None of them seemed fazed by the hint of danger. If anything, they were more eager than ever for details.
“Where did the Phantoms go, exactly?” Samael asked.
“Not far, I imagine” Gaia answered. “If they were attracted by the light of the Palace once, they will return to it soon enough.”
“If only we could see their location more easily. It’s a shame that so much of the world is covered in shadow…” Cerberus lamented.
“On the contrary, it’s brilliant” Solitaire smiled.
“It has a dark beauty, of sorts. I wish, in part, that my home could be more like it” Nightingale said.
Phoenix waited patiently for the conversation between them all to end. “We have some idea of their whereabouts, actually” she told them.
Solitaire took the cue. “My Harlequins tracked the Gore Princes to the Vale of Night near the outskirts of the Palace”. When she named the enemy, she put on a gruff voice akin to a child’s impression of an adult who was alien to fun.
With the mighty edifice that was the Phoenix Palace, it was easy for the others to forget that Noiran was Solitaire’s world as much as it was Phoenix’s. Of course members of her legion were down there with the Fireblades, even if the fiery place they defended wasn’t their idea of home.
“I’m not as shy as our sister; I grew up in the space between her light and the shadows, and my legion saw no reason to take me away from there; they know the land as well as I do” Solitaire explained, more seriously this time. When she finished, she regressed to her child-like state again, waiting for the others to start talking once more.
“The Princes could wander anywhere. Do you think the Phantoms will really stay near the Palace?” Lupus asked.
“Yes…” Solitaire replied confidently.
Calla looked to her blood sister Raina. “Valkyrie, can you track their movements?”
Valkyrie closed her eyes and concentrated. The others had no indication other than this that she was using her power and no understanding of how it worked. But then, they didn’t truly comprehend the abilities their own forms granted them either.
“There is something faint still in the vale…” Valkyrie muttered. “We are still so far away from the surface, it’s hard to find a trace…it’s difficult to read a psychic energy in them”.
“Because they have small minds?” Oz smirked.
“No,” Valkyrie answered humourlessly, opening her eyes, “because they are good at hiding”.
“I think it’s safe to assume that even the smallest trace would be them” Phoenix said. “The Guardians do not possess psychic abilities; even in the Great Enemy’s armies of fiends do few of them have the luxury”.
Lupus knew that to be true all too well, though the rare Phantoms that did have a pale copy of Valkyrie’s powers were still fierce enough. “We should confront the Phantoms on our own – no legionary support should be used” he suggested.
Valkyrie glared at him. “You can’t be serious…”
He returned her gaze stoically. “I am, sister. I have encountered Gore Princes before and they can rip legionnaires apart like paper. It would be an unnecessary waste; we alone are strong enough and we cannot deny the inevitably of matches like this.”
“I agree, brother” Oz replied. They others looked at him in surprise, all thinking that it was an insult to the legions to rob them of the glory of their first battle alongside the Apostles.
Calla was the only other exception to the dissent. “I also think this wise,” she said. All faces were now on her. “We have the power to destroy the foe on our own; there is no need for casualties, not here.”
The three of them were repaid with silence. Each Apostle weighed up what had been said, considering the merit of the argument, each slowly coming round to the sense of it all. For once, they had to put pride and glory aside and think about the type of enemy they were facing. Until now, they had always gone into any conflict, big or small, side by side with their legion. This time, it was different. It had to be. There would be precious few opportunities to save the lives of the Guardians in the coming war, but in the present case, they could.
“Are we agreed?” Lupus asked them after a moment had passed.
They each gestured their assent in their own particular ways.
“Solitaire, where is the best place to assault the valley and meet our enemy?” Lupus asked next.
She jumped forward at this, fiddling with the controls on the holo-table until it spat forth a projection of the landscape she desired. She pointed into it with her right index finger, watching the others’ eyes all on her.
“Here…” she answered, a little less excitedly than they expected from her.
Lupus nodded appreciatively. Phoenix went to say something, but realised that he was already formulating a plan. When he saw her hesitation, he spoke up, surprised to see her willing to let him co-ordinate the attack when it was her world they were here to defend.
“Here’s what I think we should do…” he began.
LUPUS HAD NOT expected things to go awry.
None of them had, which, he considered, was perhaps a sign of their arrogance. During the short time they had all been together it was abundantly clear that they were a complicated, messy mix of big egos and competing personalities. That could become a problem, especially when it came down to military politics and assumptions of command. Of course, they were all equally as potent as each other. Vermillion had divided her spirit into twelve equal parts and bestowed her powers onto them in different aspects so that, together, they represented her as a whole.
Still, any group with a purpose as big as the Apostles needed leadership. Lupus didn’t feel comfortable taking that position, but nature had a way of working against him. The Auranair Herself had declared it to be the way of things, that he alone should take the mantle of being First Apostle. He was still trying to understand how that was supposed to work when all his fellow Apostles were demi-gods too.
His attention snapped back to the present as the smell of burning filled his nostrils. He looked to Phoenix who had taken her form, now a humanoid body of fire, but she wasn’t the cause of it. No, instead the Stormfalcon they were using to descend into the Valley of Night had been struck by enemy fire.
