A Child of Two Worlds
Page 15
Alex ran to the edge to watch Bahamut soar to the thickest fighting and breathe flame deep into the enemy lines from above.
“I can see why you come to this plateau to coordinate the defense,” Alex said. “You can see everything from up here.”
Brahm grunted his agreement from the bank of speaking tubes. “Aye, ‘tis a good place fer watchin’ the flow o’ battle on the ground. The air too.”
Alex looked up and saw glitters of light in a myriad of colors as more Changelings of the Scale launched from caves high above. They closed with the demonic army and engulfed it in flames as varied in colors as the dragons themselves.
“The battle’ll no’ last long at this rate,” Brahm said to King Harbronn.
A flicker of light in the enemy lines drew Alex’s vision to the southwest. “What was that?” Alex asked, pointing.
Terra squinted at where he was pointing. “A warlock cast a spell, but I can’t tell what from here,” she said.
Caitlyn was also looking in that direction, her eyes sharper than the others. “Looks like a scoop of some kind. Made of Fire and Air.”
A green dragon flew over the area of the spell and breathed emerald flame. Just before hitting the demonic army, the spell diverted the flames into the dwarven line. Hundreds died in the blaze.
Brahm swore loudly. “Cycle reserves from here to fill the gap,” the veteran Dwarf shouted into the speaking tube.
“Telepathy?” he muttered as ten of the thirty dragons in the air swooped low, raking their claws through the demon horde. Terra looked at him curiously, but he didn’t notice.
“Load ballistae an’ ready mashers to roll south. If the lines do break, I want more steel in the air than’s in a bloody forge,” Brahm said into a speaking tube. He put his ear to a different tube and listened for a moment. He frowned at what the Dwarf on the other end said and his salt-and-pepper bearded face grew red. “Yes! Line the bloody mashers up with the bloody tunnels,” he roared at the speaking tube. “I do no’ care how long it’ll take to clear the bloody wreckage.”
“We should be down there,” Alex said, his arms crossed on his chest. “We should be helping them hold.”
Terra shook her head, a feeling of patience coming across the link. “We are needed here. If something goes wrong, we will have to respond immediately. We can be so busy defending the southeastern tunnel that we don’t notice the southwestern is overrun.”
Alex let out a forceful breath and uncrossed his arms. As soon as he grabbed the hilt of the Guardian’s Blade, his vision went white. He became someone else, somewhere else.
She stood on top of Aranfel Keep watching as the demons were slaughtered outside the eastern gate. The mountains had succeeded in funneling the demonic army.
“Move forces from the western walls to reinforce and help with mop up,” Lord Devin, Lord of Aranfel said. “The battle goes well, Guardian.
“Good,” Maegan said, nodding. “So long as they don’t come from the west.”
Lord Devin laughed. She couldn’t stand the man, so puffed up and full of himself. “The scouts haven’t reported a single thing from the west since the battle began. Don’t worry, all is well.”
Alex’s vision cleared slowly.
Stay out of my head, he snapped as he took his hand from the Guardian’s Blade. He spun to Brahm and King Harbronn.
“We are going to be attacked from the north,” he said, panic edging in on his voice.
“I do no’ think…” King Harbronn started before Terra’s raised hand cut him off.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “How do you know?”
“They used the same tactics at Aranfel. Lull your opponent into a false sense of confidence after making him think he is fighting as hard as he can. Then, stick a blade in his heart before he can react to your sudden vigor,” Alex said, still shaken by the vision.
Worry thrummed along the link. “Aranfel was destroyed over five hundred years ago, Alex. How do you know?”
“Maegan was there.”
“Who’s Maegan?” Caitlyn asked.
Alex looked Terra in the eyes, pleading her to believe him. “A Guardian. Five hundred years ago.”
The feeling of Terra’s worry intensified, but she nodded her head at his explanation. “Brahm,” she said, turning to face the Dwarf, “I think he’s right.”
