To Be Victorious: The Maestro Chronicles Book 6

by John Buttrick

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  Leo Zanner, Two-bolt Accomplished of the Serpent Guild and Operations Commander of Serpent South, was in his suite of rooms on the top floor of the hotel Lavistra. It had been a busy night and the desire to close his gray eyes and catch a bit of sleep was more than he could resist. He removed the communication array from his white silky hair and set the device on the nearby night-table. The black cloak was hanging on a peg on the wall. The rest of his silks were still on his body. It was too late for a full night’s sleep, but a couple of marks stretched out on top of the covers of his bed would work wonders in preparing him for the coming of dawn.

  He looked forward to the massive raid that would obliterate Ducanton. The exact whereabouts of the royals was still a mystery. Orders were getting to knights, lords, and commanders in the field, so he knew the Queen and her ministers were still alive, somewhere. Soon the capitol city would be no more and the tens of thousands of people who lived within the walls would perish. The thought pleased him, as did memories of his many successes.

  In the time since the First Lady’s close associate, Ursula Duggan, had recommended him over Derk Mathis and Lan Koler to lead the nest, Leo had launched many successful raids into Ducaun. The three of them, along with their individual teams, had been operating out of Van Joppa’s mansion and having a mixture of successes and failures, largely because they differed over methods and were of equal rank. It was not until Duggan arrived, set things in order, and organized the small contingent into the new Serpent South, with thousands of Aakacarns assigned under him, that the failures ceased. Shantear, Serpent West, had been lost, but replaced by Port Joppa and a string of successes.

  Teleportation circles under his command were quick and efficient, appearing at the targeted areas, inflicting damage for fractions of a mark, and then returning to the lower levels of the hotel before the ISIG could respond. Other Operations Commanders had racked up serious losses by allowing their teams to linger in an area long enough for the Security agents to arrive. Those circles had done more damage to the enemy in the short run, but at greater cost, while in the long run, his teams did more damage in overall volume, and with practically no cost. No war could be waged without cost and occasionally Security agents were at a targeted area at the time of the raid and his teams suffered losses in those instances. Even so, his facility held the record for the most successful raids.

  Leo closed his eyes, but found it difficult to clear his mind enough to fall asleep. After the deaths of Daniel Benhannon, Sherree Jenna, and Leah Barryn, everyone expected the Atlantan Guild to fall into disarray. Defense Conductor Lassiter turned out to be more formidable than anyone could have guessed. His raids had been effective and resulted in the deaths of many thousands of Accomplisheds, who were nowhere near as expendable as the commoners. Even so, Leo was sure the Serpent Guild would soon defeat its enemies, especially with Tarin Conn’s spell at work in the Taltin Sea, and with that thought, Leo relaxed and drifted further away from consciousness.

  He was dreaming of the Supreme Maestro honoring him above all the other Operations Commanders, using him as an example of what the others should be, when a whip-crack of sound woke him. There was no mistaking the displacement of air caused by the sudden arrival of a teleportation circle. Since the lower levels had buffer spells to deaden the noise, and all of his teams knew exactly where to arrive and depart, no one should be materializing outside the front entrance. That sound had come from below his screened-in window.

  He put on his array, shot out of bed, and ran for the balcony. Far below, topaz blue light radiated from the bushes, out toward the other hotels and into the Lavistra, while deep blue and hyacinth-colored beams were being focused into the lower levels of Serpent South. “Full alert, we are under attack. Form circles with your assigned Shielders protecting each group,” he sent, and then ran out of his suite to where his team of twenty was up and ready for action.

  Alarm gongs sounded as he stepped into the circle and Accomplished Messing, a female with yellow-gold hair and hazel eyes, formed the shield for the group only moments before blue life-force energy washed over them and out beyond the walls. The team consisted of twelve men and eight women and was among the best in the facility. The fact made Leo wonder how well the other teams were forming up if his barely had time to come together and create a shield. He had not even taken the time to grab his cloak off the peg.

