Architects of Ether

by Ryan Muree

  Grier hadn’t trained for this. This wasn’t what years of conditioning his body against the brunt force of ethereal attacks and Ingini were meant to be about. This wasn’t what he’d signed up for. This wasn’t what Stadhold represented.

  He stood aside. “Hurry,” he said, leveling his tone to show how sincere he’d meant it.

  The man helped his wife to stand with the baby in her arms, his eyes never leaving Grier’s face. They hurried past him and into the chaos of the streets.

  Running back out, he found Emeryss jogging toward him. “We’re not going to make it to all the homes. This is taking too long.”

  The fleet was nearly over them, raining flame and ash.

  He needed to be faster.

  He looked at his finger. It still throbbed beneath his bandage. He quickly unwound it and touched the bare, raw skin with the fresh sigil beneath it. Nothing happened.

  “Are you trying to activate it?” Emeryss asked, glancing around them. “Right now?”

  It was still sore, but it did nothing.

  Burst.

  Nothing.

  “Where’s Adalai?” Mykel shouted at them. “This would go a lot faster if she could zip around and warn people.”

  Grier snapped his finger. Pinched his finger.

  Come on.

  He tried to go into a trance.

  Nothing.

  “I don’t know where she is,” Sonora shouted from across the street. “These people are not going to make it.”

  “She needs to be down here helping, now!” Jahree barked as he exited a neighboring building.

  “Where’s Clove and Mack?” Mykel asked.

  Clove trotted up to them from across the street. Her eyes were bright and wet. “I had Mack stay to watch Kimpert,” Clove panted.

  Sirens wailed across the city, but it wasn’t from the Ingini.

  “Is that the RCA?” Emeryss asked.

  “They’re on foot, too.” Jahree cursed.

  Urla put her cane on her back and gestured ahead of them. “We’re going to have to fight.”

  Vaughn shook his head. “We can’t fight against our own, right?”

  “We can defend these people and defend ourselves,” Grier said. “If you don’t want to, then leave. But I’m staying here to defend them with what I can.”

  Emeryss took his arm. “I’m staying.”

  Sonora nodded. “We all are. And Adalai just told me she’s in the city, too.”

  “She better be,” Jahree bit out. “If they don’t kill her in this fight, then I might have to.”

  Airships zipped overhead from the east toward the oncoming fleet.

  “UA?” Grier shouted over the rumbling.

  Clove looked at Jahree. “I have an idea. Follow me.”

  The two took off through the streets as the rest of them stood and waited.

  The UA would clear out a good chunk of the oncoming RCA airships, but it wouldn’t stop them all, and it wouldn’t stop the ground troops.

  Grier dissolved his shield, materialized a new one, and reached into his forearm for his swordstaff. He looked at Emeryss. “You ready?”

  She nodded, left hand up. “Mind if I stay near you just in case?”

  Her smirk warmed him. “We can do this. Just shield their backs from any attacks as the Ingini run out.”

  “They’d really attack them while they’re running?” Vaughn asked.

  Urla cracked her knuckles and her neck. “This is going to be a rude awakening for all of us, I think.”

  Shouts echoed through the streets, but they were deep as if from an organized mass. Around the corner, Ingini citizens ran for their lives, and the RCA moved in.

  “Shields up right after they pass us!” Grier ordered.

  Chapter 36

  Sufford — Ingini

  Clove was running on pure adrenalin, pure guilt that she’d sabotaged everything. She didn’t want Kimpert to win, or Revel, but she would have chosen a border skirmish over this massacre any day.

  “Where are we going?” Jahree said, jogging beside her. His long strides made sprinting ahead of him difficult.

  She pointed off a few streets. “They keep spare airships in those smaller hangars at the back of the city.”

  They darted around a corner and crossed another street.

  “Are you asking me to fly an Ingini airship against my own people?”

  She glanced at him, unsure he’d help. It was the best she could come up with.

  “I would be honored,” he smiled. “But who gets to pilot?”

  The mass of people running for their lives slowed them down. She fought to get upstream of the crowd toward the hangars.

  “You. I’ll shoot,” she shouted.

  “You can shoot airship guns, too?” He whistled.

  She was going to try.

  They crossed the last few streets toward a small landing zone with a couple of airships. Mostly for transport, they were agile and always had some sort of gun affixed to them.

  The UA flew overhead, darting between RCA ships breaking from the fleet.

  Clove jumped on board an airship, dropped inside the gunnery cage, and kicked on the switch for the gun. “Get us up, quick!” she shouted to him.

  Jahree shut the cargo hold door behind him, landed in the pilot’s seat, and got the airship up in the air. “It’ll take me a minute to get used to these controls. They’re a little different.”

  She was inspecting her own piece of machinery, making sure she understood the difference between stream and bolt. “Yeah, me too.”

  The airship was up but dipped a little too far to the ground.

  “Open the bottom vents all the way!” she shouted.

  “I did!” he called back. “The air’s too thin.”

  Slowly the airship climbed, as Jahree gradually got a handle on things.

  She peered out of the gunnery cage to the devastation below. “Take us around the west side of the city!” she called up to him.

