by Frank Morin
Connor scowled. That was simply rude. He celebrated the fact that she was still there, still fighting, and actually hopeful of potential victory, but if he managed to die only for her to find a way to escape the lightning elfonnel and survive, he’d never forgive himself. He needed to escape, to defeat the monster with her in it.
Strum was still growing in intensity, and despite his best efforts Connor was starting to fear that it would soon overwhelmed his magnis field. When it did, he felt convinced the resulting lightning blasts would obliterate him. With the power of fleshcrafting waning, he doubted he could recover, but even if he did, the monster could just shred him apart again and again until fleshcrafting ran out.
That was depressing, and it promised to be a uniquely unpleasant way to die. Definitely not the direction he needed the fight to go. The lightning elfonnel was not a normal foe with a heart or brain to destroy. He needed to figure out how to ground it or disperse it, but without earth, how could he do that? How could he begin to fight back in a meaningful way?
He didn’t know, and that indecision cost him precious seconds. The strum charge grew to a critical point, and despite his best efforts to strengthen the magnis around himself, it was insufficient. He was about to die.
So Connor tapped blind coal and dropped down through his own protective shield just as the charge became too great. The magnis field imploded behind him, shredded by a thousand lightning bolts that filled the space with pure, destructive energy. The entire empty space transformed into plasma, and the resulting thunderclaps shook the lightning elfonnel.
With serpentinite, Connor seized the explosive sound, and with quartzite, he seized the concussive blast and concentrated it all directly behind him, using it as a booster to shoot himself right out through the queen elfonnel. She howled, hundreds of lightning bolts erupting out in every direction.
They didn’t spear through the air after Connor, but twisted together into one gigantic lightning bolt that shot away to the east.
“No,” Connor breathed, snatching after the lightning, but it moved too fast to stop or even deflect. He felt it cross the distance to Lossit valley in a blink, sensed it impact miles away and strike one of the Battalions.
The gigantic flying battle fortress disintegrated.
Connor shouted in horror as he fell, stunned by the brutal destruction. How many people had been on that Battalion? They were all dead.
Because he failed.
His panic faded beneath a rising tide of resolute anger. The elementals had lied and manipulated everyone, and were bent on murdering everyone. He needed to find a way to fight.
Releasing so much lightning at once seemed to tax the monster momentarily, and it actually shrank in size, its incandescent glow dimming until it was no brighter than the sun at noonday. So it wasn’t all-powerful in strum. That offered a little hope, but it began swelling again immediately, and he sensed the charge growing again.
“Air will rip the rest of those who dare the skies out of her domain soon enough, but your suffering begins now,” the queen elfonnel said, her voice rolling like thunder. “Witness true power!”
A second round of lightning bolts shot from the creature, wove together, and blasted east toward Lossit valley. This time Connor was ready, and he swatted at the lightning, trying to stop it. The queen lightning elfonnel was just too strong, and she overwhelmed his strum defenses. He managed to deflect it toward the ground, but sensed it strike among the armies.
How many people just died? He shouted in frustration.
The queen lightning elfonnel chuckled, again recharging. “Your beloved just arrived on another of those flying ships. We feel her there. She will be the next to die.”
59
When One Monster Is Not Enough
Ivor stood back to back with the twenty remaining Spitters of his strike teams, breathing hard. Enneleyn, his second, stood to his right, her left arm hanging useless. She’d taken an ice ball to the shoulder just before Nicklaus launched his Time Out. That boy had probably saved her life. One of the other Spitters was working to heal her during the lull, but it looked like the lull was ending.
How it ended was still up in the air.
Sixty Spitters, led by Rosslyn herself, surrounded them beyond a ten-foot thick wall of water that hung in the air between the groups, entirely encircling Ivor’s embattled team. The water was only a dozen paces away, fifteen feet tall. It was dark with mud and blood, and threatened to kill them all.
