The Rift War Read online

  ‘It’s going to be okay, Jack,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘Unless I get scratched,’ he replied. His gun banged loudly as he downed another two of the Brakys that surged towards them. ‘One scratch and I’m a goner.’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to avoid that, won’t you?’ Sloane replied.

  She could practically feel him rolling his eyes at her. ‘Easy enough for you to say.’

  Sloane could no longer pay attention to Jack though, as all of the Brakys had fully risen from the ground and the first wave was about to reach the rock. There were now far too many of them for Jack to deal with alone. Sloane looked at the sword in her hand, muttering at it to burst into flames like Allirie had told her to do. But not a single flicker of fire appeared on the blade, and the shiny metal glinted at her as though it was taunting her latest failed attempt.

  She didn’t bother to try again, and instead, she lifted the weapon and stared down at a Braky that had started to claw its way up her side of the boulder. The creature screeched as it reached the top, but the scream was quickly cut off as Sloane slammed her foot into its face, sending it flying back towards the ground.

  She could hear the sound of a blade crunching against rough flesh behind her and the reverberating racket of a gun being fired on her other side. All three of them were facing the monsters now. Another Braky replaced the one she’d just kicked away, and this time she swung her blade at the beast, cleanly slicing through its neck.

  The Brakys came at her in a constant surge, sometimes clawing over one another in an attempt to reach her. They were relentless as they attacked, but she disposed of them swiftly and brutally. She barely had time to breath as she swung and hacked and sliced at one monster after another. She could feel the pulsing power of the Oblivion Stone rushing through her with every blow that she made, and her body seemed to thrum with the high of battle vibrating through her.

  Before drinking the Liftsal, Sloane might have been growing tired by now, but she no longer felt the mortal pulls of exhaustion as she once had. She felt alert and focused as she continued to fight off the creatures, but a sound caught her ear and she quickly glanced out at the open expanse of snow they’d trekked across to reach the rift. The resonating cheer of battle cries sailed across the plain, and Sloane realised they weren’t alone. At least fifty warrior women from Allirie’s village were racing across the snow to help them.

  Sloane wasn’t sure how they had known to come, and she wondered if another of Rhyn’s scouts had gone to warn them. She could see their strength and determination as they started to battle the Brakys, and for a brief second Sloane felt a wave of optimism within her. Maybe they weren’t completely and totally screwed after all.

  She risked a glance in Rowe’s direction. Her sister was moving incredibly quickly as she released one arrow after another. But already Sloane could see that several of the Unfaih who had been defending the boulder were lying motionless on the ground. Lorian, Kai and Esther had started to fight the creatures off as they tried to climb up, but an increasing number of Brakys were headed in their direction.

  However, as the warrior women ploughed into the hoard of Brakys near Rowe and the others, some of the beasts began to turn their attention to the new threat. Sloane breathed a sigh of relief that her sisters might be safe for a while longer.

  She wanted to watch and make sure that her family would be okay, but the stream of Brakys attacking her side of the rock had not relented. She turned her focus on the latest creature to breach the top of the boulder and returned to battle, this time with renewed vigour. Every slash of her blade was a step closer to victory; a victory that she now believed might be possible, if only they fought hard enough.

  Something in the air above them caught Sloane’s eye while she was fighting and she glanced up to see a flock of glacies descending on the plain. As the swan-like creatures began to dive at the Brakys with their metal beaks open and their sharp claws stretched out, Rhyn’s piercing whistle suddenly made sense.

  ‘You signalled the glacies,’ Sloane grunted to Rhyn, as she plunged her blade into another Braky.

  ‘We needed all the help we could get,’ he shouted in reply.

  Sloane didn’t dare turn to look at him and see how he was faring, but his voice sounded sharp, and she hoped that meant Rhyn was still managing okay.

  She glanced over at the women warring with the Brakys close to the other boulder. They were fighting with everything they had but seemed to be struggling to get past the creatures. There were still too many of them, and even with the warriors from Allirie’s village and the glacies to help them, Rhyn, Sloane and their allies weren’t making a dent in the never-ending hoard of the creatures.

  ‘There’s too many of them,’ Sloane growled. ‘We’re outnumbered at least twenty to one. They’re too strong in such numbers.’

  ‘I have an idea,’ Jack grunted, speaking for the first time since they had started fighting.

  ‘Please tell me you have a bomb stashed on you,’ Sloane responded.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But you have something more powerful than a bomb.’

  ‘The Oblivion Stone?’ Sloane asked, as her eyes focused on another Braky that had made it to the top of the boulder and moved to attack her. She smashed her blade down upon it, and it tumbled back to the ground, taking two or three others with it.

  ‘How can the Oblivion Stone help?’ she said.

  ‘Look at it,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never seen it glow so brightly. It must be absorbing a ton of energy while you fight. If you could harness that energy and draw it back out of the stone, you could try to open a rift.’

  ‘I don’t think escaping to another world is going to help the rest of our group,’ she replied.

  ‘No, but the impact it has on the environment could help us,’ he replied.

