One of my absolute favorite parts. An explosive battle ensues with two powerful Gate-keepers.
It was a hundred paces or so to the gate, and Gallet covered it in a matter of seconds – just as Hace opened the door, swinging inward on its hinges to let Red in. She took Red hard in the back with her left shoulder, slamming him into the heavy door flinging Hace to the far wall before he knew what hit him.
Hace was trying to recover his sense when Gallet’s blade took him and he fell to the ground wide eyed. She turned back in the small guard house to see Red face down on the stone floor, legs still halfway out the door. The root enhanced strength of her shoulder slam had broken the man’s back. He’s sightless, wide eyes stared out above a mouth open for a scream that he would never again have breath for.
She dragged the man into the room and closed the door, latching it. With her crown gate opened, Gallet could sense nearly eighteen individuals within the keep – all but three were visiting their dreams. There may be a few guards around the compound but the Lord was a proud and private man; the servants that he kept lived in the keep and by all accounts his personal escort met him at the gate.
The Keep was the same granite color as the inner city but created in a more utilitarian style. The walls were vertical. A strange green plant clung to the side of the wall climbing all the way to the battlements. The main entrance was approached by a steep, narrow flight of stairs – only wide enough for two men to walk abreast. The ground of the courtyard was tilled soil and small, exotic plants were framed by wood boxes displayed between pathways. Gallet had never seen anything like it. Its beauty sent a shiver up her spine. None of these plants were native to Kanton, who’s foliage consisted of the strongY’ell wood trees and grasses and fungus that survived beneath the forest’s canopy. The color palette of the country side was greens and browns; the vibrant red, blue, and indigo colored flowers in the garden were a sharp contrast.
She made her way into the courtyard, at first carefully scanning the ground to avoid stray twigs that would snap giving away her position, but she soon realized the grounds were well kept; the paths swept clean and the planter boxes checked for unwanted intruders on a regular basis. With the two guards dead the interior grounds were deserted. From here, the keep looked much smaller than it had always appeared from the outside. In her mind she compared it to a man: puffing out his chest to the world, but when he finally let a woman into his confidence he appeared much more innocent and childlike.
She strode up the long staircase with muted footsteps to approach the vine covered walls. She tugged at them, testing their strength, then began to pull herself upward toward the second level where the Lord’s study lay. Her root gate had been opened continuously for far too long now she realized as she pulled herself upward onto the vines. Her lungs bore an unquenchable thirst and the air she made no dent in the deficit she had acquired. Soon, she thought between panting breaths. Her target was near and soon she could rest.
The battements were clear as she finished her climb. Just ahead, over the first story entrance, was a door that led into the study. She opened it and the heat from the fireplace washed over her. She hadn’t realized the full extent of the pressure she had put on her body until she entered the room; the chill in the outside air had kept her temperature down but now she felt dizzy and fever sick. The sweat pooled in her leathers and stained the cotton tunic she wore around her breasts. With the stress on her body overwhelming her, she fell to one knee, barely noticing the man’s profile sitting in the chair in front the fire.
“This day was bound to come.” He spoke in a powerful bass, the sound of his voice rattled Gallet. He didn’t stir from his seat, he simply continued staring into the fire, a book closed in his lap. Gallet had never been inside but knew the layout from former children of the Ministry who reported to her about the happenings in the keep. Their intelligence was invaluable to her, but lucky as some might have seen it for the children to be taken into the Lord’s keep after growing up in the Ministry, Gallet knew it was the Lord’s lust for young girls.
The room was long and rectangular, the walls covered in books from floor to ceiling. The only furniture was the ornately carved chair the Lord sat in and a small round table beside him. It would have seemed odd to Gallet, if she’d had the energy to think it, that a room of so much space be occupied by so little. In her world, space – a place to simply be and exist – was a luxury. She had carved out a small amount of space for herself in the Ministry, but what little she had was given to the children. This room spoke volumes about the values the nobility of Kanton had – while the peasantry lived in boxes in the commons, Kanton’s Lords lived in wide empty spaces.
