“Do you mind going on alone? I need to attend to someone,” Gaby replied. Her fists were shaking and the muscles in her neck tensed, tightening her face. She never lost eye contact with the woman.
“I know that look and that euphemism. Just do me a favor, please?”
“What?” Gaby asked, her voice conveying her annoyance. Alex looked at her with pleading eyes.
“Don’t lose yourself there. Remember who you are and what we practiced. You are not a heartless assassin. You are my friend.”
Gaby smiled briefly at that comment. She kissed him on the forehead. “Be careful too. She might not be alone, and we have little time before we will feel the draining effects.”
“I will be fine, I think,” Alex replied, eyeing the drop to the core, clearing his throat. “Aww crap.”
Gaby unsheathed Heartguard while covering Alex’s descent from possible attack. Both women gazed at each other. Gaby twirled both swords in her hands, trying to calm her mind down. Once she was sure Alex was gone and wouldn’t witness this, she stood as tall as she could and her irises started to glow with a faint, eerie blue light.
“Shall we?” Gaby asked. “Because dropping in unannounced on someone is rude.”
“You are one to talk. It is always a pleasure to teach a young person some manners,” Madam Park said with a dismissive nod towards a large space on the deck, far from where Fionn and Byron were fighting.
Madam Park moved fast, with a celerity that created ripples in her armor. It looked as if it was made out of woven metallic silk. Gaby stood calm, waiting for the attack. Her ponytail streamed behind her from the wind blowing across the deck.
Tendrils came her way at lightning speed, forcing Gaby to move as fast as she could. But even that wasn’t enough to save her from getting scraped. Gaby tried to block the pain the small, deep cuts had caused her.
“Nice moves, child,” Park replied, smiling. “One last chance to escape, as a courtesy.”
“I don’t think so.”
“As you wish.”
Park let out some air in frustration and ripples ran through her armor as she launched the tendrils once more at Gaby. They came from three different directions. At that point, Gaby decided to throw caution to the wind. This was not a time for half measures, not with the lives of Fionn and Alex at stake. If she lost, Madam Park would surely go after them, spoiling the plan. Gaby was their shield now. If she was going to win this fight, she needed to use the Gift. What she was planning to do was a gamble, but consequences be damned, it was a risk that had to be taken. Though with the training Fionn gave her, she was sure it would work. She closed her eyes for a second, drew deep from the Gift, and felt its energy fusing with the mental conditioning of the Ice State. This time, like during the practice with Fionn and Alex, felt different. It was less cold than usual, but just as focused. The rhythm it suggested was more akin to a rock song, like the one she had sung on the Figaro, than a dance.
I ought to change its name now, Gaby thought.
Each second of the fight stretched into minutes, the tendrils moving slower for her. Not slow enough that she didn’t need to worry, but enough that she could let her mind envision what was going to happen next. The key was, as Fionn had suggested, being the calm in the eye of the storm. She could hear inside her head, clear and loud, the notes that her ‘song’ was creating. Every time Park tried to grab her, punch her or kick her, she was in a different spot. Her technique was a matter of fluidity, like water flowing through space in a continuous movement, one step taking her to the next without a break.
Each movement, each counterattack synched to her breath, to the song. Breathe in, dodge the attack, a twist, a pirouette, a side jump. Breathe out, a punch, a slash with her blades, a kick. Every move perfectly measured, with enough strength to hurt but not enough to get her tired.
To an outsider, it was a beautiful dance between two skillful practitioners of an ancient art. Another series of attacks by Madam Park forced Gaby to jump as high as possible, thrust by the Gift into a somersault whose descent for her seemed to appear to be in slow motion, as if time was freezing around her. It was then when Gaby noticed something. Madam Park wasn’t even breaking a sweat, she was smiling even. And it dawned on her with trepidation and a self-admitted sense of excitement: Madam Park had been trained by the Sisters as well. That’s why Park didn’t make a boast or a challenge or a demand, she was already in the Ice State. Gaby’s face must have betrayed her realization because Madam Park grinned.
“Finally, an even match with a fellow student.” Park readied her armor, to attack Gaby as soon as she descended from her last pirouette.
This is not a dance. It is a song. MY song. Gaby just smiled. It would be the fight of her life.
† † †
Alex finished his descent into the crater, hating every second of it because of the smell of rotting corpses that flooded the place. Only through that downward trip into the innards of the Bestial could he envision the true horror of what the creature was, what it had done to its previous crew. They had been absorbed alive into the fuselage and now their moans filled the air. The lower he descended, the more he lost his sense of location. The whole place made him feel nauseated. And the ringing didn’t help either. The damn ringing in his ears was becoming an annoyance. No matter how much he tried to block the Gift, the danger warnings it gave him were always on.
I know I’m surrounded by evil, dangerous things, so no need for the alert, he thought.
Once Alex touched the last intact deck, his first instinct was to throw up. The smell was more potent here, and the miasma that floated around hit him. It took him a minute to regain his bearings enough to focus just enough of his Gift to be able to track the energy ebbs and flows from and to the core of the ship. After a moment he could see the orangish tendrils of energy. The color told him what he suspected, that the ship was alive. If it had been just mechanical, the energy would look blue for him. Soon, he felt the drain on energy in his body. It was draining him and he needed to save energy just in case.
