I fixed one problem, but still had the issue of plummeting to the ground with no parachute. Aoife wasn’t far below me. She fell backwards. She yelled something, but I couldn’t hear it. I reached out with my power and pulled on her. She flew up to meet me. The impact made me wobble, but I managed to stay stabilized. Air resistance forced her against me. She wrapped her arms around my chest.
“Gaige!” she yelled over the rush of wind.
Yeah, working on it . Two problems fixed. One giant issue left.
Her eyes went wide as she stared over my shoulder. I risked a glance skyward. The long, sleek body of a dragon machine flew straight for us. With the sun behind it, it was nothing but a large black mass in the sky. Its silhouette stirred something in me. A memory. The image of Elder Narit standing with a smile on her face popped into my head. It was still vivid. Still fresh in my mind. Her serene smile and the large, dark shadow hovering unnoticed over her. This is what attacked the Jo-Shar village. This is what killed the Elder.
There was only one that night, but five flew out over the plains around Daresh. Five that I knew of. This one might not have been the one that killed her, but I didn’t care. As far as I was considered, this was the one responsible. Anger raged inside me. This was the one that sent me on the crazed flight down the side of a mountain.
I yanked power out of my well and imagined it building up inside the thing. I poured it out like a wide-open fire hose. My mind blurred as I did, but not from the use of my power. It was from touching whatever was inside the thing. I didn’t feel anything of substance past the leather skin, only an emptiness filled with an energy of its own. My body tingled like it did when Seanna used her magic on me and realization hit me. Those things were made up of metal, leather, and magic.
As I filled the thing with my power, I felt something else in there. Another mind. I couldn’t read it or anything, I’m not telepathic, but I could feel its presence there inside the dragon machine. That’s not to say there was somebody inside it controlling the monster—more like somebody used their mind to control it from afar. A sneer formed on my face. Let’s see what they think of this.
It dropped closer. It reached its good claw for us. Like a balloon full of too much air, the dragon’s body expanded with my power. The gaps in plates widened. The links weakened. I released the power, pushing it out in all directions. It was like a silent bomb had gone off in the thing. It exploded in a flash of reddish purple and sent pieces flying everywhere. Large chunks of metal plates flew past Aoife and me. Luckily none hit us.
Unfortunately, there was another problem. The strain of emptying my power into the thing and then exploding it taxed me. Drained me. Left me feeling sick. I should have known the stunt would over-extend me. I struggled against the familiar darkness closing in on me. It was a losing war. I felt myself blacking out.
13
RETURN OF MINOTAUR
Gaige!”
Aoife’s voice from somewhere far away. It was a scream that melted into an incoherent screech. The wail cut through the darkness before it could completely engulf me. I blinked and pushed it further into the background. I was greeted with the very clear vision of the ground rising up to meet us. My heart leapt to life, threatening to hammer its way out of my chest.
I had to stop our fall. At least slow it down enough for us to survive. Could we survive? I reached down into the well of energy inside me. There wasn’t much there. I had used so much to rip the dragon machine apart. It was like trying to scrape out the last bits of cookie dough from the mixing bowl. I gathered a crumb here. A morsel there. The ground rushed toward us.
200 yards.
I pushed on the ground. We slowed, but not nearly enough. I pushed harder. The ground came closer.
100 yards.
The exertion invited the darkness back. It slunk into the edges of my vision.
50 yards.
I dug for the last dregs of my well, funneling the power straight at the ground.
25 yards.
I pushed with everything I had. Every last drop of energy squeezed out of me.
10 yards.
I twisted at the last moment and hit the ground on my back. Hard. Aoife landed on top of me. Air rushed out of my lungs. Aoife rolled off me with a groan. I wheezed. My lungs refused to operate. I couldn’t get air into them. Panic settled in, but I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move. I could only lay there wondering if I had collapsed my lungs and there wasn’t anything to do but suffocate.
