by Frank Morin
Of course Dougal would consider it equal, with an army around them, Petralists poised to support him, and Kilian isolated and alone. Even so, Ivor couldn’t quite believe he could destroy Kilian.
Kilian lifted his weapons and stalked forward.
Dougal pointed his sword. “Take him.”
The Spitters and Firetongues attacked from the outside in blistering waves of ice and fire that poured in continuous waves over the earthen walls. The Blades charged.
“Time for your final exam,” Kilian said. He stepped through the attacking elements, knocking them aside with an angry flick of his will. Ivor felt sure that he would not give those Petralists another chance to withdraw.
Ivor turned his mini-hub to Verena’s stone. “I hope you’re listening. Mattias is coming to kill you. Dougal will die soon.”
Then he focused on Kilian again, who was leaping to attack.
91
Connor Gets Great Distance
Connor flew over the ground, faster than he’d ever run. He tapped just enough granite to reinforce his fracked stride, and applied more to the rest of his body. His feet barely touched the ground as he sped south, his hardened skin impervious to the cold, his upper body straining the limits of his expandable armor.
The wind rushing through his ears seemed wilder than ever, fueled by so much energy, he felt he could run across the Sea of Olcan, all the way to Tabnit without stopping.
A laugh bubbled on his lips, but it died as he sped around the gentle curve of the road south of the city, heading toward the bridge and the bottom end of the speedcaravan ramp.
The road was broken and torn, with several limp bodies strewn across it. Ilse was dragging herself toward a bloody mess on the ground. Connor was shocked to recognize Lukas’s face. Most of the rest of him was gone, savaged beyond recognition. Ilse was badly wounded, the lower half of her body crushed, and she trailed a wide swath of bright blood.
The sight sickened and enraged him. He embraced the rage of porphyry and scanned for Harley, intent on murder.
Hamish’s Juggernaut was rolling fast toward Connor. The sphere looked dented and worn, but not broken. It looked like he’d taken the Juggernaut head to head against Harley and barely survived. Harley pursued, riding on her narrow sliding chair. She carried a long section of speedcaravan railing like a spear. Other shattered pieces of the speedcaravan ramp were strewn everywhere.
Seeing her in close pursuit of his best friend stoked Connor’s anger to white-hot fury.
She’d usually move faster on that sliding seat that she rode straddled like a horse, but a mini blizzard of snow was whipping around her head in a blinding storm. She kept swatting it away, but it kept returning. Connor recognized Ivor’s style.
Connor accelerated so fast he took his own breath away. He shot past Hamish’s armored sphere, opening himself to all of his elements. Water, Fire, Earth, and Air stepped into his mind and gathered close, looking eager to walk with him again. When he touched their hands, the connections snapped into place, stronger than ever. The red-frequency power locked him to the elements, while the green-frequency power augmented his porphyry strength.
That new influx of power, added to the life forces of the forty thousand people in Merkland, made him feel like a living lightning bolt. He’d achieved stability, and Harley was about to regret it.
She swatted away the blinding snow one more time and looked up just in time for him to clobber her off her earthen chair with an enormous fist of mixed elements that he hurled in front of him. Even as she tumbled back into the air, Connor launched after her, leading with his legs.
He max-tapped granite as he struck at five times the speed of an arrow. The impact jarred him brutally, but he was so awash with energy that he ignored the blow that might have shattered even granite-hardened bones any other day.
Harley took the hit in her chest, and bones all through her torso were crushed. She screamed, blood spraying from her open mouth, her arms flying wide, her entire body seeming to crumple under the onslaught.
They tumbled apart, and Connor hit the ground running. He outran the fall and circled back around, looking for his target. Harley had tumbled when she fell, leaving a long, bloody smear on the snowy, frozen ground. She lay unmoving for a single heartbeat, but Connor tapped quartzite to his eyes and could clearly see her chest healing.
He accelerated toward her, but the ground heaved under him, sending him soaring. He tapped quartzite, seized a nearby air current, and used it to slingshot him back toward Harley.
