by Simon Archer
“Now, Thorton,” I demanded. Once everything was set in motion, I would get some sleep and get rid of this snappy attitude.
Thorton shook into action, walking down towards the town fairway as the other dwarves followed. Reggie came down shortly afterward, flagging down one of the dwarves to help him with whatever crafting project they were working on. He picked up Silver, placing him on his shoulder, and they went off towards where I assumed was the forge. Hopefully, he was clear enough to get accurate directions.
By the time all the activity died down, it was only the ladies left at the house with me.
I looked back to my girls. All of them, peacefully asleep. Shikun and Petra had slunk down from their couches, landing on top of Amalthea in what must have been the most uncomfortable of ways, but they were all still out cold. When they woke up, I was going to have a banquet prepared for them. They deserved it. But in the back of my mind, I hoped they would wake up soon. Without them, we didn’t stand a chance of winning against the savage barony, and we were completely exposed.
That’s when my back flared up in pain again. My brain felt like it was on fire, and I couldn’t help but fall to my knees. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to scream at that moment, and, once again, it disappeared without a trace.
I looked back at my girls again. They still seemed perfectly at peace. Since they seemed to not be feeling these throngs of pain, maybe it was just me. But then what was it? It felt like my body was trying to do something, but it couldn’t. Like I was trying to break a chain I didn’t even know I had.
“We need the healers to look at you, too,” Libritas called to me. “Whatever is happening to you should be addressed immediately.”
“Once we get the defenses settled, that’s the very next thing on the list. Then a rest.” I jogged my way down the hill, knowing full well that this was going to be a long night.
16
Sir Reginald Thorpe
Dear God, it had been quite the rowdy past couple of days. Ever since we entered these Marches, I didn’t think I’d had a single wink of good rest. And without the girls’ magnificent powers to fall back on, we would be in for a rough time if anything of significant magnitude came to claim our lives. I was finding it hard to keep a stiff upper lip, and I could feel this anxiety upon me, both tired and agitated simultaneously.
And I could see it in William, as well. His fuse was shorter than it had ever been in the decades I’d come to know him. Like his patience was being tested by pain. To be fair, these dwarves were a trying lot.
“Yes! Bullets! I need them to look like this!” I held up one of the last .445 rounds I had left as I attempted to explain the exact nature of my design to the dwarven fellow I had conscripted into my metallurgical efforts. “I’m in need of the creation of more ammunition so that I may continue to use my revolver in the coming battles.” I pointed to the objects as I mentioned them.
“Ooooh!” the dwarf lad said, his black beard obviously obscuring his ears. “I can make these ‘bullets,’ no problem.”
The dwarf, Figert Longthrone, had brought us to the town’s forge, which was more like a full crafting hall in the shape of a stone igloo. There were work tables with several odd golden baubles on them, made of the honeysteel we scrounged from the drone soldiers, and several different clamps and wedges for holding pieces in place. The walls were lined with weapon racks, completely empty now since the townspeople took them to create their defenses. Not a single forge or anvil was in sight, however.
Dwarves, it seemed, didn’t require heating or treating metals the way others did. With their natural magics, any material they worked with molded like clay until they let go, in which it resumed its natural sturdiness. Depending on how they worked it in their hands, they could treat and temper the material however they saw fit. After what felt like an eternity of words, Figert finally managed to grasp the concepts of firearms I explained to him.
“Is that the ‘Webley?’” Figert asked me, pointing at the revolver I had placed on one of the crafting tables in my many attempts to conjure up a simple point.
“Thank you for noticing,” I said to him, becoming as exasperated at the dwarf’s simplicity as William seemed to be, if not more so. “I’ve only been using it to explain my point for the past hour or so, nothing of real importance.”
“Oh, well, I had a suggestion, but if it isn’t important, we don’t need to go about it,” Figert said, taking my words literally for the umpteenth time.
“Figert, what were you going to say?” I clenched my fists in the air in a foolhardy attempt at quelling my cantankerous mood.
“Oh, I was just saying, I could probably make the ‘Webley’ better using honeysteel,” Figert explained. “You know, so it doesn’t explode?”
“Why would it explode?” I asked.
“It’s made of regular steel.” I’d have mistaken his tone for condescending had I not been in an infuriating conversation with the man for the past couple hours, learning the precise nature of his simpler mannerisms. “Given the explosive power of this poop you gave me,” he motioned to the wyrm-fire I’d set on the table, “if that’s what’s supposed to fire them, that thing’s going to suffer if you use any of these bullets in it. Looks like something did a number on it already.”
“Yes, that was me,” I said to him, trying to hide my embarrassed expression. “I was trying to augment one of my shots by placing a bit of the purple wyrm-fire in there.” Saying it aloud, I felt right foolish.
“Do you want me to fix it?” he said, looking at me as plainly as ever.
“Yes, please.” I handed the revolver over to him.
“honeysteel Webley, coming right up.”
