by Frank Morin
“I don’t know. I . . .” Verena’s voice cut off for a second, then she shouted, “Oh, no! She’s here. She’s attacking Connor and Evander. The elfonnel is attacking them too.”
Jean felt cold dread grip her heart. She glanced at Gisela, whose face drained of color.
Captain Leppin pointed at one of the viewscreens and cried, “Look!”
Down in the valley, the regulars suddenly broke into a charge. Led by companies of mounted knights, they pounded past the town, heading north. At the same time, the companies of Boulders raised weapons and charged west toward the lakes at the base of the cliff.
“Fast movers!” another technician shouted, shifting another viewscreen to the fore. Jean gasped at the sight of a hundred Striders appearing far to the west, already on the high ground as they closed on Rory’s Boulders.
“They’re fools to engage so many Boulders,” Admiral Forfar said with a frown.
“They’re not going for the Boulders,” Jean realized as she increased her obsidian tap rate. “Warn the Althin and Tabnit forces manning the siege weapons. They’re about to be attacked.”
The admiral cursed and began shouting commands. He turned to Jean and said, “We need to deploy now!”
“I—” Her response was cut off as the Battalion lurched to the left. That was the port side. For some reason, the Battalion forces insisted on treating the flying craft like seagoing vessels.
“Who ordered a course correction?” Jean demanded as she stumbled and caught herself. If Connor hadn’t healed her leg, she definitely would have collapsed.
“It’s the wind,” Captain Leppin stated, pointing out the window. Jean hadn’t heard the wind through the reinforced glass, but she could see soldiers suddenly crouching against the force of winds that tore at clothing and faces. Some of the mechanicals with broader profiles rocked under the gale, and a few lifted right off the deck and were thrown overboard.
The huge Battalion, which had seemed so powerful, pitched and yawed under the wind. Captain Leppin maintained remarkable calm as he reported, “This has to be the work of the queen. No one else could command such a gale.”
“Get us stabilized!” General Forfar shouted. “We need to get into position.”
“Working on it, sir,” Captain Leppin replied, hurrying over to the soldiers manning the communications with his steering team.
Jean turned to Gisela, trying to remain calm, despite a flood of fear. The queen knew and had flipped the surprise against them. Jean was familiar with that kind of fear, though. It was the same fear that swept through her at the sight of a badly wounded patient, the fear of losing the fight for life before getting a chance to stave off looming death. She’d learned to push the fear aside and face it with calm determination.
“The commanders are relaying the situation to troop leaders. Contact Shona directly and see if she and her Striders can aid the Arishat siege teams. They’re the most exposed right now.”
Gisela nodded and lifted her own mini-hub. All of the core team were wearing one, with multiple speakstones arranged around a keystone, allowing them direct contact. It was good they had that backup communications channel because the communications operators were all frantically busy relaying orders from the officers. Jean tapped more obsidian, trying to calculate the best way to alter the plan. She forced herself to ignore her terror for Connor and Evander and Verena. She’d known they would face the queen alone. The timing might be wrong, but they were ready. And unfortunately, she couldn’t do anything to help.
She could help the forces on the Battalions.
Hamish’s voice spoke over their personal speakstone connection. “Jean! Jean, no one’s answering on the main channel.”
She raised her mini-hub and said, “I know. The queen is launching a surprise attack. We’re trying to coordinate—”
“Forget that!” he interrupted. “Check out the western views. We’ve got an aerial swarm closing fast!”
Jean’s blood ran cold and she shouted, “Someone get me the western views now!”
Three seconds later, the viewscreen appeared in front of her, and her worst fears were confirmed. The sky was dark with a swarm of summoned flying nightmares, barely minutes away, and closing fast.
“Deploy defensive measures and get our flights in the air!” she cried.
“They’ll have trouble flying with this gale,” Admiral Forfar said, looking grim.
“Then activate shielding and every available defensive mechanical, and warn the troops exposed down on the decks that we’ve got incoming.”
