by Frank Morin
The distance made it harder to read her, but as she stepped past a building and came into clearer view, he felt her.
Intense heat radiated off her. She was enjoying herself. No, it was more than that. She loved destruction, battle, proving that she was the most powerful. She enjoyed toying with them, teasing them, then destroying them once she’d bled out all the fun.
She must also have training in protecting her mind, but snippets of her thoughts filtered through. She didn’t consider anything or anyone arrayed against her a serious threat. Only two beings might challenge her.
Perfect. That bit of knowledge was the last piece Connor needed to launch his assault. He gripped limestone in his other hand and called upon it.
Hamish said, “Light? Do you really think that’ll help?”
He was thinking, “I can get limestone to glow twice as bright as Connor. We should have a light duel. That would be so much fun. Winner gets the other’s dessert for a week.”
That was a great idea. Later. Connor focused on the light streaming through town in front of Harley. Smoke and billowing sand cast excellent shadows that gave him plenty of material to work with.
But first he focused on her again with chert, closed his eyes, and willed the connection to solidify. It remained tenuous, but he only needed to send thoughts back to her.
There. It snapped into place for a second, just long enough for him to send a gentle, whispered thought.
“What if they’ve been distracting me, just long enough to call for aid?”
He dropped the connection and reached out through limestone and gave the air near her a mighty twist.
“Kilian!” Hamish shouted with jubilant surprise. “When did he get here?”
Connor almost dropped his affinities. He wasn’t supposed to be fooling Hamish. But then the others started exclaiming too, and Connor himself saw first Kilian, then Evander step out of the shadows in front of Harley.
The mirage looked amazingly substantial, and it felt solid in his mind, as if he actually controlled those false images. Maybe he’d just discovered a new ability unlocked by his ascension. Finally, something good from all that pain.
She paused at the sight of the two illusions, her bored confidence replaced by battle-ready tension. She crouched in a battle stance, looking shocked right through her stone head.
Connor wished he could tap serpentinite, but all the tertiaries were still eluding him. If he could generate their voices, those illusions would be really believable.
“I need a Longseer,” he ordered.
One of them hovered close, attending the generals. Connor wanted to tell everyone the truth, but what if Harley was tapping quartzite? She could hear the explanation and realize what was going on.
So he only said, “Please apply quartzite to my voice.”
He felt it tingling along his throat and shouted with a booming voice, “Kilian! Evander! Thank you for coming, but I don’t think we need you after all. She’s pretty useless.”
“What are you doing, you fool!” Mattias shouted, echoed by just about everyone else.
Connor made the Kilian illusion gave Harley a roguish salute, then turn and start walking away. She looked baffled. Connor sent the Evander illusion circling around her, walking toward the south end of town. Harley turned to follow him, but kept glancing back at Kilian, as if expecting them to attack at any second.
Connor made a slashing motion across his throat, indicating to the Longseer to stop enhancing his voice. As soon as the tingling faded he said, “Hamish, I need to get into the air above her. Let’s go.”
Briet blocked him. “What are you doing? Why aren’t they attacking?”
“You said you’d trust me. Now get out of my way before we miss our chance. As soon as you see your opening, hit her with everything you’ve got.”
“You’re not making sense,” Mattias said.
Connor grinned. “Sensible solutions won’t win the day.”
Then he ran to the Hawk with Hamish. Well, he tried to run, with Hamish half-carrying him. He felt immensely frustrated by his weakness, and hoped he had the strength to actually make his attack on Harley.
His control wavered over the illusions, so he sent Evander jumping behind a building, then erased him. He sent the Kilian illusion around another building and dropped that one too.
“Where’d they go?” Hamish asked as they settled into the front row seats.
“I’ll tell you later. Now get us up there a hundred feet and swoop over her. Make sure when I jump out I’ll land on her.”
“You can’t fight her, Connor. You can barely stand up.”
“Please trust me.”
Hamish looked torn, but ignited the thrusters. Connor silently thanked him. Hamish didn’t understand the potential, and the deadly risks of his last option.
If either diorite or blind coal refused to answer his call, Harley would kill him. He only had a little of each stone. He would only get one shot at her.
The Hawk rose straight up a hundred feet. Hamish paused, one hand over the control to ignite the rear push thrusters. “If you get into trouble, you realize I’m going to come help.”
“Don’t. I’ve got this.”
He’d better, because he could read Hamish’s determination. He’d come, even if it meant a suicide dive.
Hamish touched the lever and the Hawk leaped forward. It’d cover the distance in seconds.
Harley had lunged around the building after Evander, but paused in confusion when he’d disappeared. Connor read her growing worry. She hadn’t felt Evander touching the earth, had to be wondering why not.
He planned to try planting another thought, but at that moment his chert expired, the little stone crumbling to dust. It was the only one he had. Hopefully it had accomplished enough.
As they shot over the city, Connor twisted the light again, summoning Evander’s illusion standing a block away from where Harley last saw him and causing her to turn away from the Hawk bearing down on her from the other direction.
Her voice boomed across the city. “I warned you that the next time we meet you will die.”