  Although most of the Aakacarns under his command had grumbled over the many drills he forced upon them, he had ignored the complaints, and had not failed to personally take part in those drills. As a result, there were always teams standing by for emergencies and the complaining stopped when they witnessed his participation. He doubted anyone alive in the building was regretting his forcing them to be prepared for the current crisis.

  Reports came to him through the array, “Teams formed,” from groups on the lowest and highest levels. “Shields on,” from others, and “Several thousand Accomplisheds are unresponsive,” came more times than Leo wanted to hear and from enough sources to make the number believable. The equivalent of more than twenty Grand Circles being neutralized in such a short time did not bode well. Who could strike so fast and so effectively?

  “I am Daniel Benhannon and I have come to remove this nest of Serpents,” a baritone voice blasted above the alarms.

  “Could it be?” Bartist SeGre asked, and his eyebrows arched up in wonder as he stood firm in his place in the circle. Sweat dripped from the Serinian’s face and his brow wrinkled as if he was worried the claim might be true. The speed and power of the attack certainly gave the claim credence. “How can the Atlantans even know of this Nest?” His second question was a good one to be pondered later, after the raid had been dealt with.

  “What shall we do?” Sophie Saleen spoke softly, she always did, but that did not make the dark-eyed beauty less dangerous than her peers. She was a silent killer.

  “We should flee. Yes, teleport to safety” Ferdin Leemon suggested. The stout fellow Demfilian had been in the mining profession before his Potential had been discovered in his teenage years and his first response to danger was to crawl in a hole. Fortunately for him he had a strong repertoire of spells and was tenacious when put to work, otherwise Leo knew, his countryman would not have lasted very long in the Serpent Guild.

  “The Supreme Maestro killed Benhannon. I say we fight this imposter,” Vera Messing’s eyes were wide with excitement as she boldly made her opinion known.

  “Whether it is him or not, we should kill this person,” stated Leron Sukang, a fellow Two-bolt with light brown skin, black silky hair, and green eyes.

  Leo never considered fleeing. He still had more than twenty-five hundred Aakacarns at his command, with about half that number expected back from various raids at any moment, and certainly had not needed advice on what to do. He held up his hand, preventing the rest of the circle from voicing their thoughts. “Attack pattern Constrictor, crush the intruder, and we will identify the body afterwards.” The command went out to every Accomplished linked to his array.

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  It had happened in a split second; the offensive spells zoomed in so fast Daniel could not see due to the combined brightness of the flashing conjurations and his own shield as it absorbed most of the energy, which is what had saved his life. Indirectly, the concussive force of all those castings, which his personal shield could not absorb, lifted and threw him skyward as smoke and super-heated air filled his lungs. He came to a sudden stop and dropped perhaps twenty, maybe thirty, cubits to the ground, the exact distance was difficult to judge. His throat hurt and the soreness intensified as he coughed the pollutants out of his singed respiratory system.

  Blinking his eyes did not clear the burn on his retinas and slapping his head did not stop the loud ringing in his ears. Spells slammed into him again, tossing him about like an inflated bladder being kicked by a group of children for sport. He belatedly extended his shield to cover his eyes, nostrils, and ears.

/>   Beyond being blinded, deafened, and having difficulty breathing, he suffered no injuries from hitting what he imaged must have been the wall of the hotel, nor had he been hurt from the drop that followed. He doubted his silks held up so well. There came a pause in the barrage, leaving him lying face down on the ground. His physical senses were useless at the moment, but Find All made up for the lack.

  Fire balls, freeze beams, and lighting bolts of varying intensities shot into him again and were churning up the ground, keeping him from regaining his footing. He did a push up, but fell as another blast knocked him back to the ground. The ringing in his ears prevented him from hearing what had to be loud noises and being blind made the flashes caused by the castings to be well beyond his ability to notice. What he did perceive through his find spell was worse; the number of teleportation circles more than tripled in just the small amount of time since the first group appeared, with more still arriving. The situation reminded him of a python bringing more and more of its strength to bear in squeezing its prey.

