Etheric Apocalypse

by C M Raymond et al.

  “Get it off!” Julianne snapped. “NOW!”

  Marus swore and leaned down to chip at the Skrim on the boy’s neck. Julianne felt the damage as he flicked it off, drawing out the needle-thin tentacles. As Daved struggled, the Skrim clung harder, tearing at Daved’s mind.

  Julianne swept behind it, soothing the seared nerve pathways with her magic. Magic coursed through her, pure and strong, stitching Daved’s thoughts back together.

  “Gotcha!” Marcus held the hard-shelled alien aloft, then swiped at a tentacle as it jabbed towards him. His knife sliced off one of the strands, and before it could try again, he tossed it to the ground and slammed his boot down on it. A squirt of ichor sprayed the dirt.

  Julianne worked faster, frantically erecting a shield in Daved’s mind, and working a spell that would keep him unconscious for a few more days. He would need that time to heal.

  Even as she focused on her patient, her mind reached further afield, brushing the thoughts of the soldiers guarding the nearby portal.

  As soon as she was done, Julianne snapped the spell that had given Edith the brief respite of sleep. “It’s done,” she panted. “He will sleep for a few days, but I think he’ll be okay when he wakes. You must go. Run!”

  “What?” Marcus grabbed Julianne’s arm. “What is it?”

  “The portal has broken open. The Skrima are headed for Tahn.”

  Chapter Six

  Julianne’s horse made good pace, but not as good as Bab. The pony seemed to have found her legs and bolted along the trail into town. Suddenly, Garrett straightened and yanked on his reins to bring his horse to a halt.

  Julianne's eyes flashed white. What is it? she sent straight to his mind.

  Rather than answer her or even form a coherent thought for her to read, Garrett simply stuck up his hand in the universal signal for ‘stop,’ then wheeled his horse around and galloped toward Julianne and Marcus. "Run!"

  Startled, Julianne yanked her own horse around to follow, quickly pulling together Garrett's scrambled thoughts just as the bushes near the road shook ominously.

  A giant Skrim lurched out lumbering after the fleeing riders. Julianne urged her horse to go faster when two more appeared behind it.

  "Follow me!" Garrett yelled and disappeared around a bend in the road.

  Still riding in the back of Garrett’s mind, Julianne had the foresight to share what she saw with Marcus. He wants to ambush them ahead.

  As good a plan as any, Marcus thought.

  They rounded the corner, quickly dismounted, and took the brief moment of respite to ready their weapons. Reins were draped over slim branches so their horses wouldn’t injure themselves if they took fright.

  Marcus held his rifle aloft, a low hum signaling that the magitech weapon was charging. Julianne gripped her staff tightly, and Garrett gave his ax a confident whirl.

  The Skrima rounded the corner. The three beasts looked familiar, one of them not quite the same as those that had attacked Tahn so long ago but sporting the same dangling snout. As they approached on fat hard-shelled legs, the front one reared up on its hind legs and balanced on its thick, stumpy tail.

  The beast's entire chest was layered with a scaly shell. In the cool moonlight its ruddy shade was muted, but Julianne knew that come daybreak the sunlight would pick out the hues of red that identified the creatures arriving through the portals.

  The front Skrim advanced, taking one careful step and then another. Its kin held back, swaying and snorting as they waited for their leader to make the first move.

  The Skrim slammed back down onto all four feet and charged toward Julianne after lowering its heavy, bony head. Julianne's horse pranced nervously, pulling away from the branch where it had been tied.

  The Skrim noticed and altered its headlong run toward the horse. Julianne braced herself, then lunged. The Skrim struck between girl and horse, swinging its heavy head and muscular trunk to either side.

  Julianne was thrown in one direction, her horse in another.

  "Jules!" Marcus yelled as a second Skrim lunged toward him. The other horses whinnied in terror and pulled away, then bolted down the road away from Tahn.

  The air pulsed as Marcus let off a round from his rifle, aimed directly between the Skrim’s eyes. The Skrim flinched but seemed otherwise unbothered by the attack. It reared back again and plunged back down, attempting to crush Marcus. He rolled and jerked to a stop as a foot pinned his tunic to the ground.

