Unbound

Chapter Eight Hundred And Forty Four – 844

Chapter Eight Hundred And Forty Four – 844

They were.

Small baby Dragons, no bigger than a songbird, made of opalescent Fiendstone and midnight black scales.

He reached out a hand, and one hopped closer, edging its way toward him atop a branch. It regarded him with bright blue eyes, like chips of ice, tilting its head curiously before, with a flutter of feathery wings, it alighted on his hand. Its black claws dug into him, and it thrashed a long, sinuous tail that ended with sharp spikes.

"Oh man," he said, "you're adorable."

“Those don’t look like any Hatchlings I’ve seen,” Alister noted. “What’s with the wings?”

“I don’t know.”

“Forget the wings, why are they here?” Atar looked up at the tree. Hundreds of creatures were there, preening their feathers, twitching their spiky tails, or simply watching with bright blue eyes. "I thought there was nothing alive in here.”

The Hatchlings startled all at once, taking to the sky with a rush of feathers. Felix clucked his tongue as the one in his hand took off too. They all watched as the Hatchlings flew through the air in complicated, shifting shapes. None touched the other, all of them in perfect, strange coordination.

A murmuration, he remembered. The flock swirled and folded on itself, like an amoeba a hundred feet wide.

Zara cleared her throat. "What exactly was that Feature you Tempered with?"

"Scale - Venture Forth," Felix murmured. "To face the dark and fight."

"What does that mean?" Atar asked.

"Just a change in perspective," Felix replied, gesturing to the sky. "This is something else, I think."

"I would say so," Darius nodded down the street. There, stumping out from a side alley, was a hulking creature at least fifteen feet tall and made entirely of chunks of shaped ice.

"Felix?" Alister said. "Why, is there a giant in your Mind Skill?"

Atar lifted a hand, already wreathed in white fire. "I don't think that's a giant.”

The creature lumbered across the thoroughfare, the sun glinting off its ice and the thick iron chains wrapped around its limbs. They were frozen across its forelimbs, wrapped tightly until they were twice as thick as its biceps, while in other places they dangled free, so that the creature jangled with every step.

Their heads weren't like a giant's, either. Each one was formed of a piece of ice that looked sheared off of a larger glacier, its blue-green planes clouded save where eyes of molten iron gleamed.

Felix stepped forward, curiously. He stopped when a Minotaur followed the constructs out of the alley. It wasn’t a real Minotaur, though—in fact, it looked more like a construct than the ice Golem. Horns and head were of molded gold, while its large hands were no doubt similar beneath its heavy leather gloves. His body was likewise clothed, wrapped in blue-white robes with a thick leather apron strapped with a belt of heavy pouches. Tools stuck from the belt, things that Felix had no name for but all of which looked exceedingly technical.

The Minotaur walked closer to the Golem, taking out some sort of rod with a hook on the end of it. It poked at the creature, prodding it away across the road and toward another group of buildings. The Golem stumped away obediently, and neither one said a word or even glanced in their direction.

Felix jogged ahead to see more, or perhaps determine where they were going—he wasn't sure. However, once he turned the corner the road descended down a steep hill, and he could finally see the walls that loomed high around his city. They were distant, but Felix's vision could pick out the Fiendstone walls, and the normally opalescent rock was now streaked with strange and arcane layers.

Distinct veins of silver metal were interspersed among translucent blue, pale white-green, purple-white, and orange crystal, all of which gleamed in the ceaseless sun.

"What are we looking at?" Darius asked as he rounded the corner.

"I'm not sure," Zara admitted. "Felix, what—"

“Quiet,” he demanded. He heard something: the sound of boots far ahead. It tingled at the edges of his Perception, and when he narrowed his eyes, he saw the glint of metal at the base of the wall.

"Stay here," he said, before flaring his Agility and rushing ahead.

"Hey—!"

Atar's shout disappeared into the distance as Felix blurred, zipping down the road and around intersections before finding himself at the base of the wall, where soldiers were marching up a set of stairs leading to the top.

