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  CLOAK GAMES: SKY HAMMER

  Jonathan Moeller

  Table of Contents

  Description

  Chapter 1: Retreat

  Chapter 2: Ghostwright Mask

  Chapter 3: Eternity

  Chapter 4: The Invasion

  Chapter 5: Border Disputes

  Chapter 6: Frostfever

  Chapter 7: I Died And Went To Hell

  Chapter 8: Rebel Fist

  Chapter 9: Shatter Stone

  Chapter 10: Ninety Percent

  Chapter 11: The Last Death Of Nadia Moran

  Chapter 12: Nothing’s Better Than Payback

  Chapter 13: Summons

  Chapter 14: Thief Trap

  Chapter 15: Duty

  Chapter 16: Number

  Epilogue: Did You Think We Were Done?

  An Unexpected Author’s Note

  Other books by the author

  About the Author

  Description

  All my life I've carried out the Elven archmage Morvilind's dangerous missions.

  But now the game has spun out of Morvilind's control.

  Because the Rebel warlord Nicholas Connor has seized the Sky Hammer nuclear doomsday weapon, and he's going to burn Earth and rebuild human civilization in his own twisted image.

  And unless I stop Nicholas, my brother and billions of other people are going to die.

  Cloak Games: Sky Hammer

  Copyright 2018 by Jonathan Moeller.

  Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC.

  Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.

  Ebook edition published June 2018.

  All Rights Reserved.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Chapter 1: Retreat

  I stumbled through the rift way from Last Judge Mountain to the Shadowlands.

  The rift way closed behind me, and a lot of things went wrong at once.

  The first and most urgent thing was that my coat caught fire.

  It was my phone, you see.

  I wore a long black navy pea coat, and the phone rested in my front left pocket. Electronics don’t work in the Shadowlands, and if you take an electronic device into the Shadowlands, it gets fried in about five seconds. But if the electronic device is powered up at the time, sometimes it short circuits and the battery catches fire.

  Since Russell and Murdo and I had been fleeing for our lives from a mob of steel golems, there hadn’t been time to power off my phone. It started on fire with a sizzling crackle, and I yelped and tried to pull my coat off.

  This, however, was only the first thing that went wrong.

  The second thing that had gone wrong, of course, was that we had been forced to retreat to the Shadowlands. Granted, it had been the best of the available options. I hadn’t figured out a way to kill Nicholas Connor, and Nicholas had seized control of the steel golems guarding the Sky Hammer. I couldn’t fight and win against one steel golem, let alone eleven of the goddamned things. Fleeing to the Shadowlands had been the best of the available hand of bad options.

  Though it was like jumping from the frying pan and into the fire. The Shadowlands are vast and infinite. Earth’s umbra, the shadow it casts into the Shadowlands, was far safer than the wild spaces between the umbras of the various worlds, but it was still filled with dangerous creatures like the anthrophages and the bloodrats and worse things.

  For that matter, the Shadowlands were the source of magic, which meant that magic was more powerful here. Even as I tried to get out of my burning coat, the surge of power shooting through my brain threatened to overwhelm me. It was the first time I had been to the Shadowlands since escaping from the Eternity Crucible, and I was unprepared for the surge of magical power.

  It was a weird, jittery feeling like I had just downed an entire gallon of espresso on an empty stomach. For a minute it felt like my brain was on fire, and pins and needles shot up and down my limbs. While my brain felt like it was on fire, my coat was actually on fire, and I focused on that. The mental discipline of a wizard took over as I ripped away my burning coat, forcing back the tide of magical power that threatened to knock me unconscious.

  And as I got out of my burning coat, I noticed something else that was wrong.

  I knew where we were in the Shadowlands.

  Specifically, we had landed in the demesne of Venomhold.

