The Eighth Excalibur

by Luke Mitchell

  He came up in a kneeling crouch, squeezing off a few wild shots from his raised wrist blasters… and froze, gaping from his extended arms down to the rest of his body, and to the suit of rippling armor that had just finished unfurling to encase him from thin air. It was the same kind of sleek armor he’d seen on Iveera and Groshna—toned in grays and blues, and utterly alien.

  It was the armor of an Excalibur Knight.

  His armor, he dumbly noted, as a string of shots thudded across his torso, coaxing a crackling pulse of light from the ghostly kinetic barrier that still clung to his exterior. Ex practically purred, like all this time he’d wanted nothing more than to take a few good shots.

  “I’m a Knight,” Nate heard himself whisper, half question, half stupefied observation. “We’re—”

  Going to have a very short reign if you don’t plan on fighting back.

  The frighteningly hot flash of a scarlet blaster bolt flying past his head punctuated Ex’s point emphatically. Nate snapped out of it, pointed his wrist blasters, and returned fire.

  It wasn’t easy to see what he was shooting at in the erratic lighting, with the trogs charging in and out of the platform shadows, casting silhouettes of their own under the floodlights. But he hit at least a few shots, if the keening roars of pain were any indication.

  Reinforcements continued to pour in, grav lift shooters catching up from his crash flight deviation with booming battle cries and growling curses. More shots slamming into his legs and arms by the second. Nate stood and fired right back, caught up in the firestorm, gripped by something between exultation and desperation.

  “I’m an Excalibur Knight, assholes!” he screamed at the roaring shadows, shooting with his right hand as he raised his left arm, thinking to conjure a proper shield to handle some of the abuse. “Get the hell off my planet!”

  Well now you’re just being excessive, Ex said, as the trogs bellowed back, and the return fire intensified.

  “Yeah?” he growled, trying not to gape as a long kite shield unfolded from his forearm only to be immediately wracked by a string of rapid, cracking impacts. He began to back away, thinking to slip behind the landing platform beside him. “Well, remind me to give a damn when this is all—”

  On your right!

  Nate spun, sweeping his new shield with him, and watched in wide-eyed surprise as the edge of the shield smacked aside the thrumming bayonet-style rifle spike that’d been bound straight for his heart. Then he braced for impact as the troglodan behind that spike crashed straight into him.

  It felt a lot like what he imagined it might feel like to get folded by a two-thousand-pound squat. Except he didn’t get folded. His body screamed with effort. Hard rock cracked beneath his armored boots. And he caught the charging troglodan’s momentum head-on.

  For a second, they gaped at each other. Then Nate threw a hard uppercut into the beast’s jutting jaw and followed with a shield slam that sent the trog crashing to its big ass.

  And for the first time since they’d met, Ex gave a peel of genuine laughter at something other than Nate’s personal shortcomings. Yes... Yes! Excessive suits you, Nathaniel. Now helm your stubborn head and fight!

  Nate didn’t argue. He welcomed the thought of a helmet, and just like that, a soft pressure cradled in around the back of his head, a transparent film shimmering into existence before his eyes, wrapping around until he could hear the ragged sounds of his own rapid breaths.

  Much as he didn’t love the claustrophobic face hug, it was hard to argue with the added protection, or the cool rush of air that kissed his sweaty brow. Especially as everything around him began to sharpen on his heads up display—shadows coming to light, distant details leaping out with startling clarity.

  For a moment, there was something else, too—the strangest trickle of familiarity, like coming home after too long away. Then a nice big trog bullet winged off the side of his helmet, and all he felt was startled panic. A string of shots smacked into his left side. In front of him, the trog he’d shoved over was grabbing its rifle, preparing for round two.

  Excalibur Knight or not, Nate turned and ran for it, holding his shield where it could absorb the brunt of the fire that followed. There were still dozens of trogs down here, and plenty more still coming, from the glances he caught of the grav lift as he darted between landing platforms. Even if he could survive a rumble with all of them, it might not mean a thing if he didn’t do what Iveera had sent him down here to do.

