by Simon Archer
“William,” Libritas placed a hand on my shoulder, “will you lend me your strength?” She looked me in the eyes with those shining flawless jewels she used to see. I couldn’t help but melt a little inside.
“Of course,” I told her. “You can have everything.”
“Then I will fight by your side.” She stepped in front of me. Khaba roared as Libritas stood her ground, silver flame crawling up her sides. “I will be your warrior.”
As she threw her arms forward, she cast a storm of flames upon the gigantic undead, burning it with the silver fire. His head fell back into the blackness, disappearing from sight. His hand fell down into the same blackness, and we floated in the air. The white light from before returned to banish the darkness once again.
“That was amazing, Libritas,” I said as we drifted into each other’s arms. “You’re amazing.”
“I could not do that without you, William.” Her breath was hot as we kissed. “It is your angel blood that gives me strength. You’ve seen what you can do. You’ve seen what I can do. Shall we see what we can do together?”
“Yes, of course. I can’t wait to see it!”
“Then I have only one question for you.” Libritas drew herself close, her lips brushing my ear. “Will you release me?”
32
“Wake up, Will!” Petra shook me as I drowsily returned to consciousness. She was already popping the puffballs keeping the vines on me down as I slowly got up. I could hear shouting. My vision cleared, and I saw several of the red Magma Guard draconians heading towards the hatch. They were all disappearing like sky-divers off an airplane as they spread their wings upon exiting the dome.
“Go time?” I asked, shaking the drowsiness out of my head. I figured this level of mobilization meant danger. I lept to my feet without an answer.
“Sorry to wake you from your nap, William,” Shikun said, placing a quaking Reggie onto Amalthea. “The drones were headed for Hillrock as soon as we approached. It’s the largest swarm yet.”
“You’ll be needed at the front, my savior,” Amalthea said, leaning down so I could climb on.
“I…” I looked at Libritas. “I think I have to do something first. We’re going to need all the power we can get.”
“What the bloody hell could you possibly be waiting for, William?!” Reggie blurted out from his curled-up position. “We have drones to fight and stable land to return to eventually!”
“Just a second.” I held out Libritas. In my heart, I could feel something changing. I was losing something but gaining something else. A tear came to my eye as I said my next words. “I release you, Libritas.”
Bright white flames shout out from Libritas, swirling in front of me. The rest of the group could only watch in blank amazement as the fire created a column in the middle of all of us. The inferno drifted over my hands, but it didn’t burn. Instead, it felt like Libritas’ hands, like they were in the dreams. The flames then leapt from my palm, and they took pieces of Libritas with it until the entire Brand disappeared. The silvery flames died down, slowly pulling into the form of a beautiful woman. The lights cooled to show Libritas in her humanoid guise from my vision, and her steel skin shone even in the dim light inside the dome.
Already, Amalthea, Shikun, and Petra were down on one knee, or the equivalent, in respect to the Brand’s manifestation.
“No time to stand on ceremony,” Libritas said, her voice the same silky tone that rang in my head all this time. “This is my Avatar form, and we have a battle to win.” She stepped onto Amalthea, sitting upon her saddle.
“O-oh, yes, of course,” the sphinx stammered out. “What about William?”
“Drop me off on the dragon’s head,” I said to them. “I’m not nearly as ranged or mobile as the rest of you, but I can keep them from overwhelming Tharnox.”
“I’ll take you,” Shikun said, handing Petra her giant club and grabbing me underneath my armpits. Petra wrestled with gravity and the oversized weapon as she climbed onto Shikun’s back, turning her legs into vines to wrap around her like a backpack.
With that settled, Amalthea headed for the hatch opening as her eyes began to glow, and we were all connected to the Khalati Record. She took both Reggie and Libritas in her new form away with her as she flew out the door. Not a moment after, Shikun took Petra and me out the same hatch, and we were airborne.
In the brief time that I was in the air, I saw the distant town of Hillrock, assailed by anthophilan drones on every side. The Magma Guard came to meet them, and the two forces clashed in a deadly aerial dance punctuated by plumes of red dragon-fire.
