Chapter 31
Karno smashed a small demon over the head with his war hammer, then kicked it over the battlement’s edge. There were several more demons climbing up behind it, and these were the more fearsome breed, so resilient that they even resisted many of Karno’s hammer blows. As the demons climbed, they shrugged off hundreds of warrior arrows and worker bullets, and even the boiling oil that was dumped on them from cauldrons. Despite their best efforts, those demons would soon reach the top of the fort.
“Rally to me, Defenders!” Karno bellowed.
Several warriors rushed to aid him. They were men from many different houses, but they shared a code, distilled from what Karno believed to be the Protectors’ most important philosophies, except without the traps of customs and politics that had burdened his beloved Protector Order for so long. And on this bloody day his new Defenders had fought with courage and honor, willingly putting their lives at risk, not to protect Law, but to protect humanity itself.
As the demons clambered over the top, his men laid into them with the incredible strength bestowed by the second Heart. Swords shattered and spears broke, but Defender arms did not tire. Weapons could be replaced. Lives could not. They fought accordingly. Even the mighty soldiers of hell had not expected such an onslaught, and they were hurled back down the wall.
He did not know how long this lull would last.
“Master Karno! Master Karno! Come quick!”
Since there were still demons circling below, Karno couldn’t even spare the time to look toward the desperate messenger as he stated the obvious. “I am busy.”
“Please, Master, it’s Order business.”
That could mean only one thing. “Carry on without me for now,” he told the other Defenders atop the wall. Karno waited for someone to take his place before stepping away. The messenger was Defender Indhrakaran Gujara. “What is it?”
Indhrakaran leaned in close so none of the regular warriors would hear. “It’s the Heart. There’s something wrong with it.”
“Oceans.” Did they not have enough crises to deal with already?
Karno followed the swift messenger down the stairs and through the Vadal fortification. The already narrow passages were even tighter because of all the supplies that had been piled up everywhere. Karno was so massive, especially in armor, that he had to turn sideways to fit between the stacks. The preponderance of supplies was because no expense had been spared in preparing this particular fort to withstand a long siege, for this was where the second Heart had been moved to. But not even Karno’s men knew it was the second, for the first remained a Protector secret. To his Defenders theirs was just the Heart.
The artifact had been placed in a vault in the central keep of the old fortress. If demons could smell magic, then surely it would draw them here like moths to the flame, which suited Karno just fine because he had turned this place into a killing ground, designed to bleed as many demons for as long as possible.
When they reached the vault, Karno could tell immediately that something was very wrong, for even though the black-steel device still beat, that pace was far faster than before. This wasn’t the steady cadence, like unto that of a healthy warrior resting, as before, but the rapid thrum of a hummingbird. It appeared it was about to burst.
“Is it because so many of us are using it to fight at once?” Indhrakaran asked.
“Perhaps.” Karno was unsure, for even though he had no gift for detecting the presence of magic like his old sword master Ratul, the sensation here so strong that the blind would be able to see it and the deaf hear it…Magic was spiraling around this room, dense as the grit blown about in a Zarger sandstorm. The Heart was a reservoir of magical power, and something was rapidly draining it, as fast as the mighty Martaban had been stolen when the demons had broken open the world beneath.
A great and terrible magic was being fueled.
Rada’s mirror had referred to this buried Heart as a weapon, left behind by the ancients to be unleashed in the last days. Karno had believed his Protector predecessors had left it in that tomb to be used in the same fashion that the first Heart of the Mountain had been, to create superior warriors, but it appeared they may have had a much different purpose in mind for it.
And whatever that spell that magic had been intended to fuel, its time was now.
“It’s dying! Can you stop it?”
“Even if I could, I doubt I should.” Karno was wise enough to not try and meddle with magic beyond his comprehension. He didn’t believe in the gods of Ashok or Lady Vane, but he had faith in the Protectors, including those who had died centuries before he had been born. “It must fulfill its purpose.”
The Heart shattered.