Luckily for him, the Figaro’s shot had been quite close to the core and it didn’t take him long to reach the core chamber. It was a vast room, where blood dripped from the beams and a grave, pulsating sound, like that of a drum, could be heard echoing in the chamber. Alex slowly walked towards the entrance, the thumping resounding stronger with each step. What he saw left him breathless.
Three guards protected the entrance to the core. Behind them, the Bestial’s core was a monstrous heart made of pulsating metal, crystals and living tissue, with a rugose quality to its external surface. It looked like lizard skin, glowing with a faint purplish light that turned green and back in a rhythmic sequence. The core was surrounded by three metal rings, arranged as if they were a gyroscope. The arrangement looked eerily familiar to Alex. It was an enlarged, more powerful version of the machine that had created the incursion at the Straits.
So it’s a gate as much as a power source, Alex thought. That will be a problem.
He realized that to create a controlled explosion, he would have to place the explosives in strategic points inside the chamber instead of peppering the place with arrows. That would take time.
Alex took a deep breath, calming his mind and getting ready for the fight. This would be easier with Gaby at his side. Taking another breath, he came out of his hiding place, fired three arrows in quick succession and hit two of the guards, the third managing to evade the shot. Alex closed the gap between him and the guard. They started trading punches. Alex dodged the vicious attacks until he managed to grab the mook’s head and slam it into a nearby metal column, leaving him unconscious.
“Why don’t you sleep that one off…” Alex said, then he noticed the body lying in a weird position, the head turned completely around. “Or not. Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. Guess I put too much force into that one.”
Alex crossed th
e entrance into the chamber. The core and the surrounding gyroscope were suspended over a wide vent, but not far from reach thanks to a bridge that crossed the vent. The bridge was wide enough to allow three grown men to walk side by side and still have breathing space.
Alex took out most of the small explosive charges he was carrying in the pouch tied to his belt, and proceeded to install them, hoping they worked. A single one wouldn’t do too much damage, but a chain of explosions timed properly would send enough energy feedback into the core to make it implode by itself. Or so his theory went. He finished setting up the explosives and allowed himself a smile. He then walked away from the bridge.
That was easy, Alex thought. It was then that the ringing in his ears, which he had been trying to ignore, exploded into a continuous buzzing. Too easy.
“Aww crap.”
Alex felt a presence behind him and he turned his head to see who it was. Behind him was the same massive man who had beaten his friend Birm back at the university.
Alex felt himself being picked up from behind and thrown away toward a metal column. He braced for the impact.
Chapter 19
When One Thing Fails, Try Something Else
“I can’t believe that Alex got that right,” Sam muttered.
The Figaro flew at maximum speed towards the center of the city, where the three crystal obelisks, joined by a sculpted bronze belt, stood as a memorial to those that had died during the Great War. No one knew where they had come from or who made them, only that King Castlemartell had them erected on the hill overseeing the small town which had now become a bustling city. The public illumination, shining at full, delineated the shapes of the roads and parks that started at the center and ended at the round white walls that bordered the city. As Alex had pointed out, Sam could now see how the lattice of the city’s roads and public spaces resembled a magick circle of power.
“He gets things right nine times out of ten,” Sid maneuvered the Figaro around the Towers, looking for a place to land.
“And the tenth?” Sam asked.
“He fails miserably,” Sid interjected.
“Are you ready, Your Majesty?” Harland asked, standing up from the copilot seat. “We are on a tight schedule here after the transmission of your failed execution, and we need to disembark some passengers.”
“Yes. My Knights must be ready too,” the Queen replied, surprisingly calm for a lady her age. This emergency crisis must have felt for her like a welcomed break from boring protocol life.
“Sam?”
“I think so,” Sam replied nervously, as so much rested on her shoulders.
“You will do fine, Sam. I trust you, Fionn trusts you.” Harland reassured her with a smile.
“If it helps, I believe in you too,” Sid added, while he was landing the ship a few meters from the obelisks. Five armored soldiers waited for them. Harland noticed the delicate handiwork on their armor, gleaming in gold and silver, like the one worn by the Dragonking. The Solarian Knights, the personal guard of Queen Sophia, masters of the titanfight style. They were the replacement of the Twelve Swords and had been drafted from noble houses. They were unbelievably smug as well.
The cargo bay opened, extending the ramp to allow the Queen and Sam to disembark, followed by the students and professors who carried the injured Professor Hunt. A few soldiers picked up the professor, taking him to a waiting ambulance. Not soon after Sam put a foot on the ground of the plaza, her hair turned bright purple, attracting the looks of the Knights.
“This place is full of power. I can feel it in my bones,” Sam said with a mix of concern and elation, kneeling to be the same height as Harland.
“That’s good, kid. That means that any spell you cast will be more powerful than ever,” Harland told her, his hands placed on her shoulders.
“You know what will happen if I do that,” Sam replied, returning the looks of the Knights, who were being lectured by the Queen. “The uncomfortable effects of using magick at full force.”