  The unwitting beast shuffled aside, and Marcus pulled free and jumped back to his feet.

  The leader wasn't particularly fast, and Marcus had no desire to find out exactly how strong it was. He guessed from its size that it had considerable power, and the way his blast had just bounced off its skull made his stomach squirm. Rather than risk another useless shot, Marcus drew his sword. He took a defensive stance and waited for the Skrim to attack once again.

  "Ye big fat bastard, pick on someone yer own size." Garrett tumbled between Marcus and the Skrim, eyes wild and ax held aloft in a vaguely threatening manner.

  In the space of a blink, he sprawled on the ground as the Skrim’s muscular snout slapped him out of the way. A moment later the snout flopped onto the ground, detached from the monster's face by a well-aimed swipe of Marcus's sword.

  The Skrim shrieked and reared back, blood spraying the air. It writhed and thrashed, flailing limbs missing Marcus by only a whisker. Hadley darted in with his staff, slipping it between a narrow gap in the beast’s protective shell and its soft, wrinkly armpit.

  Huh. It doesn’t have arms. Should I call it a legpit? Hadley sent to Julianne as his sword bit deeply through its shell.

  He cursed as the beast threw itself back down, ripping the staff out of his grip. "Shit. I'm unarmed!"

  "I’m a mystic, not a weaponsmith. What the hell am I supposed to do about that?" Julianne called in reply.

  She batted away a rough whack from a floppy nose while dodging angry kicks. Her nimbleness gave her the advantage, but the beast’s heavy armor made it hard to damage.

  Well, hard if you didn’t know where to aim. Julianne shoved the butt of her staff into the Skrim’s glossy eye.

  Though he’d turned away, Marcus heard the wet pop of an eye leaving its socket. “Glad I didn’t eat before we fought,” he muttered, facing off against his own opponent.

  The Skrim he’d sliced open had backed away, its movements slow. It tripped now and slammed onto the ground, then stumbled back up, only to fall again.

  “Ach, the wee beast is runnin’ out o’ blood!” Garrett exclaimed.

  “Garrett, I thought ‘wee’ meant little,” Marcus remarked in confusion as he retrieved his sword from the dying beast.

  “Aye.” Garrett sidled away, eyeing the final Skrim.

  The beast shook its head, its long nose rippling in a mesmerizing wave, then barreled toward Marcus.

  “You think these are small?” Marcus dodged the attack easily and struck, but his sword glanced off the hard shell with a clatter.

  “What? They’re fuckin’ ginormous!” Garrett took a running leap as the Skrim skidded to a halt. Before the monster could turn back toward the target it had so badly overshot, Garrett had wrapped both hands around its stubby tail.

  “Then why did you call it a wee beast?” Marcus yelled. He ran forward as Garrett was flicked into the air.

  The rearick held on, but only just. The Skrim lumbered in circles, trying to catch its flailing tail and the man who rode it as if it was a serpent. Frustrated, the Skrim hurled itself into a stand of trees to try to dislodge its rider.

  “No. No, not there, ya wicked bastard!” Garrett slammed his ax down, and Marcus heard a sharp crack. The Skrim wailed and rose on its back feet again.

  “No! No, no, NO!” Garrett’s miserable wail was punctuated by the sound of a heavy blade on the thick carapace. Instead of the tinny sound of thick armor, Marcus heard the crunch of broken shell.

  With each blow, the Skrim became more and more inc
ensed. It continued to try to fling Garrett off or slam him into nearby trees.

  “STOP WIGGLIN,’ YA CLUMSY RED GOBSHITE!”

  With one last solid thwack, Garrett plunged his ax deep into the Skrim’s spine. Its legs gave out, and the giant beast toppled to the ground. Garrett vaulted free and eyed the Skrim, which was still alive but gasping and gargling.

  “Oh, now how do ya feel without a brain stem, ya stupid lump?”

  “Garrett,” Julianne warned.

  “Och, fine.” The rearick jammed his stubby fingers into the neck folds of the vanquished Skrim. Once he had found a nice fleshy spot, he rested one foot on its shoulder and swung his ax high. With a swish and a meaty thud, the Skrim was dead.