  How do we find the Beacon? he asked, once he’d zigged and zagged through enough turns to feel safe hunkering in the shadows for a moment.

  Do you not feel it, calling us home? Ex replied, as Nate peered out from the corner of the adjacent platform, toward the densest concentration of floodlights. There was a wide opening in the cavern wall that he hadn’t had time to see earlier, leading deeper into… Christ, could this really be Atlantis? He’d forgotten about that particular little chestnut in the shuffle.

  Focus, little hobbit. Listen.

  He drew back behind cover, all too aware of the sound of nearby trog voices, and considered Ex’s choice of words. Calling them home. As if in response, that odd sensation of trickling familiarity shifted back into awareness beneath the surface of his helmet-enhanced senses. It was more noticeable, the more he focused on it, but still seemingly without direction—more a gentle mist in the air than a… well, a Beacon.

  And here he’d been wondering why it had taken Iveera so long to hone in on this thing.

  We will find the way as we draw closer, Ex insisted. First, we must make it to the city proper.

  Nate peeked out from the platform again, as if a more direct line of sight might somehow clarify his senses, then jerked back as the platform beside him erupted with fountains of sparks and red hot metal. A second volley spat chips of stone at his feet, echoes of gunfire reverberating into the darkness.

  They were waiting.

  Waiting as their friends circled around behind him, by the sound of it.

  Best we be on our way, then, yes?

  Ex sounded entirely too excited about the thought, like it was a trip to Disneyland he was proposing, and not a headlong charge through a waiting army and into the creepy depths at the bottom of the ocean. But the sound of their approaching flankers didn’t leave Nate time to dwell on it. He tensed, preparing to move, trying to decide the best route forward.

  As if in response to the thought, his helmet display shifted, troglodan-shaped outlines appearing through the maze of platforms like ghostly apparitions, forming up to charge here, moving around to flank there.

  It was incredibly handy.

  So much so that, for a second, he almost forgot to be afraid—almost felt as if he were playing some kind of game. A powerful predator, picking his next targets. Then he remembered that the behemoths behind each and every one of those thirty-odd outlines could individually pull him limb from limb—and probably eat him too, for good measure—and that healthy jolt of fear returned, with interest.

  He plotted out what looked like his most promising course, and willed his kite shield back to wherever it’d come from, deciding it would only slow him down for this next part. The shield promptly folded in on itself like a freaking Autobot, leaving behind only a thin gray stripe on the armor of his left forearm. Time enough to marvel at that later, he supposed.

  For the time being, he just mantled his way up onto the ramp of the platform he’d been using for cover, and started running his ass off.

  By the time the first pack of trogs caught sight of him, he was already gathering himself to leap for the next platform over. It was a long jump—almost definitely beyond humanly possible—which was why Nate had his untrusty repulsors cued up to help. And help they did. A little too much.

  In the excitement, he couldn’t have said which part he’d overdone it on—the repulsor thrust, or the jump itself. Either way, he flew clean over the platform he’d been aiming for. And the next one, too.

  Troglodan fire trac
ked him throughout the flight, each rushing pulse and sizzling blaster bolt disturbingly audible within the rapid-breathing confines of his new helmet. He tried to stay focused on the floodlit stone ahead as he passed through the apex of his jump and began to fall toward another hard landing. He was cuing his repulsors to soften the fall when a shot caught him in the shoulder like a speeding trog fist and sent the cavern spinning around him.

  He hit the stone in a solid belly flop.

  It might have been comical, if not for the uncontrollable coughs that seized him as he gasped feebly for air, diaphragm too impact-shocked to function, mouth tinged with the coppery hint of blood. The smooth stone exploded inches from his face, peppering his helmet with debris. More gunfire behind. Ahead, the trogs were forming up to guard the mouth of the cavern, where they’d apparently deduced he was headed.

  He gasped for breath, trying to get himself to move.

  Still an Excalibur Knight?

  Lying there at the bottom of the ocean, beaten and battered, encased by alien armor, and facing down a small army of troglodans, Nate wasn’t really sure who he was anymore. Somehow, though, the answer to that question didn’t seem nearly as important as the fact that he needed to keep moving.

