by Frank Morin
He. Would. Not. Allow it.
Connor leaped into the air and tapped quartzite, forming a howling cyclone that echoed his cry with its mighty roar. Driven by that implacable rage and carried aloft like a living tornado, he soared toward that maw that was already opening in search of its next victim.
Hamish arrived first. Flying even faster than Connor, every thruster opened wide and roaring with power, he clapped his arms together, pointed at the monster.
Two slender javelins shot from his arms, propelled by white-hot flames. The burning missiles raced into the monster's mouth and exploded.
The blast of air tumbled Hamish away, but Connor ripped the air apart and tore through the center of it. He seized some of the flames and wrapping himself in them as he flashed past rows of blasted teeth and the charred stumps of snakelike tongues.
The elfonnel roared with pain, but Connor drove through the torrent of its breath and matched its cry with a defiant howl he could not recognize as his own. The valve of its throat was like a cart-sized stone. Before it closed behind its breath, Connor flew through.
The hollow tube of its throat was dark and empty, scoured clean like a storm drain. Half running, half flying down its length, he raised a piece of limestone high and commanded it to come alive. Light blazed forth like a miniature sun, illuminating the stygian darkness, but revealing no trace of Verena's body. When he reached the far end, a second valve whisked open and he plunged into the torso of the beast.
The tunnel there narrowed to seven feet, blocked by a curtain waterfall of some viscous material. He punched through with his fiery whirlwind. On the far side, the tunnel opened wide, like a low-ceilinged underground cavern at least sixty feet long, and more than half full of that sludgy black ooze. The entire chamber rocked with the monster's ponderous stride, and it smelled like old vinegar and rotten eggs.
He had reached the beast's belly, and nothing floated above the black ooze.
A trickle of the filth worked through the barrier of his fiery whirlwind, and Connor touched it with his left index finger. It burned like icy fire and the tip of his finger faded from the shiny black of enhanced granite to normal flesh, even though he continued to tap the power stone. His hand throbbed with a deep ache that beat against his power for several heartbeats before expiring.
His finger didn't fade to black again, but remained simple, vulnerable flesh. That meant the monster consumed Petralist powers somehow. That's why it went after Ailsa's stone supply. It was feeding, replenishing its strength.
What did that vile stuff do to Verena's unprotected skin?
The disgusting efficiency of it renewed his towering rage and he max-tapped marble to intensify his protective fires, then dove into the inky sludge. At first, the disgusting ooze resisted the fire, but then began to smolder and after three long heartbeats, it lit with an explosive whoosh.
In seconds, the entire stomach transformed from a filthy pit of black acid eating through hapless Petralists into a firestorm as the top layer of ooze burned like kerosene. Connor let the stomach burn, hoping the sludge would dissipate, but he controlled the flames immediately around him.
Burning back the sludge, Connor dove deeper into the belly of the beast, hunting for Verena. Boiling her in monster acid was not much better than leaving her to dissolve alone in the monster's belly, but he could think of no other way to dig through to her without dying too. As he groped blindly through the burning sludge, his hand grasped a human ankle. With a surge of hope and a mighty heave, he yanked the person out of the boiling acid. The sludge melted away to reveal the face, but it wasn't Verena.
It was Jok.
Connor gagged, nearly vomiting at the sight. Jok had been brutally smashed by the monster's teeth, and the sludge had eaten into his torn flesh. He looked partially dissolved, barely recognizable as human.
So Connor did the only thing he could. Enshrouding Jok's body with purifying fire, he cremated him on the spot. At least the monster wouldn't consume his remains.
The smell of charred flesh, mingled with the stench of the burning sludge was making Connor sick. He felt light-headed from the smoky air. He wouldn't last much longer.
Terrified by what he might find, he nevertheless dove back into the sludge. Almost immediately, he found another body.
It was Declan.
