Claire nodded. ‘Let’s pray that Jenner got those gates open.”
A vyrm patrol spotted them from the far end of the hall, forcing them back into action.
Zabe and his family drew the enemy fire, shrugging off the vyrm’s singeing shots. Jackie and Shandra mowed them down from behind whatever cover they could find and utilized every distraction. Any they didn’t pick off fell to the claws of the enraged lycans.
Finally, they reached and cleared the corridor leading to the main chamber of the castle: the throne room. Claire walked up to the gilded double doors of the royal hall and kicked them in. Flicking them with a burst of telekinetic power, they flew apart under the act.
She hissed as she found her enemy standing where the throne had once stood. The scepter of the Veritas lay cast off, bent and mangled, much like the state of the clerics.
“Nitthogr,” Claire met his gaze; only one eye still remained, black and vile: the same single eye that she’d seen amid the horrific bone halo of the Darque dimension’s Nihil gate. His other eye had slid behind the elastic, mutable flesh as the sorcerer lost more and more of himself to his ghastly agod.
He greeted them, “Claire Jones and company,” his voice warbled and sounded an octave too low. He chuckled. “You have finally come to grant me access to the Chamber of Mysteries.”
Claire and her companions cautiously entered the throne room, keeping a healthy distance from the thing that Nitthogr had become. Zabe brandished the sword that J’v-Ellah had given him. “We finally finish this, Nitthogr… once and for all.”
“On that score we can agree,” he hissed, raising his stone fist defiantly. “Though, you use a name and a logic that no longer apply here.” Becoming pure nightmare fuel, his spine snapped and shifted into a posture that shouldn’t be possible for any humanoid with a central nervous system; they could hear his spine break as he shifted forms.
Sprouting two more tentacles, the beast’s jaws seemed to unhinge and brandish jagged, yellow and bloody teeth. He shrieked and belched black smoke as he launched himself towards the heroes of the Prime.
***
The ground shook beneath them. “This is it, men and women,” Yardi shouted as he walked through the hidden battalion of soldiers. They’d stayed on the move and hidden beneath whatever camouflage they could find.
Servos on his cybernetic leg whined, and he hadn’t slept more than a few hours straight in days. “It’s what we’ve been waiting for since the vyrm showed up a week ago—no more hit and runs!” He dragged a set of armor over his chest and stepped aside. Other soldiers scrambled to get ready and report to their duty stations.
Tahnak crawled to his feet and likewise readied himself. Yardi watched him. The brave soldier twitched and convulsed more and more every day as if plagued by micro seizures. He’d gained the condition while trapped in the Darque with Zabe and Claire.
“Are you okay to go?” Yardi asked for confirmation.
“Yes,” he insisted, certain that a nod would go unnoticed amongst his tremors. “The shakes have gotten worse ever since Shjikara revealed himself as a traitor, but I’m not missing the chance for a little pay back.”
Yardi looked at the shaky man as he laid armor over his shoulders and turned. A knife wound ran the length of clavicle to waist where Gita had sliced him open. Medical staples held him together, and luckily the wound had missed his vital organs. Tahnak had managed to crawl from the monastery when the shade army pursued the Veritas leaders.
Tahnak’s efforts had allowed them to rally a few loyalists and escape before the shade’s assassinations could penetrate their entire force. They’d killed a shade assassin leaving their commander’s private quarters after knifing Chira in his sleep.
Chira struggled to rise from a nearby medical pallet. His face was covered with bruises. The rosy, puckered skin of freshly stitched wounds stretched and burned as he clambered to his feet like a young drakoise, still in its protective shell.
Yardi tried to stop him. That Chira lived at all had been a miracle.
“Get off of me. There’s no way I’m staying out of it—contrary to how you two have been acting, that Shade did not kill me back in the barracks.”
Yardi tried to urge their leader back down, “You’re in not in any condition too…”
“Tahnak?” Chira barked.
“Yes?”
“If he tries to put me down again, have one of your sudden ‘convulsions’ and kill him,” Chira ordered.
