Infinity Blade: Redemption

drop of Incarnate Dark, Siris.”
    “What . . . Really?”
    “Well, all right. One village—run by one of the lesser Deathless, looking to elevate his position. And I kind of sold the ring to him. But he did ask me to retrieve it.”
    She shifted uncomfortably. “It was long ago, before I stopped taking jobs from Deathless. This one thought . . . well, I told him not to play with the stuff. He wouldn’t listen to a mere mortal, and he paid well, so I got it for him. I left just before he activated it.”
    “The whole village?” Siris asked.
    “It was awful. Whole place just . . . crumpled. Don’t know how to explain it any other way. I was just outside of town, riding as fast as I could. I swear I felt something straining to pull me into it. Like the darkness itself was alive.”
    “Hell take me,” Siris said, looking at the gauntlet. Then he pressed it against the wall. His palm shook, but he knew , like always, how to control the element. It felt natural to him.
    Even years ago, when he’d first attacked the God King, the Dark Self had protected him. It felt the same way now. Siris didn’t know how to manipulate the Incarnate Dark—but Ausar did. The corner of the wall crumpled, the steel straining and cracking. An opening formed before them. At the end, a small bead of metal—no bigger than a marble—dropped to the ground with a terribly loud thunk , as if it weighed far more than it appeared it should.
    The process was louder than he’d have wanted. He nodded to Isa, who slipped through the opening, raising her crossbow. Sure enough, a guard peeked his head into the room just as Siris was following Isa through the hole.
    He got a crossbow bolt in the forehead.
    Siris caught him and hauled the body into the room. They waited a few tense minutes, but no other guards arrived.
    “This really feels like a trap . . .” Siris said.
    Isa nodded, peeking out into the fortress hallways. Stark, made of cold steel. Creating something like this would cost a fortune, but for most of Siris’s kin it was a fortune barely missed. Why build a fortress entirely of forged steel in the mountains?
    Well, why not?
    “I agree,” Isa said. “It’s too quiet, too easy. Do you want to withdraw?”
    Siris shook his head. “If it is a trap, then someone already knows too much about us—and our rebellion is doomed anyway. Maybe it’s easy not because we’re expected, but because the Worker’s empire is in such a state of chaos.”
    Isa nodded. Siris dug out his helm, slipping it on. Isa went without one, but Dynn and Terr both slid on helms, covering their faces. An old tradition, started by the Deathless.
    “Dynn, watch our retreat,” Isa said. “Terr, with us.”
    The three of them slipped into the corridors. They were poorly lit, the occasional window slit providing the only light. Siris and the others wound forward and downward through the fortress, but passed no guards. The place had an eerie feeling of having been abandoned.
    They reached a crossroad, and Siris grabbed Isa’s arm, pointing to one side.
    The gate is this way, she mouthed.
    I know , he mouthed back, then led them the other direction.
    She followed with a soft sigh of exasperation. However, it was possible a full assault wouldn’t be needed. Their target, the facility’s heart, was just around this way . . .
    He reached a corner and peeked around it, expecting to see nothing. Instead, he found himself looking right at a guard.
    Siris felt a moment of sudden panic, but held it in. He was looking at the back of a uniformed guard, one of the God King’s elite soldiers. An entire rank of forty or fifty stood here, facing the wrong way . Inward, toward the center of the facility.
    What the hell? Siris thought, holding a finger to his lips and gesturing for Isa to look. She peeked, then looked back at him.
    What the hell? she mouthed.
    He shrugged, then gestured them back the other way. He wasn’t about to try to take an entire rank of elite soldiers on his own.
    Once they were a good distance away, Isa took him by the arm. “They’re guarding the wrong way.”
    He nodded.
    “That’s a rebirthing chamber, right?”
    He nodded. It was one—that, and something else he hadn’t yet told her about.
    That room was the basis for this entire assault. Yes, the fortress had supplies they could steal—rations, weapons, Deathless technology. Their greatest advantage as a rebellion, however, was Siris himself. One of the Deathless.