With Rosslyn leading her team, the fight had turned decisively against Ivor’s team. Most of their sculpted stones were spent, and Rosslyn’s forces had raised the water and pressed it ever inward, threatening to drown Ivor’s entire strike force. That was the most insulting way to kill a Spitter, and Ivor hated Rosslyn for threatening his people with it, but he hadn’t been able to stop it.
Now Time Out seemed over, but three huge earthen monsters were bearing down on Rosslyn’s companies. One was shaped like an enormous serpent that reminded Ivor of Harley’s mini elfonnel that she’d used to kill Lukas and so many others during the battle of Merkland. Another was humanoid, carrying a thirty-foot club of stone, while the final monster was shaped like a giant nuall hunting cat.
Other monsters had risen all across the battlefield, threatening the might of both armies. Spitters fought earth with water, while companies of Boulders charged in with reckless bravery to beat on others. Aonghus and Hamish were both lost somewhere in that latest Battalion barrage, and Ivor had no idea if they were still alive or not.
Rosslyn had no choice but to order most of her Spitters to defend against the monsters, and they had to use a lot of the water from that prison wall around Ivor’s teams. While they struck at the monsters with water, trying to sever limbs or turn them into mud, Rosslyn and two dozen of her Spitters paused in their assault.
“Surrender, and I promise to treat your people kindly,” Rosslyn shouted to him.
It might be a tempting offer, but if the queen won the day, Ivor would prefer dying in battle. If Connor somehow defeated her, he was absolutely confident they’d eventually win the battle. Surrender might save at least some of his Spitters, but he hadn’t come all that way to give up.
“How about you and I duel one-on-one. Winner takes all,” he shouted back.
“Ivor, you can’t be serious,” Enneleyn whispered. She was pale from shock, but still determined. “She’ll kill you.”
“Might buy us some time. I felt Kilian return. Didn’t you?”
“Kilian?” She clearly hadn’t, but his arrival changed everything. Ivor wasn’t sure why Kilian hadn’t come to succor them yet, but he would. Ivor trusted Kilian completely.
Rosslyn laughed, projecting confidence, but she was trying too hard. Ivor knew people, and he read her nervousness as clear as daylight. She must have felt Kilian return too, and she knew what that meant. Maybe she’d suggested he surrender in order to win some hostages to bargain with Kilian. She shouted, “Last chance!”
For who, though?
The air suddenly shook with an ear-splitting shout. Ivor cringed along with everyone else, clutching his ears as the sound blasted past. It was like a death shriek of the world’s biggest elfonnel, and the sound filled him with dread. He glanced west, past the embattled valley and the gorgeous waterfalls, toward where Connor was battling the queen. The shout had come from that direction. He dared hope it was the queen’s death cry. It was intense enough, it could be.
The ground shook, and it wasn’t from the monsters getting shredded by Rosslyn’s Spitters fifty yards away. The entire valley trembled, and the ground began to roll like open ocean under gentle swells.
“This can’t be good,” Enneleyn whispered.
“Stand ready,” he called, but he hated not knowing what they should stand ready against. His people had fought with inspiring bravery. It was a miracle any of them still lived, but the last thing they needed was another new threat.
The ground just west of the highway, near the ruin
s of Lossit, erupted as if someone had detonated a Last Word bomb beneath it. Dirt geysered hundreds of feet into the air, and the ground shook harder than ever. Debris rained down all the way to them, smelling of fresh-tilled soil, but it also carried a scent of smoke and ash.
All the debris was sucked out of the air like a sheet yanked off a line, revealing a huge elfonnel standing in the epicenter of the explosion. It was a monstrous thing, bigger than any Ivor had seen. It stretched at least two hundred feet long, and rose over fifty feet into the air. Shaped like a tortoise, but with a dozen heavy limbs, each capped with three-clawed toes, and with four serpentine necks, extending out different sides of its armored shell like monstrous hands on the world’s biggest compass. The heads on the ends of those necks were blocky things, each with four black eyes and enormous jaws filled with row after row of stalactite teeth.
“Tallan preserve us,” Enneleyn whispered.