Aoife laid a hand on my arm. Calm swept in on me. The emotion was hard around the edges, but it helped. I relaxed a little. Several agonizing moments later, air rushed into my lungs. I gasped. Every breath hurt, but I gulped it in greedily.
“Are you okay?” Aoife asked.
“I think I broke my back.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said.
“I really think I did.” I hurt everywhere, but there was a sharp pain radiating up my spine like it was on fire.
“I don’t think you’d be able to move if you did.”
I lifted my head to see one knee up and wagging back and forth. I stopped it to test if I was the one doing it and not some weird reaction to having my spine severed. The knee stopped. I raised the other to match it. I wiggled my toes and felting them push against my shoes.
“That hurt,” I said.
“I think I busted your lip.” Aoife brushed fingertips against the side of my mouth.
I touched my lips and stared at the blood on my fingers. I looked at Aoife. She had a red welt on her forehead that was growing angrier by the moment. “Did you headbutt me?”
She let out a sharp laugh. Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Yeah. The least you deserve for being the biggest idiot I know. What were you thinking jumping on that thing like that? Of all the bonehead things you’ve done, that’s the bone-headiest of them all. You could have died. We could have died.” She looked up at the sky overhead. “Did we really survive that? How did we survive that? We shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t know,” I breathed.
“Thank you,” she said after a moment. She took my hand and squeezed it.
“We’re not out of this yet.” I gathered my elbows under me and tried to roll myself over. My back seized and screamed with pain, but everything seemed like it was in working order. More or less. I pushed myself to my knees, gritting my teeth. “Did you see where the plane went down?”
“I was too busy trying to not crap my pants.” Aoife blew out a deep breath. “Man, I thought we were going to die and I didn’t even get my life flashed in front of my eyes or whatever.”
“There’s still time.” I eyed the three remaining dragon machines high up in the sky. “We need to find some cover. I don’t think tall grass will hide us much from overhead.”
Aoife glanced up, her eyebrows drawing together. “Weren’t there five of them?”
“Yeah, I think so. Where’s—”
A loud thud behind us answered my question before I could finish it. We whirled on our knees and scrambled back from one of the things rearing on its hind legs. Those red, glowing eyes had no pupils, but they were obviously focused on us like to laser guided missiles.
It opened its mouth and fire dripped between its metal teeth to sizzle in the tall grass. It burned too fast and hot to catch fire. A long, metal tube ran down its throat. An orange light the color of the sun at dusk grew from somewhere down in its belly at the other end of the pipe.
I had nothing left inside to protect us. My well was empty. It all seemed a waste. I had nothing left inside to protect us. Everything we’d gone through, all the effort put into staying alive. All the pain and torment. All the meaningless deaths. It was all for nothing. The Jo-Shar. Elder Narit. The Ashlings that died in the Balataur attack. The Delicians who didn’t make it into hiding when the tunnels were found. There’s no way Seanna and Tias survived the crash. All those deaths because Daresh wanted me. In the end, I was going to die and Daresh never g
ot what he wanted. There was some comfort in that. At least Earth would be safe from an invasion.
Aoife’s hand tightened on mine. She knew it was coming, too.
The dragon machine stretched its neck forward. Liquid flame bubbled up in the tube.
I squeezed Aoife’s hand. I wanted to tell her sorry. I wanted to keep her safe. I promised her I would. I failed. I couldn’t find the voice to utter that one simple word. There was nothing left but sit there and wait for death. I closed my eyes.
A roar made me flinch and I waited for the flames to wash over me. They didn’t. Instead, a clang rang out across the plains. I opened my eyes and my jaw nearly hit the dirt.
Minotaur circled the dragon with his ax held in two massive hands. He moved faster than a creature his size should have been able to. He weaved around the thing’s swipes with its clanking paws. Minotaur scored several hits on the dragon. Each one sent a shower of sparks into the air as metal scraped metal.
