A Hope of Escape

Dawn of Chaos: Hell Gate - Chapter 8

“You were his student, then?” the innkeeper asked. He had overheard their conversation and was standing near them behind the bar. His eyes were attentive. “The Archmage?”

Orion nodded. “When the class was over, many of them lined up to ask him questions. He waved them off, telling them he had no time for them. They were very disappointed.”

Diana leaned forward, intrigued. “Then what happened?” she asked.

“I was walking toward the door when his voice suddenly called out: ‘Hold a moment, Mr. Deneri. I’d like a word with you.’” He paused again. “It’s hard to convey what that was like to anyone who’s never heard him in full character.”

Descent to the Upper City

Randia rappelled quickly down the surface of the cliff. The bundled and twisted vines slid wetly through her hands and left a slick coat of green slime on her palms and fingers. Her feet expertly pushed off from the bluff in a series of quick leaps and stops. In less than a minute, she had descended from the narrow ledge to the top of the tower below.

Stefan watched her with apprehension as she released their makeshift rope and jumped onto the building’s roof. Its pitch was steep, and she had to lean forward and grab at the tiles to keep from falling. The vine-rope, one end tied to a boulder high above, dropped away from her to slap hard against the wall of the bluff. It had held the pair’s weight better than she had expected.

The angled roof had a gabled window that faced the valley. Stefan was crouching next to it, holding on to the frame for support. Randia scrambled carefully to his side.

The tower rose along the cliff-wall from the highest level of the Upper City South. From its summit, they could see the whole of Lannamon in the valley below. Companies of battle demons were forming, preparing to move out from their base in the amphitheater. Randia pointed.

“The winged demons are moving,” she whispered. “It looks like they’re setting up to fly cover for those infantry squads. The sky is clear here, at least for now.”