The Lost Runes Saga [Epic Fantasy]

FORTY-ONE

The door was locked.

"I can do this much," one thief whispered and shouldered his way forward. He inserted tools into the lock, wiggled and twisted with a distinct lack of finesse compared to Linus, and quite a bit more force. Still, the lock clicked open all the same.

"Don't stop unless someone gets in our way," another thief whispered. "Often, you can get far before someone thinks to stop you."

"And shut off that damn light," a different thief whispered.

Vidar rendered the kenaz rune inactive. The thief who picked the lock opened the door on groaning hinges and slipped through the crack. Vidar was second through and followed close behind as the thief strode through the corridor, half-running forward, ignoring wide-eyed gazes of students milling about the corridor as they ventured deeper. They were taking shelter, just like that administrator woman had said.

Several students asked who they were, demanded to know their business, and even waved in their faces as Vidar and the thieves continued, ignoring them all. A face he recognized appeared in the crowd.

Her eyes were red, and she looked like she hadn't slept in a long while as she sat on the floor, knees up to her chest, arms around them. Red marks and welts covered her bare arms, and she had an angry-looking black eye.

"Siv," Vidar hissed, getting down to her level. "What happened?"

Her eyes widened in recognition. She looked around, presumably for something to write on, but found nothing of the sort. So she signed in the air, too fast for Vidar to follow. He took her hands in his to stop them.

"You're going too fast. I don't understand. Did they do this to you?"

She nodded.

"Do you want to leave?"

She nodded again, eyes blazing.

Vidar pointed down the tunnel. "We have unlocked the door. Follow the corridor straight until you come to a set of stairs. There's a hatch leading outside. Vidar gave her quick instructions on where to find the shop and Erik. He was about to go when another girl he recognized grabbed his coat. It was the one who'd come to get Siv when Sven died.

"Can I come?"

He blinked. "You want to leave the guild?"

"There are some of us who don't agree with the guild's actions lately," she said, her eyes hard. She threw a glance at Siv, and the two girls smiled at each other.

"Are you sure?" Vidar asked. "There are few places as safe from the dragons as here."

"I know the algiz rune," the girl replied, her jaw set.

"Of course you can come. Go together and be careful. I'll come back soon."

Vidar looked up at the thieves, who were waiting for him, trying to keep the mass of students away. He slammed the butt of his staff against the floor to get them to settle down. "We are looking for Alvarn. Does anyone know where we can find him?"

"Alvarn spent hours teaching me the sowilo rune," one student said.

Several other youths nodded in agreement. "We were so happy for him when he passed the exam."

Someone, he didn't see who, finally got to the point. "We saw him go in to speak with the guildmistress, but he never left her chambers."

"Then I'll go there, thank you," Vidar said, then stopped and frowned. "You liked him? He said he was being bullied here."

A few of the older students blushed and stepped back, blending into the crowd.

"Only some," Siv's friend said. "And I don't think they would dare today. I want to come help you get him back."

"That is out of the question," Vidar said. "No. The danger is too great. If you want to come and join Siv, you may, but you're not coming with me. I will fight, and you will be a liability at best and a danger at worst."

Vidar stood and noticed many of the students eyeing his staff. "I have to go." He looked down at Siv, who was getting to her feet. "I'll see you a little later. If you're up for it, craft as many algiz runes as you can on whatever surface you can find. Every rune will count when the dragons return, and they will return soon. So hurry. There is much going on out there."

Siv nodded. With that, Vidar was off again. Now he knew where he was heading. They wouldn't need to search the enormous building from the bottom and up. Alvarn was with guildmistress Viktoria, and Vidar made a silent vow his friend wouldn't need to be for much longer.

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By now, most of his dragon's essence had regenerated. Viktoria would see the difference between the strength of a human and the power of a dragon.

They moved up the spiral staircase and made it to the corridors of the main building. They were a bustle of activity, and they reached the correct floor with no one stopping to question who they were. Walking with intent and acting like you belonged went a long way.

Guards were posted outside of Viktoria's office, but the thieves stepped up, waved, and started talking to the two men. As soon as they were in range, the guards found themselves in choke-holds as the thieves slithered around them and slipped an arm around their necks. They peeked into the room opposite Viktoria's and found it empty, grabbed the unconscious guards, and tied their hands and feet before muzzling them so their screams would not carry.

"Your distraction is working well, whatever it is," Vidar said.

One thief nodded for him to continue. Vidar crossed the corridor and pushed at Viktoria's door with his shoulder. Locked.

"Hey, what are you doing?" a male rune scribe asked.

"We're taking a look at the door," Vidar said without looking back.

One of the thieves approached. "We have a work order for the lock. Apparently, it's jammed."

"With everything going on," the rune scribe said, shaking his head in disbelief.

The thief kept approaching, speaking in a friendly, down-to-earth manner about having to take whatever work came their way.