  Garrett looked up and wiped a cheek. Julianne just sighed.

  “Garrett? You okay, chap?” Hadley asked carefully.

  “He’s fine,” Julianne replied dryly.

  “I’m no’ fine!” Garrett snapped, with a wobble in his voice. He stomped over to where he’d been fighting the Skrim and dropped to one knee. “Me wee lovelies. Look what that clod did ta ya. All broken.”

  He held up the glass neck of a shattered bottle.

  “You’re crying over whiskey?” Hadley asked, comprehension dawning.

  “Do ya know what that bag o’ bottles cost me?” Garrett asked. “With these fat pricks runnin’ round, how long do ya think it’ll take me ta get me ass back ta Sweetwa—Hold up!”

  Garrett tossed the jagged shard aside, scrambled onto all fours, and shoved the broken glass aside with a tinkling noise. He lifted a bottle still sloshing with amber liquid.

  Marcus squinted at it and gave Julianne a sidelong wink. “She looks intact. Here, give me a sip, and I’ll tell you if it’s any good.”

  “Get yer thievin’ hands off me booze!” Garrett snatched the bottle back and clutched it against his chest.

  “If you two are done?” Julianne rested one had on her hip and tapped one foot impatiently.

  Garrett coughed apologetically but didn’t relax his grip on his sole remaining bottle of Sweetwater whiskey.

  “Julianne, can you contact Bastian?” Hadley asked, frowning.

  She reached out with her magic then shook her head. “No. That’s strange. We can’t afford to wait, though. We need to find our horses and get to that portal.”

  Julianne turned to go, but Marcus caught her arm. “Shouldn’t we head to the town first?” he asked quietly.

  Julianne pressed her lips together. “I wish I could say yes to that, but… Marcus, if the portal is open again, and Skrima are coming through, we have to stop them.”

  “And if it’s open and we die trying to close it?”

  She shrugged. “Then we die trying. If that really was the portal, Tahn will know. I trust the people there to do what’s needed—sending emissaries to Muir and Arcadia and getting word out that an attack is imminent.”

  Marcus nodded firmly and released his grip, then slid his hand down to hers and squeezed it gently. “Whatever it takes,” he murmured.

  “Whatever it takes.” Julianne flashed him a brilliant smile. “But we won’t go down without one hell of a fight.”

  Chapter Seven

  Abbey stood at the prow of the Storm Warrior, her eyes closed, the gentle breeze caressing her hair and Dustin lightly touching her back.

  "Don't rush it," he told her. "Wait for your moment. When you feel the power, grab it and hold on tight."

  "I know what I'm doing," she snapped. "Now shut up, my love. I'm trying to concentrate."

  Dustin chuckled softly, but she heard nothing more from him.

  Storm Warrior was one of the larger stormships in the Holdgate fleet. All stormships were responsible for controlling the weather and the volatile seas for fishing vessels and trade ships, but Storm Warrior had an added responsibility: hunting down any who would use their weather-control magic to hurt the people of the Kaldfell Penninsula.

  Abby had spent the first nineteen years of her life as an outsider in the city of Holdgate. She and her Arcadian father had never been accepted until she’d proved herself by taking down an evil captain and his equally evil Storm Caller. Now that she’d worked her way up to first mate, she was taking on another challenge; she was learning storm magic.

  The ship rocked slowly beneath Abby’s feet as she reached out with her mind, feeling the motion of the water—and a moment later she was doing it. She was stormcalling. A sudden wind filled the sail, and the ship glided forward across the water.

  Abbey opened her eyes and smiled, glancing back at Dustin. "How was that, husband?"

  He grinned. "Very fine, wife."

  She leaned against him, brushing her lips across his in a quick kiss. Their marriage was as new as her stormcalling. Both things had taken place in the land across the sea, a place they'd gone to fight monsters. Abbey had been called to that land in a dream, and her crew had answered the strange summons with her.

  They'd had some adventures in the land across the sea and fought the strange creatures the locals called monsters, and they'd recently returned to their home, the city of Holdgate.

  “I’ll be stormcalling lightning before you know it,” Abbey told Dustin.

