Authors: J.T. Stoll
Tags: #save the world, #young adult urban fantasy, #high school fantasy, #adventure magic, #fantasy coming of age story
The Rift
The Adventure is Just
Beginning
The Rift
J.T. Stoll
Copyright © 2015 J.T. Stoll at
Smashwords
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination.
Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric
purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to
businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is
completely coincidental.
Reproduction in whole or part of this
publication without express written consent is strictly
prohibited.
Click to visit:
jtstoll.com
Dedicated to my friends at
Everyday,
for teaching me to be more like a
child.
James tightened the grip on his axe’s handle
and watched an orb of light bounce up and down above the head of
the hooded figure in front of him. A sheer black expanse spread
overhead; the empyrean was far from dawning.
Dirk walked at James’s side, hand on his own
sword. “You trust him?”
“
No,” James replied. Of all the
people in the world, why did their contact have to be
him
?
“But the king does.”
A small cut on his thigh, though sealed, still
ached. Their guide either hadn’t been able to or hadn’t wanted to
heal it completely. Beyond that memory of the recent fight, James’s
body ached in exhaustion from days of travel by foot through the
wilderness. His heart ached for friends he would never see again.
All to reach this place. He shifted the weight of the heavy pack on
his back.
“
This is as far as I go with you,”
the hooded figure said. He pointed down a valley between two hills.
“It’s about another quarter mile to the rift. A cement slab marks
it. Eight men guard the site; half will be asleep in a nearby town.
One is highlander, the others wildians. They’re not Terian’s
finest.”
“
He’s sure casual in guarding the
key to this whole war,” Dirk said.
James removed a small golden corkscrew from the
pocket inside his shirt. “He doesn’t know that we have
this.”
The hooded figure stared at the object.
“That…”
“
The king himself made it,” James
said, slipping it back into his shirt.
“
His highness?” the hooded figure
said. “Then, will it work?”
“
It had better.”
“
We could use your help,” Dirk
said. “We’ll make sure no one escapes to tell.”
“
I’ve risked enough to come this
far with you,” the hooded man said.
“
At the orders of his highness,”
James said.
The figure stopped and gave a dark chuckle,
barely audible. “Yes, of course. I live and die at his pleasure.
But he has more use for me in my current position than as your
nanny.”
He turned to walk away.
James called after him, though he tried to keep
his voice low. “I’m sorry about my careless words. You’re a greater
hero than all of us, though no one realizes it.” He paused. “But if
this is a trap, may the Light forsake you.”
“
It wouldn’t be alone in doing so,”
the figure said. His little light orb followed him into the
darkness.
“
Careless words?” Dirk
asked.
“
We used to be friends, you know.
Sons of senators. When he joined Terian, I turned his parents
against him, and they disowned him. I had no idea of his true
allegiance.”
“
Well, the plan?” Dirk
asked.
James looked up at one of the nearby hills and
squinted. The pale light of some kind of lantern rested on top. The
faint sound of laughter rolled down to him.
“
Climb the back side of the hill,
but stay hidden. Don’t activate your armor. I’ll distract them by
opening the rift; hit them from behind once I do.”
Dirk shrugged. “See you in the
Shadowlands?”
“
And remember, I’m still hurt,”
James said.
“
You make it sound like I need your
help.”
James walked with a soft step through the dry
grass, crawling on his belly the last quarter mile. The pack dug
terribly into his back. In the thick darkness, his only sense of
direction came from the light of the enemy’s position on the
hill.
I hope I don’t get any ticks
, he
thought.
I wonder if the Shadowlands have ticks.
He finally felt the edge of the slab. Good,
because there would be no other way to spot the rift in the
darkness. In the daylight, they said it appeared as a slight
distortion in the air, as though peering through warped
glass.
Axe still in hand, James set down his pack and
crawled onto the slab. To his right, on top of the hill, four men
sat in chairs around a little lamp. A highlander’s skin glowed pale
in the light. The three wildians with him were brown skinned and
much shorter, with rough stubble on their faces. They surrounded a
wooden keg and wore casual—sloppy—shirts and pants. A little
lean-to covered their heads. James reached into his pocket and
removed the small, golden corkscrew.
He took a deep breath then whispered the
activation words. “A bottle for new friends.”
The corkscrew shook in his hand. He released
it, and it floated up and fixed itself midair. It burst into a
steady, golden glow and let out a low hum. James’s eyes burned with
the sudden light.
Up on the hill, four silver lights ignited: the
guards, activating their soul armors. They jumped up from their
chairs, and a voice shouted, “What just happened?”