“Who cares about them?” Harland looked at the soldiers.
Sam felt uneasy. A mix of emotions and sensations crawled beneath her skin. Like an electric shock, her body was absorbing too much energy.
“Pricks!” Harland raised his voice, sure that the soldiers were listening. “Where is the rebel that drove Fionn crazy a few years ago? The one that just jumped without a parachute to rescue the Queen? You have more guts in your pinkie finger than those idiots. Be proud of who and what you are. Never back down. Besides, you look pretty in purple.”
“Thank you,” Sam hugged Harland.
“After tonight, they will be the ones to thank you. Do you have everything with you?”
“Yes. Now you have to go.” Sam stood up. She smiled at Harland and walked towards the people gathering at the feet of the obelisks. Freefolk members of the Fire Tribe arrived through the underground roads of the city and surrounded the obelisks. The Knights looked at them with disdain and at Sam with surprise.
“What? Haven’t you ever seen a combat magus?” Sam told them with renewed strength in her voice. “Time for you to learn, boys. Soon, creatures will land here trying to touch those obelisks and close a circuit through the circlets on their necks. That circuit will allow their master to summon monsters even worse than that thing that has been destroying the land. Our job is to stop that from happening. So try to keep up.”
“We don’t take orders from you,” a Solarian Knight replied with disdain and prepotency.
“You do now!” the Queen ordered, her voice loud and clear. She was getting her combat gear on and was testing a falchion sword. “Her orders are as good as mine and shall be followed without delay or complaint, are we clear?”
The Solarian Knights seemed to be taken aback. But none dared to contradict or even argue with the Queen. Her tone of voice and the faint glow of her irises left no room for argument. They simply nodded in acquiescence. Sam wondered if she had looked so fearsome when she was younger, during the war. No wonder her dad seemed scared of her at times.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Sam nodded to the Queen, and then she addressed her students and colleagues. “I’m gonna ask all of you for one thing, students and teachers. If you stay here, give it your all! Nothing crosses this garden without us burning it. We have power here, let’s use it!”
“She takes after her father,” the Queen murmured to Harland with a smile.
“Then we are in safe hands.”
With a flourish of her left hand, Sam unleashed the magick spell that made a quarterstaff grow from her palm once more. The weapon hummed with the power running through it.
“That’s Izia’s quarterstaff,” the Queen noticed, walking to Sam. “Where did you get it?”
“Family heirloom, Your Grace,” Sam explained, while her hair, electrified by the magick currents running through her body, started to glow. “Here they come!”
Sam saw a cloud coming their way. Except that it wasn’t a cloud. It was a multitude of flying humanoid critters, followed by a volley from the Bestial’s belly cannons. Sam and the freefolk students let lose a volley of their own, full of magick spells, while the Queen and her Knights braced for impact.
† † †
The Figaro had taken off just when the first volley of attacks from the Bestial hit the city, spreading panic and fire through its quarters. Harland barely had time to fasten his seatbelt when the Figaro rocked from one of the impacts.
“They don’t waste time,” Sid muttered, adjusting some settings on the control console. “Let’s go, we need to pick up the guys before they blow up that thing... whatda…” Sid fell silent, looking at something on his screens.
“What the hell are those?” Harland asked, seeing two giant-sized metal balls composed of several plates impact in the outskirts of the park. The plates opened and released several mutated men, similar to thos
e Harland had witnessed at Carffadon. “Forget that, I think I already know.”
“I’m more worried about that,” Sid pointed at something far away. He pushed a couple of buttons and a screen in the HUD grew, showing the Bestial’s slow advance towards the city, surrounded by flying critters, a mash-up of the drones that attacked the Figaro at the Maze, and insects with strange features.
“Remember the news reports.”
The Bestial, in all its massive glory, cast a shadow so dark, it was unnatural. Once the shadow left a spot of ground behind, the land was withered, devoid of all life and covered by a grayish frost. It was as if it had sucked all the vital energy from the land below. Any living being unlucky enough to be caught under that shadow ended up as nothing more than dried bones glowing green. And the sensors of the Figaro reported temperatures well below what was normal for the area at this time of the year.
“Damn, if that thing closes in on the city, thousands will die. Get to the gunnery station,” Sid barked at Harland. “We are going to slow it down.”
“How? Towing it?”
“Let’s call that Plan B. Right now I’m going with the stupid Plan A. If Fionn is right, the Bestial hates dragons, right?” Sid pulled some levers and adjusted the gyroscopes.
“Yes, but what does that have to do with us?”
“The Figaro now has a dragon core.”
“We are going to bait it.” Harland opened his eyes in realization. “It will slow down because we will distract it.”
“Yep, just long enough for Gaby and Alex to finish their thing and get the Pits out of there. And since our automated guns were knocked out at the Maze, I need you to keep the sky clear while we do that. I can’t fly the damn ship and shoot them down at the same time,” Sid replied, slightly annoyed while pushing the yoke of the ship, accelerating it. “I’m gonna regret this.”
“Ok, ok, no need to go ballistic.”
“I handle this kind of pressure poorly.”
The Withered King Page 27