  “I believe you will,” Dustin replied. “Just don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Calling lightning requires incredible focus.”

  "Finally, some wind," Captain Syd growled, running a hand across her bald head as she approached the prow. "Now, let's see if we can catch up to that bastard Morton."

  Morton was a Storm Captain who'd broken bad while Storm Warrior was away across the sea. He led a crew of Storm Raiders now, terrorizing the southwestern coast of the Kaldfell Peninsula. Abbey and her friends had dealt with Storm Raiders aplenty over the past few years, but Morton was proving especially difficult to find. They'd chased him for nearly a month, but he always managed to stay one step ahead.

  Abbey concentrated on the sea, keeping her glowing bluish-green eyes focused on the water from which her power seemed to flow. Of course, she knew the power really came from something else—something known as the Etheric—but as a mental trick, it helped to imagine that she drew upon the unceasing power of the churning sea.

  She was just getting into the flow—dropping into that strange mental place where she went when using either her gravity-manipulation magic or her stormcalling, a place where she worked hard yet was also somehow at peace—when something on the southern horizon caught her eye. At first, it looked like a bird, but something about its shape and the way it moved made it clear it wasn't.

  She turned her head and called over her shoulder, "Captain, you seeing that thing on the horizon?"

  Captain Syd stepped to the rail and lifted her spyglass to her eye. After a moment, she lowered it and scowled. "What the hell?" She glared up at the crow's nest and called to the occupant in a loud voice, "Olaf! You asleep up there? A little heads-up would have been nice."

  The large sailor leaned over the edge of the crow's nest and looked down, apparently perplexed. "It's just a bird, Captain. You want me to report every bird on the horizon now?"

  The flying creature in the distance grew larger at an alarming rate. Abbey didn't know what it was, but it was moving damn fast.

  As they watched, the creature did a neat turn, corkscrewing through the air as it angled toward them.

  Captain Syd turned back to the crow's nest, her scowl even deeper than before. "Do birds usually fly like that, you shit-eating, eyeball-licking dullard?"

  "Eyeball-licking?" Dustin asked. "That's a new one."

  "Trying to change it up a little," the captain replied with a wicked grin.

  Olaf looked just as perplexed as Abbey felt. If it wasn't a bird, what the hell could it be?

  She put her hand on the rail and kept her eyes fixed on the mysterious creature. "Captain, I think I should get a closer look."

  Dustin touched her shoulder. "Is that a good idea? We have no idea what that is."

  "That's what's worrying me,
" Abbey replied. "Last time a mysterious flying object approached our ship, it started shooting fireballs at us and we found ourselves swimming a few minutes later."

  As terrible as that experience had been, at least it had turned out to be a human; a magic user named Simon, who claimed to be Abbey's brother. Whatever this flying creature was, it sure as hell wasn't human.

  Captain Syd nodded grimly. "Go."

  Abbey started to climb onto the rail.

  "Need a wind?" Dustin asked.

  "Let's do it together." She reached back and gripped his hand.

  On his own, Dustin was the most potent stormcaller in Holdgate, but when they stormcalled together, the results were even more impressive.

  A sudden wind hit Abbey from below, and she released Dustin's hand. She shifted her energy, now using her gravity-manipulation magic to reduce her weight and effectively making herself as light as a feather. The wind carried her into the air.

  When she reached a height of about fifty feet the wind shifted, sending her south toward the creature.

  It was only then that she began to understand the size of the thing. It was massive. Even from this distance, she could see its absurd strength. Each flap of its mighty wings sent it surging forward. And it was clearly and purposefully heading straight for Storm Warrior.

  She'd seen enough for the moment. There was no way she could fight this thing in the sky. She signaled to the ship, and Dustin shifted the wind to bring her back.

  "We have to be ready to fight," she told them when she touched down on the deck.

  "What is it?" Dustin asked, his voice thick with worry.

  Abbey thought a moment. The only word that came to mind was the one she'd heard in the dreams that had called her to the foreign land two years ago. "It's a monster."

  In the distance, the flying creature banked starboard, and for a moment Abbey thought it was turning away from them. Then it banked back toward port, and she realized it was just lazily floating through the sky.