“Bloody…” the Captain of the Guard said softly. “There’s nothin’ in the north tunnels. We’ve no’ even heard from a scout sayin’ there was as much as a cave rat in the bloody north tunnels since before the…” Brahm trailed off. The experienced battle commander spun back to the speaking tubes with alacrity. “Aim as many of the flamin’ ballistae as have a line o’ sight as ye can north. Get the bloody mashers turned around an’ lined up with the north tunnels. Ready riders an’ get the bloody Hammer Legion movin’ up the supply tunnels. We’ll spring a trap o’ our own.”
Caitlyn growled softly and laid her ears back. “What is it?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know, but something is making a painfully high pitched noise.”
A familiar clatter Alex couldn’t place, and a roar of pain whipped his head around to look south. He watched as a dragon crashed to the ground and was overwhelmed behind enemy lines.
“Ballistas’re ready. Mashers’re in position at the supply tunnel mouths, me King. Riders’re in the supply tunnels movin’ north with the Hammer Legion behind ‘em,” Brahm said.
“Good. Wait fer the demons to break through the gates then send in the mashers.”
Alex saw a flash of light to the southwest and heard the familiar clatter again. Rifle fire? he wondered. Terra must have heard the sound and sensed his confusion. She was looking over there as well.
“Do you know any spells that sound like a rifle?” he asked. The sound came again, but it didn’t sound quite like any gun he had heard before. It was higher pitched, more like a whine, and the muzzle flash looked like camera lens flare.
Terra shook her head. “No magic that I know of,” she said.
Alex tried to make out details, but the enemy lines were over a mile away. He couldn’t make out anything in the surging mass. He heard Caitlyn’s growl get deeper.
“Alex,” she said. “Whatever is making that sound is big.”
“Ye know what it is, Cat?” Brahm asked.
“No,” she said absently. She cocked her head up at the sound. “But, it’s getting closer.”
“Seems these demons have a few tricks left,” King Harbronn said.
Brahm nodded to his king and turned to the speaking tube. “Be ready. Those bloody demons’re goin’ to come through the north gates any-” An explosion ripped through the air as the northern gates exploded in gouts of fire and stone. “Ballistae away. Get the mashers rollin’. Send riders to hold the line until the Hammer can get in position fer ambush.”
The twang of massive crossbow strings filled the air. Alex ran to the north side of the plateau just as the three supply tunnels about a mile north slid open. What looked like a massive wooden battering ram with a spiked rolling pin came from the mouth of the tunnel. Each had metal walls on the side and was pushed by about twenty dwarves. Wheels on the back of the ram held the end up as the dwarves pumped their legs as fast as they could to the three northern tunnel openings.
Ballista bolts filled the air and flew expertly into the mouths of the tunnels, killing rank after rank of the surprised demons. The barrage was not heavy enough to prevent some of the demons from
getting past the blasted opening of the tunnels.
A thrum deep in Alex’s chest drew his attention from the fighting in the north. He sensed Terra’s confusion and apprehension as she looked around for the source of it as well. All five of them on the top of the plateau looked about for the source of the sound. “It’s above us,” Caitlyn said suddenly.
Alex’s eyes shot up, and he saw something black hovering miles above their heads. That looks like some sort of futuristic airship, he thought, squinting up at it. He watched as the airship fired twin pulses of bright green energy at Bahamut.
Luck saved the Dragonlord. Bahamut turned just in time for the blasts of energy to miss him and punch a massive hole in the wall of the volcano. A jet of red flame shot from the dragon changeling’s maw as he began to wing toward the maneuvering airship.
“Bahamut just said that it was Fyrian,” Alex said. He hoped Terra didn’t feel how worried he was. “What does that mean?”
Terra’s face paled. “It’s from Fyr. The Realm of Science. I’m going to try taking it down, who knows what it’s capable of.” Her face tensed in concentration, and he could feel her focus.
