by Dan Decker
Adar hoped not. The Hunwei already had a superior enough advantage with their ships and overwhelming weapons. He hoped it was happenstance that they'd focused on the true seat of power, instead of the largest building.
He could also make out women and children being loaded aboard the ships while the men were separated into another group. It was all he could do to not make a one-man suicide mission to try to save them and instead he focused on the smaller version of the Vigorock tower. It didn’t look any different since he’d armed it and he tried to gauge how long it had been but came up blank. The fight with Tere was still too fresh on his mind and had warped his sense of time.
Maybe it had all been for nothing. Could he really expect that the weapon would still work more than a thousand years later? He couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. He wanted to deal a severe blow to the Hunwei but didn’t want innocent people to die in the process.
He was disturbed from his thoughts by a sound from behind—Melyah, he had picked a fine time to get lost in thought!—and turned in time to see two Hunwei walk in from the meeting hall. They looked as surprised to see him as he was to see them. He aimed his blaster at the first, which was the taller of the two, and his shot ripped into the chest of the Hunwei and sent him to the ground.
Before Adar could turn his blaster, the other had closed the distance and ripped his blaster away. The next thing he knew he was looking into the muzzle of a blaster with a very angry Hunwei on the other end, his orange eyes had become slits, and he was baring his fangs and hissing.
Adar ducked and grabbed for the blaster, but the Hunwei was prepared and kicked Adar's legs out from underneath him. He rolled, and was charging into the legs of the Hunwei when an arrow exploded out of the Hunwei’s neck. Blue blood gushed down the neck of the monster as he and the Hunwei fell to the ground. When he got up, he recognized a black tipped arrowhead and felt a flutter of hope. It was a match for the black tipped dagger the Ou Qui had given to him.
He grabbed the dead Hunwei’s blaster and fired a shot into another Hunwei that had just appeared in the doorway of the meeting hall, but it wasn’t until after he’d fired that he realized there was already an arrow protruding out of the Hunwei’s neck as well. He glanced around but didn’t see any obvious Ou Qui, and he didn’t dare call out to thank them.
Turning back to the doorway, he took a deep breath and ran outside headed towards the tower. A thought had just occurred to him, and he kicked himself for not thinking of it earlier. Perhaps now that the tower was activated, he could use his thumb to get in using the same method for accessing the Arches. If he could get in, maybe he could deactivate it and keep everybody from dying. With the Ou Qui on site, they might have a fighting chance after all, assuming that an ancient weapon didn’t rip them all to shreds.
As he ran out into the open, he tried not to think about what he was doing. Running out where there were Hunwei all around was stupid, but heading towards a weapon that might do something at any time, was even worse. There was movement all around him as the Hunwei took notice of his idiotic run. Several blasts came his way, but thankfully, they missed, though one of the blasts had come close to robbing him of a hand. It would have been a hard loss to deal with, but at least he would have been alive.
When he was less than ten feet away from the tower, he noticed that it was glowing, and increased his speed. There wasn't time for him to examine it more closely because he heard footsteps coming from behind and was forced to turn. He brought up his blaster, but he was too late. A Hunwei barreled into him, slamming him into the tower and pushing a blaster up against his neck. Adar fired into the Hunwei’s feet at the same time an arrow ripped through the Hunwei’s throat.
Melyah, those Ou Qui were deadly accurate with their bows. He hoped never to be on the receiving end of one and was glad he’d entered into the truce without hesitation. Despite his anxious state, he noticed the surprised and painful look in the Hunwei’s eyes as he tried to push the dying Hunwei away from him. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, and eventually, he just got out of the way of the heavy beast and let the body fall against the tower.
When Adar looked back at the town hall, he was surprised to see that it was surrounded by Ou Qui. At first glance, he thought there was only several hundred, but then he surveyed everywhere else and saw that there were several thousand. Where the Ou Qui had been hiding he didn’t know; he was just glad that they were fighting the Hunwei.