As I looked up, the bulk of the cloud of drones floated before me, in a swarm of what may have been over a hundred thousand. Intermittent within it, the flashes of draconian fire lit up the skies as the other Magma Guard fought them. Already, Amalthea charged ahead into the center of the mass, surrounded by a hexagon of glyphs firing beams of hot and cold energies as drones both burnt to a crisp and froze solid in the air.
Upon her back, Libritas raised her hands, each gesture tossing wide whips of fire into the dark cluster. The fiery snakes seemed to move with lives of their as they twisted and writhed, catching as many drones within them as possible. On occasion, Reggie shakily fired away, taking a drone with every shot even in his terrified condition.
Shikun quickly made it to the broad side of Tharnox’s head, where several drones had already begun to crawl onto the beast with several more coming to join them. I pulled out my honeysteel sword, ready to meet them as soon as I came in close. As soon as Shikun was low enough, she dropped me. I kicked a drone in the head on the way down before bringing my sword down upon the next one.
One rushed me from the side, and I quickly dodged its spear thrust as I brought my blade to its side, slicing into it as it fell down and off the dragon. Another came to the other side as I deflected its spear downward, placing its spearhead deep within the dragon’s skin. The spear stayed sticking up as its anthophilan wielder was brushed off by the rushing winds around us. As I began to slide away myself, I reflexively grabbed the spear’s shaft to hold me in place. Which, of course, gave me an idea.
As I carved my way through the drones on Tharnox’s head, I collected their spears. Every parry and dodge, I let them widely shove their weapons into Tharnox’s hide, something that didn’t hurt the dragon in the least as I shoved a few discarded spears in myself. Even in the thick pull of the wind, I was able to hold on thanks to the spears, allowing me to make spinning maneuvers around them as I tore through the drone soldiers. Tharnox would occasionally release a lava geyser from his mouth, and the spears were essential to use each time Thanox lifted its head up to prepare its attack.
In a short while, the whole of the dragon’s head and neck were covered in spears sticking out of it, each within an arm-and-a-half’s length of each other. The anthophilans were too out of their wits to utilize the maze of spears I made fully, and what became a mobility asset for me was a complete hindrance for them. They would remain trapped wherever they landed, allowing me to weave swiftly through the spears to take them out. I looked up and saw Karkaros swirling above me as he twirled his twin greatswords through the drones around him. Their leftover bodies and body parts rained upon the dragon before falling to the ground below.
This tactic worked great until the drones changed their flight patterns suddenly. Instead of landing on Tharnox, some began crashing into it like yellow-and-black kamikaze bombers, dislodging my spears as they slid off the side. I was able to save a few, but the spears became sparser and sparser as the battle continued.
Fortunately, they mostly landed near Tharnox’s head, so if I hung back, I would have enough time to make a new solution. Thinking fast, I broke off parts of the spears and tied them to my shins with some torn strips from my clothes, pinning them underneath the straps of my shin-guards to create a crude set of spikes sticking downward from my feet like primitive crampons. It wasn’t the greatest for moving fast, but the new spikes
were enough to keep me from falling off the dragon. If I treated them like I was magnetized to Tharnox’s body, I could move accordingly.
The new spike boots were not a fighter’s asset, however. With no mobility, I was limited to planted strikes and thrusts, and I could only block the drones’ attacks. Still, they weren’t the most elegant fighters, and I could handle myself well enough. The problem was that I wasn’t getting ahead of the swarm building up with this new limitation.
It was time for a tactical change.
I sheathed my sword as I found two of the last remaining spears. Like a pair of forearm crutches, I held the spears out against my arms, extending my reach dramatically. With my body’s weight, I shifted around the mighty dragon’s head as I plunged into the drones with the pointed tips, crawling around like some kind of mutant spider.