He placed the gun on top of a large ingot I would have thought was made of gold. With a slight press of his fingers, the metal sank into the honeysteel like it was jello, completely disappearing. He took the block and massaged it every which way, tossing it and flipping it as he toyed it in his hands. Quickly but ever so subtly, the ingot took the shape of a golden revolver. As he ran his fingers along every edge, intricate designs were left behind, along with the appearance of some of the grey steel that the Webley was comprised of, trimming the illustrious gold with a tasteful silver. As he finished playing with his piece, the custom molded grip rose to the surface of the golden coat, completing the new golden Webley. He passed it over to me.
“It’s beautiful, Figert,” I said, wiping away a tear. For all their social faults, their craftsmanship surely made up for most of it.
“I mean, it’s a ‘Webley,’” Figert said, looking a bit awkward. “Do Uplanders always get so emotional when they see their weapons?”
“Sometimes,” I responded. “Sometimes, they do. Can you make the bullets to match like I originally asked?” I remembered who I was talking with and decided to be clear. “Please make the bullets to match like I asked.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, just a jiffy.”
He placed his hands on a set of ingots, gathering the different types of wyrm-fire I had set on the table. Silver began to yelp excitedly, but goodness knows why. Figert spun the ingot and the wyrm-fire into one big swirl. He grabbed the tip with one end, squeezing off perfect bullets like bits of dough. One after another, ten or twenty pristine golden bullets were out, and then another twenty more.
“So, what are you gonna do now?” Figert asked, grabbing another set of wyrm-fire and another ingot before slapping it down as if he were going to apply a pin roller to it.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“By my reckoning, they’ll keep sending those bees at us.” Figert started popping out more bullets. “Them bee-folk can make a mess more drones, believe you me. They got lots of larvae preserved, just waiting to turn into more drones to replace the ones they lose. Keeps them stocked with soldiers. I’m thinking they’re going to just keep sending them at us.”
That had to be the smartest thing he’d said all night.
“I suppose we’ll have to collec
t some soldiers,” I answered.
“Great! Do you know where to get some?”
“Well,” I said rather timidly, “we were hoping that towns like yours would be willing to supply some.”
“Oh.” Figert popped one last bullet out before stopping completely. “I don’t know if I can fight.”
“I’m not the one who could convince you properly,” I admitted. “William’s the talented one there. But in my experiences in battle, one soldier could be the difference between victory and defeat.”
“Yeah,” Figert said, continuing to pop out more bullets. “Maybe.”
That’s when a loud boom resounded outside, interrupting our conversation. On instinct, I picked up the improved Webley and poured as many of the honeysteel rounds as I could into my bag. Silver climbed my back to my shoulder, and we were out of the forge in a jiffy. The night air bit against my nose as I rushed up the hill to the main fairway. I could already hear the shouting and clanging of metals I’ve come so accustomed to.
As I crested the hill, I looked upon the carnage already in progress. Several more drones had overrun the town, these fully clad in pristine black and gold-trimmed armor, unlike the other ones we fought only the day before with their tattered protection. Many of the dwarves in town were there to meet them, donned in full honeysteel armor and weapons. Before I could fully think through a tactical approach, I found my soldier’s reflexes already unloading bullets into the drones.
Every time I hit a drone, the bullet bored its way through their armor like a drill, killing them almost instantly. I didn’t know honeysteel was that potent, but I certainly would not complain about it.
As I reloaded, I looked up towards the rooftops to see more drones. Only one of our soldiers was there to fight them back, and I recognized the glowing Brand he carried silhouetted against the full moon. William parried the wild swings the drones attempt to use against him, taking each one down with a countering thrust, but there were so many of them. A dozen, if not more, were upon him, as he expertly kept most of them at bay.
As I finished off a few more drones, I searched for a quick way up the side of one of the buildings to assist him. Failing that, I found a spot secreted away from the bulk of the battle that maintained visual contact with William and his oppressors, as best of a sniper’s nest as I could find. I picked off as many as I could, but more seemed to come upon him. Try as I might, I could not kill them faster than more of the endless horde could replace their losses.
Soon, ever more drones from the ground battle flew up to William to swarm him. Even when he was swatting off groups of the drones at a time, he couldn’t seem to break free. As they came to surround him, he clutched onto his sides in pain. I feared for him as if he were my own flesh and blood.
“William!” I cried out to him in vain. He disappeared from view, clouded by the bodies of drones jittering and fluttering as they encased him. For a moment, I lost hope.
Everything slowed down to a halt. Time seemed to move at a snail’s pace as my adrenaline enhanced my senses, and I could see every moment in full view. A blinding flash of pure white light burst forth from between the drones covering William before they burst apart, flying in every direction. As the bodies separated, I witnessed William, standing triumphantly.
And a glorious pair of snow-white wings adorned his back.
17
I didn’t know exactly what happened. I saw the drones come in from the Solspire. I rallied the citizens into battle formations, and though the dwarves fought hard, the enemy kept coming in endless waves.
I tried to lead some of them away from the people to the rooftops, but more of them kept coming. Just when I was being overwhelmed, the pain came back again. Then everything turned white, and the pain slowly dissolved into nothingness as I felt myself become weightless and float up into the infinite whiteness.
