by Eric Nylund
I didn’t like Elmac’s suggestion, but he was right.
“Agreed,” I said. “Let’s go in on three.”
Elmac dropped his hand crossbow but kept a one-handed grip on his battle axe. An iron ring on his free hand popped into a buckler, popped once more to become a medium-sized shield, then a third time to the equivalent of a curved tower shield of dwarven proportions. It was crafted from a single gigantic scale that might have dropped off the World Serpent. Enameled upon it was a coat of arms: war hammers crossed and a fire-breathing dragon twined between them.
Nice. Good for you, my friend.
“One,” I yelled.
Not to be outdone, bumps appeared on Morgana’s leather armor, roughened, darkened—and became smoking black stones as she shapeshifted into… what?
Her head melded into her neck and disappeared in a broadening torso. Raw topaz eyes winked open. Her back thickened and elongated into a heavy tail, and where it dragged along the ground, the grass ignited.
Was she transforming into some sort of earth elemental?
I blinked. Yes.
Foot-long quartz crystals grew from Morgana’s spine. Her hands absorbed into her arms and became chiseled basalt. Her legs swelled to stout stone hindquarters, and in the seams of her rocky form, glowing magma flared and dripped lava.
This was a huge leap from her previous panther and wolf shapes. How was she doing it? However she was—Brava, Morgana. Brava.
“Two!”
I estimated Morgana’s new earth form to be half the mass of the statue. Could she go toe-to-toe with it?
“NOW!”
We rushed the Chaos Knight.
CHAPTER 16
The Chaos Knight halted.
Four scimitars angled toward each of her inbound targets.
I stopped short of her bladed reach and tossed the weighted end of Shé liàn.
She easily parried the chain.
That, however, caused the weight to whip around, and the chain to wind about the hilt of her scimitar.
I dug in my heels and yanked.
To my astonishment, I ripped the sword from her grasp.
The curved blade sailed end over end and thunked into the sod.
With a gesture, though, a new scimitar appeared in her hand.
At the same time, she sliced at Elmac.
He took it on his shield and was bowled over.
Elmac landed, rolled with the curve of his shield, and was up on his feet. Pretty nimble for an old guy.
Morgana closed a lot faster than I thought she’d be able to in that stone form. Her near-molten body flowed with an odd grace through the earth. She drew back her chiseled arms and punched.
Two scimitars deflected her strikes and sent a shower of sparks off the basalt.
The Chaos Knight’s other two blades struck true.
With a rumbling roar, Morgana reeled back, lava gushing from the slashes.
One hand went to my chest as if I’d taken those hits too. There had to be tremendous force behind those blows to cut rock like that.
If the Chaos Knight had stabbed, instead of slashed, Morgana could have been shish-kebabbed, and drawn in for an easy kill.
“Break off!” I called.
We backed up to equidistant positions.
After a moment’s hesitation, the statue once more began its unrelenting march toward me.
Just what I wanted.
I had to take the pressure off Morgana… who was moving slower.
The deep gashes in her chest cooled and sealed. Druid healing spell, no doubt. But she’d tapped her finite mana supply to do it.
Elmac stopped and glared at the Chaos Knight over the edge of his shield. The look in his black eyes was the same one I’d seen when he’d watched the Bloody Rooster burn.
“Elmac,” I called out. “Listen to—”
He yelled, “I’ll not die dancing ’round this island like some coward.”
He was raging mad—not just about the fight, but because the woman he liked had been seriously wounded… and he hadn’t been there to help her.
I got it, and maybe I’d have come to the same heroically stupid conclusion he had.
Elmac charged straight at the thing.
The statue swiveled, pointed all twelve scimitars at him, and closed.
She slashed and stabbed at Elmac before Morgana or I could rush in.
He turtled behind his shield.
Most of her strikes scraped and screeched off the gigantic reptilian scale; three, however, neatly carved off chunks the size of dinner plates.
I wasn’t sure what held Elmac’s shield together anymore other than dwarven craftsmanship, pure determination, and a hefty enchantment.
Elmac stayed on his feet this time, but he backed up—actually more was forced back by the sheer power of her continuous rapid-fire impacts. He was strong and skilled, but he simply didn’t have the mass to mount an effective defense.
He was getting close to the edge of the island… closer to the void of interstellar space. Whatever magic kept a breathable atmosphere around this rock probably didn’t extend too far.
Morgana and I advanced and tried to slip around either side of the knight, but her reach was too great, and two blades swiveled to block each of us, more than enough to keep me fencing back and forth.
I nonetheless tried to get inside her reach—and got sliced open shoulder to groin.
I lost fifty-eight of my one-hundred sixty health in one go. Ouch!
I staggered back and had just enough time to fire off a Spiritual Regeneration before I had to dodge and parry more incoming strikes. That repaired about half the damage; enough to keep my guts from spilling out.
Morgana closed, pinning three of the statue’s arms to its body. Morgana’s chiseled limbs then flared with orange heat. Where she held the statue, the steel grew red hot. A scimitar slumped and melted.