  We stood in a desert of black glass, plains of jagged obsidian stretching away in all directions. In the distance, I saw a pyramid of human skulls, white and bleached and grinning. To my left rose a range of black mountains, as dark as a wall of shadows. The citadel of Venomhold itself sprawled across one of those mountains. It was huge and mad and surreal. Its half-ruined look put me in mind of the spell-shattered towers in the wreckage of downtown Chicago. Venomhold resembled a castle, yet it was a strange mix of towers and cathedral spires and ziggurat terraces and palace colonnades, a dozen different architectural styles blended together. The whole thing looked like a giant stone tumor.

  But that was a distant problem.

  A more immediate problem was right in front of me.

  We were in a Rebel base.

  There were three of those prefab trailers I had seen at other Rebel bases hidden throughout the United States, and I assumed that the trailers had been dragged through a Gatekeeper’s rift way and installed here. I saw many tracks and footprints on the dusty black ground, and it looked like a lot of heavy things had been moved recently. Nicholas and the Rebels had been smuggling armaments into Venomhold for over a year, and if Nicholas was planning to attack the High Queen on July 4th, then he needed all the guns and ammo he could get.

  Though the Sky Hammer might make that moot.

  And the Rebel base was guarded.

  Twenty or so gaunt, gray-skinned anthrophages whirled towards us, yellow eyes glaring at me as I threw aside my burning coat, their thin lips peeling back from black fangs. Behind them stood a man in combat fatigues and a ballistic vest, a puzzled frown on his face. He was middle-aged and worn-looking, and he wore a Sign of the Dark Ones on a chain around his neck, the medallion resting against his chest.

  That meant he was one of Nicholas’s Gatekeepers, possessed by a Dark One and capable of opening rift ways from Earth to the Shadowlands and back again. It also meant that he could use magic and command the obedience of those anthrophages.

  “Who the hell are you three?” snapped the Gatekeeper, eyes narrowing, purple light and shadow twisting around his right hand.

  I opened my mouth, closed it again.

  “Um,” I said, looking at Russell and Murdo.

  Russell was fine. He had come through the rift way unharmed, though he was pointing his AK-47 at the anthrophages. That was useless since gunpowder did not work in the Shadowlands. I took a quick look at Murdo. Morelli had shot him twice during the fight in the Sky Hammer laboratory, and he looked pained, his eyes solid black. The gunshots would have killed him, but those black eyes meant he was a Shadow Hunter, and his Shadowmorph was healing the wounds. Given enough time, he would be fine.

  Except his left hand was on fire.

  A haze of silver fire wrapped around his left wrist and hand and cracks of silver light crawled up his arm. His arm seemed to be…I don’t know, shimmering somehow, or rippling. Like the air over a road rippling in the summer sun.

  Or a Mask spell that wasn’t working
quite right.

  A Mask spell?

  “I said who the hell are you three?” said the Gatekeeper, snatching my attention from Murdo’s burning left hand.

  I started to draw power together for a spell.

  “You goddamn idiots. All the Gatekeepers were supposed to have been to the staging area yesterday!” snapped the Gatekeeper. “The Overseer could give the word to launch the attack at any minute, and you three are dawdling?”

  Wait. He thought that I was another Gatekeeper?

  Given how busy Nicholas had been keeping his Gatekeepers, it was entirely possible they hadn’t all met each other.

  “Uh,” I said. “Uh, yes, we are.” My tired, reeling brain tried to pull together a good lie. “We ran into trouble on Earth. Homeland Security. There was a shootout, and we barely got away.” I gestured at where my coat was burning on the ground. “Didn’t even have time to turn off my phone. Lucky it didn’t burn a hole in my ass.”

  The Gatekeeper scowled. “Where did you come from?”

  “Nevada,” said Russell with smooth calm. “One of the bases there.” I wondered how he had learned to lie so smoothly.

  Hell, who was I kidding? He had probably learned it from me.

  “We came under attack from Homeland Security there,” I added. “Barely got away in time. Wouldn’t want to give away the Overseer’s plan, now would we?”

  The Gatekeeper just stared at us. I cleared my mind and started to summon magical power, getting ready to cast a spell.