“You first,” Connor breathed as Hamish tilted the Hawk over and snapped off the wind shields.
Connor grabbed his one piece of blind coal in one hand and a tiny bag of diorite in the other. Then he jumped. As he fell, he absorbed the powder.
Hamish had positioned him perfectly. He plummeted down, aimed directly at the back of Harley’s giant suit. He still couldn’t tap his tertiary powers, couldn’t call upon water or fire or air to slow his fall. He’d turned himself into a human catapult shot.
This had better work.
Connor tapped blind coal, felt its slipperiness coating his skin. He only barely bit back a shout of triumph when he felt the affinity come fast and strong, but that would give him away. That would be a stupid way to die.
Connor swallowed the snake and applied it to his bones. Just in time. He tapped diorite and unleashed all of its power in a single mighty curse-punch as he slammed into Harley’s giant like a meteor.
The explosion tore through him, not quite able to rip his insides apart. It roared past, leaving him feeling empty and completely wrung dry, and exploded out from his fist with brutal intensity against Harley, as if taking out its frustration at not being able to kill Connor on her.
Her suit shattered and the impact blasted her out the front side, blood spraying from dozens of gashes in her skin. She lay still for a moment, eyes wide with shock from the unexpected, brutal blow.
Connor rolled the other way, somehow slipping through the shrapnel storm uninjured. He lay dazed for a moment in the rubble of the street, staring up at the late morning sky.
So he got a perfect view of three Tabnit projectiles arcing high into the air.
“They were supposed to wait for my signal,” he muttered to himself.
He’d consumed all his diorite, and only a tiny bit of blind coal remained. Connor watched the projectiles reach the ap
ex of their arc and begin the downward journey toward Harley and himself. He also spotted a huge ceramic sphere soaring in from the direction of the Althin researchers. At least they’d timed their strikes well.
Harley staggered to her feet, dripping blood. Connor marveled that she could stand at all. She looked terrible, but her wounds began healing, flesh knitting before his eyes. In seconds she’d be completely whole.
She turned a furious gaze on Connor. “You’ve annoyed me for the last time, pup.”
The Tabnit projectiles and the Althin ceramic bomb struck.
She spotted them too late. The projectiles exploded with fire and jagged steel shrapnel that shredded her leather jacket and tore enormous chunks of flesh from her body.
Connor tapped blind coal at the moment of impact and its slippery protective blanket wrapped over him just as the fire and fury and deadly steel rolled over him to snuff out his life. Somehow it all missed, and he felt it sliding past his skin, leaving him whole.
Then the blind coal ran out.
Intense heat threatened to suffocate him, and he buried his face in the broken dirt, trying to reach for marble. For a second he connected, and he pushed the heat away. Fire appeared in his mind, still wearing the robe of conflicting power frequencies, scowling as if it was Connor’s fault they could no longer walk together.
Then the connection snapped, and Connor blinked through the smoke and haze as debris fell all around. Harley had fallen to one knee, savagely torn by the explosions and covered by a thick layer of clinging, gray liquid. It began to smolder and her skin started to melt away, just as the buildings had fallen to her sandstorm.
Harley screamed, pawing at her skin, but the gray chemical clung to her like glue. She couldn’t cover herself with protective earth because the acid was already sinking in.
As she tore at it in growing desperation, chunks of flesh started sloughing off like outer layers of half-rotten lettuce. Connor grimaced, horrified by the sight. They needed to defeat her, but that was a disgusting way for anyone to die.
Then the smell punched him right up both nostrils. The sick stench of rotting meat, mixed with a sharp, stinging scent that had to be the acid, layered over a smell like an open sewer pit. He grimaced and tried to connect with earth, hoping to simply squash her and end her suffering. Again the connection splintered and faded before he could use it.
What was going on? The thought of losing his affinities terrified him more than Harley ever had.
Harley abruptly stopped screaming, dropped her hands away from her ruined face and turned toward him. Even though her skin was still melting, her clothing smoking, bones visible through the horrible rents in her torso, she smiled.
It was ghastly. Her face was so badly melted he could see the white of her skull in several places where her hair and skin had slid off. One eye was gone, a bloody, melting socket, her nose was melting away like butter on a hot stove, and only part of her mouth seemed to be working.
“Perhaps you do have potential after all,” she rasped in a barely understandable croak.
Connor gaped, his sense of victory evaporated, replaced by renewed fear. She should be dead, or screaming her lungs out at least. He still couldn’t feel the elements, so he absorbed a bit of granite and stumbled to his feet. He swayed, barely able to stand, but determined to curse-punch her into oblivion.
Harley melted into the earth.
For a second, he hoped she had simply died, that the Althin acid had reached the critical point where it could finish her off, but that was a desperate hope. She had sunk into the earth using slate.
He couldn’t connect with the earth.
She could destroy him easily, drag him under and crush or suffocate him. Or worse, she could cart him back to Donleavy so the queen could brain-wipe him.
Terrified, but unable to connect with marble or soapstone or quartzite to try to escape, Connor walked a slow circle, granite-enhanced fist ready to strike. She might be hurt badly enough that she’d make a mistake and let him hit her.