It looked like a battle between monsters because the Ou Qui looked strange with their odd camouflage as they fired arrows at the Hunwei. Adar saw several Ou Qui with black tipped swords that were cutting through the Hunwei like a man with a scythe might do to grass. He had found himself wishing for one of their disguises several times during the last several weeks, but now he realized that he needed to have one of their swords instead, or even better, some of the black stuff for his.
When he saw an Ou Qui jump off the roof of the town hall, he was taken aback. A moment later, another followed. Surely, they couldn't survive the four-story fall? As the two Ou Qui landed and took off at a run, Adar was unable to make sense of what he was seeing. The Hunwei must have been surprised as well because many of them converged to fire on the two Ou Qui at once. When several of the blasts hit the Ou Qui, they were unfazed, even though some of their camouflage was blasted away revealing metal underneath.
In a surreal moment of wonder, Adar almost let out a shout of joy. Those weren't Ou Qui. They were metalmen. Jorad had mentioned that the Ou Qui he’d run into in the woods outside of Neberan had said something about metal gods. Adar’s first thought had been of metalmen. Thinking it was quite different than actually seeing it happen. What other legends are going come to life? he wondered as he recognized the Ou Qui bows and arrows in their hands.
He turned back to the tower hoping there was a way to disarm it from the inside and found that he had to shield his eyes because it was now glowing bright yellow. A red mist had also formed around the tower, giving it the appearance of being on fire, and a low rumbling whine sung out from the structure. He stuck his thumb to the tower, hoping that the red mist wouldn’t harm him, and found that the tower was actually quite cool to the touch. He moved his thumb along the wall of the tower, but nothing happened. Growling, he tried again with his other thumb and received the same result. The red mist began to spin around the tower, slowly gaining momentum as air was sucked towards it. The mist was also growing, and rather fast at that. When Adar realized he was in the middle of it, he broke from his trance and ran. Whatever it was that he had put into motion; there was no stopping it now.
Several Hunwei were nearby and they stared at the tower with fear covering their faces, they stood as if frozen to the ground. Despite his imminent death, Adar was happy to see that the Hunwei too could feel fear. I don’t hear any gurgling laughter now, he thought as he increased his speed. All around him, the air started tingling, and he ran faster but found that he wasn't outrunning the sensation.
When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that the red mist had taken on a more solid appearance and was swirling faster around the tower. Without warning, the ground shook with a thunderous explosion and the tower showered twisting balls of lighting into the air. The sound was deafening, and a mighty wind rushed forward from the tower, knocking Adar and everyone and everything to the ground. Once it had passed, he heard the others screaming as he lay waiting to die until he realized that he didn’t feel any different.
He wasn’t dying; he wasn’t even in pain from anything that he hadn’t already suffered before.
The wind continued to rush over him, keeping him from sitting up. He looked for the Hunwei nearest him. They too had been knocked to the ground, and the screams he'd heard were coming from them. He crawled over and stopped several feet away, not able to get any closer because the Hunwei armor was glowing red and it was too hot from this distance—even with the wind—to approach. Smoke billowed out of it and was carried away.
After several minutes, the wind ceased, and Adar got to his feet. Even though he still couldn’t get any closer, he could now see inside the armor. The flesh of the Hunwei’s head had burned away, leaving behind the charred skull; he could only assume that the same thing had happened to the rest of the Hunwei’s body. All the Hunwei that he could see were dead in a similar fashion, but that didn’t mean that some had survived. While the other people were still beginning to get to their feet, wondering what had happened, he ran to a nearby ship and found women and children cowering in the corners of the large compartment. It took some urging, but he was able to get them to move out. He went from ship to ship, yelling that it was safe to come out.