  So Nate threw himself up from the ground and ran. Jaw clenched. Lungs burning. Stone exploding all around him. He ran faster than he’d ever run. Faster, he realized, than anyone had ever run. He could feel the armor working in tandem with his own pumping legs, steadying his breakneck gait, amplifying the power of his every stride.

  Ahead, the troglodan line dug in and opened fire in earnest.

  Nate leveled his wrist blasters and returned fire, not slowing. Not when the enemy shots began to find their mark, and not when something smacked down to the stone behind him, adding a heavy spray of water to the debris and projectiles already pelting him. He pressed on, firing away, spurred by the startled looks on the trogs’ faces, trusting his armor would deal with the punishment. Or it wouldn’t. Either way, he ran until he was close enough to the faltering troglodan line, and then he jumped again.

  This time, he left it to his legs alone, and saw with grim satisfaction that he was perfectly capable of clearing a line of eight foot tall troglodans without the aid of his untrusty repulsors. It also left his hands free to keep firing, though he couldn’t have said if he hit anything in the chaos. There was just a blur of motion, and confused beady eyes looking up at him, and then he crashed down on the other side, tumbling into a barely contained roll.

  At least he emerged with his shield out, and facing in the right direction to cover his ass. He leveled his right wrist blaster, thinking to cover his retreat as he went.

  And that was when he realized it hadn’t been him who’d set the trog line shaking in their giant boots.

  A few shots cracked into his shield from the more single-minded trog soldiers in the line. Most of the cavern’s collective attention, though, was focused on the torrential downpour of ocean water falling from the mouth of the cyclone tunnel. Nate couldn’t help but stare as well, wondering the unavoidable question.

  Were they about to be crushed beneath an entire ocean?

  A distant explosion rocked the cavern, spewing forth a renewed gush from the opening above. Some of the troglodans scattered and began rushing toward one of the platforms where Nate only then noticed a few parked vehicles—some kind of big, junkyard-looking hover bikes. They didn’t make it far before the cyclone tunnel coughed another small sea of water and disgorged the smoking wreck of a ship.

  Iveera’s ship, Nate realized, with a sinking feeling.

  And atop its battered, blast-scored hull, there was Iveera herself, riding the falling ship down like the Goddess of War riding a flaming horse into the depths of hell. She was locked in battle with the hulking crimson form of Groshna, and even at a distance, the intensity of the fighting was frightening. Neither one of them seemed the least bit concerned that they were plummeting straight to a horrific crash. They were too busy trading blows that sounded like they could’ve leveled city blocks—Iveera with her bladed staff, and Groshna with a tremendous dark axe.

  It didn’t track physically that the comparatively slender gorgon could so ruthlessly tangle with the enormous troglodan, but there she was, meeting his heavy-handed strikes head on, and dishing the punishment straight back. Groshna flinched first in their game of chicken, gathering himself to leap from the plummeting wreck. Before he could, though, Iveera caught his tree-trunk arm, deftly flipped herself onto his shoulders like she was mounting a rampaging rhino, and kicked off.

  In his mind, Nate swore the exchange should’ve launched her upward. Instead, the entire freaking ship accelerated downward as she kicked, the dorsal plating crumpling under Groshna from the force of her launch. Nate didn’t have time to wrap his head around it. The ship hit the stone with the loudest crash he’d ever heard, and he staggered a few steps back from the sheer violence of the sound. He took a few more when it hit him that the entire damn place might come crashing down with it, but the cavern held, and the hemorrhaging water tunnel was already extending a set of huge triangular panels to seal itself off.

  “What are you doing?!” a familiar voice snapped, right beside him.

  Nate had tensed behind his shield and checked over both shoulders before it dawned on him that the voice had come from his helmet’s communications systems, and that it was Iveera’s. Ahead, she was hovering above the wreckage of her ship, the pluming smoke billowing out around her as if it were frightened to make direct contact.