Whoever controlled the dragon apparently grew tired of sparing with Minotaur. The massive thing’s head swung abruptly toward Aoife and me. It expanded its torso. Air rushed in between the metal plates with a hiss. Its internal glow brightened as the oxygen stoked the flames. It pushed its open maw toward us again.
Minotaur leapt. His powerful legs launched him high into the air. He held the ax with two hands above his head. He brought it down against the side of the dragon machine’s head. Sparks and bits of metal sprayed everywhere. The dragon’s head jerked to the side just in time. Liquid flames like napalm sprayed out into the plains just to my left.
Minotaur dropped to the ground, rolled, and hopped to his hooves. He dropped the ax and leapt again. He pulled a long, curved knife from his belt in midair and landed on the dragon’s neck. He grabbed a plate and held on as it reared back. It shook its head back and forth but couldn’t shake Minotaur. As soon as he was sure of his grip, he jammed the knife deep in between the metal plates. The knife sliced easily through the leather just under the protective plates.
The dragon reared onto its hide paws. Minotaur didn’t let up. He dropped down to another plate and sliced between the gaps. Like a single ant trying to take down a caterpillar, Minotaur crawled over the dragon, slicing and jamming the knife in over and over.
Purple mists began to pour out of the neck. It was similar to the color that often accompanied Seanna’s use of magic, but the magic fueling life into the dragons was tinged with red. The same color cloud had spilled out of the dragon machine I ripped apart with my telekinesis.
It whipped its head back and forth trying to dislodge Minotaur, but he held fast. The wicked blade rose and fell in a steady rhythm. It slashed through the leather with ease.
The dragon machine stumbled, caught itself, then stumbled again. It clacked with all the noise of a car wreck as it fell to the ground. It struggled to get back to its paws but couldn’t. Magical mists hissed from its neck.
Minotaur hopped from the thing, standing tall, dagger clutched in his hand. He looked every bit the hero in an action movie. Except for the huge bull head, of course. Action stars tend to not have foot-long horns sticking from their heads and a wet snout.
“Minotaur-” Aoife began.
“Save it,” he interrupted. “We must get to the safety of the swamp.” His black eyes rolled skyward. The dragon machines circled in the distance. “Can you move?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if I could or not. I pushed myself stubbornly to unsteady feet. “Let’s go.”
“You are the only humans I know who could survive a fall like that,” Minotaur said. “You are hard to kill. Like stubborn fleas.”
“Thanks?” I muttered.
“Come,” he said with another glance toward the sky. “We must run.”
Run we did. As fast as we could manage. We crashed through the tall grass with reckless abandon. My legs felt like spaghetti and I hurt everywhere, but fear and adrenaline pushed me on toward the dark scar across the horizon. Sholto’s swamp.
I kept an eye on the sky, watching the black shapes floating closer. It felt like all we were accomplishing was rushing headlong to our deaths. The swamps were too far away and the dragon machines were quickly gaining on us. There was no way we could outrun them. At any moment, one of them could be close enough to swoop down and snatch us up. What Minotaur had done was impressive, but could he fight more than one of them? He was good, but I doubted he was that good.
It felt like I was running on the edge of despair. I felt myself slowing. Each lift of my leg felt heavier than the last. At any moment, they would give out and I’d flop to the ground with nothing to do but lay there until one of those things either stomped on me or blew fire to end me.
But, like all the times I stood on that edge, the situation changed when I had given up hope that it would. Out in front of us, the swamp rose, dark and misty. It was out there just waiting for us. It was only three, four hundred yards away. I could make it that far.
The possibility of safety renewed me. All the aches, pains, and weariness receded a little. I could even feel my well of power starting to fill again. Distance melted away under our feet. We were going to make it. We would be able to hide in the swamp. It was right there.
But—there’s always a but—I heard something behind us. A rush of wind whistling over metal. I glanced back to see one of the things swooping down at us. We were so close to the swamp, but not close enough. It would reach us before we got there.