She’d already sunk into the ground.
That reminded him that despite his rage, despite the energy boiling through him, she was still a deadly foe. If he underestimated her, she could still crush the life out of him.
So he tapped limestone. The snowy, gray air all around immediately glowed with streamers of light. They were softer, spread farther apart than on a sunny day, but there were enough. Connor gave them a twist and called upon mirage.
As he touched down on the ground as light as the falling snow, he tapped slate and applied a careful shield. At the same time, he used mirage to create the image of himself flying another twenty yards before dropping to the ground. With slate, he created ripples through the ground, emanating from that area, reinforcing the illusion.
Connor tapped serpentinite next and crafted words, which he released where the mirage of himself stood. “Harley! Come out and fight, you coward!”
He felt nothing, no sign of her anywhere, even though he scanned the area carefully. So he was completely taken by surprise when her serpentlike mini-elfonnel erupted out of the ground directly below his mirage. Harley had shielded it perfectly, and her control awed him.
The mini-elfonnel chomped down on mirage Connor, its jaws crashing together hard enough to crack its stone-hardened teeth. It bellowed with frustration as he allowed the mirage to disappear.
Tapping limestone again, Connor twisted the light around himself, bending it to turn himself invisible. He was tempted to surround himself with other elements, but that might give away his position.
The Juggernaut came tearing back toward the mini-elfonnel, firing diorite missiles and hornets in an angry stream. The swarm of projectiles tore into the mini-elfonnel, but it ignored them and plunged back into the ground. Connor realized that Hamish must think the monster killed him.
So he tapped limestone again, twisted the air, and formed five mirages of himself. Two he sent sprinting around the area with basalt speed. Two he sent leaping into the air, driven by elemental power, and the last one he sent stalking toward where the mini-elfonnel had disappeared.
The Juggernaut slowed, and Connor turned his mini-hub to Hamish’s speakstone. He spoke into it, but using serpentinite, he caught the words and squashed them so only Hamish could hear.
“Hamish, it’s me.”
“Connor! By the Tallan’s rotten cooking, it’s great to hear your voice!” Hamish shouted.
Connor grinned to hear the relief and joy in Hamish’s voice. “I’m using mirage. Back off until I find Harley.”
“Sculpted scones.”
The Juggernaut made an abrupt turn and powered back north.
Harley suddenly rose out of the ground, barely fifty feet away from where Connor stood in his protective, shielded, invisible hiding place. She looked completely healed, and furious.
She made a shooing gesture toward the mirage of Connor walking toward her. The ground erupted to either side, forming thick walls of stone that slammed together with a resounding crack.
Harley shouted, “Your Builder friend has annoyed me to no end, boy. Tell me how he blocks me from controlling the granite plates on that armor and I might let him live.”
That was astonishing. Connor had no idea that was possible, although now that she mentioned it, they should have considered the risk that she might try turning those outer plates against Hamish. But she didn’t need to know he was clueless.
“I’d be happy to explain it as soon as you sur
render and swear fealty to me.”
Harley’s evil thunder-chuckle boomed all around. “My queen wishes to use you, but she didn’t say I couldn’t beat you to within a hair’s breadth of death before bringing you in.”
Connor really wanted to ask Hamish about his fight with her, but first he had to kill her. As she raised her hands and created whirlwinds to rip his two flying mirages out of the air, he considered the best way to attack her. Even hitting her with mixed elements didn’t seem to damage her for long.
Then he remembered something he’d heard Kilian threaten to do with High Lord Dougal. Tapping marble, Connor focused on Harley’s bloodstream. Seizing it through her body would usually be very difficult, but riding the wave of so much power, he easily connected with it.
Connor poured heat into it. In two heartbeats it began to boil.
It was disgusting, but nothing worse than she deserved. Harley convulsed under the sudden, unexpected attack. Lacking fire affinity, there was nothing she could do about it.