I double-pole-vaulted over a set of drones as I stabbed a second set with my feet, piercing through their plate with my foot spikes. I was so glad that honeysteel could pierce honeysteel with enough force behind it. These drones weren’t quite strong enough to provide that force, thankfully, so I was barely touched by their weapons during this fight. I replanted my feet into the dragon hide as I whipped the spears above my head, slicing the necks of the drones near me.
But, even as I was winning, I was exerting a lot of energy. I was starting to get tired, which meant I was starting to get sloppy. No matter how long I fought, they just kept coming. As I briefly looked out into the swarm cloud, I saw my people battling on. Amalthea’s array of glyphs and runes unleashed all manner of magical doom on the drones, from shocking them to death with lightning to blasting them apart with thunder. Libritas continued to send her flaming whips slicing through the cloud, deleting whatever the whips touched. Reggie had gained a bit more confidence as he sat upon the sphinx’s back, taking more shots into the swarm cloud as he covered their backside.
Meanwhile, Shikun and Petra were tag-teaming in the drone swarm, with Petra pulling clumps of drones in with giant nets she made out of her arms, and Shikun spewed out fire in a giant ball of destruction. Karkaros’s blades never saw a moment without biting into anthophilan flesh as he swung them around himself, and every Magma guard was smothering as many drones as they could in their own breaths of fire.
And yet the swarm kept coming from the Solspire. No matter how many we took out, even in the thousands and tens of thousands, they could replace them in the hundreds of thousands. We were fighting an endurance battle and losing.
“We have to push for the Solspire now,” I said through the Khalati Record. “Someone tell Karkaros to keep a contingent of Magma Guard behind to help people fight off the remaining drones. As soon as we threaten the Baroness, the drones will pull back to protect her, and the Guard can come on their heels.”
“Where are you, William?” Karkaros said in a frightened tone. “How can you speak from inside my head?”
“I apologize, Great Dragon,” Amalthea said in the Record. “I thought it imperative to connect you to the mindspace where we can all communicate at long distances.”
“Well, then,” Karkaros’s voice dwindled sheepishly, “a warning next time would be nice.”
“Did you hear me, Karkaros?” I said to him in our heads. “Leave a contingent of Magma guard here, but bring the rest and Tharnox to the Solspire so we can end this quickly. We’re getting nowhere with this swarm.”
“As you command, Brandwielder,” he replied with the tone of a seasoned soldier. I saw him fly down from the swarm to crash into Tharnox’s head, landing with a sword planted into its hide.
I could feel a tinge of something inside of me when he said, “Brandwielder.” Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing that Libritas could move about and use her powers more efficiently, but now, she was her own person. I was no longer “wielding” her. She, along with all my girls, could do such amazing things… and I was having trouble keeping this patch of floating battlefield clear.
Karkaros twisted his blade in Tharnox’s skin, and the dragon let out a roar like an infernal warhorn. The Magma guard’s lights inside the swarm ceased, and the draconians rushed through the enemy to form up alongside. Karkaros pointed to them and then pointed down. They seemed to know exactly what that meant, as a contingent flew down towards Hillrock. The rest stayed by the dragon, ready to create the whirlwind of blades that would siege the Solspire.
Karkaros pushed his embedded blade forward like a giant gear shift, and Tharnox launched forward with another roar. It rushed towards the spire, forcing me to plant both my feet and my spears into Thanox’s hide to keep from sliding off. The dragon shrugged off all the drones it ran into as it plowed through the swarm. Any that tried to land on it were immediately thrown off by the rushing winds.
When we caught up to them, both Amalthea’s group and Shikun’s made it to Tharnox, landing on its head along with the rest of us. Amalthea dug her claws into the dragon as her eyes glowed with runes, and a gigantic glyph appeared in front of us. Immediately, the wind stopped, and we could all stop clinging for our lives against the growing wind resistance.
It didn’t take long for us to reach the Solspire, and I was afraid that we were going to crash into it, given the velocity with which we were speeding towards it.
That fear became a reality a moment later when Tharnox slammed into the side of the spire. The dragon’s head rammed into the main tower’s side, cracking the gold-colored stone under its tremendous mass. Tharnox’s body curled up from behind it, carrying the momentum of the flight into the air.