  The airship turned, and they found miles of scorched earth, from Sufford to the border.

  “Three o’clock!” Jahree shouted.

  He swerved the airship out of the way, and a pretty gold and white RCA airship came into view. She aimed the gun.

  Higher, Cayn would say. You have to account for the distance.

  But she didn’t know how far the other ship was from them. She tilted the gun slightly up over the top edge of the RCA airship and hit the pulse button.

  A flurry of ether-pulses shot out toward the RCA ship a little too high.

  “They see us!” Jahree tilted the airship, and they careened toward the surface before he twisted back in the correct position.

  Don’t miss. Aim a little high. Not too high.

  She aimed the gun again, hit pulse, and the ether hit the airship this time. A few flew off too high, but the bulk of the shots hit, splitting the airship in two and sending it to the ground.

  “Nice. Can’t believe I’m saying that, but nice.” Jahree pulled them around as an RCA ship blew up right in front of them.

  Debris, smoke, and fire clattered against their airship and clouded her vision.

  Clove coughed, wiping the smoke from her eyes. “Can you not run into other crashing ships, please?”

  “Sorry!”

  The airship dipped and then rose steadily. “Twelve o’clock!”

  She shot, blowing another RCA airship out of the sky.

  “One o’clock!”

  She shot again and again. Sometimes it decimated the ships immediately, sometimes she missed and barely grazed their wings. Either way, they were helping the UA thin out the encroaching air fleet.

  “Nice work, Clove!”

  “You too!” she shouted.

  “I’m going to take us higher.”

  One RCA airship was barreling through the sky, lighting up UA ship after ship with efficiency and speed. It was racing toward a mass of Sufford citizens running south out of the city.

  “I see you,” J
ahree said. “Hit ‘em, Clove!”

  She shot and missed.

  The airship dove, and so did Jahree.

  Clove’s head slammed into the roof of the cage. She cried out but managed to get back into her seat behind the gun.

  “You okay?” Jahree shouted.

  “Yeah,” she mumbled, still trying to aim the gun at the airship before it struck the citizens.

  The airship was shaking, the bolts and sides were rattling. “Slow down, Jahree. This ship can’t take this speed.”

  “I can’t get close enough!”

  She aimed the gun at the airship racing farther and farther away.

  Aim higher.

  She slammed the stream button with her thumbs, and an arc of ether flew out of the gun, across the air, and into the back of the RCA airship they were trailing.

  Fire and debris sputtered out of the airship as it lost control.

  “Did you hit it?”

  She hit it. But did she ground it?

  Smoke billowed wildly from the tail.

  Finally, its nose dipped until it collided with the surface.

  “Yes!” she shouted.

  “Taking us back around!”

  The airship banked hard right, pressing her down into her seat.

  The oncoming fleet of RCA ships was nearly gone, but a dark cloud behind it loomed.

  “What in the world is that?” he asked.

  She knew that cloud. She knew that movement. She’d seen it before.

  “Shit! Shit! We have to get out of the air, now! Get us out, now!”

  “What is that?”

  The same Super S-Class ship from the night she’d crashed parted through the clouds. It’d disguised itself as a storm, and the webbed light arcing out around it would send all the UA airships to the ground.

  Including theirs.

  “Get us out now!” she screamed.

  Jahree was already pressing the airship to the ground. Every inch closer was safer and a better chance of surviving.

  “Almost there!” he shouted.

  The ground was rapidly approaching.

  The airship rattled, pieces flew off.

  A piercing scream struck their airship, and it jerked sideways. The engines had cut off. Smoke filled her cage. She waved it away and coughed.

  “Are you okay?” he shouted.

  “I think the engines were blown off!” she screamed. “We’re going to crash!”

  The ground grew closer.

  This was it.

  She’d never see Cayn again.

  She’d never see Scuffle or Lana or Mack.

  She’d hastened her country’s demise, and now she was going to die in a crash just like all the other soldiers.

  Jahree was shouting at the controls, grunting and groaning.

  Fierce winds whipped up beneath and around them. Her hair beat against her face, distorting her view of the inevitable. She squeezed her eyes shut.

  I’m sorry, Cayn.

  And then they landed with a couple of bounces and a short slide.

  The ship didn’t break. They didn’t even slam into the ground. They’d simply stopped.

  She opened her eyes.

  What? How?

  They were alive.

  Jahree had kept them alive!

  “Did you just land this thing with your ether?” She crawled out of the gunnery cage and up to the bridge.

  Jahree sat panting, sprawled back against the chair. “Those are the moments you train for, but never think you’ll have to use.”

  She pulled him out of the seat. “You’re amazing, but really, we need to get out of here.”

  “No, ‘thank you’? No, ‘oh man, I can’t believe you saved my life’? Nothing?” he teased.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, though she had to stand on her tip-toes to do it. “Thank you.”

  He nodded and cleared his throat. “I was only kidding. Let’s get out of here. Are you trying to get us killed?”

  She smiled, and they ran out of the airship into the destruction of Sufford.