Earth rose all around her, forming a large, protective cube. More earth packed in until the cube swelled to over a dozen feet on each side. With so much earth insulating her, his connection to her faded. He should have known she was too clever to die that easily. He could feel her somehow cooling her blood too. Was she using a healing technique? She was just so fast with healing, it was really annoying.
Hamish said, “No way we can give her time to plot her next move. I’m going to draw her out.” The Juggernaut accelerated over the frozen ground toward Harley’s protective cube.
Her voice boomed out of it. “Have I told you I hate Builders?”
Connor couldn’t let Hamish risk charging her like that. She had far too much time to anticipate the Juggernaut. So he directed one of his sprinting mirages to charge her protective cube.
The cube exploded, and Harley charged out to meet his mirage.
Well, the twelve-foot earthen giant she’d clothed herself with charged him. She’d used the same technique at Raufarhofn, and it still felt daunting standing anywhere near that giant.
“Look out!” Hamish shouted, and the Juggernaut launched into the air with a thunderous roar of thrusters. A long drill extended out the front, already spinning.
Harley turned with remarkable agility for such a huge giant. As she focused on Hamish, Connor dared start jogging toward her. He dragged his bubble of invisibility with him as well as his careful shielding. If he could close on her while she focused on Hamish, maybe he could hit her hard enough to do some serious damage.
As the Juggernaut powered through the air and slammed into the giant drill-first, Harley caught it. Even though the drill tore massive chunks out of her giant hands, she didn’t seem to care. With a heave, she sent it soaring toward the river, but again the thrusters fired, arresting its flight and dropping it back to the ground.
She beat her hands together, the damage his drill had done already gone. “Come on, Builder! You’ll run out of pumice soon enough. Then I’ll crush that steel ball around your ears.”
Connor’s mirage raced past, but Harley ignored it. She had probably recognized that it lacked actual weight. Connor fumed and tapped marble, forming a spear of fire in the hands of the mirage, and making it look like it threw the spear at her.
She batted the spear away, and the earth swallowed up the mirage. The momentary distraction gave Hamish time to advance, and gave Connor time to creep closer. He was barely ten feet away from her. So it was a bit unnerving to have the enormous Juggernaut come barreling in, just to his right, aiming for the equally enormous earthen giant just a few feet to his left.
Hamish closed on Harley with no weapons of any kind visible. It looked like he planned to simply run her over. She crouched to meet him, hands outstretched. The front section of the juggernaut shot out into a battering ram that speared into Harley’s giant chest as the Juggernaut slammed into the giant.
And stopped.
It was like she’d set down roots. Even impaled by five feet of steel and struck hard enough to capsize a sailing ship, her giant barely shifted backward. She lifted the Juggernaut high, and the ground opened into a huge pit beneath it.
It was an amazingly impressive stunt.
It took four seconds too long.
Connor purged basalt and absorbed a handful of diorite. He tapped blind coal, applied it to his bones, and prepared to unleash a diorite punch against the distracted Harley’s face.
With diorite building through him, he leaped into the air, propelling himself with a bit of soapstone. He soared up, fist cocked back, ready to punch her to oblivion.
The ground erupted under the Juggernaut, sending it tumbling away instead of into the pit. A new hand emerged out of the earth giant’s shoulder and caught Connor in mid-air. Earth flowed around him, pinning his hands to his sides and imprisoning him.
He was barely a foot away.
It might as well have been a mile.
The earth melted away from the giant’s head, revealing Harley’s grinning face beneath. “Did you really think I learned nothing from that squalid little town in Althing?”
“Did you think I didn’t either?” He could tap his elements again, but he didn’t need to. Diorite was building into a crescendo inside of him. If he didn’t release it now, it would rip him apart.
So he explosive-vomited right in her face.
Diorite erupted from his mouth like a volcanic tide, driven by a full measure of diorite and by the incredible energy of all those lives he’d drained in Merkland. The heat reddened his own face, and the pressure knocked him right out of her restraining earthen grip.