“Yes, sir.” Tanak knew his friend’s urge to fight, despite the pain. He shared those feelings.
“Fine,” Yardi growled at both of his friends. “But at least let me help you get your armor on properly.”
Chira nodded, resolute but thankful. “What do we have?” he asked as his friend helped dress him.
Tahnak reported, rubbing the sore area where his armor rubbed against the seeping wounds on his back. “Thirteen operational skiffs. All of them have guns, most are poorly armored. Our numbers are small, but the population is mobilizing. The citizens are coming out from hiding: they are saying they’ve had visions of the Architect King. They say that he’s commanded them to fight—and if he’s ordered it, then we too must obey.”
Chira nodded and pointed to the screen displaying aerial footage of a battle that their drones were broadcasting. “And what is this?”
Vyrm were fighting vyrm. Flashes of ice and fire scorched and froze the massive army of the Black as the tarkhūn arrived to harass the armies gathered outside the busted gates of the castle.
“It looks like Basilisk and his troops have come to our aide,” Tahnak said. Only a sliver of hope permeated his voice.
Yardi looked at the footage as it zoomed in and spotted a familiar face fighting alongside Caivev and Basilisk. “Is that Trenzlr—the rover who the Veritas once harbored? I thought he’d disappeared? He somehow did it… he’s rallied the Tarkhūn.”
Chira hurried as best as he could towards the vehicle-pool. All around him engines fired up and crafts began to hover at the ready. “Everyone, ready to move out! At our skiffs’ top speed we can be on the field of battle in about five minutes.”
Chapter 24
Jarfig towered over Jenner and Gita. Both of the two younger soldiers wore Guardian Corps armor. He only knew what his son had told him about this girl. Jarfig admired that Jenner believed in her despite her betrayals, and he hoped that his son would be proved right for it.
“You two go on ahead.” He said. “I’m not a soldier—I never was. I will stay and guard Shara.” Jarfig produced a blaster pistol that had come with him through the invasion portal.
Gita handed him the gate box and then nodded with gratitude. He returned the gesture with a stiff wave and the two warriors dashed down the hallway. Blaster fire erupted around the corner and deeper in the corridor as the younger warriors engaged the enemy.
Jarfig clutched a pain in his side and then examined his hand. Blood. He’d been injured in the initial encounter; it was apparently more serious than he’d first suspected. The professor grimaced.
“You’re hurt,” said a woman’s voice.
Startled, Jarfig looked up. The angular rift had shrunk, but remained open and he spotted Cerci watching him with concern. He’d nearly forgotten she was there. “I’m okay,” he assured her, and then tried to move. A resulting jolt of pain nearly toppled him. Much of pain management was mind over matter—at least in that, Sisyphus had the professor bested and Jarfig lacked the same pain tolerance.
“Let me get you a medical kit,” she said. “I see one across the room. It’ll just take a moment.”
The facade of pride on Jarfig’s face cracked, and he thanked her. “That would be prudent,” he agreed, re-examining the wound. “I’m not certain how deep this goes.”
She disappeared for a couple seconds. He expected to see her face any moment, but she did not return.
The small box of medical supplies tumbled through the rift and then he heard Cerci’s voice.
***
Trenzlr swung the weapon in his grip, a kind of bladed club, and helped push against the Black army. Many of the Maethan’s had volunteered when Caivev asked them for troops to save their species by fighting against their greatest enemy: themselves… the vyrm army about to destroy the multi-verse.
Along with several others who volunteered, he had stepped forward. There were so few who volunteered… until Gerjha, his cousin, pledged himself. With the prophet attending, many others finally stepped up as well.
Near Trenzlr, Basilisk and Caivev used blaster and blade as they fought the overwhelming vyrm army from the front lines. Nitthogr’s forces swarmed and whelmed. More came from around the walls of the castle where they’d been waiting orders to mobilize.
“Where did my brother get so many troops?” Basilisk growled as his skiff stopped. Soldiers rappelled over the sides and a hydraulic arm deposited another self-enclosed laser artillery unit to beat back the enemy.