  Carlos and Sero had both been hurled off their feet in the blasts and were also the recipients of hostile spells, but the vast majority of the spell-casting teams were focused on Daniel who, with a mighty effort, pushed up forcefully, and manage to get his feet under him and stand tall. A spell struck him and was so powerful it lifted him off the ground and he counted to twenty-six before gravity brought him back down. Externally, the landing did him no harm, but he did bite off a chunk of his tongue, again, and this time more than the tip. Yelling just before impact had not been a good choice, but it had been more of a reaction than a conscious decision. He imagined the sight of blood spewing out of his mouth gave encouragement to the Serpents who were probably getting frustrated by the fact that he, Carlos, and Sero were not dead despite the enemy Accomplisheds’ best efforts.

  Lying sprawled on his back, Daniel wiped his face, which he supposed only smeared the blood on the shield covering his lips, chin, and nose. He had to keep his jaw shut or be vulnerable. The sharp pain from exposed nerve endings was the least of his problems. The Serpents could have killed him when he had been coughing his lungs out, gasping in air, or during those moments when he had reflexively opened his mouth to spit out part of his tongue. Perhaps it was the swirling of events that momentarily worked in his favor that saved him or maybe the clouds of dirt thrown up by all the spell-casting helped to obscure the view of his enemies. Wondering why he was still alive did nothing about the bleeding wound that was again filling his mouth and giving him two very basic choices, swallow or spit. He gulped the warm liquid down his sore throat, knowing the leaking wound needed to be healed or he would choke to death on his own blood, unless one of the spells killed him first. Striving to stay alive did wonders for narrowing his focus in spite of the fatigue that was growing by the moment.

  Instead of conveying to safety like any sane person would do, through Find All, he selected a circle of twenty and focused power into his diamond-bladed crescendo, sending a streak of lightning backed by fourteen bolts of potential. The jagged energy bolt blasted horizontally into the group and twenty-one life-forces ceased to be, including the conductor of the circle. Four teams of twenty, along with their conductors, had been close enough to the strike that they were thrown to the right and left. The shock of it must have ruined their concentration because suddenly they were eighty-four individual Aakacarns lying stunned on the ground. Sleep Time had a Da Capo and had been playing in his mind, but unfocused. In the time it took to think it, his energy radiated out and through Find All he guided the blue potential to each and every one of those Serpents. Unfortunately the rest had put up their shields or there would have been a whole lot more of them asleep on the ground than just the members of those circles.

  The offensive bought him time enough to cast a spell to heal his injuries, and spit the new gathering of blood from his mouth, which he then wiped with the back of his hand. With sight returned, wounds gone and pain free, he stood up and stared at his attackers. The circles of Accomplisheds had not yet dropped their shields in order to go on the offensive, no doubt still being cautious after seeing the strength of his lightning bolt. He glanced down. The golden belt and canteen of the Maestro of the Atlantan Guild were perfectly fine. What threads of his silks remained were scorched and what he had on could barely be described as clothing, a condition that needed correcting. He summoned the potential for the spell, Hunger, and drew up the dirt, swirling it around him, converted it into silks, and then formed pants and shirt right onto his body. He had another cloak in the wardrobe in his room beneath the mansion and decided not to make a new one. Remarkably, his boots had not been damaged; scuffed, but serviceable, and so he left them as they were.

  He could see Sero, in tattered silks, standing on the cracked flagstones of the entrance. The assistant, blood dripping from his ears, launched a wide force of energy that slammed into a pair of Serpent circles, knocking them off their feet, ruining their cohesiveness, which ceased their shields, and then he burned all forty-two of them to ashes with a fire spell. Carlos, whose nose seemed to be one huge blister, was farther to the left, on his feet, and focusing lightning bolts through his baton at the circle nearest him. All he had on was his belt with a canteen, underpants, and boots, but he was a force to be reckoned with.