  ‘It could help us destroy our world as we know it,’ Rhyn shouted. ‘You don’t know what could happen.’

  ‘No,’ Jack agreed. ‘But I’ve spoken at great length with Lorian about the last time the rift was closed. The ice and snow spread outwards from the closed rift, with the rift at the epicentre of the destruction. You could open a rift and then close it again before any damage affected the rest of Ellysia.’

  Sloane gritted her teeth together as she disposed of another Braky. She didn’t even know how to open a rift, but she wasn’t completely surprised by Jack’s idea. She had seen the tapestries in the throne room, and they depicted the closing of the rift and the spread of the eternal winter precisely as Jack had just described.

  ‘It’s too risky,’ she replied. ‘Even if we manage it, we could end up hurting the rest of the group and Allirie’s warriors. Besides, there may not even be enough power in these two pieces of the Oblivion Stone to do it.’

  For a moment the two men fell silent and all Sloane could hear was the growling, snarling and screeching of the Brakys that surrounded them. But then Rhyn started to speak. ‘Jack’s right. There’s too many of them,’ he said. ‘This might be the only way to stop them.’

  Sloane struck down another Braky and turned to look at Rhyn. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

  His muscles were rippling as he swung his sword and the way the light fell upon him made Rhyn look like some kind of warrior god. He snuck a glance in her direction though, and when their eyes met for a brief moment, Sloane could see a flicker of doubt in Rhyn’s expression. Doubt that they would survive this if they didn’t do something drastic.

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ he said. ‘You have to try.’

  She took in a deep breath and then blew it out again as she turned back to survey the area she was defending. ‘I can’t fight and try to open a rift at the same time,’ she said.

  ‘Then let us do the fighting,’ Jack said. ‘Rhyn and I can cover you.’

  ‘And the glacies can help,’ Rhyn added. He whistled a series of notes before Sloane could argue, and immediately the glacies started swooping towards them. They descended on the Brakys cl
osest to the rock and swept them up in their razor-sharp talons before flinging them through the air and returning to pick off others.

  Sloane felt mesmerised as she watched the graceful creatures climb and then dive as they attacked the Brakys with their metal claws and beaks. For the first time since they’d started battling the Brakys, she felt a moment of relief from their endless assault. The glacies were fearsome animals when they wanted to be, and Sloane felt like they might actually be able to hold off the Brakys for long enough to give her a chance to try Jack’s plan. She didn’t feel confident that she could make it work, but she had to at least try.

  ‘Alright, I’m ready,’ Sloane said as she clasped a hand around the Oblivion Stone that hung from her neck.

  She felt nervous in a way she’d never experienced before. Sloane was so worried about destroying the world she had come to love and the people she cared about that she became frozen with fear and found herself unable to act.

  ‘Is it working?’ Jack called out. She could hear the exhaustion in his voice and knew the endless battle was taking a toll on him. She may have been concerned that creating a rift could destroy everything around them, but the truth was, if she didn’t try it, everyone she loved would die anyway.

  ‘Sloane?’ Rhyn called.

  She could hear distress building in both their voices and she knew that she was running out of time. She had to act now.

  She took in a deep breath and concentrated on the glowing stone within her hand. As she focused on it, she could almost feel the threads of energy pulsing within the two fragments. She knew that rifts were formed of energy, an energy that was contained within the stone she held, so she was going to have to somehow coax it out and direct the energy into forming a rift.

  She gritted her teeth and became completely immersed in the stone as she stared at it. She blocked out everything that was going on around her and focused all of her thoughts and determination into drawing the energy from the stone, just like she had done when she had experimented with the dagger in Kai’s room.

  At first, it didn’t feel like it was working. But the longer Sloane fixated on the stone and the more determined she became to make it do her bidding, the more the object seemed to react. Inch by inch she could feel threads of energy seep from the stone and pulse into her hand.

  Her palm burnt with the power that surged beneath her skin. It ached and throbbed, and she felt desperate to release it. She could no longer hear the cries and screeches of the battle around her. Her ears resonated with a reverberating ringing noise. It felt impossible to contain the energy within her, and she felt like she was going to burst as she attempted to keep it constricted within her hand.

  Slowly she let the throbbing energy travel up her arm. It began to surge through her body. It pulsed towards her chest and down her other arm as more of the powerful force poured from the stone and into her veins.

  When she had drained the last of the power from the stone, Sloane’s entire being felt like it was pounding with the energy, as though she was a beating heart and the Oblivion Stone’s force was her blood. It was time to release the power inside her and form a rift.

  She focused on the air in front of her. The last time she had tried to transfer energy from the stone, she had a dagger to move the force into. But there was nothing tangible in front of her this time; a rift didn’t exist yet. She remembered how Joran had described rifts to her though. He had told her that worlds overlapped one another and that they existed in the same space. All she felt like she needed to do was find a way to puncture through the invisible boundary and reveal another world through a rift.

  Keeping one hand on the stone, she lifted her other hand and skimmed it through the air. Clenching her teeth tightly, she willed the forces from her hand towards one spot in the air before her, imagining the energy she had pulled from the Oblivion Stone was burning a hole in the atmosphere. As she did, Sloane felt the energy burst from her hand in one driving rush, piercing the divide between the land she was in and another hidden world.