Seeing Jok's corpse had shaken Connor, but looking down at Declan's broken little body struck him like a curse-punch to the stomach. He dropped to his knees beside the brave young Sentry, whose expression was locked into a mask of determination. Tears flowed as Connor touched Declan's head.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
He twisted the sorrow into renewed rage at the monster, leaped to his feet, and screamed fury, his cry echoing through the stomach chamber. He would destroy this monster. Somehow, he would avenge the useless death.
He cremated Declan, holding to that resolve like a shield against the horror of the day and with grim determination, dug back into the black sludge. He found the next body in seconds. It was a Boulder Connor barely knew. The boy looked intact, if not exactly alive.
Connor couldn't bear to cremate another student, not one who only looked to be sleeping. He had to try something to help. So he shoved a blast of air down the boy's mouth. Black slime gushed out and his chest heaved. The boy coughed and vomited all over Connor's boots.
He didn't care, but laughed with joy to see a life spared. Even though the boy remained unconscious, he explored deeper with renewed hope, leaving the boy on the cleared area behind him. In the next frantic minute, he pulled another five men and two women out of the ooze, all unresponsive, all stripped of their powers, their skin burned. Some of them were savaged like Jok and Declan had been, but with the others, he shoved blasts of air down their mouths to clear their airways. Three of them responded, coughing and vomiting, but none of them awoke.
The others he cremated. It was the only honor he could offer.
Burdened by grief and by guilt that he'd let those soldiers die when they depended on him to protect them, he continued digging. He held onto hope he could save more, and was desperate to find Verena, but terrified to think that the best he could do for her might be to cremate her remains like the others.
The monster began thrashing more violently, and Connor spotted open holes in the ceiling of the stomach where fresh ooze began pouring in to replenish the acid he had burned away. He plugged each of those with hardened air to help staunch the flow, but he needed to find Verena fast and figure out how to break out before his powers ran out and the monster's stomach defeated him too.
His marble began to run low, so Connor concentrated on managing the fires raging in the cavernous stomach, directing those flames with more precise control. He tried to calm his labored breathing, but smoke hung thick in the low-ceilinged room. Despite his efforts with quartzite to keep that smoke at bay, breathing was becoming difficult. He'd run out of air even sooner than running out of fire. So he focused on using the flames from the burning ooze as his shovel to dig through the semi-liquid acid, determined to find Verena, alive or dead.
Then something reflected the flames within the ooze directly in front of him and he risked using more fire to illuminate the object.
Verena.
Unbelievably, she lay in the midst of the acidic slime, completely whole.
A gentle thrumming vibrated through his marble senses as the flames rebounded off an invisible barrier just larger than Verena's curled figure, and he understood. She had used a shieldstone like the ones she had employed against Rory to such effect outside of Lord Gavin's manor house.
Her face, which had been white with terror, lit up like the rising of the sun when she saw him, and she launched herself out of the ooze.
Connor caught her and carried her back to the others. She clung to him and wept into his shoulder, her body wracked with sobs of relief and terror. "I was so scared," she whispered.
"Me too."
Despite the danger they still faced, h
ope lit his soul like a max-tapped Solas. He tried to say more, but his voice was constricted by emotion, and he blinked back tears of joy.
The other rescued Petralists still had not stirred, and their breathing remained dangerously shallow. He burned away encroaching slime and sat on the stone-like floor of the monster's stomach, cradling Verena.
"It was eating right through my shield."
"If you hadn't thought of that. . ." He couldn't finish the thought, could not admit again how nearly he had lost her forever.
Verena lifted a gauntleted hand and examined the glove. "This should have lasted longer. I don't understand."
"What is it?" He was happy to think about something other than the desperate situation they were stuck in.
"I lined it with blind coal, a new power stone I've been studying."
"So there are other power stones!"
She nodded. "This should have deflected that last beak, or allowed me to break out of the stomach, but it's all gone."
"I'm glad you're not."
