The Angaran Chronicles: The Ritual - BAD Agar (best books to read for success .TXT) 📗

a few metres away and half a metre up.

 

'Keep your eyes on your enemy, fool,' Silette growled and charged.

 

Alathis, turned and jumped. As he did, he felt the rush of air as the strike missed his back by a millimetre. With surprising ease, he made the distance and spun just in time to see her flying after him.

 

He threw himself off the edge and plummeted as Silette's sword cleaved through the concrete. Alathis dropped a good five metres onto a piece of ceiling and rolled to negate the impact.

 

Silette landed a second after, but by then Alathis had already leapt backwards.

 

'Stop running, coward,' she screamed.

 

Alathis slid across the piece of floor for a metre more before Silette landed after. He couldn't help feel a grin creep across his face as he smashed aside her stab.

 

'I'm not running, I'm jumping,' he said while back-stepping a swipe aimed for his arms, then he launched himself into the air again.

 

But Silette was ready and in less than a split second was after him. Alathis was forced to block her arcing blade, and the impact sent him wheeling and writhing off course. Silette landed on a piece of a dummy and jumped up to follow him.

 

Alathis ducked her horizontal slice as she flew past. He spun to see her push herself off a small shard of glass and like a comet came at him again, stabbing.

He'd taken in his surroundings by then and with a bellow, threw around a block, pushing with all his strength and weight into it. It didn't send Silette flying or wheeling but allowed Alathis to shove himself onto her side. In a millisecond his feet kicked against her ribs. It caused her to cry out and fling away, spinning, cursing through the nothingness.

 

Alathis came at a small piece of floor that must've been at least fifteen metres down, and as it came closer, it seemed to grow larger and larger.

 

He flipped to be feet first and pounced into another roll.

 

But something wasn't right; he'd brushed across carpet, not wood. He was no longer in blank whiteness but a middling sized dining room. There was a cream coloured carpet on the floor, and the walls papered in a similar colour. On his left was a small varnished wooden table, behind that a sliding glass door which revealed a tiny, concrete yard outside with a metal clothesline spinning slowly in the wind. On Alathis' right was a kitchen cut off from the dining room by two waist-high counters and hanging over them about thirty centimetres up were a pair of shelves that extended to the ceiling.

 

Alathis gaped. He knew this place; it'd been his house before-

 

A child's scream erupted behind him causing him to turn to see Silette lunging from the door leading to his room, blade thrusting for his chest.

 

With reflexes Alathis' had no idea he was capable of, he knocked the blade away, but he wasn't quick enough to dodge Silette's kick. It smashed into his guts. Pain blared through his torso, and he was sent careening onto his back. He still managed to roll aside of the blade arcing for his skull. His roundhouse kick took Silette's legs out from under her, and he flung himself to his feet.

 

Then the door in the kitchen burst open and the Rule Enforcers stormed in, the dwarf and the human. They had pistols aimed at Alathis, although normal Isstarrsian Enforcers didn't carry guns.

 

Everything seemed to drool into a blur, and their fingers on the triggers moved like drooping syrup. Alathis threw himself to the floor; his arms had lives of their own as they flung his sword at them. It spun through the air before cutting into the hands of the human enforcer. He screamed, his aim turned away, and he put a round into the dwarf's skull.

 

In the next split second, Silette was on Alathis, her face slightly less pretty being contorted into a rictus mask of rage as she swung down. Alathis cried out as he rolled onto his feet. Silette's sword cut into the carpet, but that led into an upward back-slash aimed for Alathis' crotch. Alathis wheeled away then slid onto her flank so fast she had no chance of evading his hook kick which sent her hurtling onto her face.

 

With blood coating his huge hands, the Enforcer flew from the kitchen in an attempt to shoulder barge Alathis. He was large, much larger than Alathis even now. But like most senior neophytes Alathis was skilled beyond even the most experienced Rule Enforcer, and he had trained beyond most. Alathis barely managed to sidestep the charge. Alathis' hook crashed into the Rule Enforcer's jaw, he followed with a front kick that caused the man's head to snap back. The Enforcer stumbled, crying out, then Alathis spun into a sidekick which sent him flying into Silette, and they fell in a pile of flailing limbs.

 

Alathis ran for the door, collecting his sword on the way.

 

Alathis didn't step outside onto a thin concrete tiled walkway with a red wooden fence. But into a tremendous hallway. The carpet was cream, but the walls painted pitch black. He knew this place, too: it was his father's mansion in Zalkaland. The corridor which ran through the building's centre. For a year his mother locked him inside, feeding him nothing but biscuits, reducing him to almost skin and bones. So weak and sensitive that after his father took him, he couldn't even run on the carpet without hurting his feet.

 

But everything seemed to loom miles above him like he was...like he was-

Tiny.

 

The whole house seemed to shake causing him to stumble, and high pitched laughter forced his attention to snap right.

 

Running toward him was his four-year-old self and his friend, but both were giant.

 

Freezing pain flared through his chest and spread throughout his muscles. It threatened to overwhelm him. He turned expecting to find a door but found only bare wall.

 

Alathis looked back to his child self and found there weren't just two children any more; at least a dozen had appeared.