Jean had known every plan, no matter how good, always required modification after battles commenced, but the battle hadn’t even started yet and their plan was in tatters.
If they didn’t recover fast, they could lose the fight before it really got started.
35
Splitting Headaches
Connor reacted out of pure instinct, throwing himself out of the way of the elfonnel’s lunging attack and calling upon his elemental affinities. Most of them responded instantly, but slate felt weak, probably because of his proximity to both the queen, Evander, and the monster.
Evander didn’t run. As the monster snapped at him with jaws big enough to consume a house, outer jaws gaping wide like wings to encircle him, Evander swung his arms, as if wielding a club. A tightly spinning whirlwind appeared between his hands, growing to thirty feet, and he smashed it into the elfonnel’s eyes.
Usually Connor didn’t think of air as a combat weapon, despite the effectiveness of Verena’s shielding. He’d never tried using it as a club.
He should have.
The blow snapped the elfonnel’s huge head backward so hard, it flipped all the way around on its serpentine neck to stare up into the sky and pulled its torso upward after it. Evander slid right between its clawed feet, and as the monster rose, trying to catch itself from the mighty blow, he clubbed both of its rear legs at the knees. They buckled, knocking the monster to its backside. It roared and whipped around after him, looking unhurt but really mad.
Connor called on air too, using a strong gust to lift off the ground. He doubted he could fight that elfonnel with earth, and he needed distance. He also fashioned a barrier of fire and ice in front of the great beast as it spun to chase Evander. Connor drove those combined elements into that gaping maw, filling it and pouring the elements down its throat. Then he drained the heat away, solidifying the water to ice, which swelled enough to temporarily restrict the creature’s flexibility.
It chomped the air, shattering the ice and looking undamaged by his first attack. A cloud of ice particles mixed with bits of flame, blasted around Evander, driven by the creature’s breath. Connor got a whiff of that breath, and it smelled dangerous, like an empty pot left too long on the fire.
Connor rose higher, cursing the queen’s terrible timing. They had only needed a few more seconds. He yearned to look toward Verena, to call out to her, but didn’t dare do either. The queen might notice, and she’d swat Verena from the sky in an eyeblink once she realized she was nearby.
The elfonnel oriented on Connor but did not immediately attack. Evander slid away from it, rising onto a stout tower of earth. He cast one glance at Connor, his expression grim.
Connor managed to push the queen out of his mind. After her initial mental assault she had thankfully not pressed the advantage, but seemed willing to let the elfonnel finish him off for her. Now Connor scanned the skies and quickly saw her.
Queen Dreokt descended like a shooting star, glowing as bright as the sun, surrounded by a swirling latticework of combined elements. Surprisingly, she was dressed in battle leathers instead of one of her fancy gowns. Apparently not even she could completely ignore the draw of a set of cool battle leathers during a military campaign.
She landed on the back of the pedra elfonnel, standing regally upon its broad shoulders. Her voice boomed across the plateau. “Evander, you’ve long worked to destroy the peace of this kingdom, but how dare you attempt to subvert my prec
ious ramverk?”
Evander actually bowed, the gesture strangely formal. His voice responded just as loudly. “Grandmother. I salute the honor of your memory from the days before your mind was broken by the elfonnel. The tortoise may explore the unknowable deep, but a woodpecker’s brains shatter over years of abuse.”
Connor grinned. That was great Sentry speak, although it was far less cryptic than most. He loved the image of the queen as a woodpecker, knocking her head against trees so long that her brains leaked out her tail feathers.
Queen Dreokt hissed, “Today you reap the consequences of your evil.”
The elfonnel oriented on Evander, opened its huge double jaws wide, and bellowed, a sound so deep it seemed to seize Connor by the pit of his stomach and shake him like a rat.
So Connor tapped limestone and dropped a globe of absolute darkness over the queen and her monster. It might not actually harm her, but it delayed her for precious seconds as Evander retreated, his tower sliding away at an angle from the monster.
