Chapter Five: Fighting Retreat

FIVE

Roan turned and ran instantly. Behind him he felt an electric pulse of power as Taoya laughed uproariously. A crack like thunder rolled through the air and Roan winced as his ears rang, but he couldn’t help but turn to see what had happened.

The wall of energy that had built around the big man had disappeared. Sparkling blue-white light had been discharged into a wall of force that had thrown back a wave of the skeletons. All around Taoya was now a ring of free space as the big man gasped and staggered back, suddenly mortal.

“Shit,” Roan hissed as he stopped and ran back to help the big man. Taoya smiled appreciatively as he sagged around Roan’s shoulders.

“Do you have to weigh a ton?” Roan said with a gasp as he staggered under the man’s weight.

“It’s bulking season,” Taoya said with another tired laugh. Roan risked a glance behind himself to see that the skeletons had recovered, clustering around the entrance. There was only a hundred yards between them, but the skeletons were slower than he was even with Taoya on his shoulder.

“What did you do?” Roan asked.

“Bloodline talent. My grandmother was from the tower. Gathers and stores kinetic energy. Grandma said I had a weak talent.” Taoya spoke in short sentences, breathing hard but he was starting to recover.

“If that’s weak, I don’t want to see strong.”

“My clan forbade the talented from entering this tower. As do all of the other clans and colleges,” Taoya said.

“Might be why this tower hasn’t been conquered,” Roan said, a hint of venom in his voice. He couldn’t help the venom that infiltrated his words.

“Plenty of talent has entered this place. They forbade it when none of them came back.” Roan had nothing to say about that.

“Look out, there’s a hand hanging over the edge,” Taoya said, breaking the conversation. He straightened up and they turned sideways to pass the resting dead. Roan froze as he stared at this corpse.

“They’re different.” The words tumbled free before he could even figure out why he said them. It was a skeleton that was stretched out across the shelf, but it looked fresher. The bones not as frail and yellowed, the armor on its body had more heft to it. There were no rusted out chunks and the sword the creature had on its chest was higher quality as well. The skin on its body wasn’t just strips of leather, but nearly whole in places. Its skull was bare but Roan could see the skin under the jaw and how it stretched beneath the armor of its chest.

“Fresher. Not as useless,” Taoya said. Roan nodded and fought the temptation to kill one of them, but knew he couldn’t. Not when there was a crowd still chasing them, closing the distance even as they stood there.

“Keep moving, we need to catch up to the group,” Roan finally said, pulling the big man with him as they kept pushing forward.

“Darren is smart and skilled. There’s a few more of our group with them, they’ll work together to keep everyone safe,” Taoya assured him.

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