“Someone needs to, because we’re grouted,” Ivor muttered, borrowing one of Connor’s terms.
Stunned silence settled over the battlefield as everyone gaped at the towering monster that lifted all four of its ghastly heads and trumpeted, sounding like avalanches of stone. The sound grew, and the air seemed to take up the cry. Wind howled in from the west, rising to hurricane strength, screaming as if Aifric had captured every death cry that day, magnified them a thousand fold, and poured them into the winds.
High above, the great Battalions spun ponderously in the unexpected tempest, the enormous flying platforms looking like logs floating on a turbulent river. Ivor feared they might not be able to withstand such a storm. The clusters of fast-flying aircraft that had been swooping down toward the battlefield were swept aside like leaves in a breeze, and Ivor lost sight of them as he blinked away debris and dirt tearing across his face.
When he looked up again, his heart sank. Winds were coalescing together, becoming visible and wrapping around themselves to form a huge creature. It looked vaguely like a great bird of prey, its beak long enough to gobble up an entire Thunder Tower.
“What by Tallan’s twisted memory is that?” one Spitter cried.
“I think we have the privilege of witnessing a double elfonnel event,” Ivor said. Maybe their brilliant attack strategy wasn’t so brilliant after all. What was going on with Connor and the fight against the queen? It looked like she had prepared servants to raise elfonnel, which was one eventuality they had hoped to not have to deal with.
They had Last Word bombs on the Battalions, but no one had expected an airbound. He wasn’t sure how to deal with those, nor if they could even find a way to fly through the storm well enough to deliver a bomb.
His mind raced as he calculated ways to respond to the threat, but if those elfonnel were loyal to the queen, the battle had just turned decidedly against his people. They had to issue orders to retreat, had to initiate defensive plans and delaying tactics, had to—
A bolt of lightning a thick as a house appeared from the west and struck one of the westernmost Battalions. The flash was so bright, Ivor cried out and clapped his hands over his eyes. The thunderclap was so loud, it was like a physical blow across his head, and Ivor staggered, feeling real fear for the first time all day.
When he blinked his eyes open, the Battalion struck by the lightning was simply gone. A blizzard of debris was already getting swept around by the shrieking wind. For a moment, Ivor could only stare, blinking stupidly up at the spot where that enormous Battalion had been hovering a moment before. The entire world seemed strangely quiet, and he recognized the side-effects of sound trauma, but lacked the emotional energy to care. All he could think about were the hundreds of people killed by that blast.
General Rosslyn raised her hand high and cheered. As if from a great distance, Ivor heard her shouting, “The queen fights for us!”
Ivor’s heart sank. He was a realist, and despite his confidence in his abilities and those of their core team, they could not stand against the queen. She’d raised two elfonnel and now rained lightning destruction across the skies. Had she killed Connor? Would any of them survive long enough to even try retreating?
A second blast of lightning flashed in from the west, but instead of striking down another Battalion, it raked across a hundred yards of the valley, ripping through one of the earth monsters and scores of soldiers from both armies that had been swarming it. Again thunder nearly clubbed him to the ground, and he clutched at his eyes, blinking wildly to remove the searing-bright after-image from that lightning blast. It was terrifying, and none of them had any defense against such a weapon.
The queen had targeted her own people.
Ivor frowned. That didn’t make sense. Why would she do that? Had she lost all sanity and now planned to murder everyone? That was even more terrifying.
On the far side of the barrier wall of water, Rosslyn looked shocked too, and her confidence faded.
“She missed?” Enneleyn asked, looking dumbfounded. “Can she do that?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past her,” Ivor said, trying to organize his thoughts again. They had to move.
Kilian appeared as if out of nowhere, moving many times faster than the fastest fracked Strider. He flashed past Rosslyn and her surprised Spitters, burst through their wall of water in a spectacular explosion of foam, and skidded to a halt in front of Ivor. His left eye was frosted with ice, while flickers of crimson fire danced in his right. Ivor squashed a pang of jealousy. He missed walking with fire so much.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ivor said.