Due to the natural fortune of possessing wings, Amalthea, Shikun, Karkaros, and the draconians had parachute brakes for the crash against the golden hive buildings making up the Solspire. I’m guessing this was a perfectly viable strategy for them, just crashing into things with their giant dragon and flying in, metaphorical guns blazing. The rest of us, and by that, I mostly meant me, were sent flying forty feet forward as soon as Tharnox made contact with the stone of the spire. Even with spiked boots and spears previously holding me down, I was still sent through the air, flying like a ragdoll. During my hang time, I took the liberty of ejecting the spikes in my boots. I was going to need all my mobility in the coming fight.
Fortune smiled on my unfortunate situation just a little, like a passing smirk. Thanks to the dragon flailing upwards in its crash, my trajectory wasn’t straight for the Solspire’s side, but the balcony above the point of crashing. If I landed right, I could at least walk away from this intact. It’d be like jumping from two stories and sliding a dozen feet instead of smearing against a brick wall from a car crash. Not ideal, but then again, none of this was.
You would think that flying bee men driven mad by the magical influence of an ancient artifact would have the common decency to let a man fly through the air in peace, but that was not the case with three of them. They came straight for me, spears flailing towards me. Using the momentum of my spin, my sword met their spears in a cartwheel motion, tossing them down as I kicked the last of the three drones in the face. He was out cold, and I placed my feet on him, riding him like a skateboard.
We impacted the balcony, the drone’s body taking the brunt of the crash. That didn’t stop me from sliding and tumbling that dozen feet or so feet into the throne room before I rolled back up to a standing position.
It was rough and painful, but as they say, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
The throne room itself was a mess. While it still had the gold tiling on almost every surface, especially the pillars lining the room, it was scuffed with grey. The black banners draped around the place were torn to shreds, leaving bits of black fabric along the ground. Even the glass dome above obscured the light of the twin suns, the smears and smudges warping the rays as they passed through.
Seven drones stuck to the sides of the pillars as they wriggled around them to face me. If the other drones were marathon runners, these special ones were built more like shot-putters. Each one was ripped like they ate protein by
the jarful, and their armor was tailored to match, the more intricate lacing of the gold within the black stain showing their former elite station.
Past them and elevated by golden steps, the back of the throne rose from its pedestal like an obelisk. Sitting down upon the relatively miniscule seat was the Baroness, chewing on the handle of her Brand, a silver rod coated in an aura of ethereal purple air. She looked like Solannus, but with a much thinner face, both from genetics and from apparent malnutrition. Even in this mangled state, with her robes tattered and ripped and her hair flaring around her head like a wildfire of black and yellow, I could see the beauty she still had. Her eyes, even without the light of her soul, were still an enchanting vision into a cloudy night, held in a face of honeyed skin. Her figure was more than apparent as the remains of her clothes clung to her, molding to her shape.
“William Tyler?” the Baroness said, putting the Brand down for a second. “William Tyler? William Tyler?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, keeping my peripherals locked on the Elite Drones. “Would it be too much to ask you to come quietly? Let me take that Brand from you?”
“William Tyler is my enemy,” she said as she sat up from her chair. Her voice was monotone, just a mouthpiece for someone else’s words. “William Tyler wants to kill me. William Tyler is not welcome.”
She rose to her feet and pointed the handle of her Brand at me. With a deep breath, she screeched at the top of her lungs. The Elites joined in with their own screams, almost deafening me in the disharmonious noise. If I weren’t still preparing to counter whatever attacks they’d be throwing my way, I’d have covered my ears from the pain.
Days like this, I felt like I just couldn’t catch a break.
They pulled out their spears, pouncing on me like a pack of rabid chimpanzees. The first Elite threw his spear at me but more like one would throw a baton than a spear. I brought my sword up and deflected it. The spear bounced over to nail one of them charging me from the other side in the head. That was one of seven down fairly easily, but I knew the others wouldn’t be.