  “Why is your hand on fire?” said the Gatekeeper to Murdo.

  “It’s not on fire,” said Murdo with a straight face. “It’s a chemical glowstick.”

  The Gatekeeper’s brows furrowed. I didn’t know what the hell the silver fire around Murdo’s left wrist was, but it definitely wasn’t a chemical glowstick.

  “Right,” said the Gatekeeper.

  “Listen,” I said. “We’re late, and we need to get to staging area, so we’re just going to head, um, that way,” I gestured vaguely towards the sprawling citadel of Venomhold, “and get into position. The Overseer’s big offensive is coming, so we’d better not be late, yeah?”

  I needed to cast the rift way spell to get away from here, and I needed to do it right now. Sooner or later someone would realize that we weren’t supposed to be here, and then every monster and Rebel in Venomhold would be gunning for us. Well, guns didn’t work here, but claws and fangs and magic did. That said, I couldn’t use the rift way spell here. If I cast it at this location, the spell would take us back to Last Judge Mountain, and Nicholas and his steel golems would kill us in short order. I needed to get a few hundred yards away so the rift way would not go back to Nevada.

  And we had to get back to Earth as soon as possible. Nicholas was going to detonate the Sky Hammer bomb in New York to kill the High Queen, the Elven nobles of North and South America, and the federal government and a ton of other dignitaries from other countries. I didn’t care about them, but fifteen million people lived in New York, fifteen million people who didn’t deserve to die. That was horrible enough, but the EMP pulse from the Sky Hammer would knock the High Queen’s Skythrone from the air.

  It would be like an asteroid hitting the Earth. The resultant wave would drown every major city on the Atlantic Ocean. The dust cloud would block out the sun for years. Billions of people would die, and Nicholas would rebuild the survivors into his twisted vision of society.

  Or the Archons would conquer Earth, and the Dark Ones would devour us all.

  But I could still avert that. I knew the phone number of the Lord Inquisitor himself. I hated Arvalaeon’s guts for what he had done to me, but if I warned him in time, he would make sure Nicholas’s plan got shut down.

  “I’m not sure…” started the Gatekeeper.

  “For God’s sake, man?” I snapped. “I’m already way behind on the timetable. Do you really want to explain to the Overseer why the hell I’m so late?” I smirked at him. “Or do you want me to blame you? I could tell the Overseer that you’re the reason why I’m running late.”

  The Gatekeeper scowled. “Why would the Overseer believe you over me?”

  I grinned my mirthless grin at him. “I’m prettier, and the Overseer likes pretty girls.”

  The Gatekeeper scoffed, but unease went over his face.

  Damn if my bluff wasn’t working.

  “Then get moving,” said the Gatekeeper. “But if the Overseer or that prick Corbisher chew you out for being late, don’t blame me. I’m not the one using the incorrect access point.”

  “Great,” I said, glancing at Murdo and Russell. Murdo was looking a little better as his Shadowmorph healed the gunshot wounds. That weird silver fire on his arm didn’t seem to be causing him any pain. “Let’s move, guys.”

  I took three steps, and then the whole thing fell apart.

  “Wait,” snarled one of the anthrophages. “Stop.”

  “Don’t give me orders, asshole,” I snapped. “Be a good little guard dog and…”

  “You are her,” snarled the anthrophage. “The enemy of the great masters.” The anthrophage looked at the Gatekeeper. “She is an enemy! She must be killed!”

  The Gatekeeper blinked and looked at me, and I saw comprehension go over his face.

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait. You’re the one Corbisher tried to…”

  “Aw, hell,” I said, and I cast a spell.

  I hurled a sphere of fire at the Gatekeeper, intending to blast a hole through his head. But either the Gatekeeper himself or the Dark One inside his skull was ready for me. His right hand twitched, black fire snarling around his fingers, and he worked a Shield spell of flickering dark fire. My attack slammed into his Shield and knocked the Gatekeeper back a step, but it didn’t reach him.