  The air started to glow a dull blue colour. Wind began to whip forcefully around the boulder, pulling at Sloane’s hair and crashing against her body. She remained strong though, keeping her focus fully on the space in front of her.

  Sparks hissed and flamed as they swirled in a circle before her, and slowly a rift started to form. She could see the faint flickering of another world appearing through the thin veil created in the centre of the rift. It was bigger than the ones she’d seen in the Brakys’ lair, but still not nearly as large as the one she had travelled through to Aeris. She needed more energy, but she could no longer feel it throbbing within the stone in her hand. It felt lifeless and spent.

  Fear radiated through her, and she had no idea what to do. Kai had warned her that the two pieces of the Oblivion Stone he had fused together might not contain enough energy to open a rift. But she wasn’t ready to give up, and she refused to believe that there was nothing more she could do. She needed more energy to finish opening the rift, and she needed to pull it from somewhere else.

  An idea suddenly struck her, but it was risky. She knew that Rhyn would stop her if she told him what she was thinking. The energy she had drawn from the Oblivion Stone was no longer pulsing through her body. But she was still breathing, and blood was still pumping through her veins. The only source of energy she could think of was her own life force, and if she could spare enough of it to finish the rift, then she might be able to save everyone around her.

  She didn’t pause to give the idea any more consideration. She closed her eyes and willed the stone to absorb some of her energy and then thrust it into the rift. She focused on the energy she could feel from the sun against her skin, from the wind that whipped against her shoulders, from her heart as it pounded rapidly in her chest and every cell that made up her being. Her body started to slump as she felt her strength draining.

  Blackness was starting to descend on her, and she could feel her body lulling closer and closer to passing out. She only had a little more power left in her, but with the last ounce of her awareness, she willed the energy from the stone towards the small rift she had created, urging it to grow and open a little wider.

  Just as the opening finally became large enough for Sloane to see the world clearly on the other side, she smiled. But the smile died on her lips a moment later as she dropped to her knees and slumped to the ground. Sloane succumbed to the darkness that was falling over her and was pulled into unconscious oblivion.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rhyn knew that Sloane had managed to open the rift the moment darkness descended on the world around them. Black clouds gathered overhead, and lightning started streaking across the sky. The air turned hot and heavy, causing the snow to melt beneath his feet and his lungs to burn with every breath that he took.

  Even the Brakys seemed to notice the change, and the creatures paused as if to consider the hotter, drier atmosphere that was suddenly smothering them. As Rhyn watched on, a wave of heat seemed to gradually spread from the boulder they stood on out towards the far edges of the plain. The snow that covered the ground melted in seconds and was replaced by blackened dirt, and the clear skies above turned an angry shade of blood orange.

  ‘She did it,’ Jack shouted. But his celebration was cut off as the earth beneath them shook. Jack and Rhyn both fell backwards as heavy vibrations quaked through the ground. Rhyn crashed onto his back but quickly rolled to his feet and desperately looked over at Sloane. His heart stilled as he saw her collapsed on the boulder behind him, and even though everything around him was shaking, he scrambled over to her.

  ‘Sloane?’ he whispered, touching her face. Her eyes were shut, and she didn’t respond. Not even the sound of his voice could rouse her.

  Jack was right by his side, peering over her. ‘She’s still breathing,’ he said, before placing his fingers on the inside of her wrist. ‘Her pulse is slow, but it’s still strong.’

  Rhyn let out a breath of re
lief and pushed himself upright to look around. The Brakys were screeching angrily, struggling to get back to their feet only to be forced to the ground again as the world continued to quake. They no longer seemed intent on attacking, and some were panicking as they struggled to stand, while others had turned on each other.

  The glacies had scattered, flying off in different directions, and as Rhyn looked into the distance, he saw the warriors from Allirie’s village were retreating back up the nearest mountain face. Rowe, Esther, Kai and Lorian were all clinging desperately to the rock they were perched on. Even from a distance, Rhyn could see the fear in their eyes as they helplessly watched on.

  As powerful shudders and quakes continued to rattle the plain, each one more violent than the last, a deafening booming noise filled the air. It was coming from within the vast mountain that they were stranded at the base of.

  ‘That does not sound promising,’ Jack said.

  The Brakys must have figured the same thing because they all started racing to get away from the mountain, streaking across the plain in a rabid melee of screeches and growls. They didn’t appear to have a destination in mind, rather the monsters seemed to be focused on trying to get as far away from the deep groans and bellows of the mountain as possible.

  Rhyn and Jack couldn’t leave the boulder they were on though. Not while the rift remained open and Sloane was passed out. They needed her to close the opening again and get things back to normal. But that was impossible while she was unconscious.

  Rhyn took hold of her shoulders and started shaking her. ‘Sloane, wake up,’ he shouted. But her body lay unresponsive beneath him.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Jack asked. ‘Sloane passing out wasn’t exactly part of the plan.’