by Frank Morin
“Sorry. Nicklaus is in danger.”
That got his attention, and his expression turned dark and menacing. “How is it possible?”
She repeated the question and Jean said, “I don’t know how, but he just showed up in Lossit and chased Rosslyn away. Aonghus knocked him down and has him surrounded. Hamish is on the way, but I think he’s too far. Can you help?”
“Of course,” Ilse said without hesitation. A thousand questions played through her mind, but none of them mattered. A child was in danger from the brute who had so cruelly injured Jean. Ilse had no doubt whatsoever that Aonghus would slaughter Nicklaus.
“I need to go,” she told Anton. He nodded and said, “I will come when I can. Beware Aonghus. He walks a crooked path.”
Then he turned and bellowed loud enough for every ear within a quarter mile to hear. “The contest of arms is ever honored, but treachery unleashes ire like the avalanche!”
His will exploded outward, stronger than Ilse had ever felt. The sheer magnitude of it sent twenty Sentries tumbling off their shattering towers. Ilse felt his rage boiling through the earth like molten stone. They all loved Nicklaus, and if any harm came to that boy, the enemy would pay a terrible price.
She did not plan to allow any harm to befall him, though.
Ilse violently compressed the temporary tower she stood upon, shooting herself north like a catapult. She soared over rank after rank of enemy soldiers, all pressing in to join the battle against the Crushers. The vast size of their army was daunting, but at the moment she felt nothing but cold resolve. Anyone who stood in her way would die.
Luckily the soldiers standing where she crashed back to earth were smart enough to dive out of the way. Ilse extended her arms into a diving pose and flung out her earth senses. The air there was less filled with dirt, so it was difficult to connect with earth before touching down, but she didn’t care. She plunged into the earth as if it was water and dove deep, below the level where most Sentries were fighting.
There she leveled out and threw herself north, speeding below the ground like an arrow. She had walked with earth a long time, so she knew how to run with it when the occasion required. As she tore north toward the town, she cast her earth senses ahead of her and easily sensed Aonghus. His will was like a bonfire, but he was concentrating entirely on the square.
Although she could not press her will broadly into that area, she could slip narrow beams through his influence. Through those slender connections, she sensed Nicklaus fighting for his life. Aonghus was casting earth down upon him, spearing at him, and attempting to crush him, but the boy was still alive. He slipped through solid ground, and must be tapping blind coal and pumice.
She sensed something else, a pulsing power surrounding him unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was some kind of earthen shielding, but she hadn’t realized the Builders had figured out how to deploy effective earth shields. Whatever it was, it saved his life more than once. He was fighting with amazing skill, but trapped there in Aonghus’ domain, he would eventually slip and be crushed.
Ilse opened a conduit in front of her, lining it with hundreds of tiny, grasping hands that seized her armor and flung her forward, doubling her speed. She blasted into the open pit beneath the central square where the acid had been concealed, erupting from the wall like a meteor. She raised a sloping ramp to redirect her from horizontal to vertical, and threw every bit of her earth strength into punching a hole up through the square directly beneath Nicklaus.
As she rose, she used all of her momentum to seize Nicklaus and hurl him into the air, then rose to take his place. The boy whooped with glee as he catapulted high over the town. In the distance, she glimpsed Hamish hurtling toward the town. He’d catch the boy in plenty of time.
So she focused on Aonghus, who stood atop a nearby wall of earth, looking startled. She swept her earth senses across the top of his wall, scraping off a paper-thin sheet of earth that she flung at him, forming it into a hand to slap him across the face. The sharp report of the slap rang across the square, and his cheek reddened from the blow. It didn’t do any real harm, but it definitely drew his attention away from the boy.
“How dare you attack a child?” she demanded, filling her voice with as much loathing as possible.
Aonghus laughed, clapping his hands mockingly. “That’s the most impressive suicidal entrance I’ve ever witnessed.” He bowed to her and added, “I always thought you were smarter than that.”