The vomit-explosion blasted Harley out of her earthen giant suit. Her face melted under the onslaught. It looked like she tried to scream, but the overwhelming tide of explosive force crushed the sound.
That was so much more amazing than he’d imagined it could be.
Even better, Hamish shouted, “Explosion vomit! Best weapon ever!”
Knowing that his best friend was there to witness the moment, that he understood how incredible and life altering that ability might prove to be, filled Connor with as much satisfaction as watching Harley blasted back with a melting face.
Connor landed just as the diorite extinguished. He tapped marble, seized those superheated flames, and wrapped them around Harley. He could not allow her to touch the ground again, or he might undo all the progress he’d just managed.
Surrounding her with those flames, he poured in even more heat and lifted her higher, separating her from the earth. Then he tapped slate and scanned the area, just in case she could somehow still connect.
He felt the mini-elfonnel barreling through the ground toward him, seconds away from crushing out his life, just as it had his mirage form.
So Connor wrapped himself in more elements, creating his own giant suit of mixed water, fire, and earth. In that pulsing blue and crimson giant suit, he drove a spear of mixed elements down into the earth just as the mini-elfonnel lunged up toward the surface.
His spear punched through its head, splitting it right in half. The earthen beast convulsed, and Connor ripped it out of the ground. With so much energy from Merkland still coursing through him and fueling his affinities, he tossed the monster aside, then turned back to Harley.
Even encased in a superheated tomb, she somehow still found a way to fight. The air in front of Connor darkened and he recognized the cloud that formed and began rolling toward him.
Sandstorm.
It swarmed around him, tearing at his elemental suit, shearing off the outer layer, but it caused less damage than it had against the buildings of Raufarhofn. He drew deeper from the elements, replenishing what she stole.
She wanted to play with sandstone? He had more power than she could dream of at his disposal. Connor hadn’t practiced sandstorm, but Kilian had explained the concept. It was a terrifyingly destructive power, so he couldn’t think of anything better to rub her face in.
Connor tapped the
sandstone pendant and mixed its power into the flood of energy from the lives he’d tapped in Merkland. He linked all that power to the green-frequency power source thundering through his porphyry heart, plunged it through the fires still holding her prisoner, and wrapped it around her burning body.
He didn’t quite manage the deadly, elegant sandstorm effect like Harley did. Instead a blizzard of sand spikes materialized and ripped into Harley, puncturing deep and scouring away her already-blackened skin.
Air howled in, called by Harley to fling her free, but Connor tapped quartzite too and deflected the currents away. Riding the wave of power she’d forced him to take from the people of Merkland, he overwhelmed her resistance. She was far stronger than Connor alone, but not even she could beat the combined might of every living soul in Merkland, condensed into Connor’s body and fueling his affinities.
Harley beat against the elements imprisoning her, but she couldn’t touch the earth or the wind any longer. Connor intensified the already super-heated flames even hotter, until the air crackled from the heat.
Harley writhed in the flames as the heat grew hot enough to melt steel. She screamed again as her clothes melted, and her hair vaporized.
But as fast as her skin melted away, she somehow healed it.
“I’m impressed and disgusted at the same time,” Hamish said, rolling close in his battered Juggernaut.
Connor only felt disgusted. He didn’t like killing, and a long, drawn-out execution was even worse.
So he fashioned a dozen spears of ice and drove them through the intense flames, right through Harley’s body. She convulsed under the onslaught, but although she opened her mouth, he heard no sounds.
Just then, Verena’s voice echoed through Hamish’s speakstone. She sounded panicked.
“Hamish, I can’t reach Connor. Can you help me? Dougal took Mattias’s mind and he’s trying to—”
Her words broke off into a shriek, followed by a quick ringing of steel on steel, then a whooshing sound.
“Hurry! I’m almost out of quartzite. He catches up so fast. Kilian’s fighting Dougal, but I don’t know if he’ll free Mattias in time. I don’t want to hurt him.”