From what he could tell, the weapon had worked, and it had only killed the Hunwei, but he didn’t know how effective the weapon was. Where there still living Hunwei within the city? Vigorock had been a great deal taller and bigger than this much smaller model in Zecarani. Could it do more damage? Did it have a greater range of effectiveness? It was hard to suppress his elation as he ran but he forced himself to not be overcome. They weren’t out of the woods yet, not by a long shot. The tower had shot balls of lighting into the air. What were those supposed to do? Was it possible that they took out ships? Adar scanned the sky as he ran but didn’t see any ships still moving in the air. There had been so much going on that he couldn’t remember whether or not there had been any in flight when the tower had launched its attack.
He grinned, despite all odds, they had found something that could be used to fight the Hunwei.
A few minutes later, after he had just convinced the captives of another ship to flee, his thoughts returned to Tere. Adar needed to get to the arch. It was likely that Tere hadn't stuck around to see what had happened after Adar had armed the tower. The tablet had been communicating with the ancient dialect of the fathers. Had Tere even been able to understand what had happened? Adar racked his brain trying to remember if Tere spoke the language any better than him. Nothing came to mind; he doubted that Tere knew much of it. At most Tere might have picked up a couple of words. To him, Adar’s whole experience with the tablet may have just reminded him of the globe in the Arches, and he might have just assumed that it was a portable navigational device of some sort.
But if Tere knew what it could do, he wouldn't wait for the others, he'd run back to Abel with his prize in hand. Adar had foolishly shown them all the arch that led to Rarbon so he could be there by the day after tomorrow if he hurried. If that tablet controlled any of the dormant defenses of Rarbon, they might be in trouble. The last person that Adar wanted to have that knowledge was Abel. It would have been better if Adar had only shown Jorad.
As Adar walked out of the loading bay of the ship, he saw several Hunwei moving towards another ship. Cursing, Adar reached for his blaster where he normally kept it slung over his shoulder and realized that it wasn’t there. He couldn’t remember if he’d had it in hand or not when he’d been running from the red mist of the tower, and he looked around for a blaster, but there wasn’t a Hunwei corpse nearby. How could he have been so careless? He should have noticed he didn’t have one and picked up a blaster immediately. He didn’t know how many dead Hunwei he’d passed, but he’d had plenty of opportunities to pick up another. Now, as he watched the Hunwei moving, he ran down onto the ground and looked, the nearest Hunwei corpse was more than fifty feet away. He’d never make it in time because the Hunwei were practically to their ship. Luckily, he recognized it as one that had already been emptied of all the captives.
As the Hunwei boarded a ship, one looked back, and Adar was surprised to see a human face peering out from inside the Hunwei armor. It was only then that he realized that they were too small to be Hunwei because they stood several feet shorter. He’d have noticed that fact sooner if they would have been closer. The human didn’t appear to notice Adar from where he stood as they disappeared into the ship and it took off. He hadn’t been imagining things after all. The Hunwei had humans working with them. He felt a cold chill creep into his heart as he watched the ship disappear north.
Chapter 32
After exiting the Arches, they found themselves emerging from the rock face of another mountain and Jorad looked up when he felt the rising sun on his face. An overgrown trail led from the arch down the mountain and the majority of the leaves on the trees were orange and yellow. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The hardest task that he ever faced was now only a couple of days away, but the scent of nearby flowers filled him with a feeling of hope that he might succeed. It was not going to be an easy path, but the fact that he had fought and killed Hunwei multiple times provided him with the confidence that he was ready.
Soret had cried through the night, and Jorad hadn’t been able to comfort her or do anything to ease her mind. After a sufficient amount of time had gone by to allow the Hunwei to lose interest, Karn and the others had tried in vain to reopen the Zecarani arch. After they had given up, despite the fact that Jorad could barely stand, he had tried as well. He didn't know how long he had stood there, leaning against the wall while touching his thumb to the top of the arch, but it finally got to the point where he had to sink down to the floor or fall over from exhaustion. Whatever it was that had made it work before, it wasn’t working now. Xarda had ventured a guess that the Hunwei had somehow done something to damage it and that had become the prevailing theory as to why it wasn’t working.