Connor hugged Verena tighter and she winced, holding her left arm at an awkward angle. He took it gently and tapped the warmth of sandstone from the pendant at his neck. He found the forearm broken and the muscles badly ripped, and began binding the hurt and easing the pain, despite the fact that if they didn't figure out a way to escape in the next moments, they would die together in the belly of the beast.
Verena let out a sigh of relief. "I hadn't planned our reunion to go quite like this."
Her big blue eyes seemed to swallow his vision, and he touched her cheek, savoring the feel of her skin, despite everything. "I missed you."
He wanted to kiss her so badly, but hesitated. Did she really want him? Could he really kiss her there, in the belly of the Doom?
Verena leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, moving with a bit of hesitation, as if she shared his fears. That only made him want to kiss her more, and his heart sang as their lips touched, then pressed together. He pulled her tight against him, drinking in the feel of her, the minty taste of her lips, and the feel of her arms around his neck.
When she released him, his heart sang with joy. She really did care, had crossed the length of Obrion to come to him.
Then the entire room rolled, as if the elfonnel was tumbling aside. Connor wrapped Verena in protective arms, tapping granite. At the same time, she activated her shieldstone. They bounced off the walls twice before the elfonnel settled back to normal, but it began bucking and pitching wildly.
The fight had resumed.
Connor drew the unconscious Petralists close to them with air and increased the protective flames around the group to hold back the spraying sludge.
"How do we get out of here?" Verena exclaimed.
"Maybe back up the throat?"
They looked up the sloping floor toward the hinged valve that blocked the exit. Even if they could climb back up there while the elfonnel bucked and spun under them, he doubted it would open easily for them, and he couldn't leave the others behind to be consumed anew by the black sludge.
Verena reached the same conclusion and kissed his cheek gently. She tried to smile, but terror shone in her eyes.
"We're trapped, aren't we?"
"Yes."
Chapter 77
Hamish, with Jean in his arms, landed hard near Rory, fighting back tears. Connor's scream of heartfelt rage still echoed across the battlefield and hung over the plain like a shroud. Or maybe those were the echoes of that awesome explosion?
Everyone in the army stared at the elfonnel in shocked disbelief. Jean sobbed into his shoulder. "Not Connor too!"
"He's not dead yet," Hamish declared. "I have to help."
"Be careful."
He set her down, but Rory grabbed his arm. The captain looked more enraged than Hamish had ever seen, and for a second, he worried the man was going to crush him.
"Give me a lift," Rory growled, gesturing toward Evander's giant, who was drawing dangerously close. "I need to talk with that thing."
Hamish wanted to rush back to attack the elfonnel, but what could he do against it? His diorite javelins should have broken its jaw, but had done little more than clear a path for Connor to plunge inside. The damage was already gone. That monster healed faster than they could permanently damage it.
So he gripped the captain by the back of his battle leathers and opened wide the release rate on his thrusters, lifting the two of them into the air. At that moment, the ground under the army rippled, and the top layer moved, splitting the army and carrying everyone out of the giant's path.
"Did our people do that?" Hamish asked.
Rory nodded. "Not sure what that thing's planning, but I don't want it trampling my army."
As the giant raced through the open corridor, Hamish flew up to its head level.
"You kill that thing!" Rory shouted, pointing a finger at it. "And don't let it get away this time. We'll do everything we can to help."
It glanced at them and its enormous head bobbed slightly. Hamish took that for a yes. Then it raced past, lowered its shoulder, and plowed into the elfonnel, sending it tumbling.
Hamish returned Rory, who began barking orders before they even reached the ground. "Boulders retreat to the inner wall! Mobilize there and assist in evacuating the city. Striders, clear all the palaces. All tertiary Petralists on me!"
Ivor met them, looking grim. "What do you have in mind?"
"Hit it with everything we can," Rory growled. "Support Evander's efforts and tear that thing apart." He glanced at Hamish. "Don't you have something to do?"
"Aye!"
That captain was one formidable man. Hamish leaped back into the air and surveyed the renewed duel. Evander's giant and the elfonnel were clashing like titans, and the ground all around them bucked and heaved, as if they fought for control of the elements too.