“The wolf slaughters and the pedra in bloodlust knows no fear, but a blade badly tempered breaks under combat,” she stated, settling her mind for the fight. She had placed herself into a one-on-one contest with an ascended Petralist. Not the smartest move, but she’d battled Harley herself. She could hold Aonghus off until help arrived.
Aonghus rolled his eyes and scowled. “I’ve switched to slate, but I still can’t understand your blathering tongue twisters.”
“Your ignorance is not tied to your affinity, but to your broken mind.”
“And your death is entirely your doing,” he responded with an evil grin.
Aonghus threw his arms out wide, seized the earth all around her, and smashed it inward with overwhelming force. The sheer magnitude of the attack was terrifying, but in her element, Ilse could not acknowledge fear.
She lunged directly at Aonghus, concentrating all of her power into piercing just enough of the cresting wave of earth directly in front of her to slip through. Aonghus might be many times stronger, but he was diffusing his strength by grasping so much earth. She let him have it and stepped through, leaving the earth to smash together right behind her. The impact shook the square and the pressure wave it created nearly knocked her from her feet, but she used it to run three steps closer.
She could not defeat him with earth, but if she could get close enough, she could still pierce his eye with her dagger.
Aonghus laughed as he softened the earth beneath her, forming clinging mud, filled with grasping hands that threatened to drag her down. So focused on that one spot, his will was impenetrable and for a second she foundered.
“I too am a student of the best application of focused will,” Aonghus told her in a conversational tone as she fought with every bit of skill to stay out of the bog. She moved nimbly, trying not to set her feet down for more than a split second, focusing her will on the minuscule top layer of earth, the only part actually touching her feet, turning it into supporting platforms between her and the grasping hands.
She needed to do something else, or he’d have her. Most Sentries focused so much on overwhelming force, they ceded the advantage to her when she applied techniques to deflect their own strength back against them, but Aonghus had been a Firetongue, and a very clever one. He understood targeted application of force better than she’d hoped.
Even as she fought to reach the edge of the bog, Aonghus started casting spears of earth out of the ground at her. They were thick, clumsy things that would still smash her to pieces if she let them hit. Ilse spun and twisted, forced to divert some of her attention to those spikes, deflecting them aside when she couldn’t dodge.
Aonghus laughed as Ilse moved at a frantic pace, twisting, turning, dancing, fighting to stay out of reach. He clapped again. “You really are as good as everyone says you are.”
Then a slender spear of earth, no thicker than a poniard, stabbed through the back of her right shoulder. Ilse gasped and stumbled. She hadn’t even felt him cast that one. He’d shielded it completely.
He was ready for her hesitation, and a thicker spear erupted out of the ground to her left, right when she should be glancing to her right to see what had stabbed her. It was a clever attack, and would have caught most Sentries by surprise.
Just what she needed.
Ilse twisted around the spear and jumped, hooking her arm around it even as it stabbed past, scraping her leathers. It was still connected to the ground, and Ilse threw her will into it, momentarily seizing control away from Aonghus. He
must have been fully expecting that spear to finish her because he didn’t react quickly enough to block her. She used that earthen spear to fling herself into the air, straight at him.
Shouting one of Anika’s favorite battle cries, she drew her dagger, aiming for Aonghus’ eye.
It was a daring move that left her momentarily disconnected from earth, but against most Sentries, it would have worked and she’d kill them before they realized what had happened.
Aonghus dropped straight down into his earthen wall. Ilse muttered a curse as she soared over the spot he’d just vacated. The walls to either side took the shape of giant hammers and smashed in toward her. She tried to block it, but she was still disconnected from earth, and Aonghus threw every bit of his will into the strike. In that kind of brute force match, she was hopelessly outmatched.
The hammers caught her in midair and crushed her hips and legs. Ilse screamed, momentarily blinded by pain.
It was a pain she knew, and memories of Harley and Lukas and desperate battle flashed through her mind. It hurt so bad, she wanted nothing more than to fall into a broken heap and scream for a year, but she knew that pain, and she had beaten it once.