My muscles pulsed like lightning, filled with a power I could only describe as divine. I heard the fluttering of a butterfly over a mile away, the scrounging of a mouse over two miles in the opposite direction, and the breaths of every citizen, every drone around me. All distinct, nothing overlapping or overloading my senses.
My eyes saw right to the surface of the moon, and I could count all of the rocks in the crater I looked upon. And yet I could see Solspire, the Marches ahead, the town just as clearly. Every movement, every twitch of muscle anyone made around me, I could tell who made it and what they were doing. It was as if I was blind my whole life until this moment when I was shown the world for the first time.
As I breathed what felt like the first breath of fresh air that I’d ever had in my life, I glanced to my sides. Drone soldiers surrounded me, all fallen to the ground. Some of them were missing entire portions of their legs, torsos, and arms as if they had been surgically removed. The pattern of missing body parts made a perfect circle around me as I looked down to see the missing chunks of the house I once stood upon continuing the sphere. When my gaze found my feet, they stood upon air alone. I turned to see where the other drones could be.
The only drones I saw still alive were those who were fleeing back to the Solspire, showing the first signs of fear we saw in these bestial anthophilans. Good riddance.
I wasn’t sure how I was flying or floating or what, but when I tried to turn, my body obliged. I took in the heart of the town to see the citizens all directing their attention at me. Some of them were shielding their eyes, others stared as if they couldn’t turn their heads, a few were crying unashamedly, but the shared trait amongst all of them was abject awe. Even Sir Reginald had a tear run down his face at the sight of me.
More than that, I could see soft, colored auras coming off all of them, each one a different shape and form that seemed to express their whole lives. Despite the vast complexity of the kaleidoscopic color, I felt like I knew what each one meant. What their fears were, their doubts, their hopes, their secrets. Everything about them laid bare before my sight.
I looked at my hands. I had a golden glowing aura around me, illuminating every inch of my body. Even the honeysteel plate I wore over my clothes looked dull in comparison.
That’s when the glowing aura began to fizzle out, like a light losing power. My godly senses dwindled, and I assumed that meant whatever was happening to me was fading. I had to find a safe way to land fast. The problem was that while I could seem to move myself some, my control was far from perfect. When it became clear that I wasn’t going to get that graceful landing, I braced myself for a hard one.
When the aura disappeared completely, my ethereal flotation vanished along with it. I tried to keep my balance in the air, so I could roll with the landing and hopefully break the fall a bit. I managed to get my feet on the edge of the house my aura had cut a piece out of for a second, but my momentum sent me slipping down towards the ground below.
As I spun, my feet eventually caught the dirt, and I tried to roll forward, mitigating the pressure on my body. While I successfully came to a kneeling position, every muscle inside me clenched in pain, even a few I didn’t know about. Most of all, my back felt like claws had torn through it. I pushed myself up into a standing position as Reggie ran up to me.
“What…? I mean what in the…? How in the…?” Reggie struggled to find the words to express what had happened. “What in the bloody blue hell was that?”
I looked at him, as dumbfounded by the whole experience as he was. Sure, maybe I had a hunch that I wasn’t all human, but I never would have guessed I was… whatever that was. It was as if I could see through people to their very souls. Who the hell was my mother?
“I don’t think that would be entirely accurate, William,” Libritas answered. “I had only met Laurelin a couple of times, but I believe I now know what she was.”
“Do you know what happened to me?” I asked her frantically.
“Not exactly,” Libritas answered. “Your father only told me so much, and it is clear that he kept secrets from me, as evidenced by your experience. I can merely spe
culate, but your inhuman nature may be more… divine than we initially thought.”
“What, what are you saying?” I couldn’t hold back the anxious tone. “That I’m an angel? Like, a literal angel?”
“Perhaps, but I thought they were a myth,” Libritas continued. “They were ascended beings, said to be the caretakers of Etria before the time of the Brands. According to the legends, they were hunted down by the people they were sworn to protect out of fear for their power. They were supposedly wiped from existence…”
“But my father found one,” I finished her thought. “He then fell in love with her, and, together, they had me. That’s why I’m stronger and heal faster. And why I can…” I trailed off. I didn’t even know what to call it. Angel-mode? That seemed disrespectful to the power. Divinity form? Eh, maybe a name wasn’t important right now. What was important was answering this: If she was so powerful, what happened to her?
“I can’t be sure, William,” Libritas said, a somber tone overtaking her. “Whatever it was, it sprung your father into action against the Black Runes fiercer than ever. He picked me up again as his weapon and began his intermittent visits between here and the Land above. He had a certain zeal about him, then, as if the fight had become personal.”
She sighed softly. “I should have questioned it more, but I was too eager to fight to notice. That many transitions between realms separated in time and space, the stress upon the mind and body, are not to be taken lightly. Family and love were important to him.”
“You think Khaba did something to my mother,” I said, reading her mind. “Why didn’t he tell you? Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I can’t say, William,” Libritas answered. “Your father must have had his reasons. Or maybe, to the best of his knowledge, he thought she was dead, despite her holy lineage. We were both there when the doctor declared it so. I’m as confused as you are about this.”