Hamish chose to believe Connor was still alive inside that thing. If he was, he had to get out fast or the fighting would kill him. He must be already rattled by the pitching and tumbling. As tertiaries began pounding the elfonnel with fire and ice, aimed primarily at the eyes and at its joints, Hamish soared above the beast and studied it. What was Connor doing, and how could he help?
Smoke began seeping out its nostril holes. It bellowed again, but sounded more pained than angry, and it seemed distracted. Evander's giant pounded it off its feet, but it rolled before the giant could pile-drive it with all four elbows in the stomach.
Connor was definitely alive, but cooking the monster from the inside would probably charbroil him too. Hamish needed to reach him, but hesitated to fly down the monster's throat. His battle suit was holding up amazingly well, but there were limits.
Maybe the nostrils?
He zipped over the monster's head as it thrashed back and forth in apparent agony. Evander's giant seized it by the head with two arms and beat on it with the other two. The Petralists continued to hit it, but didn't seem to be accomplishing much.
He was surprised to see Shona and Rory leading a squad of Boulders that included Erich and Anika to attack the elfonnel's rear legs while the giant held it pinned. Shona attacked bravely, but although she cut a fabulous figure in those battle leathers, Hamish hated her for holding Connor prisoner.
Connor wouldn't be in the nostrils. They'd be in the belly if they still lived. Hamish needed to get them out. He flew back to the monster's broad top side, but the thick plates of stone-like armor coating its torso mocked his hope. He could never break through that, even with the Ashlar's hammer. He'd used his two diorite javelins. They'd worked better than he'd hoped, but all he had left was a handful of diorite chunks. The only way he could think to use those would likely kill him.
His eyes fell on Erich, who was tumbling away from one of the elfonnel's stomping feet. He smiled. The crazy Grandurian was exactly who he needed.
He swooped down to Erich, who was grinning, even though his right shoulder sagged and his right arm hung at his side. Blood caked the side of h
is face, but he was grinning despite obvious pain.
"I nearly caught that leg," Erich laughed in Grandurian.
"Yeah. Nice work, but that's not nearly insane enough to stop that thing."
"You have a better idea?"
"Oh, yeah. We'll probably get killed."
Erich's grin widened. "I'm in."
Hamish had Erich climb onto his back, then flew up to the monster that was straining against the giant, but for once couldn't seem to break out. The Petralists had concentrated all their attacks against its whiplike tail and rear legs. Its rate of healing seemed to be slowing, and a dozen cracks lingered in its armored hide.
The smoke curling from its nostrils had increased tenfold. Connor was definitely taking his revenge against the monster's innards, but he needed to get out before he died in there.
"We fight eye?" Erich slipped into Obrioner.
"No. We're going to sucker punch it."
"Is good." Erich glanced down at his useless right arm. "But no much punch."
"Just speak Grandurian, please." He couldn't take Erich seriously when he talked like that. "I don't need you to punch it."
As he swept in between two of the middle legs and hovered under the creature's long, gray belly, he noted with rising optimism that the armor plating did look thinner, just like on any other animal he had studied before it showed up on the dinner table. "How's your throwing arm?"
"Not strong enough to penetrate that skin."
Hamish pulled from the special, padded compartment built into the side of his waist satchel the bag of diorite and thrust his hand into the deadly stone chips. Despite the shiver of fear that raised the hair along his arms with crackling energy, he threw wide open the destructive power of the diorite.
He handed it up to Erich. "Don't drop it. If anything can hurt this beast, it's this."
"What is it?"
"Diorite." At Erich's puzzled look, Hamish said, "Remember the big explosions Dierk triggered with the thump driver outside of Alasdair?"
"Yes! Those were great."
"He used less than one tenth of the diorite you're holding to do that." Of course, with that much diorite, they might blow Connor up with the monster, but he didn't have enough to risk using too little. Connor could heal if they could only get him out of there, but he'd die for sure if they hesitated.