Ilse struck the ground, and a second wave of horrific pain ripped through her like lightning. She screamed, clawing at the ground, but clawed even harder at her affinity. She knew that pain. She had beaten it before, and she did not fear an enemy she knew she could conquer.
Immersed in her affinity as deeply as ever in her life, Ilse used it to insulate herself from the pain. Her vision cleared and she wrapped her body in earth. Aonghus stepped out of his earthen wall nearby, gloating.
His expression turned to awe when Ilse rose to face him.
Her body still shook from shock and agony, but she stood firm on familiar summoned legs. They’d served her well since Harley had injured her outside of Merkland, and they would serve her again.
“I don’t believe it,” Aonghus breathed.
“Did you really think a pitiful bully like you could succeed where Harley failed?” Ilse demanded. She charged, drawing a spear of earth up from the ground and driving it toward Aonghus’ throat.
He might be surprised, but he possessed incredible reflexes. Aonghus dodged so fast he must be tapping basalt to his entire body. That was a trick few Striders figured out. Ilse spun to follow as he raced around her, but even as he ran with fracked speed, he seized her summoned limbs with earth and ripped them away in one convulsive heave.
Ilse screamed again, shocked by his power, and for once surprised. She had not expected him to strike at her legs again. Not even Harley had been so evil.
She hit the ground, and Aonghus owned it. Earth wrapped around her, sealing her in a coffin of deadly spikes that stabbed inward from all sides. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t scream her agony as Aonghus tortured her, piercing her body in dozens of places. Her world turned red with pain, and her connection to earth faded under the onslaught.
She clung to the one thought that still mattered. Nicklaus was safe.
Just as she felt herself about to succumb to the encroaching blackness, the earth flowed away from her face. She found herself held upright in her earthen prison, facing Aonghus. His expression was wild, his eyes insane.
“I am the new general, and I will succeed!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth.
She was done. She felt her life draining away, but she felt remarkably calm. Disappointed, but calm. She’d been living on borrowed time since that terrible day Harley took her Lukas away, and she’d dedicated herself to saving lives. She might still be able to help the others by enraging Aonghus to the point he did something stupid.
So she managed to whisper through blood-soaked coughs, “You are a . . . a coward and you . . . will die today.”
“You first.”
He stepped closer and drove his sword through her heart.
A flash of pain, and then blessed peace. She had not felt peace since her beloved Lukas had so brutally died, but in that final second, it flooded through her battered mind. She slumped in her earthen coffin, content with the knowledge that she had saved as many as she could.
Ilse smiled, then closed her eyes for the last time as Lukas’ so-familiar hand slipped into hers again, and she felt him beside her, welcoming her home.
52
Vengeance As a Motivator Is Very Risky
Hamish hovered two hundred feet above Lossit, stunned by Ilse’s abrupt, brutal death at the hands of Aonghus. Hamish had just plucked Nicklaus out of the air and was trying to decide what to do with the errant boy when he saw Ilse get overwhelmed. She was so strong, he’d fully expected her to survive until Anton arrived.
Anton was coming too, like a living eruption of earthen fury. He plowed across the battlefield, tossing everyone aside, including any Sentries stupid enough to try blocking his path. Earthnail Fogwatt was sliding along the ground on a spiked tower right behind him, while their strike force was savaging the enemy Sentries arrayed against them. Somehow they’d all felt Ilse’s death and their rage drove them to really scary heights of earth mastery.
Aonghus stood over Ilse’s body and lifted his hands high, laughing with victory. He glanced up toward Hamish and made an obscene gesture. His voice rang out through a speakstone Nicklaus wore on his arm. “I am the general! I am the greatest. I will kill all who challenge me, even if they pretend to be weak women and children. Will you be next in line, Builder?”
Hamish’s horror transformed into boiling rage and his hands shook on Nicklaus’ back with the need to descend and destroy the hated man who had just killed a valiant, brave woman and who had so brutally injured Jean. She was recovering well since her fleshcrafting, but Hamish was the one who had held her so many times when she sobbed as she talked about lingering nightmares of fire and pain.