“Pilot, take us down!” Lupus yelled over the din of the wailing engine on the port side. The starboard flank of the transport’s hull had been breached as well, creating a sucking vacuum that threatened to pluck the Apostles out into the darkness beyond. Luckily, they were hard to move.
“What hit us?!” Oz yelled.
Lupus couldn’t be sure. A missile strong enough to wound the Stormfalcon like that would have been enough to destroy it outright. He could have sworn he felt something brush the side of the craft, as though with a massive claw, when they began their approach into the valley basin.
The Valley of Night lived up to its name, coating the rocky outcrops and hazardous terrain in a black so terrible that it seemed to swallow the light of the engines. The pilot was flying purely through sonar radar and skill, the ship’s torches doing little to reveal the way.
Out in the distance a long, terrifying shriek filled the darkness. The Apostles looked to each other, courage in their hearts but uncertainty plain on their faces. The transport narrowly avoided a collision with a large boulder, the pilot swearing in his native tongue as he evaded it.
“We’re in over our heads!” Samael complained, referring to how much they underestimated the danger of the situation. “We should have sent the Earthbreakers in!”
Before Lupus could answer, he saw Valkyrie stumble forwards with a hand touched to her helmet, nursing a sudden headache. There was another bestial scream in the valley, bouncing off the sides of the rock faces and throwing itself back at the Stormfalcon. Lupus was glad he hadn’t brought the legions with them; though they had seen even more than he had of war, the noise filling the vale would have disturbed them deeply and would have driven some mad.
“We need to jump out!” Valkyrie screeched in pain, her eyes glued shut trying to fight off her unseen assailant.
Several of them had taken form already, their instincts taking hold and changing their mortal bodies to protect them should the transport suffer a fatal blow. Unfortunately for the rest, like Samael and Cerberus, some would break the Stormfalcon in half just by changing and had resorted to securing a safe handhold and waiting impatiently to set foot, or paw, on the treacherous but stable ground.
We can’t, we’re too high! We won’t all make it! Calla replied in her form, using the same psychic voice that Lupus used when he was the Lion. Perhaps they all had it, a form of communication they all shared. Doubtless Valkyrie saw it as a simple ability, her own specialisation far surpassing the base level the others possessed.
Lupus agreed with both of them, but something had to be done. As the Stormfalcon twisted and turned in a suicidal fashion around rocks, he wondered if Samael was right. Maybe they should just lay waste to the vale and be done with it. No, this world belongs to us, we cannot tarnish it he chided himself.
Pilot, bank right! Valkyrie shouted, the others sensing the psychic message she sent but only realising what it was when the transport lurched violently to port. Whatever was hunting them in the darkness roared in disappointment and rage.
Having been thrown to the floor by the force of the sudden change in direction, Lupus climbed to his feet and staggered to the cockpit. Wrenching the door open, he saw the pilot inside struggling to weave the transport towards its intended target without smashing into the floor or the ghostly enemy stalking them, who seemed to be everywhere.
“Land us now, we have to set down!” Lupus ordered him.
“My Lord, I can’t! No place is large enough for a safe deployment!” the legionnaire replied through gritted teeth as he fought with the controls to remain stable, the damaged engine starting to reap its toll.
Lupus cursed, wishing they hadn’t been so presumptuous about the enemy strength. The Stormfalcon had approached the valley silently, its engine casing down low enough that the hull armour could cover them up without impediment to its speed. Still, the Phantoms had seen them coming and only now did the Apostles appreciate the size of their foes, both in the numerical and physical sense.
They were running out of time. It was clear that Valkyrie was right. “Find a place to hover, we’re jumping out!” Lupus told the pilot, desperate to be on the ground.
He went back into the passenger cabin and re-joined the other Apostles. “We’re going with Valkyrie’s idea” he said, matter-of-factly.
Cerberus used his arms to cut through the air, emphasising his reply, “That’s crazy! We can’t take that kind of fall in human form!”
Lupus braced himself as the transport veered and banked again, this time to the left.
“I know we can’t! We change as we jump, brother” he grinned.
“I don’t know where or how you learned to take form, but that’s insane! It’s too big a risk” Samael yelled back.
Lupus laughed, loud enough to be heard even over the decelerating engines as the pilot brought the Stormfalcon over the only suitable jump point he could find. “None of us learned, brother. It was instinct!” Lupus replied.
He looked at the others as the pilot screamed at them to disembark while the radar was still clear for the brief moment.
“The ship is falling apart, we must go now. Believe in yourselves; we can do this, we were meant for this. Who else but us is able? This is the fun part” Lupus smiled. The rear ramp of the transport lowered, the deep black of Noiran waiting beyond to devour them. He ran from the cockpit door, passing the Apostles on the way and leapt into the night.
LUPUS LANDED ON the surface of Noiran as the Lion. He let out a challenging, defiant roar that rebounded across and around the rocky landscape he now found himself in. He heard a loud thud next to him as Valkyrie hit the ground, her telekinesis helping to soften her fall with a cushion of energy. Behind her, Oz smashed inexorably into the gravel, his liquid form spreading out over the floor as he collapsed under the impact.