  Chapter 37

  Sufford — Ingini

  The RCA poured into the alleys as Emeryss pushed her enormous violet shield between them and the Sufford citizens running for their lives.

  Families ran screaming with tears running down their faces.

  Buildings collapsed either from airship crashes or the fire ripping through the center.

  Ash.

  Smoke.

  Darkness.

  In one fell swoop, the Revelians had arrived and rained nightmare on a sleepy town who’d been none the wiser. A town of people who’d gotten up that morning to work hard, to feed their loved ones, to be with friends, not knowing it might be their last chance.

  Yes, she embraced the Goddess of Death and wished She would see to the comfort of every person suffering in this attack, but Emeryss also wished She wasn’t needed. This should have never happened. Lives cut short. Chances never taken. Choices never made.

  Except one.

  One choice was made for them, and it was made by those too distant from this deathscape to truly understand. These people were pawns, as much as her people were pawns.

  The RCA was made up of mostly basic elemental Casters, but they pushed against her shield, pounded, beat, cast everything they could against it.

  Their shocked faces as a fellow Caster defied them was almost worth her fading concentration.

  She grunted and pushed back with her hands, willing the shield to hold just a little bit longer.

  Most of the streets had emptied of people running, but there were still stragglers.

  Everyone matters.

  Grier shook his head. “We can’t hold this off any longer. Look!” He pointed to the Super S-Class ship coasting into view above the city. It’s finger-like lightning sprawled out in all directions from its hull.

  “That looks like the night of Marana—”

  “Revel attacked first.” Grier swallowed. “Clove was telling the truth.”

  Of course, she was.

  Emeryss’s shield cracked, and she strained to keep it up with her hands. Sweat dripped down the side of her face and chin. Her arms ached, and her feet gripped the dirt road with her toes in her boots.

  “We need to move,” Grier said. “They’re finding ways around the shield. It’s not safe here anymore.”

  “As soon as I collapse it, we’re done…” She had to push it a little farther. She had to urge it back like she’d done with the laser. Hopefully, then, they’d have time to run.

  She controlled the shield. It was her manifestation from her mind with ether. She could do this.

  One more deep breath. “Three… two… one!”

  She pushed against the shield with all her strength, and it shoved forward, toppling several rows of RCA into the crowd behind them.

  They turned and ran down a street, the sense of the shield lessening until it faded away. It had already dissolved.

  They darted around two corners, down a street, past burning homes and crackling buildings.

  Smoke was thick, blocking their view and choking their lungs.

  She drew Gust with her left hand and pushed it out ahead of them.

  The smoke cleared enough for them to find a few RCA members breaking into homes and dragging people into the street by their hair.

  Grier tossed an ax at one in the back and bashed his shield into the face of another.

  Fireball.

  She tossed the sigil, incinerating the thigh of one of the other RCA members dragging a woman from her home. He spun and tossed a chunk of ice at her head.

  Move. Keep moving.

  It whistled past her like a bolt of ether.

  Engulf.

  The sigil blossomed to life in her hand, and when she shoved it out at the RCA member, he jumped out of the way of the pillar of fire just in time.

  He fashioned a spike of ice in his right hand and tossed it like a javelin at her chest.

  She twisted
out of the way like she’d seen Sonora do, and the spike scratched just the edge of her arm instead of piercing her.

  It was better, but not fast enough.

  She brought up Air Slice into her palm and tossed one after another at the RCA member, catching him in the ankle, the shins, the thighs, the gut, finally across the neck.

  The sheer look of horror at her casting wasn’t as unsettling as him falling over dead by her hand.

  A roar came from behind.

  She ducked and turned to face yet another RCA member, and found an older man stuck in place. His hands were aimed at her head but had been frozen mid-cast.

  A metal rod no thicker than her finger protruded from the center of his chest. His mouth and wound dribbled blood.

  “That was close,” Mykel said, holding the other end of the rod behind the man. “But you’re getting better.”

  She smiled in thanks as Grier pierced the chest of another with his swordstaff.

  Emeryss reached for the people cowering in the street. “Run east. Run.”

  They thanked them and scurried off.

  “The smoke is too thick.” Grier had soot on his face and hands.

  “Where are the others?” she yelled over the crashing and shouting.

  “Fighting, too,” Mykel said.

  Grier pointed to a mob of RCA behind another building in the next street over. “Let’s head that way.”

  An airship zoomed over their heads, crashing into a building with an ear-splicing crunch. More flames erupted while metal shot into the air with it.

  The heat licked her skin and singed her hair. RCA Casters were closing in on all sides.

  Gust.

  The ether came to her willingly and quickly, and it pushed aside the smoke and ash again, giving them more room to breathe and see.

  Grier charged forward, bashing one RCA in the face with his shield and slicing another across the neck. He made it look effortless, like he had eyes all around his head, catching every movement. Had he activated his new sigil or was this just Grier in his element?

  Two RCA Casters aimed fire at his feet.

  Emeryss cast Gust again, aiming it as his back.

  It tipped him forward a little, but it overtook the flames and shoved the Casters back slightly.

  Air Slice.

  The first she struck right between the eyes, and he fell wailing and bleeding out.