Death without Direction: A Modern Sword and Sorcery Serial (A Battleaxe and a Metal Arm Book 1), Samuel Fleming [ink book reader .txt] 📗

Would it be enough? Would two fishmen be enough to break the spell?

As doubt grew in her mind, power surged in her arm. The arcane torrent built and built, rising like a symphony until it was painful, until the hum of power shook her teeth and bones.

At the last moment, Helesys turned and saw the Hydra, so big it blotted out the room. Five open mouths descended upon her.

And she fired right at it.

~

The recoil of the blast sent Helesys sprawling backward, skipping like a stone across the flooded room and then under the water. She tumbled as a wave bowled her over again. She breathed brine and coughed, gagging on water. Desperate for air.

She slammed into a stone wall—the stone wall—clear across the room. Her ears rang, and her collarbone and neck screamed sharp pain. Somewhere she heard the dull screech of the Hydra, so powerful she felt it rippling through the water.

Helesys opened her eyes to see a frothing ocean, waves taller than she—so violent that bare stone opened up in between. In the center of it all the Hydra thrashed, pulses of blood gushed from the center head, which was split in two to midway down the neck and hanging limp in front of the beast.

She heard the muted roar of Taunauk—so faint in her ears compared to the ringing and the screech of the Hydra. The other reptilian heads turned and met the barbarian in a fury half-blocked from sight by the crashing waves.

Helesys braced herself as another wave crashed into her. She winced and struggled to keep her footing.

The ringing in her ears faded and for a moment the Hydra was overshadowed by a barbarian’s rage. But Taunauk’s roar was cut short. Across the room, Helesys saw one head of the great beast tilt back and swallow what she could only assume was her comrade.

“No!” she screamed. “Oh gods.” Her heart sank so deeply that she thought it might drown in the waves.

The Hydra turned toward the elf again, but this time it didn’t charge. This time the great serpent heads turned on the dead neck and bit at it, tearing away chunks of dead flesh. The other heads tore and swallowed, eating the wound. The Hydra’s body was still as it set upon itself.

And when it was done, the serpent heads danced and twisted around each other again, around the fresh bleeding stump. Then the flesh of the stump started to pulse and then to grow.

Helesys had seen enough, she turned for the fishmen. Both fists shook with anger. She raised her cannon for the few that she could see, still incessantly chanting at the other end of the room. She fired, not caring about the columns or the river above the room.

Two blasts sounded from her hand and crashed into the stone beyond—both too high and too wide. The fishmen continued their chanting and ducked out of sight. Now she saw nothing but columns. She turned back and slumped against the wall. Her legs were numb from pain or exertion or both.

The Hydra’s four heads stared at her as the fifth—and sixth grew—two heads sprouting through thin red skin. It was a slow process and Helesys was growing impatient.

Her wand-arm churned with power again and she let it build. This time the pain thrummed through her bones almost immediately. Apparently even the arcane materials had a limit, but still she let it build.

It wouldn’t be enough to slay the Hydra outright, but it would be enough for her purposes.

Helesys leveled her cannon at the nearest column and smiled, for her blast might possibly catch several in a line. Then she fired. The blast erupted, shattering clean through the column. The crunch of stone sounded twice as the purple blast punched through both columns in a row.

There was a tearing sound as the ceiling split, like the world might’ve cracked in two. Then water hissed from above and the entire underground groaned, the sound drowning out even the scream of the Hydra. The ceiling buckled, freeing a mountain of stone and a river of water.

Numb pain filled Helesys and she slumped against the wall and into the water. In spite of it, she smiled with satisfaction. A comrade avenged and a swift death.

All things considered, could she ask for anything more?

~ ~ ~

The Room

The next thing Helesys knew was blackness. Silence.

Then she was falling.

It was long enough for her heart to rise into her throat and no longer than that. She landed on both feet and crouched into a roll automatically. Twice over and then sprawled out on the dusty stone floor. Her wand-arm hummed with power.

The elf pushed to her feet quickly because a short step away someone else fell to the ground. Taunauk hit the ground in a crouch, catching himself through sheer strength alone. Though the axe was on his back, he rose to a fighting stance. Fists were clenched, knuckles white.

Both of them were alive and standing in the same stone room as they did at the start. Sparse torchlight. Ancient stone. Underground with no discernible entrance or trap door.

Memory of the ceiling collapsing played across Helesys’s mind as she looked up. Surely with the mountain of stone and the river above she had been crushed… Yet here she stood. She relaxed the coursing energy in her arm and realized that it was fresh—untaxed.

Neither the elf nor the human spoke. The room was still and quiet except for their quick breathing.

Then Taunauk walked softly over to the torches on the right wall, his footsteps overshadowed by Helesys’s rising breath. He ran a hand over the sconces, looking them over and when he reached the end of the wall he turned to her.

“I tore one from the wall. There are none missing. No hole in the stone,” the barbarian said. He walked back to her.

Helesys looked down at the bottom of her