A few seconds passed, and the airship’s guns glowed green with accumulating energy and fired at the Dragonlord again. Bahamut managed to roll away from the main body of the pulse of energy, but the corona of the blast seared him. Smoke rose from his scales, but he still winged closer to the airship.
Disbelief tinged the bond for a moment then went away. “What’s wrong, Terra?” Alex asked.
“My magic isn’t affecting it.” A barrage of missiles flew from the top of the airship at Bahamut, but a blast of flame from the mighty red dragon made them explode before they reached him. “I have an idea,” Terra said.
She waited for the airship’s guns to glow green before they fired and made a curved surface of Fire and Air much like the one the demonic warlock had made. The airship’s guns blasted another pulse of energy. Instead of going straight, the twin pulses moved in a tight arc around the top of the ship and blasted holes in the frame.
The ship began to lose altitude, but not before a blast of orange light came from the bottom of it. Something black fell rapidly from the bottom of the airship as it began a sharp descent toward the Adorac Falls.
That’s not just an airship. It’s a dropship. “Move away from the center of the plateau. Now!” Alex shouted. Everyone just had time to roll to the side when a hundred tons of machinery, weapons, and armor slammed into the plateau, making it crack beneath them.
The whir of machinery and clank of metal plates repositioning from drop position drew Alex’s vision to the fifty-foot-tall machine. How am I supposed to fight that thing? he thought. It’s huge! A transparent cockpit allowed him to see the pilot of the massive bipedal robot.
“You owe me a new cruiser, Nexus,” the pilot said, his voice slightly distorted by the external speakers on the massive machine. “I’m going to kill your friends, destroy the pathetic army you have fielded, and take you to Azreal for payment.”
Alex stood. “You won’t touch her.”
The pilot laughed. “And you are going to stop me, Little Man? With what? Your sword?” A fifteen-foot-long blade flipped out of the arm of the Battlesuit. It seemed to hum as it mounted into position. “Mine’s bigger. You step aside, and I won’t kill you all. Just the woman.”
Alex drew the thorium bastard sword from the hanger on his back. He took a step to the left, putting himself firmly between Terra and the machine. “You will die before you touch her.”
“Alex,” Terra said over the sound of the pilot’s laughter. “My magic isn’t working on this machina. I can’t even pick things up. Something is blocking me from being able to cast spells.”
Alex felt a flood of energy, of power, enter him. He felt as if he could leap buildings, stop a train with one hand. As if he was unstoppable. “Link works, though,” Terra said. Alex senses sharpened. He saw swirls on the metal of the Battlesuit he would have missed if he had been less than a foot away. He felt each hair being blown by the soft breeze. He smelled the blood permeating the air from the battles taking place over a mile away. He heard Terra’s soft breathing behind him over the sound of the pilot’s continuing laughter.
Everything seemed to slow down. The pilot stopped laughing. “It’s time to die, Little Man.” The Battlesuit’s arm was a blur it was moving so fast, but to Alex, it was no faster or more dangerous than a swing with a training sword. He leisurely moved the bastard sword up to block the humming blade.
The immense blade stopped as surely as if it had hit a mountain. Alex saw the look of alarm cross the pilot’s face. “What are you?” the pilot said. The massive blade ground and shrieked as it was held by Alex’s comparatively small sword. It’s vibrating at an ultra-sonic frequency. The thorium sword began to dull and chip under the powerful vibration of the Battlesuit’s blade.
Alex put his weight behind heaving the massive blade away. “Caitlyn, get Brahm, Terra, and Harbronn back. All they will do is get killed up here.”
“Alex-” Terra began to protest.
“Don’t argue. I don’t know what I would do…” he trailed off.
“Aw,” the pilot chided, the speaker distorting his voice. Terra, Caitlyn, and the two dwarves began to reluctantly edge their way to the ramp leading down the plateau. “You love, her don’t you? The half-breed freak? Cute. After I kill you, little man, I am going to hunt her down. And, before I take her to Azreal, I am going to rape her, repeatedly, just for the inconvenience you have caused me.”
