"What are we going to do, Cassie?" Elizabeth asked in a small voice.
Cassie draped her arm around Elizabeth's shoulders. "I don't know. But not this."
The sky in the east became dark with clouds.
A storm was gathering.
8
Breathless with anticipation, Horlastia waited before her army, holding the Blood Lance before her—the symbol for the call to war for the Fae Seelie Empire. Before her, a dozen of her mother's mage-elders chanted, working the arcane powers necessary to open the Rift-Ring, the gateway to the Old World. The twelve mages had been at it for hours now, creating a fae circle to link their magic as they drew upon the mystical energy within the ley lines. This effort was mirrored in a dozen other nearby sites on the plains, where a dozen other invasion armies waited. But this, the thirteenth site, was the most important of all. Here, the mage-elders would open the gateway to the Nexus Star. Seizing the Nexus Star quickly was vital to the entire invasion, and Horlastia herself would lead this force. Once she had driven the manlings away, she'd bring over the Culling Machine.
She glanced at Ulfir, standing nearby, a bored expression on his handsome features. Prowling about him, hissing at her soldiers, were his three large red manticores. Resembling an obscene cross between a lion and a serpent—with bloodred fur, black manes, and bulbous spiked tails—manticores were filthy, nasty, and far too obstinate to be controlled by mind-tethers. Ulfir was the only fae seelie to have ever tamed a manticore, let alone three. Now, he hunted with them, preferring their company to his own kind. With his mage-tracking talents, manticore pets, and cursed black spear Witch-Bane, he was a nightmare to all mages. She shuddered—hating but also needing him. If he didn't kill Tlathia and recover the Shatkur Orb, seizing the Nexus Star would mean nothing.
Damn you, Tlathia.
Horlastia turned away from Ulfir, watching the mage-elders in their fae circle. The strain of working with so much magic was beginning to tell upon the faces of the wizened fae seelie women. A fae circle could manipulate magic and create local Rift-Rings easily enough, but to create an opening across the Red Ether to the Old World itself was a breathtakingly difficult undertaking. Several of the elders had already collapsed, replaced quickly by others waiting nearby for just that reason.
Such power.
She wore her dragon-scale armor and winged helmet this day, and as she waited, she drummed her fingers over the hilt of her saber, affixed to her belt. The army stood in ranks behind her, thirty thousand strong. They had been waiting for hours now, long after the sun had set and the night grew chill. Moving the invasion date forward had been almost impossible. Six of her cohort commanders had balked, insisting it just couldn't be done.
Their heads now sat atop pikes, a lesson to the six new cohort commanders.
Nearby, her wyvern shrieked, eager to take to the air. To Horlastia went the honor of going first through the gateway. She'd fly through on her wyvern, leading several dozen more fae seelie mages, all mounted on their own wyverns. Her mages would cast Shadow-Soul upon themselves and their mounts, acting as both scouts and an invisible strike force. While manlings had impressive technology, it would do them little good if they couldn't see the source of the magical destruction above them. Her mages would rain fire and lightning down upon their foe.
Following her mages would be the packs of hunting gwyllgi. Hundreds of the fire-breathing hounds would be released to harry the manlings, starting fires and devouring those too slow to flee.
If any manlings remained, her cohorts of four-armed boggart warriors, armed with spear, sword, and great cleaving ax, would roll over them. Her armored trolls would be scattered among the boggarts for greatest effect. Her kelpie cavalry with their male fae seelie riders, she'd hold in reserve. With luck, speed, and violence, she might not even need the cavalry.
She felt the mood among the waiting army change as the mage-elders reached the culmination of their Rift-Ring spell. The arcane energies washed over her, invigorating her. The gwyllgi, senseless with terror, were held in place only by mind-tether bonds. The massed ranks of her boggart warriors wavered in place, casting fearful glances at one another with their bulbous fish eyes. Dark clouds roiled overhead, blotting out the stars, and bolts of red lightning began to arc down, striking the plains around the army. Several errant bolts actually struck her soldiers, sending boggarts and pieces of boggarts flying through the air. An undercurrent of panic threatened to take hold of the others, but her commanders rushed back and forth, whipping those who balked, screaming at them in rage.
Now, it must be now!
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up like sword blades. This is my moment of glory. My chance to shine. I'm coming for you, Tlathia. Ulfir won't kill you. I will!
The air in the plain before the army shimmered, like heat from a fire. A moment later, a glowing ring of flames hundreds of paces wide appeared before them. It rotated then expanded—a Rift Ring!
They did it.
Through the gateway, she saw the Old World, dark with night but also a hint of sunrise on the horizon to presage the coming dawn. The invasion had been planned for this moment, to arrive at dawn when the manlings would still be asleep in their beds, unaware of the doom about to fall upon them. A vast green field with orderly rows of vegetation stood before them, a farmer's field.