“I’m not glad any of us are here,” Kilian said with a scowl. He looked honestly frightened, and that scared Ivor more than ever.
“Did Connor fail?” Ivor asked. He hated to think his friend might be dead, or worse, mind-wiped, but he could not make good decisions based on partial information.
“Not yet, but the situation is bad,” Kilian said. He glanced over his shoulder at Rosslyn and said, “Don’t interrupt, girl.”
Turning back to Ivor, he shook his head slowly. “Kids have no sense of patience.”
Then he cried out and clutched at his head, swaying as if struck. Ivor caught him before he fell, and he gasped to feel Kilian’s entire body shuddering. Had Rosslyn struck him down? Was that possible?
Enneleyn shouted, “Prepare!” and ever Spitter reached for water, ready to resume their fight to the death, but Rosslyn looked as surprised as Ivor. It wasn’t her doing.
Kilian clutched Ivor’s shoulder and gasped, “It’s gone again, but this time I fear it’s gone for good.”
“What’s gone?” Ivor asked.
“Fire.” Kilian straightened, and his right eye was now clear, his expression grim. “I just lost access to fire.”
“How? I thought you still could reach it through the higher frequency?”
“Not any more.”
Aifric’s voice cried out through Kilian’s speakstone. “Kilian! Earth is gone! Ennlin’s affinity is gone!”
Other cries of dismay echoed across the battlefield, and Ivor spotted Sentries and Sappers falling from collapsing towers. “Is this Nicklaus’ doing?”
“No. My mother destroyed slate. The entire affinity is gone,” Kilian said grimly.
“Well, that’s bad timing,” Ivor said, fighting to keep his voice calm as he glanced at the distant earthbound elfonnel that was turning all of its heads toward them.
Kilian straightened his shoulders, his expression turning determined again. “We don’t have time to focus on what we no longer have. We need to concentrate on what we can still fight with.”
“We’re not going to lose water too, are we?” Enneleyn asked, sounding terrified, and the words were like ice down Ivor’s veins. He’d managed the loss of fire by focusing on water, but the thought of losing all connection to the elements threatened to break him.
“I don’t think so,” Kilian said. He strode toward Rosslyn and her company, who instantly tensed and started to back away.
“You can’t actuall
y run away from me, and I don’t have the patience to chase you down,” Kilian snapped. “Stay there. We need to talk, and I’m tired of shouting.”
Rosslyn held up a hand and her company stopped, but they looked appropriately terrified as the dread Kilian marched up to them. As strong as Rosslyn was, Kilian could kill them all if he chose to, and they all knew it.
“You may slay us, but our queen is fighting for us and she will avenge us,” Rosslyn said bravely.
Kilian snorted. “My mother is lost to the elements. It is they who are attacking us, not her, and if we don’t stop them fast, those elfonnel you see will never slumber, and they represent but a tiny fraction of the destruction we will all face.”
Rosslyn paled, and glanced back at the earthbound monster that was lumbering toward them, moving with deceptive speed. High above, the airbound was swooping up toward the struggling Battalions. Ivor was glad he wasn’t stuck up there. If he had to join a desperate last stand for humanity, he preferred to do it surrounded by water, not empty air.
“You lie,” Rosslyn whispered.
“I never lie, and I don’t have time for a debate. We either join forces to defend all mankind from the rise of the elements, or you die now and we’re a bit short-handed.” He spoke with absolute calm, which seemed to rattle Rosslyn and her people more than anything.
“Look out!” Enneleyn shouted, pointing up.
Ivor looked up and gaped as an actual tornado cyclone extended down from the airbound elfonnel directly toward them.
“Shield!” Kilian shouted, and Ivor and every Spitter in his command reacted instantly with reflexes honed by months of intense training. They all reached for the river together and heaved, their intertwined wills working together rather than against each other. They’d practiced the move a thousand times, but Ivor never expected to use it against a tornado.