  “Get to the Beacon,” she said. “Get it to the Merlin. Go! I will hold them here.”

  “But,” Nate started, eyes scanning the cavern, counting the odds. “But I can—”

  “Go.”

  He stared dumbly at the copper-armored force of nature hovering there, twirling one bladed end of her halved staff on a line of crackling blue energy, shoulders gleaming with the new addition of some kind of orangish crystalline cannon fixtures, writhing jin pulsing an alarming shade of red.

  She didn’t look like a gorgon who needed Nate’s help.

  At least not until Groshna burst up from the wreckage of her ship to face her at a hover, crimson armor smoking, enormous arm cannon crackling with brilliant electric arcs. Around the cavern, most of the trogs were too captivated for the moment to do anything but stare.

  “Go,” she repeated quietly.

  And then she unleashed hell on the cavern.

  Nate shuffled backward at the ferocious explosion of violence, racing heart begging him to run even as his feet stubbornly refused to leave her here so thoroughly outnumbered.

  The Beacon, Nathaniel.

  He teetered in place, stuck on the edge until the thunder clap of the two clashing Knights ahead reminded him that he’d be punching a few worlds above his weight class anyway, trying to take on Groshna.

  Find the Beacon. Get it out.

  “Shit!” he growled, turning away from the madness and taking off at a hard run. Down the widening tunnel of stone, lit by an eerie, sea green light that emanated from everywhere and nowhere. On, beneath the majestic stone archways. Past the larger-than-life busts of trident-wielding mermen. Trying to shut out the distant sounds of explosions and gunfire.

  He ran on, straight over the ancient stone causeway. Straight on to what his disbelieving brain could only assume was the lost city of Atlantis.

  41

  Lost and Found

  The city was impossibly enormous.

  Hell, it was just plain impossible all around.

  That was the only conclusion Nate’s scrambling brain could arrive at as it struggled to grasp the regal sprawl of ancient buildings and pathways that reached out into the depths before him. There was no way anything this large could exist on Earth without their knowing about it. There was no way it could exist, period, at the bottom of the freaking ocean. Yet somehow, here it was.

  He stared at the buildings, each and every one a masterful work of art in its own
right—most of them a confusing fusion of old world architecture joined with something new and vaguely alien. All of them sitting peacefully in eerily abandoned quiet, paying no mind to the distant, muffled sounds of gunfire as they bathed in the luminescent blue-green glow of…

  Mother of god.

  Nate’s shuffling steps drew to a full stop as he leaned back to take in the unfathomably colossal dome that encapsulated the city high above like the world’s most stunning and gigantic display of bubble wrap art. Thousands and thousands of transparent panels, all reinforced by an intricate network of stone leaflets, metal girders, and gargantuan beveled columns that would’ve given the Romans more than a little cause to overcompensate.

  “Holy shit...” Nate muttered to no one in particular.

  The city of Atlantis swallowed his voice like an ocean.

  Amusing as your astonishment is, we have more pressing concerns.

  As if in agreement, a not-so-distant explosion peaked over the steady background drone of distant gunfire. Iveera, no doubt, giving the troglodans something for their darkest nightmares. Provided any of them lived that long, and the Atlantic Ocean didn’t come crushing down on all of them.

  Which put his mind right back to wondering who could’ve possibly built all this, and how in the hell it was still standing—still holding an entire ocean at bay—after who knew how many thousands of years?

  The energy of the Beacon permeates this place, Ex said, as if that should be answer enough. Then, remembering who he was talking to, he added, That may well explain the longevity. As for your first question, the short answer is ‘Atlanteans,’ and the longer one—

  Is that I’d better focus on the Beacon and worry about this stuff later?

  My, my, how you’re learning today.

  “Yeah,” Nate muttered, turning his mind to the Beacon, offering a silent question out to Atlantis in hopes that something might see fit to point the way. That soft welcoming sensation still hummed in his head here, oddly juxtaposed with the haunted air of abandonment that clung to the quiet city. It was a tad more noticeable now, he thought, but still far too slippery to divine any sense of direction or source.