The Old World, my glory. I'll—
An earsplitting cry curdled her blood, causing her to gasp. She turned and stared up just as a vast winged shape larger than anything that lived on Faerum flew over them, sending the ranks of the army reeling in terror, buffeting them with the winds of its passage.
Bale-Fire flew through the gateway. The last she saw of him was his long forked tail as he climbed into the sky.
It seemed she wouldn't be first after all.
With the wyrm gone, her terror passed. When she found herself capable of movement again, she stalked toward her wyvern. The handlers bowed low as she mounted the beast, climbing into its saddle and taking the reins with one hand while holding aloft the Blood Lance with the other. She pointed it toward the glowing ring of fire. "Forward, army of the queen! We ride to glory. We ride to war. We ride to the Old World!"
The army cheered, a thunderous roar that helped ease her disappointment over Bale-Fire stealing her glory. She drew back on her reins, and her wyvern's powerful wings buffeted the ground, throwing dirt and dust into the air. The beast rose. Dozens of other mage riders took to the air behind her, grasping for height. She could sense her wyvern's terror of the Rift-Ring through the mind-tether, but she forced her will upon the dragonling, sending it hurtling forward, her heart pounding like a war drum.
The Old World and glory!
Horlastia flew through the gateway, her army surging behind her.
9
Elizabeth bolted upright in bed, gasping for air. There was a rush of mana in the air, so much mana. The only other time she had ever felt such power was the day she passed through the Jump Tube to Rubicon, the source of magic. Now, the magical energy flowed through her, supercharging every particle of her being. Thunder boomed outside the barracks, shaking the walls.
Something's wrong!
She fell out of bed, tangled up in her sheets, then rushed to the window and pushed it open and stuck her head out into the cold early-morning air. It was still dark out, not yet sunrise. Red lightning bolts forked down, striking the horizon, turning the night sky a brilliant shade of crimson, like the world's largest disco—just like the night the dark elf had first come through her gateway, bringing magic into this world.
She jumped in fright when somebody hammered upon her door. "Elizabeth, open up!" she heard Cassie yell from the other side.
Elizabeth threw her door open to the wild-eyed Cassie, who stood in the hallway, wearing only a bathrobe. More doors opened in the hallway as the task force soldiers came out to see what was going on, their eyes dim with sleep. More than one carried an assault rifle. Cassie rushed in, gripping Elizabeth's shoulders
. "Do you feel it?"
"It's another gateway, isn't it? Are they … do you think they're back?"
Cassie ran to the window and looked out. "I don't know. It … it feels the same."
At that moment, the base alarm sounded, the two-toned warning alert piped through the intercom. "Attention, attention," an excited voice came over the speakers in the hallway. "The base is at condition yellow. All personnel are to report to duty stations and await further orders. Attention, attention. The base is at condition yellow. All personnel are to report to their duty stations."
Galvanized now, the soldiers rushed from their rooms with weapons in hand, throwing their body armor and helmets on as they ran. Cassie and Elizabeth's 'duty station' was a reinforced steel-and-concrete bunker beneath the barracks. With only two mag-sens, the task force did not intend to risk their lives.
Cassie darted back to her room to get dressed as Elizabeth did the same, quickly throwing on combat pants, a T-shirt, and boots without socks. A minute later, her shirttail sticking out of her pants' zipper, Elizabeth ran into the hallway, throwing her body armor on, her helmet under her arm. Cassie's door was open, so she darted into the other woman's room to see Cassie pulling her Brace, the black leather glove with silver chains that reached all the way to her elbow, on her left hand. The Brace, an immensely powerful magical talisman, was given to Cassie by, of all things, a dying Sasquatch that a native tracker named Paco had referred to as "the Great Elder Brother."
As crazy as the world had become over the last year, dying Sasquatches seemed somewhat normal by comparison.
"Ready," Cassie said.
Elizabeth bolted over to Cassie's window and looked out just as one of the base's quick-reaction vehicles, an MRAP—a mine-resistant ambush-protected armored patrol truck—roared past, belching diesel smoke, its 7.62mm machine gun on its auto-turret swiveling about. An aircraft engine whined loudly, and she saw one of the base helicopters, a griffin, take off. After the basilisk attack, it was standard operating procedure, SOP, for a helicopter to search for intruders with infrared during an alert. Far away over the woods, the brilliant-red lightning flared once again, turning the sky bright.
Elizabeth gasped, her breath caught in her throat.
The lightning had revealed a massive winged shape dropping out of the sky, hurtling toward the base. The creature spread monstrously large bat-like wings and glided by, its wingspan at least a hundred feet wide, its horned head as large as a bus. It opened its massive jaws, breathing a torrent of blue fire at the Griffin helicopter, sending it crashing to the ground in a fireball. Elizabeth stared in shock, light-headed, her mind reeling.