“The lives of men are so petty. While they fight one enemy, they allow themselves to be occupied by another,” the Lord said.
Gallet’s laugh was sickly, “Yes. Petty, Gorn. The rock we use to smash our foes cuts us in the end. The rock changes hands countless times but men like you never learn to respect the tools you use.”
“Heh, externalizing an internal conflict,” Lord Gorn said as he stood from his chair, still facing the fire. His hair was short and peppered with gray but he maintained the physique of a man half his age. The fur lined neck of his form fitting coat clung to the sides of his chest and showed the definition of his chest and abdomen. He turned and faced her now. “Like it or not, Kanton’s alliance with the Order is a mutually beneficial arrangement. You’ve seen first-hand: children have a purpose, they go to sleep with food in their bellies. The city is no longer under constant siege by the golem and we retain a fragment of our former lives here.
“You struggle with abandonment all your own don’t you, Mistress? You were orphaned by the Sundering, weren’t you? It must have been a difficult time for you – living in the streets. Perhaps you cannot bring yourself to believe that your ‘rock that cuts’ is the same as the hand that feeds.” His smile held no mirth as he went on. “Surly, if Mommy and Daddy hadn’t gone away, life would have turned out better – sunnier.”
Gallet was unable to speak but every breath she took came out as a growl – a growl full of rage that consumed her completely. She stood, facing him; each of them holding the strong confident posture of a predator. Gorn sighed, relaxing momentarily. “So be it,” he said and the fire from the hearth burst in violent rage.
Gorn’s hands focused a swirling yellow light at his sternum – the solar-gate – and then as with the force of his hands, the fire leapt from the hearth driving straight for Gallet. She dove, rolling over her left shoulder to avoid the blast which struck the book shelf behind her, it too becoming consumed in flames. Gorn was preparing another blast from the hearth; she had to keep moving to avoid his attacks. Two fireballs struck just behind her as she ran to the far end of the room before cutting back towards Gorn and his chair.
She pulled her sword from the sheath, striking, but Gorn was too fast. His lithe movement anticipated her every sword blow. Her attacks distracted him from channeling his power gate, but his martial skills were equally impressive. Gorn conceded no ground in their exchange. He side stepped Gallet’s thrust, moving inside her reach striking her with a two-handed blow that knocked her off balance. Then he was crouched low with a sweeping kick and Gallet fell to her side – the short sword falling out of her hands. Gorn was upright again channeling his power gate; the flames in the room all seemed to grow in intensity.
He looked down at her with a feral grin. “I have sacrificed too much for my city; my kin, my friends, my soul – you’ll not take that away from me!”
His arrogance steeled her to her oncoming fate. Her root gate lent her the power of the earth; though she had been using it to this point to increase her strength and endurance, if she released her control over the gate it would consume her completely. She couldn’t avoid the barrage of fireballs Gorn was preparing; the power gate gave him command of any heat source in the room and with each new fire he started his power grew. She grabbed the sword from the ground and rose in the fastest motion she could manage, releasing the constriction she had imposed on her Root-gate and suddenly she felt the unstoppable surge of earth roaring through her.
Fire streaked through the room from four points, slamming into her body, splashing against stone that once had been her flesh. Her sword thrust forward, the final defiance to the man who had killed so many innocents; the man who had defended his treatment of her children in the Ministry; the man who had executed her mother and father. The sword’s blade was buried half way into Gorn’s chest, piercing his heart. His expression one of shocked denial. He squirmed for a moment, trying to free himself from the upturned blade but her stone grip made it impossible. As blood trickled down the edge of the blade, he slowly slumped forward.
The earth had consumed her but her goal had been achieved. Though she gave her life, maybe the people of Kanton could wrestle free from the grip of the Order without Gorn’s political influence. In her last moments, the keep burning all around her, she opened her Pineal-gate a final time to enjoy the happiness she had hoped to create amongst the people she loved so much. Instead she found that once again, she was the rock in the hands of a master she had never seen coming.
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