The great pedra elfonnel burst into view, rising up through the top of the globe of darkness, with the queen still standing astride its back. It was a magnificent sight, one that would make Verena’s first strike easy.
She didn’t disappoint. As soon as the pedra flapped up into view, a swarm of tiny flying mechanicals swept around the queen. Verena carried an extensive arsenal with her up in the Swift and as Connor expected, had launched the swarm as soon as the queen appeared. Each one carried a piece of activated pumice, and Connor did not even notice them approaching until they struck. Neither did Queen Dreokt.
She shrieked, her expression a look of abject terror as the cluster swarmed her. Some of them fired a few hornets out of tiny speedslings, so small they probably only held a hundred of the deadly little projectiles. They could’ve done terrible damage to anyone else, but the hardened granite projectiles simply bounced off the queen.
About ten percent of them contained diorite and the explosions seemed to really annoy her. If they did any damage, Connor could not tell. Either the queen was already tapping granite to harden her skin, or she was simply fleshcrafting herself whole that fast.
Two other mechanicals swept in close and fired tiny catapults that each threw a fresh-baked sculpted scone at the queen’s face. She shrieked again and batted them out of the air, then shook her hand in disgust.
More little hive mechanicals swept in and started dropping activated stones onto her head and shoulders, while two of them projected a sightstone image of Verena sitting at the controls of the Swift.
The queen gasped and Verena gave her a wicked smile. “From all the Builders, we send you these gifts, wishing you a long and painful death.”
Queen Dreokt screamed in rage, and a mixture of combined elements erupted from her in every direction. The blast shattered all of the little mechanicals and the mighty shockwave pulverized all the dropped stones.
Verena’s audacity was inspiring. She might not be convinced she knew how to hurt the queen, but she had prepared as many different mechanicals as possible to test every theory. Queen Dreokt had proven that she was terrified by something about Builders and her weakness could still be something random that they had not yet considered.
He threw himself at the distracted queen, accelerating through the air, but she turned to face him and snarled, “You belligerent, unworthy—”
Connor hit her with super sensory deprivation. He doubted he could hold her long, but he didn’t need long.
It appeared to work. She stiffened, her eyes wide, one hand raising toward her forehead in slow motion. Connor got there first and punched her with every ounce of strength he could summon from max-tapped granite, coupled with all the force and momentum of his flight.
Plus diorite.
Punching her felt like striking the side of a mountain until he released a full measure of diorite through his fist.
The explosion blasted out his fist in a blinding blast of crimson and red that ripped through her hardened skin. The force of the blast rattled him, despite the protection of granite and blind coal. For a moment, billowing flames obscured the queen. The air smelled charred and broken, carrying the scent of burnt meat and singed hair. He had burned enough girls’ hair to know that one really well, and he smiled at the flood of memories it triggered.
Then the queen reappeared, catapulting away, right off the great pedra, the entire front of her chest a gaping, blackened hole. It looked like he’d vaporized most of her guts, and her torso was charred, her ribs shattered. The pedra left her to deal with the problem and dove to attack Evander.
“Yes!” Connor exulted, trying to memorize that glorious sight so he could cherish it as long as he lived.
Might not be that long. She caught herself in the air and even as new skin and innards began growing to fill the grisly wound, she shot back toward him, moving way too fast. How could she react so quickly? Even she should at least take a moment to say, “Ow.”
Connor tried to dodge, but that split second of hesitation cost him. The queen reached him in a flash and backhanded him across the chest. It felt like she struck him with the entire palace of Merkland. The blow blasted the breath out of him and knocked him high into the air. She soared after him, scowling with rage, her blackened torso already sealing over the wound he’d given her.
As he tumbled, trying to recover like she had, Connor caught glimpses of Evander down on the ground. The elfonnel was swooping in, but the ground between them exploded upward and momentarily consumed them both. Through his connection to earth, Connor felt their titanic struggle inside of that cloud. Evander had defeated more than one elfonnel and Connor hoped he could do it again. He doubted he’d be able to help.