He wanted to go down there so badly, but he couldn’t yet, not with Nicklaus. If only the boy hadn’t lost his main thrusters, Hamish would have sent him to stay with Jean on Battalion One.
Nicklaus was crying. The boy looked stunned. No boy should see such things. If he’d listened and stayed back in Merkland, he wouldn’t have. Hamish wanted to berate him for his stupidity, but couldn’t do it, not yet.
Jean’s voice, heavy with grief, spoke through their paired connection. “Oh, Hamish, is she really gone?”
“She’s gone,” he confirmed. The words were like ash in his mouth, and they fueled his vengeful rage. He would destroy Aonghus. Very soon.
“She was so good,” Nicklaus whispered. “She was trying to help me.”
“She saved your life,” Hamish said, increasing thrust. “Come on. I have to get you up to Battalion One. Jean, I’m bringing Nicklaus up to stay with you.”
“I’ll have Gisela meet you on the roof. We’re moving two Battalions over Lossit to provide bombard support.”
“Good, we’ll need it. I’ll be there soon. Have someone prepare to reload my weapons when we get there.”
“No!” Nicklaus squirmed in his arms, trying to pull free. Foolish boy, he’d plummet back to the ground without his boot thrusters. “You have to bring me back down there.”
“Are you mad? Aonghus will kill you.” Nicklaus had always been brave. Hamish hadn’t realized he was suicidal.
Despite his still-flowing tears, the boy fixed Hamish with that too-mature stare of his. “Hamish, the very bad man will hurt more people, but I can stop him.”
“He almost killed you,” Hamish retorted, still rising higher above the battlefield.
Down below, Aonghus turned toward Anton’s earthquake-like rush. Everyone else was wise enough to scatter out of the mighty Sapper’s way. Earth erupted around him, spraying a hundred feet to either side, the dust transforming into angry faces, silently screaming with rage. Even flying safely hundreds of feet above the battlefield, Hamish felt shivers of fear at the sight. Anton had always seemed like the forgotten little brother next to Evander, but now he was showing his full glory as one of the might
iest Petralists alive, one of the few who had lived since the Tallan Wars.
Aonghus didn’t care. Grinning with the thrill of new battle, he stomped one foot, and earth rose into a mighty wave, surging toward Anton. The wave smashed through the southern half of Lossit, growing to over fifty feet high, accelerating on an intercept course with Anton.
“Hurry, Hamish. Get me down there before Anton gets hurt,” Nicklaus insisted, wiggling harder.
“What do you think you can do?” Hamish demanded. He wanted to just ignore the boy and drop him off, but Nicklaus was no ordinary child and ignoring Nicklaus, especially when he was insisting so strongly, would be incredibly foolish.
Anton struck Aonghus’ earthen barrage in a fantastic explosion of dirt, momentarily obscuring the entire area. A booming thunderclap shook the air, and troops all across the valley who had not yet noticed the titanic struggle stopped fighting and turned to watch. Everyone knew that if one side won a decisive victory in earth, they would quickly dominate the battlefield. On the western side of the valley where the bash fighting was raging with inspiring enthusiasm, Boulders paused to cheer for their champion, or simply to cheer that their champions keep fighting for a while so they could get back to bash fighting.
“Can you see what’s going on?” Jean asked.
“No. I can’t see anything,” Hamish said, switching his mini-hub to Anton’s personal connection.
Aonghus’ voice echoed through it. “—fool to go for the jugular, old man. You’re stuck and you won’t find any escape either.”
The dust cloud hovering over the battlefield suddenly coalesced into fifty spears of earth, compressing so hard they turned black. They swept out of the sky, raining down over Aonghus. It was an astonishing display of earth mastery that seemed to catch Aonghus by surprise. He swept a hand overhead, and a cresting wave of earth rose around him to intercept the spears. Effective, but not nearly as classy. He might be ascended, but Anton was drawing upon centuries of battlefield experience. Maybe he had a chance after all.