Concerned for his life, Valkyrie dropped to her knees beside him, though she hadn’t the faintest clue how to help him. As soon as she knelt by the puddle of water that was his body, it instantly reformed into the shape of a quadruped. In mere seconds, Oz had reconstructed his liquid form and become the Waterfox again.
“No wonder you’ve survived as long as you have with that tongue of yours” Valkyrie smiled at him, standing up and searching the immediate area for the others, but there was little any of them could see.
Before her brother could reply to her comment, a deafening, hellish cry enveloped the air around them.
Get back! Lupus told them moments before a massive fist came crashing down on a boulder next to them, shattering it like an egg. They tried to evade the ricocheting debris, but the hits they took only made them stumble aside anyway. It would take more than that to wound any of them. When anything hit Oz, the objects simply passed through him, his body rippling ad coalescing back the way a pond would after being struck by a skipping stone. Valkyrie simply threw up a force shield around her, the fragments of rock bouncing off it harmlessly back into the night.
By now, the other Apostles had joined them on the ground, spread apart so that in their forms they had enough room to land safely. Somewhere above they could hear the distinctive wing beats of Samael. In the corner of his eye, Lupus could see Phoenix and Cerberus glow in the dark; one a pure body of flame, the second glowing with an ethereal energy.
Lupus rolled to the side over a group of small sharp rocks as he heard the Phantom assailant’s arm swing through the air in another effort to kill them. Though he had heard the limb slicing through the dark, his sister Gaia had not and he winced as the foe’s armoured limb collided with her full-on, the light of Phoenix diving away near her showing the strike in all its violent glory.
She flew backwards, crying out in pain as she hit the floor dozens of metres from where she stood before. Lupus winced as he heard the crash, but he could do nothing as a second Phantom reached their position, its massive shape stomping through the abyss that was the Valley of Night.
I’ll get to her, focus on the attack Valkyrie told them. She wrapped herself in a kinetic bubble, a psychic shield to keep her from harm. Running to her downed sister, she felt the impacts of giant fists and screams of hate as the enemy failed to penetrate her defences.
“So, these are the Gore Princes…” Phoenix spat, sending a spear of flame hurtling towards the first creature that had attacked the group. It brushed over the beast without the slightest hint of injuring it. She rolled to the side as the Phantom’s ally attempted to kick her aside with its huge boot.
There is a third Prince, Samael warned. The fiery aura of his sister Phoenix had allowed him to see the Phantom from above where he circled the scene, trying to gauge a way to attack the enemy without condemning his fellow Apostles to his fearsome attacks as well.
Lupus realised with a faint regret that the plan had gone to dust. He turned to witness the approach of the final Gore Prince, its march preluded by a deluge of ichor on its weapon that washed the battlefield every time it swung for an attack. To his right, Solitaire and Nightingale evaded the first, trying to attack it with their master-crafted swords but finding no weaknesses in its guard. On the left, Phoenix conjured balls of flame from her hands, each more intense than the last and hurtled them at the second Phantom. Valkyrie was using the distraction to help Gaia stand and both turned in time to see the last Prince charge them.
Coiling his legs like a spring, Lupus raced forward over the top of a slate slope and landed below. From here, he planned to intercept the Gore Prince, undeterred by its brutality and its demonic appearance. It was wreathed in the same chainmail and had the same twisted maw as the one he’d killed on Dystopian, but where the sight of the first had been truly sickening, Lupus could see this one now without the urge to retch.
; Samael, illuminate my path he asked, though it sounded more like a command. He intended to make it seem more like a respectful request, but his brother acquiesced anyway, sending a fan of flame from his fiery lungs that stretched along the ground. Lupus couldn’t feel any vegetation around him, but something was very much flammable and the fire streaked the distance between him and his target like a guiding corridor of light.
Before Lupus could reach the Phantom a different, equally enormous creature reared from his periphery and smashed into it. With three snarling heads, Cerberus snapped at his fallen prey, his six jaws savaging the unsuspecting enemy. Lupus roared in encouragement of his brother’s attack, watching him devour the Phantom with his many rows of sharp, hungry teeth.
The Gore Prince screamed in pain before wrestling Cerberus off, thrashing out with a bulky arm and sending him rolling away. As it tried to get back on its feet, Lupus could see where its armour had been ruptured by his brother’s assault, an energy he couldn’t identify spilling from its back in waves. There was a flashback to Dystopian; a chamber full of blood, his legionnaires dying, a sudden white spark as the enemy was struck. Lupus knew in a second that the shield of the Gore Prince before him now had been breached.
Before it could stand, Valkyrie approached it calmly, sensing its vulnerable state. Belying her gentle stride, she formed a violent ball of pure psychic energy in her hands as she neared closer. Without any further warning, she spun the projectile into her enemy without mercy or respite. Lupus watched as its head disappeared in a soft, quiet pop, crushed under the weight of Valkyrie’s power. He didn’t wait for long to growl in good riddance at its demise. Valkyrie gave her own grunt of satisfaction; neither of them noticed how they had seemed to agree on something this one time.
The Deian War: Vermillion's Apostles Page 28