Spear of Destiny James Baldwin (free romance novels .TXT) 📖

side of the gate, rocked back and forth a couple of times to make sure I had my footing on the frosty wood, and then kicked out into the open sky.

Chapter 26

A helpless grin split my face as I plummeted down, the wind tearing at my limbs. The clouds parted around me as I free-fell toward the dark ground. Solonovka was so bright that I could see people even from this height, moving around like ants on the walls and between doors on the Lower Ward. The Upper Ward was almost lifeless, save for an idle group of guards around a small fire. Their ‘camp’ was contained within a semi-circle of spikes that surrounded the door to the Keep. I used the time dilation of Leap of Faith to rapidly tag moving objects in my HUD, along with the small airship idling behind the building.

“Ten guards: four in front of the Keep, one at each stairwell, four patrolling the walls.” I yanked the ripcord and held on as the chute blew out into the air above me. “Let’s land on the ramparts and take out those patrols. Then we can make some new friends.”

“Yeah! I love making friends!”  Looking back and up, I saw Karalti’s chute deploy, the dull grey silk nearly invisible against the leaden sky.

The guards were carrying torches, moving in pairs as they patrolled the ramparts ringing the Upper Ward. They were oblivious to the death descending on them from on high. I kept an eye on the altitude as we closed in. Three hundred, two hundred, one hundred... I cut my lines at fifty, dropping like a stone.

The poor bastards had no idea what hit them. I landed on the first guard like a pogo stick rider, driving the Spear and the full weight of my body down into his torso. The blade plunged between his neck and his breastplate, dealing catastrophic damage. I vaulted off him and took out the second guard with a lance to the throat. He sunk to his knees, gurgling as he clawed at his neck.

[You deal a mortal blow! 64 EXP!]

On the other side of the wall, I saw Karalti descend in an arc of rippling silk. The torches of the guards there fell and winked out.

“Two ex-guards, served over ice!” Karalti chirped.

“Good work. Now for the ones at the stairwells.” I knelt by the pair of corpses, equipped the spellglove I kept in my inventory, and tuned into my one and only magical ability: Shadow of the Sun, the vampiric spell that allowed me to raise shadows from the dead.

“Sond, Karalt’, Bi’nah!” Mana pulsed through the glove, and wispy tendrils of dark energy as fine as spider silk flowed from my fingertips. A frigid chill caused a fine curtain of mist to rise as the darkness plunged into the corpses of the deceased guards. Their shadows trembled, then came together into a pair of vaguely humanoid forms, pikes in hand. Shadow Soldier

Unit Rank 0 (Level 12, Common)

Type: Incorporeal Undead

HP: 400/400

Speed: 110 (Extremely Fast)

Melee Attack: 90

Melee Defense: 8

Abilities: Lift Drain, Incorporeal, Sneak Attack (x3 damage)

EXP: 1200 (+400 to next level)

“Kill the men who guard the entry to the Lower Ward stairs,” I ordered. “And make it fast.”

The shades saluted, then warped into the shadows of the rampart and flowed along them, heading for the gates.

“Ready?” I thought back to Karalti.

“Ready!” My dragon leaped silently to the edge of the rampart on the other side of the courtyard.

I climbed up to mirror her position, crouching, and messaged Suri and Rin. “We’ve made contact. Ready Wave One.”

“Roger, be there in five,” Suri replied crisply.

I tensed, ready to jump, when a blood-curdling scream rang out from the stairwell. I whipped my head around to see the pair of shadows attacking only one of the guards, not both of them at the same time.

“FUCK!” I sprung out from the wall, hit the ground in a roll, and kept running. “Karalti, help the shades kill that other guy! Lock the gates!”

The four guards in front of the Keep mobilized immediately. Two of them ran out into the open, calling to their comrades. One stood frozen, clutching his spear and scanning the darkness. One ran to a big iron bell and started to ram it with the butt of his polearm.

“Fuck fuck fuck.” I Jumped into the air, sailing over the spikes, and landed on the pair like a thunderbolt. Umbra Burst sprayed thorny spines of darkness in all directions, impaling the men and freezing them, but it was too late. Lights were blazing to life inside the Keep. I could hear feet thundering down the stairwells.

“The dead are here! The undead demons!” I heard a Vlachian voice shout from behind me.

Whirling, I spotted Karalti battling the pair who’d run from the Keep, and behind them, the first wave of paratroopers descending from the sky. The Yanik were heading right toward us from the Campbell with Zlaslo in the lead. The first wave of Meewfolk were right behind them.

“Okay, first Shadowlord lesson: Lesser undead are really fucking stupid.” I grit my teeth and cast my hand over the two men I’d just killed. “Sond, karalt’, binah!”

The new shadows rose, waiting patiently for orders. I was about to issue them when a thump from behind the doors of the Keep startled me. No one emerged. Instead, there were more thumps, the sound of heavy objects being dragged across the floor. They were barricading themselves inside.

“Fucking bullshit mother-fucking—” I swore to myself, and split for the stairwells with the shadows in tow. It was too late to stop the defenders inside the keep from bracing the door. The fight outside was about to get rolling.

I sprinted, then dashed forward in a comet of black fire, smashing into the back of the guard