  Of the neatly cut grass and smartly-trimmed shrubbery, there was not a trace, just mounds of dirt in the yard and scorch marks on the walls of the Lavistra. The double doors had been blown inward, off their hinges, and lay broken deep within the hotel. The two sleeping non-Aakacarns were out of sight, but Find All showed they were over to the left and hopefully out of danger.

  “My turn,” Daniel told the crowd and then focused a lightning bolt at a group of spell-casters, consisting of eleven women, nine men, and a figure so well hidden in a cloak that he was not sure of the conductor’s gender. All that mattered was that they were between other nearby circles.

  The red-haired person maintaining the shield had two golden lightning bolts on her cloak and was using a baton. Daniel’s fourteen bolts blasted through her four quicker than a falcon snatching a dove in mid-air and then the strike hit the ground dead center and cloaked bodies flew skyward, trailing smoke. Silks burned and flesh cooked before the corpses came down into a crater that was seventy paces wide. The Serpents in the circles that had been behind and to the left and right of the focal point were lying around the hole and had been electrocuted, although their smoking remains were not so grisly.

  Still holding his breath, a task becoming more challenging by the moment, he sent Sleep Time out in a radius while being careful not to touch Sero or Carlos, even though they were shielded. His spell struck against every Serpent circle on the lawn. Of the one hundred or so teams of twenty still standing, seventeen had been unshielded and about to attack when they fell asleep. Daniel had been hoping more of them would have chosen to go on the offensive.

  He formed an outer shield that warped out and then back around, encompassing him and his companions, making it safe to breathe. A few moments of concentration were all it took to remove the protection over his nostrils and ears, but he kept the safeguard over his eyes. The precaution allowed him to see as if through filtered opticals, which would limit the impact of any bright lights on his retinas. After taking deep breaths, he drank from his golden canteen while at the same time the topaz blue field brightened as scores of spells from the Serpents slammed into it. Clearly they chose to go back on the offensive, especially after witnessing his ability to blast through their shields. At that point they must have figured the best defense was a vigorous offense.

  “I have cast the spell, Freshen Air,” Sero stated, after which the stale air within the shield began to improve to the point where it matched the quality of a pine forest.

  Three teams of twenty sank into the ground and a few fractions of a mark later popped up within the confines of the new shield. Daniel’s bodyguard and assistant focused their wrath on the intruders, blasting
them with lightning bolts, and did not seem to need help. That being the case, he decided to take note of what was going on beyond him. Find All had been feeding him information the whole time, but he had been a little preoccupied with trying to stay alive.

  Out on the bay, a cruiser and a dreadnaught were sinking from ruptured hulls caused by a pair of mantas quietly swimming beneath them. The ships would be joining the twelve that preceded them since the time Daniel had given the signal to attack. Seeing that it was still dark, the silent destruction had to make the losses all the more frightening.

  The sailors moved in a panic, some were jumping into the water as their vessels went down, and others were trying to help men still swimming in the bay. They were unwittingly rescuing them to the dubious safety of ships that had been marked for destruction. The folks in the lifeboats had made the correct choice, since none of the preservers were on the list of vessels to be destroyed. Crews manning the battle stations on the remaining warships had nothing to target, which must have been frustrating. The sailors had no doubt heard the gongs from the hotel and prepared the best they could, but clearly did not expect their ships to start sinking for no apparent reason.

  From two spans out, a pair of glowing harpoons and four lances of light streaked into a destroyer at the port, punching through planking, and giving the sailors something they could see, not that the sight did them much good or likely made them feel any better. They had something to shoot at but it was beyond the range of their ballista bolts and dart launchers. Some of the vessels probably had the explosive Demfilian bolts or spheroid launchers but would have to get a lot closer to the patrol-boat if they hoped to stop the barrage.