Read Online The Fifth Dawn by Cory Herndon - Free Book Online Page B

shoulder. “I was alone, and I had time—oof—to call on the energy here!” She flailed, trying without much luck to get a grip on the lacuna wall. The walls were smooth and freshly polished by the heat of an erupting moon, but her claws did come back with a few splinters.
    Glissa could make out screams and howls from above as the levelers reached the clearing and cut into the many hapless creatures that had been drawn to the magical energies. The animals reacted as any animals would—by fleeing or fighting back. The result was that many of them were tumbling down the lacuna as well, along with wrecked or unbalanced levelers.
    “So? We’re still here, huh?” Slobad shouted. “Give a try!”
    The goblin had a point, Glissa realized. She was in the heart of the magical field, which was just where she wanted to be. She kicked at the nearby wall, pushed herself closer to the center point of the lacuna, and closed her eyes. This time, instead of imagining the end result of her attack, she focused inward. She visualized the power flow from the spark into her bones, down her arms, to the tips of her claws, the raw energy of the lacuna …
    Glissa felt flickers of energy crackle down her arm, and opened her eyes in time to see green-white flame erupt from her hands and shoot straight upward. The destructive blast richocheted off the smooth walls of the lacuna, crashing back into itself and creating a maelstrom so bright that anything on the other side was lost. Glissa held her arms upward, ignoring the effect the massive output of magic was having on her rate of speed, rocketing her downward.
    The energy was going to carry her past Slobad, but she managed to hook the toe of her boot in his tunic as she blasted downward. The goblin grabbed onto Glissa’s shin for dear life asthey shot toward the center of the world on a rising plume of fire.
    Glissa felt the levelers dying above her, both in the circular tunnel and on the rapidly receding surface. Surrounded by the greenish glow of intense mana residue, the experience made her feel more like a conduit than a destroyer. She felt as if all the magic in the Tangle flowed through a central point in her chest, filtering through her willpower to become ribbons of light that cut into wriggling segmented torsos and slashing, scythe-like blades. She struggled to maintain control.
    Half a minute later, the last of the levelers burned out under Glissa’s withering assault. As the realization came, she felt the well of energy go dry, and she was once again just an elf falling to her doom. Only now she could expect to find herself under several tons of twisted metal, when she landed.
    Wait. Where
would
they land?
    “Hey!” Slobad cried through the storm, still clinging to her leg. “We slowing down, huh?”
    “What?” Glissa shouted in reply, but realized the goblin was right. The downward pull of gravity wasn’t as strong, and their descent was slowing by the second. Fortunately, the ruined leveler army over their heads didn’t get any closer. “It must be something affecting everything in here,” Glissa said. “Look, the levelers are slowing down too.”
    “Glissa?”
    “Yeah?
    “Why we slowing down when I still barely see end of tunnel, huh?”
    Glissa craned her neck to look down to the other end of the lacuna, where they would emerge among the towering mycosynth spires in the light of the burning mana core. It was bigger than the pinpoint she’d seen before, but they were still easily as far from the center as they were from the surface.
    “That’s it!” Glissa shouted. Though the wind whistling in her ears was no longer as loud, the clatter of construct parts tumbling down from above had become almost deafening. “We’re reaching the center!”
    “No, that down there,” Slobad bellowed. “Big ball, remember?”
    “I mean the center of the lacuna. It’s magic.”
    “You think?” Slobad asked.
    “I mean a big, big enchantment. Something that covers the