Alex clenched his jaw in rage. He dashed forward and tried to hit the right leg of the machine, but it jumped over him. Jets of flame spun it in the air, and its hundred tons slammed into the ground behind him. Alex lifted the blade over his head to block the overhead chop he knew was coming. The weight of the blow made the ground beneath him crack more. Only the magical energy flowing from Terra kept him from being pulverized under the weight of that blow.
He heard the thorium sword begin to crack. He rolled to the side, disengaging the blades, and the Battlesuit’s blade sank into the stone ground like it was a hot knife through butter. Alex glanced over his shoulder and saw Terra looking back from the top of the ramp. “Go!” Alex shouted as he rolled out of the way of another overhead chop. “You can’t cast magic here. Help on the lines!” Terra nodded as she ran down the ramp.
Alex turned to face the Battlesuit and barely got his sword up in time to block a back handed swing. The thorium weapon snapped. The sonic blade slammed into his chest, knocking him from his feet and making him roll almost to the edge of the plateau. Alarm from Terra shot through the link. He tried to keep calm and send her a sense of reassurance.
“Not so tough now, eh, Little Man?” the pilot taunted as he slowly sauntered the massive machine to him. Alex coughed as he lifted himself to his hands and knees. It hurt when he breathed, and one of the plates of his chest piece was laced with a spider’s web of cracks. He regained his feet just before the machine finished closing with him. “Any last words?”
“Yeah,” Alex said roughly. He shook his head to clear it.
“What’s that?” the pilot asked.
“Dragon.”
“What-” the pilot started as eighty tons of scaly red muscle, bone, and rage slammed into the Battlesuit, knocking it down onto its side. The sound of claws raking at the metallic armor plates filled the air with their painful screech. Brilliant flame, the color of blood, blackened the transparent cockpit of the Battlesuit.
The roar of flame quickly changed into a roar of pain as the pilot began to hack at Bahamut with the sonic sword. Spouts of blood gushed from the Dragonlord as he beat his wings to get away from the piercing blade.
I have no choice, Alex thought
as he drew the Guardian’s Blade. He braced his mind for the onslaught of rage, but everything froze. The only sound was the beating of his heart and his breath.
Are you really there? Alex thought. No answer came. Motion and sound crashed back in around him. Red light shown from the blade as it changed shape into the flame engulfed Wrathblade. He reflexively tried to fight the rage, but, with effort, embraced it instead.
He drew the rage deep into him and fanned the flames of his hatred for the pilot inside the Battlesuit. He took a deep breath, feeling his anger grow with the blazing pain in his chest. He said he would kill me and rape Terra! He said he would give her over to Azreal! The flames on the Wrathblade grew higher, burned hotter.
He waited for the marred Battlesuit to stand before he approached it.
The Guardian spoke in a voice that lacked the painful dissonance it had had when the Wrathblade overpowered him. He pointed the blazing sword at the pilot. “For bringing war and death here, you will die,” he said in judgment. The Wrathblade pulsed white in cadence with the Guardian’s words.
The Battlesuit lunged at him, swinging the prodigious sonic sword in a third overhand chop. He drew more magical energy from Terra. He caught the blade dispassionately in his open hand. The force of the blow drove his feet a foot into the cracked stone. He didn’t notice.
Flames engulfed his entire body as he embraced the cyclone of rage pounding inside of him. His thorium armor turned blood-red, the cracked chest plate fusing back into one piece. He brought the Wrathblade over in a slow arc and snapped the sonic sword in half.
The Battlesuit stumbled back a few steps as the pilot tried to put distance between himself and the Guardian. “Who are you? What are you?” the pilot asked in shocked disbelief.
The Guardian lifted his feet free of the stone and strode steadily toward the Fyrian machine. “I am Alex Zane, The Guardian. Paragon of Earth. Husband of Terra Duval. I am her Shield. I am her Sword.”