Leif!”

  He looked back at his raiders, nearly overrun. No. Another had fallen, and been consumed by the sludge. Enemies before them filled the bridge. Enemies behind blocked their escape. They were trapped.

  He stepped towards his crew. He had to save them. He had to save his cousin. He sprinted but his sight became a watery mess of gray and black. He felt like he was running through water. “Ren!”

  “Leif!”

  He lunged towards his companions but before he landed he was yanked downwards. “Not yet!” He didn’t fall through the floor exactly, just away. Again he experienced the sensation of falling through space, through darkness, then through the clouds of soft blue light. He tumbled. He tried to stop. He didn’t know how to go back.

  He realized his wrist was burning. He looked at his hand as he tumbled through the strange void. Inky black sludge had wrapped itself around his hand and wrist. It had seeped in through the seam in his clothing.

  He was a fool. He’d caught the hand of the creature on the bridge threshold. The infection had caught him.