Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [24]
Her crystal obelisk glowed and shuddered with power as the elemental spirit inside it raged, struggling to break out. The ritual set up sympathetic tremors in the cavern around them, causing stalactites to fall and the walls to begin crumbling.
“I’ll collapse this place just like you asked, Sarkhan,” Rakka said to herself, her hands trembling with the force of her magic. “But not for the reason you thought.”
As the cavern shook, the largest column supporting the ceiling cracked. The outermost layers of rock fell away from it like a broken eggshell, revealing a gleaming red obelisk of pure sangrite beneath. The crystal replica in front of Rakka broke with a bang and fell into two smoking pieces.
Shards of rock began falling from the ceiling. Rakka wiped her brow and took one last look at the battle down below. Sarkhan’s fiery form held Malactoth in a death-grip, and pieces of stone began to fall on both of them. Without another thought, Rakka slipped out.
BANT
Rafiq knew he should probably throw down his sword, yielding the match. Continuing to fight was tantamount to admitting the legality of the Jhessians’ assault, which was tantamount to sanctioning chaos. But the Jhessians were closing in around him, and the judge had done nothing. Rafiq’s body tensed, tingling and electric, as he realized that he had been set up, and that neither his ceremonial armor nor the law of Bant would protect him. He was used to winning for a cause; he would have to win to live.
“You’re here to kill me, then,” said Rafiq to the Jhessians.
Rafiq’s words echoed throughout the arena, and the murmur of the crowd followed them. The Jhessians didn’t respond, but one of them gestured to the others, a signal Rafiq didn’t understand.
“Your swords are illegally enchanted, no doubt more skilled at finding my skin than you are,” Rafiq continued. “You fight without technique or honor. Yet I will not show you the same disrespect. In the name of Asha and for the good of this court, I shall defeat you entirely within the bounds of proper—”
He stopped short. The Jhessians had begun doing something strange. They were unbuckling the clasps on their breastplates.
“Stop!” Rafiq said. “What are you … “
In a moment, the Jhessians were unarmored to the waist, only a simple tunic covering their chests. They took up their swords again, and Rafiq was surrounded by three sharp, glittering points—with unarmored fighters behind them.
A single strong blow with Rafiq’s heavy, unsharpened arena sword would break the Jhessians’ bones and probably kill them. All his fighting prowess conformed to the rules of ritual combat, and all his principles conformed to honor. He couldn’t lay down his sword—but how could he, the most honor-decorated knight in Bant, attack three nearly defenseless youths before hundreds of people?
NAYA
Screams tore through Ajani’s dreams. As he awoke, the screams didn’t fade away along with the veil of sleep—they just gained in volume and immediacy. With his heart pounding and his body tense, he staggered from his bed and looked out of the entrance to his lair.
Roars and shrieks rebounded throughout the caves of the den, and the inconstant light of the bonfire threw bizarre, thrashing shadows in all directions. His nostrils flared. There was blood in the air—nacatl blood—and beneath that, he smelled something foreign, like ash and rotting flesh. In the dark, his hand closed over the handle of his axe, and he stepped out.
He could see them. Unnatural creatures were swarming around the bonfire, attacking his fellow nacatl. Members of his pride swept past him, climbing to higher ground to escape them. One of the creatures ran toward Ajani in pursuit, the fingerbones of the creature’s claws splayed out like the branches of