With an effort, Connor caught himself on a platform of air. As the queen rocketed up toward him, expression furious, he summoned a spear of ice and compressed it violently. He released it at her, and it crossed the distance in the blink of an eye, propelled by all the energy he could pour into it. Queen Dreokt sensed it coming and tried to block it, but it was her turn to react a fraction of a second too late. Instead of piercing her newly regrown heart like Connor had hoped, it drilled into her shoulder and punched clean through.
Queen Dreokt rocked back, her expression angrier than ever. That compressed ice was a trick Mister Five had used against Connor and Verena during the battle of Altkalen. He’d nearly killed them both. The wounds hurt terribly, and that ice had burned as much as it had frozen.
If the queen felt any of that terrible pain, she showed no indication of it, and her shoulder healed almost instantly. She ascended to face him, both of them standing on solid air, five hundred feet above the roiling earth battle between Evander and the elfonnel.
Connor waved and grinned, hoping to throw her off balance. “For a grumpy old lady you still seem pretty spry. I expected you to be using a cane by now.”
In one of those unexpected mood swings of hers, she laughed, sounding delighted. She started to speak but another of Verena’s tiny flying mechanicals swept in and launched a tiny missile right down her open mouth. It exploded in her throat and she actually gagged.
She still crushed the offending hive mechanical without even having to look at it and said in an exasperated tone, “That Builder is so annoying.”
“As if you can talk. I vaporized you and you still regrew your entire body from half a skull!” Connor shouted. He was happy she paused to speak. Simply clobbering each other would probably end up giving her the advantage. In that moment he tapped super-obsidian and his mind accelerated so fast, for a second he felt like a genius.
He got an idea.
“I imagine that was truly frustrating,” she conceded, somehow conveying the sense of an understanding grandmother.
Wow. Keeping up with that woman’s emotional gymnastics was more challenging than getting the right present for every one of Aifric’s birthdays. “I won’t give you the chance again,” he promised, lunging at her.
She formed a cl
ub of water and clobbered Connor on the side of the head. He was walking with all of the elements so he felt the water coming and managed to soften the blow. Instead of exploding his skull, it only flipped him over sideways. He used air to complete the somersault and land in front of her again. He seized the water that she was already swinging back around to club him again and managed to deflect it. At the same time, he drew upon fire and shoved white-hot daggers at her eyes.
She caught those a quarter of an inch away from her orbs, and at the same time struck at his mind with a hammer blow of chert.
Just as he had hoped.
She battered against his mental shielding, and he took the risk of allowing his defenses to crack. Her will stabbed into his mind with excruciating pain.
Her true emotions radiated through chert “I wanted to raise you to greatness, you insolent child, but all you wish to do is destroy everything I’ve built, and place the entire kingdom at risk!”
Amazingly, she truly believed that. She considered him the one who put the kingdom at risk? Connor was a firm believer in focusing on one’s strengths instead of their weaknesses, but she took creative short-sightedness to a whole new level.
The queen pressed her attack, pouring in all of her hate and her will to dominate, seeking to overwhelm him as she had done in the past. She might be a barking-mad lunatic who flipped moods faster than Hamish could flip bacon, but he’d realized she always went for the mind.
Connor envisioned Alasdair, full of everyone he loved, assembled to support him. The mental image solidified, and the square felt as real as if he stood upon the solid, level stone ground again, breathing the familiar scents of Neasa’s bakery and the hot metallic tang of the blacksmith’s shop. It felt like coming home, and home was where he was the most grounded.
Queen Dreokt appeared in his mind looking shocked. “What is the meaning of this?”
“It means you are no longer welcome here,” Connor declared. “Get her!”
As one, everyone in the square rushed her. She howled with rage and lashed out with terrific force, but there in his mind he finally held the advantage. Defeating her mind bomb had taught him the secret to controlling his mind and warding it from external influence.