  “Take them!” screamed the Gatekeeper, starting a spell.

  “Nadia, deal with him!” said Murdo, his elemental blade snapping into existence in his right hand. “I’ll handle the anthrophages!”

  Murdo would handle anthrophages while he was still recovering from two bullet wounds?

  I would just have to make sure I dealt with this Gatekeeper as swiftly as I could. Though since Murdo was a Shadow Hunter, his Shadowmorph would feed off every anthrophage that he cut down. He could probably heal himself just by killing the anthrophages.

  Assuming they didn’t kill us first.

  “Russell, stay by me!” I shouted, and then I cast a Shield spell just as the Gatekeeper got his act together and threw a blast of Dark One-empowered shadow fire. I charged my Shield with regeneration energy, which seemed the only thing capable of blocking those attacks, and the burst slammed into my spell. I gritted my teeth and held against the attack, and my Shield winked out of existence. I cast another spell and hurled a volley of lightning globes at the Gatekeeper. He summoned more power of his own, and a twisting shell of black fire appeared around him. My globes howled into the shell. The dark fire resisted the first four globes, but the fifth one punched through. Fingers of lighting raked into the Gatekeeper, and he screamed and stumbled to one knee, smoke rising from his clothes.

  Murdo tore into the anthrophages like a storm. His face was a mask of pain from the gunshot wounds, but none of it translated to his movements. He dodged around the bites and slashes of the anthrophages, and his elemental blade rose and fell, leaving pieces of anthrophages in its wake. As his fiery sword flickered and stabbed, I caught a glimpse of its dark core. It kind of looked like a Shadowmorph blade…

  No. Wait. It was a Shadowmorph blade. It always had been a Shadowmorph, hadn’t it? He had just somehow wrapped it in the elemental blade to mask its presence. Neat trick, that. But just as magic was stronger in the Shadowlands, so would his Shadowmorph blade be stronger and harder to hide here.

  All that flashed through my head in a second, but my full attention was on the Gatekeeper.

  He snarled and cast another spell, and a stream of purple fire and shadow ripped from his fingers and hammered at me. But I was
ready, and another Shield of flickering golden light shimmered into existence. The shaft of dark magic struck the Shield, but I held it in place, and as I did, I called more power for a spell. It was the same tactic the Gatekeeper had used earlier, trying to overwhelm me with raw force, but he wasn’t strong enough to pull it off.

  That was the weakness of the Rebel Gatekeepers. Their Dark Ones gave them power, but they didn’t really understand magic. They didn’t understand their spells the way that I did. They hadn’t spent a century and a half casting spell after spell after spell, getting killed again and again and again…

  I bared my teeth and finished my next spell. Even as I held my Shield against the torrent of dark fire, I cast the ice spike spell. A lance of ice as thick as my leg and longer than I was tall shot from my hand and hurtled towards the Gatekeeper. I suspected the aura of shadow fire around him would drain away the spell, so I didn’t aim it at him. Instead, I targeted the spell at his feet, and the ice spike hit the ground and shattered.

  About half the fragments slammed into him.

  The Gatekeeper stumbled with a scream of pain, and I saw blood fly from his mouth as one of the fragments smacked into his face. Before he recovered, I drew together power for my next spell, and I threw a sphere of fire at him.

  He never saw it coming.

  The spell of fire blasted into his right temple and out his left, and the Gatekeeper fell limp to the ground, smoke rising from the tunnel I had drilled into his skull.

  I let out a long breath, trying to concentrate through the buzzing in my head. I was already tired from the fighting in Last Judge Mountain, and the effort of controlling the extra torrent of power from the Shadowlands wasn’t helping. Murdo had taken down about two-thirds of the anthrophages, and I needed to help him finish off the remaining creatures. I took a few more deep breaths, steadying myself.

  “Nadia!” said Russell, pointing.

  My head snapped around just in time to see two Archons emerge from one of the trailers.