James set his axe down, stood up, and faced the
hill with empty hands. “I’m here from Terian to perform a new test
on the rift.”
A moment of silence. One of them replied,
“James? Is that you?”
At the sound of that voice, he knew his ruse
was useless. It had been a long shot anyway. “Jed?”
“
I never thought I’d have the
chance to kill you with my own hands.”
Jed. Here, of all places.
A fifth silver light rushed up behind them. And
that would be Dirk.
James concentrated on the metal band around his
arm, the fire of Diotein. With a jolt, burning energy flowed into
his limbs. The earlier weariness vanished. He scooped his axe off
the ground and swung toward the hill; a fireball launched from the
blade. Jed stood his ground and knocked it off course with his
sword. The fireball collided with a young oak tree, which burst
into flames, crackling and popping.
James leaped toward the fight and felt the rush
of air through his hair. Up top, Dirk drove straight into his
enemies, keeping them off balance, keeping them from rushing him
together. He held his own.
James landed hard halfway up the hill, and ran
up the second half. The light of both the fire and the king’s spell
reflected from his blade. He charged Jed.
“
Your sister rang me up the other
day,” Jed panted between blows.
James gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the
talk. He aimed a few blows at Jed to keep him on the defensive
while dodging spear thrusts from one of the wildians. The fatigue
of the last few days weighed on him; even with the strength of his
armor, he felt slow, weak.
“
She said she missed my caresses. I
replied that I didn’t miss her smell.”
Fury boiled in James’s ears; he lunged for this
scum but missed and found himself off balance. Jed’s wildian ally
speared a gash in his stomach. Agony, burning agony, followed the
exit of the weapon.
Jed laughed. “Always the temper.”
James leaped back. Down at the rift, an
enormous corkscrew of golden light twisted in the air, its hum now
louder. In that bright display, a huge distortion in the air—the
rift itself—became visible. Atop the hills, the fire had spread
from the oak to the dry, surrounding grass.
James kept a few paces between himself and his
two opponents, swinging his axe to keep them away. Dirk impaled one
of his wildian opponents through the chest. Before he could pull
the sword out, his other assailant aimed a large mace at him. Dirk
released his sword and dodged; the mace hit a small rock and burst
it into a thousand pieces. Twisting around, Dirk slid his sword out
of the first wildian’s warm body.
Jed’s eyes darted to his ally’s defeat.
Immediately, he spun around and took a huge leap for the base of
the hill. “Hold them!” he shouted from midair.
“
He’s going for the other guards,”
James said.
“
I know,” Dirk replied. He parried
a thrust aimed for his head.
The two last wildians fought hard, but they
were young. They knew how to fight, but they didn’t know how to
fight with soul armors. Even with the agony in his stomach, James
held off the one across from him. But he couldn’t find an opening
to chase Jed.
Dirk landed his blade in his opponent’s skull.
The one fighting James threw down his weapon. “I
surrender.”
Dirk raised his sword.
“
Stop,” James said. “He’s just a
wildian. Who knows his real reasons for joining the
rebellion?”
The short man fell prostrate. “Please, I have a
wife and six children.”
Dirk spat on the ground. “You’re barely
twenty.”
“
One child,” the man
corrected.
James held his axe to the man’s throat.
“Surrender your armor.”
“
They’ll kill me.”
Dirk wiped his sword in the dead grass. “Them
or us. We’ll at least make it quick.”
The glow around the man went dark. He unclasped
a silver band from his upper arm and handed it to James. His body
quaked; tears formed in his eyes.
James turned the metal over in his hand a few
times. It felt lifeless, a dead hunk of metal. “You killed it,”
James said.
The man nodded.
That made it useless. James tossed the band
onto the ground.
Dirk leaned down to pick up the band.
“Disenchanted or not, those materials are priceless.”
Friend against friend, families at war within…
this war was so bitter. And these, the wildians, so many innocent
but for Terian’s influence, suffered most. “Leave it,” James
said.
Dirk stared at him for a moment, then stood and
sheathed his sword. They walked down the hill. Behind them, the
soldier whimpered.
“
Why?” Dirk asked. “They’ll just
reforge it into a new armor.”
“
Maybe just to prove that we’re
better than Terian. That for all his rhetoric, he’s not ‘Defender
of the Wildians.’” James faced the churning, gleaming light at the
base of the hill. “Besides, it’s meaningless on our
mission.”
“
And the other weapons?”
“
Disenchanted, by now. All that
matters is reaching the Shadowlands.”
James kept his hand on the cut. Dirk glanced at
him but didn’t speak. They didn’t need words: James was injured but
could still walk. As they reached the base of the hill, the golden
light coalesced into a rough circle.
