Methkog: Blood
The blood on his armor didn’t belong to him. None of the dents, nicks, furrows, or scorch marks running across the metal plate actually penetrated. Some of those lawmen could have made it as Dragonslayers, Methkog thought.
By the time he’d reached the forest he’d given up on trying to make a clean getaway, so he sheathed his sword and waded in with his fists. Methkog chuckled, remembering the surprise on the first lawman’s face when he saw the closed fist swinging at his jaw.
The feel of bones breaking in his grip, the sharp snaps and screams filling his ears—Methkog needed that. So much rage loosed; the fools hadn’t known what they were getting into.
There was so much dried blood in his gauntlets the armored fingers creaked.
Methkog’s heavy steps echoed up the narrow stone staircase. He ascended the tower deliberately as exhaustion finally caught up with him. Anger still raged inside of him, but it wasn’t the towering flames of the last three months. It smoldered now, keeping the ashes of rage alight.
Reaching his chambers he shucked his armor off. Muscles strained under his tanned, already scarred hide, and occasionally they sent a dagger of pain deep into his body. He hadn’t fought with such vigor in a long time, and not against lawmen and never against an arena brat.
Stone splintered around his hand as he drove his fist into the wall.
He could have killed them. Easily. He should have. The second one—Lerykaz—didn’t have a move left. Lying there on the ground, helpless. He should have killed him. He should have killed them both.
He’d been so sure it was the other one. Zakyrel. The big one. Who else could have gotten through the traps and murdered his mentor? Who else could have shoved a sword through his back?
Lerykaz the Eidolon, perhaps.
Methkog massaged his hand, popping the knuckles as he realized nothing had broken. He sunk down into a crouch, eyes staring at the marbled veins in the floor but not seeing them. An orange hex bracelet dangled from a man’s wrist. It said “Zakyrel” in his mentor’s precise script. It had taken more than a month to find that name in an arena flyer in a town leagues away from here: “Zakyrel The Golden Defends His Championship.” He hadn’t seen the name written down before—only heard it spoken—but he knew what he was looking at. Seeing that name in the mud as he drew up his sword was one of the most satisfying things he’d ever experienced.
Memory brought back the pain under his right arm. The makeshift bandage there was crusted with dried blood. It wasn’t a deep wound, but the location made healing difficult.
In the corner was a healing station, a gift from his mentor. Methkog rummaged through the drawers before finding a dull yellow vial. Pouring a dram out, he rubbed the material under his arm, grunting as it stung his skin. It dried quickly, latching itself onto the wound and filling the shallow hole. There wouldn’t be a scar left when its work was done.
Not that he minded scars.
He hadn’t seen the spear, or even heard it. Methkog had been so focused on killing the golden one he hadn’t thought about the other. His mentor had deemed his oldest son an average fighter at best, and yet he’d Blinked, Rived, and Reflected as though he’d been fighting in wars for 50 years. Lerykaz lasted longer by himself than everyone else in that arena put together.
“So why didn’t I kill him?” Methkog snarled at himself.
It was the blue bracelet. “Lerykaz” written in silver across it. He didn’t expect to see him there, fighting for his brother’s life. He wasn’t supposed to be a fighter anymore, and his name hadn’t been on any of the flyers. It didn’t make sense.
Which one did it, then? Which one killed his mentor? Yes, they were his children by blood, but they forsook any claim to the title when they murdered him. Methkog had served him faithfully—been more of a son to him than Lerykaz and Zakyrel ever were. He’d learned more sitting at his mentor’s knee than monks did in their entire lives. He was supposed to have learned so much more.
His bed shattered against the wall before he knew he threw it. The cracking of wood matched the throbbing pain in his shoulders.
It wasn’t just the anguish of losing his mentor, it was the knowledge lost as well. By the time he found his mentor’s cold body in a pool of tacky blood, the tower realized what had happened. Doors sealed, chambers warped into oblivion, safes with a major Field upgrade detonated to incinerate their contents and destroy whatever else was in the room. All that remained was a spire of cold, silent stone. That was Methkog’s inheritance.
One of them killed him. Maybe it was Lerykaz. Maybe he snuck in and struck down his father, or maybe Zakyrel somehow made it through by force. There’d been a terrible fight in the main chamber.
Methkog’s eyes narrowed.
Or they did it together.
“Doesn’t matter.”
They’d both die. That was the easiest way to get vengeance. No one else would have taken an infant. Only family would take a helpless child home after committing murder instead of just throttling it in the crib or smashing it against the floor. Even the child’s hex bracelet was gone.
Karyzel. Yes. If he removed the two eldest from the board he could rescue the youngest and train him as an apprentice. It was a thought worth entertaining.
Methkog slept on the floor that night with only his bedroll between himself and the cold floor. In the morning he packed up what he could carry in his vortexes, a rucksack, and a small trunk lashed across his shoulders. With measured steps he descended the staircase and for the last time allowed himself the simple pleasure of brushing his fingertips against the worn stone walls. He’d never see them again.
Reaching the main floor, he strode across the foyer toward a tapestry hanging next to the door. Though his appreciation for art was nil, even Methkog could admire the bright reds and oranges of a dragon spewing flame. Such power, he thought, tracing the curls of fire with his eyes.
He tore the tapestry from its mount to reveal a glowing panel of blue circuits, mass of pulsing coils, and a small control panel buried in the center.
Methkog tapped in a seven-digit code, waited for the buzzing to start in the coils, tapped in a 13-digit code, pressed his thumb to the panel’s blank portion, and reached behind it. His fingers wrapped around a small lever. He pulled it to the right.
There were no sirens, klaxons, or flashing lights. No numbers started rolling down a screen somewhere. All that happened was a vibration that started deep under the tower and quickly built up to such a pace Methkog could feel the floor pulsing like a drumhead.
Calmly walking out the front door, he measured his steps. Determining he was just outside the blast zone, he turned around and watched.
Arcs of ashen blue lightning, visible even in the Orb’s morning gaze, snaked across the tower. Methkog could hear the stone fizzling under each arc’s touch. The arcs grew, merging, slowly covering the entire surface from ground to spire. It hurt to look at the tower now, as it had turned into a second, Xydak-bound Orb.
Still, he watched.
The crackling intensified. He could feel the noise ripping through the air, invading his bones, his skull, threatening to shake his body apart. His teeth chattered together.
For a split second all color blanched from the tower, and it shone as a bright white beacon of sheer, unadulterated power. In the final display of his mentor’s fearsome skills, a crack split the air with a shrill peal of thunder and the tower vanished.
The ground held for a moment but then buckled and cracked as the hidden chambers vanished. Rock and soil crumbled as it collapsed to fill the empty space, and when the dust settled it left a perfect circle behind. The very edge of it came to Methkog’s feet.
For a moment he gazed at the empty spot in the air where the tower once stood and the crater it left behind. In an instant his home for so many years had vaporized. He suspected he should feel something more than mild disappointment, but perhaps that’s all he had left to give. There was nothing left in that tower for him. His life there was over.
He could say the same for two Outcasts. He’d burn their home to the ground, crush their throats with his bare hands, and scatter them across Xydak—or all of Ocost if need be.