“He’s been secreting them away within the different dimensions for years, now,” Caivev explained. “Had he actually intended to cause the first Awakening before his first gambit with Claire Jones, he might have been successful—though he’d never before shown much skill at negotiating with the heads of the five tribes. He lacked your diplomacy and tact, sweetheart.”
As if cued, five different and distinct trumpet signals sounded. The tribal leaders approached from the horizon. Basilisk could see their eyes, fully black like wet ink and driven mad with the spirit of Sh’logath. They would hem Basilisk in within a few moments.
“Evasive maneuvers,” he yelled, clambering back aboard. The royal battle barge had crushed its way forward, blazing a path through the much larger forces that had come down from the Veritas’s cliff-side home. Basilisk refused to be overwhelmed by the endless sea of the Black, but the Tarkhūn could not face the fury of all five tribes at once.
Before the distinct and very noticeable flagship could re-orient itself, the artillery from all five of the surging armies opened fire. Brilliant illumination flashed and heat from the deadly lasers ricocheted off the shields. They sizzled and crackled, super-heating enough that they could have boiled elements.
Basilisk pushed the helmsman from his seat and cried, “Evacuate starboard!” He punched the thrusters and began spinning the craft with one side’s thrusters at max. The shields began to fail.
Heavy laser fire sheared away armor and the skiff’s port engines erupted in flames, as Basilisk expected they would. He’d already sprinted for the side deck and hurled himself overboard as the starboard thrusters rammed the vehicle into the ground and created a barrier to hedge them safely against the five armies, leaving only two flanks as the direct methods of attack.
Gerjha and Skrom were the first to snatch the Emperor back to his feet. Caivev and Trenzlr followed close behind him.
Basilisk looked up, saw more incoming troops, and then flung himself towards battle. “We must not slow—our allies will win the day! Keep fighting!”
His battle-cry bolstered the tarkhūn and they beat back the opposition, securing the area behind their crashed skiff. Trenzlr shoved an enemy vyrm and struck him down. A familiar cry howled at his side and he glanced over. Hirdac fell as an enemy sword pierced him.
Klyrtan screamed with blind rage. He hacked the enemy apart with unseen ferocity and then moved on to the next target in a berserker rage.
Basilisk pointed to a canyon just around the edge of the castle. “If we can take that position we will be better defended, especially if we can get a shield generator inside.”
“Already on that,” Skrom barked. He and another massive Tarkhūn picked up a couple pieces of equipment that had been left on the battlefield a little way near the crash site. The generators laid in front of the castle’s main gates where the doors had been ripped from their moorings.
“First, we’ve got to punch through that army coming around the castle wall.” The army had come from down from Shjikara’s keep and snuck in from the blindside to enact a pincer maneuver. If they turned to face them, they would leave their rear flank exposed to the other half of the army.
A dozen or so Prime skiffs suddenly pulled out of the canyon’s mouth with lasers firing. They outflanked the pincer and ripped open the Black’s defenses. As the vyrm’s morale broke into sudden chaos, the tarkhūn capitalized on the opening and charged, cutting them down. Basilisk and his forces advanced as quickly as they could manage.
One of the smaller vehicles picked up the Emperor and Caivev to speed them to the mouth of the canyon. Another whisked Skrom away to set up their defensive shield. The others lagged behind, making their way as quickly as possible given the relative safety of their position and sudden lack of enemies.
The Maethans trickled to the rear. Unused to the rigors of battle, they moved more slowly, but fought with no less heart. Trenzlr rested his hands on his knees momentarily, planting his back to the wall of the castle. Gaping sections had been blasted away and massive fissures large enough to hide man or vyrm had been cut away.
Gerjha paused next to him, equally winded. “Did you ever think you would be in the Prime, fighting against the black and killing your countrymen?” he asked his cousin.
“Never,” admitted Trenzlr, breathing hard. “The Seekers have always been passive. We had always expected Maetha to win our battles for us.”