The Chaos Knight pulled an arm free, combined grips for a two-handed strike—and slashed partway through Morgana’s body.
Morgana pushed back, and I saw that she had barely avoided being cleft in twain. Her rocky form dissolved into the ground.
Dead?
No.
Please no.
I prayed that she had just taken cover in the earth.
The Chaos Knight’s melted blade, however, did not magically re-appear in her hand.
That was something.
Meanwhile, Elmac had run out of maneuvering room.
He balanced right on the edge of the island. The only thing he could do now was take the beating, and he did—getting pounded into the ground… which was beginning to crack around his boots.
What was left of his shield finally fell apart.
But it wasn’t only his shield that broke—something inside Elmac must have snapped too at the sight of Morgana’s grievous wound.
Battle axe in one hand, a short sword in the other, he screamed and threw himself at the knight. Weaving steel back-and-forth—he parried her scimitars and battered her arms, chest, and knees, scoring two-inch deep grooves in her metal skin. It was the most impressive display of close blade work I’d ever seen.
He held his own…
for a few seconds.
Six scimitars then struck true and he gushed blood from as many mortal wounds.
I tried once more to get to him but met a wall of flashing blades.
Elmac’s skin was paper white (where he wasn’t drenched in blood). He was forced to play defense, and just by the skin of his teeth did he parry the incoming barrage of sweeps, stabs, and slashes.
I didn’t understand how he was still standing. Let alone still fighting.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a few stones and a furrow roiling through the ground… between the statue’s legs… then there was a small eruption under Elmac’s feet. A stone tip reached up and touched him. A few of his most critical wounds stopped bleeding. The cracking bit of island under his feet seemed to heal as well.
I offered my si
lent thanks to the trickster gods and their healing spells.
The Chaos Knight’s attacks, however, never slowed.
Morgana pushed up through the ground and fought by Elmac’s side. Lava wept from her previous wound—more so, as she battled and tore it open.
The knight mercilessly pounded them, scoring hit after hit… while easily keeping me at bay.
They were going to die.
And I was helpless to save them.
Almost unthinkingly, I entered the aether.
The battle paused, startling me.
Then I understood and I relaxed.
A tick of reflexive mana vanished… but my depleting mana was buying me a minute or so to think. It was a bargain by any standard.
Once the Chaos Knight had finished Elmac and Morgana, she’d come for me. I felt like a loathsome coward for even thinking that. I’d rather have been on the other side of this thing, fighting, however futilely, with my friends.
Focus, Hektor.
Okay. What was going to happen when I dropped out of the aether?
I’d have about two seconds before she murdered my friends.
What could I do about it?
…Nothing. I couldn’t fight this thing. I couldn’t help my friends get away! I couldn’t get away!
I stopped… counted to three… and tried to stop my runaway thoughts.
Panic. It’s more common in battle than you’d think. You just had to know how to tap the brakes.
Let’s try this again. What could I do?
I wasn’t sure, but I could start by running down the list of my abilities and items.
How about a Small Pass? Move—or rather remove—this thing’s head from its neck?
That would be great. I didn’t think, though, a first-level ability was going to instant kill the Grand Imperial Champion of Disorder.
I had Shé liàn. I’d used it to disarm the knight before. But one less blade that’d be replaced after a heartbeat got me nowhere.
My headband? Would seeing the absolute truth of the Chaos Knight reveal some weakness? Even if it did, it’d take too much time. And although I could use the ability here in the aether while things were on hold, it was probably a very bad idea to view even one true glimpse of this primordial dimension.
My demon bone knuckledusters? They had that power to blast through a cubic foot of iron. That might take out one of her legs—unbalance her, so we could push her off the island.
A few problems with that scenario, though.
I’d have to get to a leg without getting sliced, diced, and flayed. At best a long shot.
Say hypothetically I managed that. Even one footed, she’d be able to brace herself with two or three arms, and crablike, proceed to slay us with only a minor delay.
Also, she’d still weigh nearly six tons. The three of us simply didn’t have the leverage to move that much mass.
A glance at my reflexive mana: 74/100.
The blasting power of the demon bone knuckles had seemed so promising.
Had I missed something? I opened my interface and re-read its description.
SPECIAL ABILITIES: +1 to wielder’s STRENGTH and REFLEX. Adds moderate damage to every (right-handed) strike. Upon command, once per day the fist may cause an explosion on contact—pulverizing a cubic yard of stone, or cubic foot of iron…
Wait. Pulverize a cubic yard of stone? How much earth pulverizing power did that translate to? Three cubic feet? Ten?
And how much volume of stone and earth and dirt comprising this island would one have to blast in order to make the Chaos Knight fall off… into all that lovely empty space?
Let’s see, depending on the angle of the underside of this island, well, there was no way to tell.
But blowing up the island—which wasn’t going to fight back—seemed like a heck of a better option than trying to defeat an invulnerable opponent.
Elmac and Morgana would have to get out of the way, and fast—but their capabilities were not the weak link in this plan. That would be the host of my assumptions about the island’s composition, the displaced volume required to topple the Chaos Knight, and the power of the demon bone knuckles… that I’d never tested.