Even as Jorad’s heart now went out to Soret, that didn’t dampen his mood much. They’d saved almost two hundred people from Zecarani. He smiled. It was his first real smile in quite some time, and it felt good.
The young man with the baby—Kivin, Jorad had learned—walked several feet ahead. The baby was his younger brother, their father had died several years ago, and their mother had been killed in an explosion during the attack. Kivin was somber, but as Jorad made a face at Noal, the baby, and got a goofy smile in return, he almost felt like breaking out in laughter. Which of course he didn’t do because he was afraid the others wouldn’t understand. The refugees were depressed, and there was little talking and no joviality among the members of the group. Even Leron and Wes were mellow.
Soret sighed, and Jorad examined her out of the corner of his eye. She was looking better today. Her dark brown hair needed to be brushed, but she had managed to clean off her face and had changed out of the mud-soaked clothes she'd been wearing yesterday. Jorad hadn't bothered to try removing his clothes. Right now, his body complained if he tried to bend over.
“Your father may have survived.” Jorad realized he was rubbing his shoulder where Barc had stabbed him and lowered his hand. Soret didn’t need the reminder. When Xarda had asked about what happened, he’d left out Barc’s attacks and Soret hadn’t bothered to correct him. “He survived Neberan after all.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Soret didn’t look convinced.
“Adar’s still there, Tere said that he was alive when they were separated, the Hunwei aren’t going to kill him. Maybe he’ll meet up with Barc. If they do, Adar will keep him safe.” If Barc doesn’t try to kill him too.
Soret smiled weakly as if she had had the same thought he hadn’t expressed. “Let’s hope so. Did Tere say anything about the tablet?”
“They couldn’t find it.”
“So our only option is the Rarbon Portal. Are you sure about making a claim?”
Jorad paused and looked at Soret as he tried to put into words everything that he felt. Soret's question echoed his own thoughts. He'd made his decision weeks ago. It was his duty. It was his responsibility. All the dead he’d seen in Zecarani and Neberan were signs of things to come, but there had been something nagging at him, though. Was he fully committed? Were his motives right?
“Do you see it?” Xarda asked breaking into his thoughts; she had stopped several feet in front of them on a small hill and was pointing at something in the distance. As they went to see what she was talking about, Jorad was glad for the interruption, because he needed a mome
nt to gather his thoughts.
The hill was at a place on the trail where there was a gap in the trees, and he could make out what appeared to be a small mountain in the distance. He smiled as he recognized Rarbon, even though the last time he’d seen it had been as a boy. How many times had Adar been back since they’d left? It still bothered Jorad that Adar had kept the Arches a secret until recently. All those long days and months that they spent traveling. Wouldn’t it have been much more effective to use the Arches? Jorad shook his head ruefully when he remembered that Adar had spent much of that time teaching and training him for what lay ahead. As usual, there was a reason for the things Adar did. He always seemed to be several steps ahead. Well, that was going to have to change. It was time that Jorad started planning as well; he was tired of always playing catch up to his father.
“The mountain?” Soret asked.
Xarda started to laugh as she nodded her head, but cut it off short, looking around at the downcast group. “We’re less than two days from Rarbon. Wes may be right; those Arches might just be magical.”
Soret nodded her agreement and stared at Rarbon in wonder. Jorad could barely believe it himself; they had traveled hundreds of miles in a single step. They continued on their way after several more minutes of appreciating the view in silence.
“You never answered my question,” Soret prompted a little while later after their view of Rarbon was once again obscured by the forest.
There had been little time for Jorad to think about his motives during the last few weeks, the anxiety and stress of running from the Hunwei had driven everything else out of his mind. He’d been planning to make his claim because he felt that he should and it was the only way to protect Soret, but the more he thought about it, he realized that wasn’t enough. He had to be committed to seeing it through or die. That's what it would take to keep from failing.