“He will; I am certain of it. But sometimes we are called as participants in his work… and quite honestly, history reveals that too many Seekers have said whatever they want about Maetha and expected their own interpretations of holy writ to be followed. What if Maetha is more than the culture we’ve allowed ourselves to become in his name?”
Trenzlr raised a brow and looked at Klyrtan who stood nearby, seemingly untired by the battle. He simply stood there, clutching a short sword and splattered with the blood of friend and foe.
***
Chira grasped hands with Chartarra as their skiffs abutted each other. “Thank you for the assistance,” the vyrm told him. “I am Chartarra, Caivev’s commander of the advanced scouts,” he shared the titled he’d been recently given.
Grimacing as he shook the hand, he gave his name. “Chira. Leader of the Royal military… or what’s left of it. This is Yardi and Tahnak,” he introduced.
Caivev and Basilisk came alongside their rescuers skiff a moment later and thanked them again.
“You have Maethan’s fighting alongside your tarkhūn?” Chira asked.
“Some, yes,” Caivev told him. “You know of them?”
“They are not unfamiliar to us.” Chira pointed to Trenzlr in the distance. “I know that one…”
Tahnak twitched some more, drawing odd looks from the Tarkhūn leaders. “Who is that with him?”
Chartarra looked back. “Next to Trenzlr… that is Gerjha, the prophet of the Maethans. He is Trenzlr’s cousin and the…”
“No.” Tahnak twitched. “The other one with the black eyes. There is something wrong with him.”
Basilisk gasped. That same inky darkness he’d seen in the tribal leaders’ eyes was also in Klyrtan’s.
As soon as they all looked back, Klyrtan plunged his weapon into Gerjha. Trenzlr rushed to grab his kin as the prophet collapsed in a bloody mess. Before anyone could train a gun on the traitor, Klyrtan had fled through the cracks of the castle walls.
Chartarra cried out with shock and berated himself for not realizing something like this could happen—he’d seen Klyrtan’s reaction to Nitthogr’s dream-call. He already had his skiff turned around when he saw Trenzlr lay his cousin prone. The grieving rover crossed his cousin’s arms, respectfully closed the victim’s eyes, and then retreated from the advancing armies.
Trenzlr sp
rinted towards the mouth of the canyon. There Chartarra sped in order to pick him up.
The enemy had nearly closed the distance, and they needed to hold the line until Claire and the others could defeat their primary adversary: Nitthogr. Suddenly, the enemy army stopped advancing. Some of it even turned aside and refocused their attentions.
“What is happening?” Basilisk shouted, when they refused to engage. He called for a report from his troops.
Chira waved to the emperor on the adjacent skiff. “I’ll beam over our feed. We have a few aerial drones on the far side of the battle.”
A video feed showed a massive, tangled swarm of humans, citizens of the Prime. They charged ahead on foot and drove civilian vehicles. Their improvised army crashed into the rear flank of the vyrm forces. Each of the five tribal armies commanded by leaders of the Black suffered the same harassment. The humans fought valiantly and with whatever tools they had at hand, invigorated by the call of their King and their distaste with the constant invasions and schemes of the enemy.
Citizens of the Prime had finally had enough. Casting off fear and inspired by visions of the Architect King, they turned on their assailants and shifted the winds of war.
Chira grinned. “Our reinforcements, the army of the Architect King, has arrived.”
***
Earth
Hearing the exterior door to the Duluth mansion click shut, Cerci looked up, startled by the intrusion. “Who’s there?” she called.
Sam Jones stepped around the corner.
Cerci had been rummaging through a medical bag and held a compact first aid kit in her hands. She put it behind her so Sam could not see it and then tossed it behind her with a flick of the wrist so that it fell through the portal.
“Oh, it’s you; you scared me.” Cerci stepped further away from the dimensional rift and tried to keep herself calm. All the twisting and changing due to the magic messed with things. She didn’t know what was happening—but something felt off… Sam was gone, she’d been sure of it, replaced by J’v-Ellah. “What are you doing here? I thought you were…”
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