So, a shot in the dark.
I could up those odds. Slightly. Maybe.
I grabbed a blazing ley line the color of a tangerine, and smelled hot copper and felt my hand and arm sunburn as I coiled it about my fist.
A little extra fire damage for good measure and points for style.
Yeah… I felt pretty good about this.
Oh, not my odds. Come on, let’s be real.
But what else are you supposed to do when life handed you impossible—correction—nearly impossible odds?
Why, smile, and step up. Semper Fi.
I entered normal space-time.
My fist was a blazing bonfire.
I cocked my arm back and screamed, “Jump—left—NOW!”
Elmac stood still, dazed.
Morgana grabbed and shielded him, and her rock form sped through the ground at an astonishing rate.
Not fast enough, though.
Six scimitars crisscrossed her back.
I jumped as close as I could get to the Chaos Knight.
My arm rocketed down to meet the ground.
I triggered the power of my knuckle dusters.
The air around my fist ignited white hot, a blazing furnace of power.
Five sword points closed upon me—a classic pincushion maneuver.
I laughed.
And my fist exploded.
CHAPTER 17
The earth rippled as if I’d punched gelatin.
Shockwaves flashed through my bones and the air.
My flaming fist liquefied stones and dirt—that in an instant expanded, cooled, and shattered into a cloud of sparkling particles.
I was immune from the effects of my own abilities and gear. A couple of ricocheting stones, however, dinged my chi armor, but only a few points of damage got through.
And the best news? I hadn’t been stabbed to death by the Chaos Knight, because I’d pulverized a sizable chunk of the island’s edge. Everything standing there had been blasted out into the void, which included the Chaos Knight… and me.
I tumbled in freefall—among dirt, rocks, and with all twelve arms writhing as she tried to regain some control, the six-ton steel statue of Kali.
As I’d thought, just beyond the island’s perimeter the gravity and magically-contained atmosphere stopped and the vacuum of interstellar space started.
Oh man, it was beyond plunged-into-ice-water cold.
I would have shivered, but my body was too busy swelling, trying to burst from the difference in pressure.
My health bar plummeted, leaving a trail of blue-white pixels that either faded to black, popped like balloons, or appeared to be gasping—a neat graphical representation for the freezing, depressurization, and asphyxiation damage.
I remembered reading that a person without a spacesuit might last fifteen seconds in hard vacuum.
Right now, I had a bit less than half of my health.
I spammed Spiritual Regeneration twice and got back to one hundred thirty-one points, then watched my precious red pips vanish as fast as my thundering pulse.
I wasn’t dead. Not yet. But soon.
I spun out of control—everything a blur of stars and space and rocks.
I extended my arms to slow my rotational velocity, and I saw a new twist to my imminent death as the Chaos Knight rotated back into view.
She grabbed for me with all her arms.
All it did, though, was make her tumble.
I kept as still as I could.
I was just out of her reach, and she seemed to be moving a little faster than me, getting more distant by inches every second.
I continued my turn, back toward the island.
I was only ten feet away.
It might as well have been ten miles, though, because there was nothing to push against to chang
e my direction. I considered and dismissed attempting to push off the knight. Even if I managed such a thing without her crushing me first—I couldn’t get to her in the first place.
I could only drift… farther from the island with each heartbeat.
As a matter of scientific curiosity, I noted a sizable piece of it was missing. I’d guess about the volume of a mid-sized sedan, but it was hard to tell as my trajectory had propelled me “under” the surface of the landmass. Beneath was a curious inverted mountain, like an iceberg, I suppose.
Since I couldn’t see topside, there was no way to tell what had happened to Morgana and Elmac, either. I chose to believe my comrades were safe and sound and singing my praises. Perhaps Elmac was even now raising a flask in my honor.
…I was getting punchy.
I continued to spin once more away from the island.
There was blackness—stars—and one very angry-looking Chaos Knight trying her best to swim closer.
I gave her a little wave.
A pleasure to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle. Let’s go to hell together, shall we?
As if to prepare for combat, I unthinkingly gripped and re-gripped Shé liàn and broke the rime of ice that’d glued my sweaty palm to its leather-wrapped handle.
Wait. I did have a way to get back.
If I tossed the ninja chain and caught a rock on the island, I could reel myself in.
Odd, the stars had dimmed. The darkness between them had swelled. A dizzy, but not unpleasant, sensation suffused through my body. It was actually kind of comforting.
In no particular hurry, and for no particular reason, I glanced at my health bar.
Sixty-five points.
I snapped to, fully alert!
I fired off two Spiritual Regenerations and healed back to a hundred and five points.
A trickle of warmth flowed into my body, which all too quickly started to drain away.
I’d nearly blacked out. This was going to be close.
I should fold in my arms and speed my rotation to face the island faster. No, wait. Now that I thought about it, I’d been lucky before when I’d decelerated my spin. Any extra motion could send me gyrating in an unpredictable fashion, and then who knew when, or if, I’d see the island in time again to take my shot.