"I don't care," the rune scribe said, turning and heading back in the opposite direction.

The thief stopped, shrugged, and returned as the lock yielded to the other thief's lockpicks in a matter of seconds, and Vidar charged in. It was dark and empty. Movement flickered in the corner of his vision, and he turned. "Alvarn?"

Kenaz runes triggered from all directions, their light blinding him. His barriers came under instant barrage, bursts from thrust runes slamming into his shields before Vidar even opened his eyes after shielding them.

Two thieves were close enough to the doors to throw themselves back into the corridor, but the other three were not so lucky. Only a single algiz rune protected each of them, and Vidar let out a small groan as he heard bodies torn to shreds behind him, wet, slopping sounds filling the room as their bodies came apart.

They were using stronger stakra thrusts this time, and the door slammed shut. The lock clicked. Ambush. He gritted his teeth and released a stakra thrust at the door, aiming to blow it off its hinges. Algiz runes adorned the wood of the door, nullifying his attack. His barriers were losing essence at an alarming rate, and the thudding never stopped. They must have prepared hundreds of runes.

Vidar cast about for a solution but only found one. One of his old tricks, old but well-tested. His satchel still held a handful of sowilo runes. He triggered them with a grunt and threw them in all directions. A blast rocked the room as one of the sowilo runes exploded mid-air, struck by the thrust of a stakra rune.

The stakra thrusts didn't let up for a second. Vidar roared his anger and triggered the logiz rune. Flames burst from his palm as he moved his arm around the room in a circle. Barrier runes shone with their bluish translucent shimmer, visible even with the blinding light from the kenaz runes. But Vidar did not aim to burn whoever had ambushed him like this. The flames were for the warmth runes. They did not have barrier runes protecting them. Explosion after explosion rocked through the guildmistress's chamber. He heard screams, saw blood mist through the air as limbs thumped to the floor, and fire consumed whatever was left.

He kept up his barrage, his back against the door, making sure he kept the flames streaming from his hand until all heat runes were destroyed. One wall cracked and bulged before crumbling down. The ceiling above sagged but, thankfully, didn't come crashing down on his head.

Several rune scribes still lived. Vidar hadn't had enough sowilo runes to cover them all, but their light runes ran out, allowing Vidar to see. Viktoria was not among them. In fact, he recognized none of the three still standing. They held stakra runes on metal plates in their hands, already-spent ones piled at their feet. Each stakra rune triggered an attack toward Vidar but also slammed them back into the wall behind them. It didn't look like they would run out of runes anytime soon.

Vidar gave his algiz runes a steady stream of dragon's essence from his heartwell. He'd used a lot, but it was nowhere near empty.

"Where is Alvarn?" Vidar asked, ignoring the ceaseless assault from the three rune scribes. Now that their kenaz runes had run out, he saw the fear in their eyes as they kept their full attention on him. Perhaps they didn't want to risk letting their gazes land on the mangled corpses or the bulging ceiling, threatening to bury them all. They neither stopped attacking nor answered his question. He'd hoped for a better outcome but was not surprised. It often took a small nudge to make someone do the right thing.

To that end, Vidar plucked two runes from the different symbols swirling in his mind. Stakra and logiz. The line between the two runes was already prepared. He held out his palm and triggered the joined pair, and sent a burst of fiery force their way, keeping it below full strength. The question remained unanswered, after all, so it wouldn't do to have them all burn.

The eldest of the three whimpered as his barrier ran out of essence. He was a man with wisps of hair standing out in all directions and scar-puckered cheeks. "Please!"

"Alvarn!" Vidar roared.

One of the three was a woman in her late forties, with auburn hair streaked with gray. She turned to the man, doing her utmost to ignore her own failing barrier. "Elias! Don't!"

"Fuck you!" he blurted out. "I'm a scholar, not some lackey to perish in a failed ambush. Using our beloved runes in this manner is against everything I believe in!"

The woman turned a stakra rune against her fellow rune scribe but hesitated. Vidar did not. His stakra thrust flung her into the wall before landing in a heap on the floor. She didn't stir.

"What about you?" Vidar asked the last of the group, a young man with reddish hair.

He held up his hands in surrender and dropped his remaining stakra runes, and the thin plates of metal clanked against the stone. "Please don't kill me."

"Alvarn?" Vidar asked, turning to the scholar.

"They brought him to a room to the left of the administrator's office," the old man said.

"I know where it is," Vidar said.

"For the record," the scholar said, "I felt strong apprehension about what we did here today."

"Yet you did it, and I doubt there will be a record of what happened here today," Vidar said, turning to leave as he heard a key turn in the lock. "If you want to clear your conscience, help with protecting the people of Halmstadt instead of cowering in here."

The door opened, and another rune scribe peeked in, perhaps drawn by the sounds of battle having ceased. Vidar brought his staff down and thumped him over the head.