She did not reappear. Instead, a narrow tube of earth rose next to him and tipped toward him.
Connor stumbled back, but Harley’s voice echoed out of the tube. “Congratulations on your ascension, pup. My lady queen suggested you were motivated by need. Today you took a necessary step toward preparing yourself to serve her. I’ve chosen to spare this worthless rock of a nation in case my lady approves of your development.”
Then Hamish swooped out of the sky in his battle suit and ripped Connor off the ground. The abrupt motion strained his neck, and if he hadn’t been tapping granite it might have broken bones.
Connor groaned as the world spun around him and the ground fell away.
Hamish asked, “Is she dead?”
“She’s gone.”
“You sure?”
“I think so.” He frowned as Hamish banked back toward the command group outside of town. Was she telling the truth about leaving? He hoped so, but her reasons for breaking off the attack seemed ridiculous. If she was lying, why would she do that, and what were her real reasons?
If she wasn’t lying, she was even more cracked than he’d imagined.
47
No Time to Party
Two days after the battle, Harley still hadn’t returned. Connor started to believe maybe she’d told him the truth and left. Who took that kind of punishment and simply walked away?
They left the remnants of the army still stationed in Raufarhofn and returned to Dagmanson to small but wildly enthusiastic crowds. So many had sailed downriver, it would probably take weeks to get everyone back.
In the meantime, the people who were in town were treated to a series of sumptuous banquets to celebrate their victory. Connor was treated like a national hero. In a pompous formal ceremony in the upper halls of the Logretta, the lawgiver awarded both Connor and Hamish honorary military titles of commanders, and promised to make one of his mansions overlooking Dagmanson available to them any time they visited the area.
All of the attention was overwhelming and a bit embarrassing. Although they’d hurt Harley badly, Connor couldn’t help but feel like they hadn’t actually defeated her. He kept his doubts to himself. They would only cheapen the ultimate sacrifice that so many had made standing against her.
Hamish’s well-known love for food earned them a second, very tasty, award. The lawgiver granted them as much free food as they wanted from any eating house or bakery in the kingdom. Hamish looked close to tears as he accepted the award. As soon as they escaped the stuffy, formal meeting, they headed into town to sample everything.
The next day Connor asked Eystri, Mattias, and Wolfram to meet him in a cozy, book-lined study in the beautiful palace on the eastern hills above Dagmanson where they’d all been granted rooms. Hamish arrived last, walking a bit painfully. He hadn’t donned his battle suit yet, and Connor wondered if he’d even be able to put it on. He’d eaten himself sick. Twice.
Word of how much Hamish loved the local cooking had spread like wildfire through Dagmanson and it seemed every chef, baker, or housewife in the city was clamoring for him to try their specialty. He’d tried to oblige them all. Connor had helped as much as possible, but no one could match Hamish in full feeding frenzy.
Mattias beamed as they all settled into comfortable seats around a crackling fire in the study. “Negotiations are going better than we ever imagined. Nothing like facing total catastrophe to motivate people to accept favorable terms.”
No doubt Mattias expected to present the final mutual defense accord between Granadure and the Arishat League to the crown prince and take all the credit for it. Connor didn’t really care. He couldn’t stomach all the political maneuvering that was clearly involved. He was glad Mattias liked it.
Eystri said in her timid voice, “Now that you having rested much, Jonida, the Alrun of the vault, has many wishings to scheduling you for interviewing.”
The Althins were an information-driven people, and they’d want to know everyt
hing about him. They’d probably expect that he’d feel indebted to them for all the honors they’d lavished on him and tell them everything they wanted to know. Connor didn’t believe they planned to hunt for information to use as leverage to influence him in the future.
He didn’t disbelieve it either.
“I’m deeply honored by the invitation, but I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone it until my next visit. I have to leave immediately.”
Mattias exclaimed, “We can’t go now. Not until the treaty is signed.”
“And there’s a chance Harley will return,” Wolfram said.
“No one has ever denying the Alrun,” Eystri said, her voice quivering with worry.
Connor glanced at Hamish, but he’d fallen asleep holding his stomach. Connor poked him with a foot. Hamish awoke with a start.
“Is it time for lunch?”
Connor laughed. “I didn’t think you’d be able to eat again for a month.”
“Haven’t you ever noticed that after a huge feed you get hungrier than ever?”
Actually, now that Hamish pointed it out, he had noticed that. “We’ll grab something from the kitchens before we go. I need you to fly me back to Drumwhindle.”
That woke him up. “What? Why? We can’t insult everyone by not eating all their food.”
“We have to. I need to meet with Kilian right away.”
Wolfram stroked his long mustaches and said, “There’s something you haven’t told us about your ascension, isn’t there?”
Connor hesitated. He didn’t want to reveal that he’d lost the ability to use his tertiary powers. Saying it aloud might make it permanent. He’d confide in Hamish during the flight, but no way would he let Mattias know.
“After that ascension, some of my affinities are acting differently,” he admitted. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Kilian had mentioned there were dangers ascending. I need his advice and some more training.”
“We can’t go,” Mattias declared, folding his arms and looking ready to argue all day.