I tapped the bit of energy I had and focused on a dead tree that stuck up at the edge of swamp. I hoped its roots were as dead as it looked and yanked. The tree gave up its grip on the marshy ground and flew straight at us.
“Down!” I yelled.
The three of us flopped to the ground. The dead tree flew over our heads and right into the dragon’s mouth. The petrified wood lodged in the things blast cylinder, jamming it. The stream of fire backfired back down the dragon’s throat. It exploded in a spectacular ball of fire, magical mists, metal, and flapping leather.
“We made it,” Aoife gasped between breaths.
The ground under us was wet and a stink clung to it like a persistent mist. I lifted my head. The dark swamp rose up in front of us. It was right there. We had made it. We jumped to our feet and ran the rest of the way until the ground splashed around our feet and thick mists closed in around us.
14
BATTLE IN THE SWAMP
We sloshed through the swamp for several hundred yards. The mists and stink closed in around us. It was thick enough to block out the sky and I hoped it did the same for the dragon machines looking down on the swamp. Knowing our luck, though, they probably had some kind of magical infrared vision or something. We had no choice but rely on the hope that they couldn’t see us and keep moving.
Aoife and I were exhausted, sore, and in dire need of a chance to catch our breaths. She spotted a relatively dry mound of earth. We climbed to the top and bent with hands on knees. Minotaur watched us with those obsidian eyes while we breathed in short, shallow gasps. Breathing through the heavy, wet air felt like trying to breathe through a bowl of soup.
“What now?” I puffed, gingerly poking at my raw lower back. The gnarliest bruise was spreading over my skin.
Aoife shrugged her shoulders, unable to find the breath to speak.
“Maybe Sholto will help,” I wondered. “He did say I was welcome.”
“Sholto is the lizard king of this swamp, yes?” Minotaur asked.
I nodded.
“Then, this Sholto knows we have entered his swamp. It won’t be long before he shows and you can ask, I imagine.”
“I think I hear him coming,” Aoife said, standing up straight, her chest heaving.
I frowned and listened. I heard splashing somewhere off to our right. “I don’t think we’d hear him coming,” I said slowly.
“I think you are right, Gatekeeper,” Minotaur agreed. He pulled the sticks from his back and tossed them to me. He gripped the dagger he had used
to destroy the dragon machine in one large hand and produced another smaller one for his other.
I looked at the sticks in my hands, wondering how effective they could be against whatever was out there. When he had passed through his swamp the first time, Sholto had made it clear there were creatures we couldn’t even imagine in the swamp. I didn’t think I would be very helpful beating some swamp creature with a couple sticks.
The splashing grew closer. The mists played havoc on my sense of hearing. The noise seemed to echo from all directions.
“They’re everywhere,” Aoife whispered.
The mists hadn’t been messing with my hearing. Not as much as I thought, anyway. They were coming from every direction. “What is?”
“Balataur,” Minotaur grunted.
Aoife moved to position herself between Minotaur and me. “What are we going to do?”
“You are going to stay out of the way,” Minotaur snorted.
I gripped the sticks tighter. The smooth wood felt warm in my hands. They felt good there, perfectly balanced. My stomach clenched. What was I going to do with a couple sticks against the large beasts? Knowing what was out there was somehow worse than the unknown.
“Greetingsss, Gatekeeper,” a voice came from nearby.
Aoife and I jumped. Minotaur’s eyes merely rolled that direction.
“I must sssay, I did not expect you back in my swamp so sssoon.”
I followed the sound of his hissing voice to a large, dead tree a few feet off. A cloaked figured perched a few branches up. The fabric hung limp in the dead air.
I breathed a little easier. “I don’t think we intended to return so soon, Sholto. It became necessary, though.”
“I sssee.” His hooded head turned toward the sounds of splashing. “You always bring the most interesssting guests into my ssswamp.” He turned toward Minotaur. “You align yourself with the strangest companionsss, Minotaur.”
The Gatekeeper Trilogy Page 41