What the hell is this?

They were metal soldiers, their bodies formed into moving armor and utterly solid except their joints. Those were made of complicated hinges and blue force pistons that drove their feet up and down onto the Fiendstone steps. Each soldier bore axes and pikes in their hands, and their limbs gleamed with silver light that was layered atop the steel and gave them an ethereal, almost dream-like quality.

Elowen leaned close to the Golem, hands clasped tight as if restraining herself. "There are no sigils or glyphs on its bones. Are they entirely a construct of Will and Intent?"

“It seems so.” Zara walked around the Golem with calm, measured steps. "How much control do you hold over them, Felix?"

He looked at the Golem. He'd been wondering that himself. "Stand Straight."

The giant did just that.

"Salute!"

An icy hand snapped to its lumpy forehead, clattering as its chains jangled against its ice.

Felix pointed into the distance, where another Golem was lifting boxes next to an open doorway. "Fight!"

This time he felt his Authority strain. The Golem didn't move. Felix frowned. "I said, Fight!"

With jerking, spasming movements, both Golems began to move. The first dropped its boxes, and the injured one took a halting step, as if its joints were rusted shut and it couldn't move freely. Still, Felix's Authority gripped them tight, even as the Golems started shaking and rattling. The closer he made them draw to each other, the more resistance he felt, like pressing the opposite poles of a magnet together by brute force. At any moment, he felt like his control could slip, and the Golems would rebound off of one another wildly.

"Okay, stop. Return to your duties." The pressure vanished, as both Golems pivoted smoothly before stomping away down the road, one to resume with his boxes and the other to resume whatever exactly it did.

"Looks like there are limits," Felix said.

"They won't fight each other?" Alister asked. "Seems arbitrary.”

“They're defenders," Darius said. "Defenders don't fight one another.”

Felix’s eye widened. The knowledge felt right once Darius said it. “Scale - Venture Forth. It means to stand firm against the darkness. And fight back," Felix shook his head, not quite believing it. "Some combination of my Temper and Link's turned this place into something like a real city with a real, or at least sort of real, populace."

"Stolen defenders," Atar said, clearly impressed. “How’d you turn them into...these things?”

“No clue.” Felix gestured down a broad roadway and immediately began to walk, following his gut toward where he knew the exit laid. "The exit’s this way.”

It took only a few minutes before they found it. It was located now inside his Void Sanctuary instead of outside the external gate. In fact, it was at the very center of things, located on a raised platform in the inner courtyard of the palace. The gate itself was surrounded by a frame of gleaming gold fashioned into the form of four enormous wings spread out and around in a circle.

"An enemy ahead," Zara said in warning.

“A defender,” Darius corrected.

A creature leaned over the top, its huge head, tufted ears, and hooked beak, glinting cruelly in the bright sun. A tenku made entirely of gold and silver perched atop the gate, and it watched them carefully. Felix approached, and the glare it bore intensified until a snarl tore from its metal chest. It had the sound of an engine backfiring, and Felix nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Enough." Felix held out a hand. "I am not here to hurt you."

Instantly, the Chimera's gaze turned benign. The creature's tongue lulled, much like his Companion's might, and a long foxtail swished rapidly on the other side of the gate. "I believe we're good to pass through," he called back, not taking his eyes off the animated metal Chimera. "Go, quickly."

His friends did so, filing through at speed while Felix waited. When the last Legionnaire stepped through the gate, Felix looked up. "Why did you growl at me?"

The metal Chimera regarded him sideways, like any bird peering at a curiosity. A handful of seconds passed, uneventfully, silently, and then a dozen, a half minute. When a full minute lapsed and the creature still did not move or respond, Felix took a single step toward the gate.

"I defend the gate," it said.

Felix swallowed. "From what?"

The creature didn't react, only continued to stare. It was only when Felix had stepped almost entirely into the swirling shadow gate that its jaw opened with a slight squeal.

"From you.”

That was the last thing Felix heard before the Shadowgate swallowed him up.