 

His teeth clenched so hard they ached. He spun to run, there should've been a door to the bathroom and the corridor turning off to the right toward a storage room. But what seemed two thousand metres away was another dead end.

 

He burst into a sprint but stopped as he saw the wall was bulging and-

 

More giant versions of him and his friend materialised from the wall.

 

Movement in the wall to his left caused him to turn, just a split second before Silette burst out and with a roar, slashed at him.

 

Alathis leapt back in such desperation he stumbled a few steps.

 

She landed and lunged further, cutting horizontally. Alathis managed a parry before a huge foot fell their way.

 

He darted aside in the last second, and the child's barefoot impact sent him writhing underneath another falling foot.

 

Alathis threw himself into a dive, and he felt the foot brush across his toes. He only just managed to raise his arms to protect his face from being burned when he hit the carpet.

 

He rolled and spun to smash away the cut arcing for his skull. Alathis bounded to his feet then blocked Silette's kick with a raised knee.

 

'I don't want to fight you,' Alathis said. 'Please stop this, Silette.'

 

She grinned again, somehow making her face ugly and tilted her head to an unnatural angle.

 

'What you want and don't want, does not matter, Alathis,' she said.

 

'What the hell is this?' he roared. 'What the hell's going on?'

 

'You're about to get crushed, that's what's going on.'

 

He looked to find it was a lie, in the next millisecond she was on him, thrusting for his chest. Alathis slid aside, then careened away to avoid her horizontal cut.

 

His half-hearted swipe sent her back, and he turned in time to dart out of the way of a descending foot.

 

Another followed, and Alathis dashed away. He moved like lightning, as agile and fast as someone inhuman a...as a...

 

Vampire.

 

He'd lost sight of Silette but-

 

Alathis turned to find Silette charging. He couldn't sense her aura but somehow heard her footfalls over the almost constant shaking and smashing of the giant children's feet.

 

Alathis parried her horizontal cut, ducked her following stab, then back-stepped her vertical upward slice.

 

'Fight me, damn you,' she snarled.

 

The sheer ferociousness took him off guard, so he barely weaved beneath her next slash. Silette launched into a flurry of thrusts. Alathis danced and darted through them, parrying a few that came too close.

 

It all lasted a few seconds before another foot fell toward them.

 

Alathis threw himself back and slid a few metres more as Silette jumped in the opposite direction.

 

He lost sight of her again.

 

Why was Silette so determined to fight him?

 

A huge foot crashing only a few metres to his right smashed him from his thoughts.

 

Then an idea hit him.

 

Alathis turned and sprang into a sprint for the nearest foot.

 

The act caused thundering through his head, his teeth to go on edge. He was taking a considerable risk, but it was better than fighting her. He just had to get there before the first foot rose.

 

He threw himself into a jump toward the second foot as it began to rise. He flew even faster and further than he thought, between two toes. Then plunged his sword into the soft skin, intending to use it to pull himself on top.

 

What he didn't expect was a scream erupting from the child, and blood burst from the wound into Alathis' face, almost forcing him to let go. He'd thought the child being huge would make him immune to pain; he'd read too many books where giant beings who were the villains were almost indestructible, it seemed.

 

The foot hit the ground hard and wobbled; the screams reached into shrieks.

 

Alathis pulled out the sword and pushed himself off as the child began to fall.

 

He managed to keep his feet watching as the boy shouldered into another little Alathis: who in turn collapsed into his friend.

 

The realisation made Alathis straighten, and it turned him into a sprint, when Silette was on him, thrusting her sword for his ribs.

 

Alathis slipped beside the blade but wasn't fast enough to keep it from kissing his bicep.

 

Pain blasted through his arm and he out a cried out, as blood sloughed down his skin and soaked his tunic. He lunged back to gain ground, any ground. Then the shadow darkened his surroundings.

 

He looked up to see the descending, looming back of a crying child.

 

It caused Alathis to explode into a left side sprint. His heart bashed so hard he feared it'd burst. In every split second the shadow grew and grew. He wasn't going to make it.

 

He dived the last few metres and rolled into a kneel between the child's ribs and arm as it crashed on the carpet. The shockwave sent Alathis hurtling against the giant bicep. He bounced with a bark of pain then his back hit the ground, knocking the air from his lungs. Pain bashed through him, and his sword flew from his grasp.

 

The sound of screaming hurt his ears and gasping for air Alathis started to sit.

 

Silette appeared on top of the kid's arm, then lunged, sword point descending for Alathis.

 

'Oh come on,' Alathis growled and rolled a millisecond before the sword embedded into the massive carpet fibres. Before she could pull it out, his kick sent her sprawling off her feet. He stood and, with a tug, took her sword.

 

'That's it,' he said. 'I have your sword. Stop this, please!'

 

Silette laughed as she stood.

 

'Don't be a fool,' she said turning to him as her hand burst into flames. 'Unlike you, I actually bothered to learn magic. This is not over yet.'

 

Alathis froze. Silette had never mentioned mastering magical fire.

 

'Don't do this.'

 

She grinned that horrific grin.

 

'Please, Silette,' he cried. 'I can't go through this again. Don't do this.'

 

Her reply was a backhanded hurl of a huge fireball.

 

Alathis was trapped, backed into a corner. He'd been told he had potential to be a powerful magic wielder, but it'd