It was a dragon!
The dragon disappeared from sight as it circled about. Elizabeth turned and stared at Cassie, just realizing for the first time that the other woman was talking to her. "What?" she asked, still overcome by astonishment.
"We need to get to the bunker. Now!"
The two women bolted down the stairs, joining the press of soldiers trying to get out as well. She heard gunfire, the impossibly loud burst of heavy machine-gun fire from the Gatling guns on the new perimeter wall. The lights went out, and she became separated from Cassie in the press, only now realizing that somehow, in all the excitement, she had lost her helmet. They had practiced the alert stand-to dozens of times in the last year, but this was the first time she had lost her helmet. Her mind reeled, and her breathing came in pain-filled gasps.
A dragon! A real dragon.
She reached the bottom level and stumbled from the stairwell, heading for the bunker entrance, but hesitated when she saw the soldiers run outside, lit by the glow of flames. She stood at the barracks entrance, staring at the burning buildings. So many fires. How…? Some of the burning buildings were like pyres, with flames a hundred feet high shooting into the air. Even from here, she could feel the heat. I should go to the bunker. I'll be—Cassie! She looked about, wild-eyed.
Where had she gone?
When she heard the screams of pain outside, she had a good idea where Cassie was. Cassie was a healer. She could save lives. There was no way she'd hide in the bunker while her friends died. Elizabeth stood in place, staring in horror at the flames, her breathing coming in panicked gasps. She couldn't stay outside. She couldn't help Cassie. She'd just be in the way.
No one was more surprised than she was when she stumbled out into the burning night.
Outside, the heat was far worse than she could have imagined. Fires burned everywhere now. Her mind replayed the moment a year earlier when she had almost burned to death.
She spun about, staring in horror as the flames consumed the side of the barracks. The heat drove her away as the flames spread to the rest of the building. Had she stayed within the bunker…
Someone ran into her, knocking her down before dashing away. Others ran about, some on fire and screaming in agony. Gunfire sounded all about her now, and red tracers darted into the early-morning sky. Once again, the dragon roared past, breathing blue fire onto the base and setting everything on fire.
Everything.
Red and blue lights flashed from emergency vehicles as they sped past. One of the MRAPs, maybe even the one she had seen earlier, was on fire, its metal hull melted, like running wax. That's not possible, she told herself in disbelief. No fire can be that hot!
The dragon roared past again, its wings fanning the flames and smoke. A white-hot comet lit up the night as someone fired an anti-tank missile at it, but the missile missed, disappearing into the night. The dragon landed with surprising grace near the airfield, next to the new hangar, already consumed by flames. It whipped its head about on its serpentine neck and breathed blue fire on one of the American Osprey aircraft, melting it. Then it smashed another helicopter with one of its massive claws, crushing the aircraft like tinfoil. Its long forked tail whipped about, pulverizing fleeing people.
This was far, far worse than the basilisk attack a year ago.
The barracks was an inferno now, the heat staggering, and Elizabeth—all courage gone—fled, desperate to get away from the heat and the choking smoke. But every direction she ran was blocked by flames. She collapsed, skinning her palms, and stared up at the flames. I'm going to burn after all. Please God, no—not that!
Then Clara was there, pulling her to her feet and shaking her, calling her name. She came for me!
Clara pulled Elizabeth along, hauling her to the opened hatch in the back of another MRAP then shoved her in the rear of the vehicle. She followed her inside then slammed the metal hatch door in place, securing it by wrenching up on the handle. Elizabeth lay on the metal floor between the rows of benches bolted to the hull as Clara darted forward, past the soldier controlling the machine gun on the turret with a joystick and camera feed, to the driver and crew commander. Elizabeth heard the turret machine gun firing, a long burst of 7.62mm fire that rattled her hearing, even inside the vehicle. "Punch it!" Clara yelled to the crew commander.
The soldier, wearing a vehicle helmet with night-vision devices, turned in his seat and stared at Clara. "We can't leave. The battle—"
"We've already lost!" Clara yelled back. She pointed at Elizabeth. "You know who she is, what she can do. She can't die here. She's more important than us or the base."
The young man flipped up his NVGs and stared at Elizabeth, still lying on the floor. Turning back to Clara, he nodded. "Where?"
"Get us to the wood line. We'll hide in the forest."
"The gate's on the south side of the base. There's an inferno between us."
"Fuck that shit! Drive through the fence, but get her out of here."
"Ack," the crew commander said, turning away.
Clara grabbed the arm of the soldier operating the gun turret. "Cease fire, cease fire. Don't draw its attention. Hear me?"
The soldier, his mouth open, his hands trembling, nodded.
"Our weapons aren't doing anything but pissing it off, anyhow," Clara said before turning away to help Elizabeth up, seating her
on one of the benches as the vehicle shot forward, its diesel engine roaring.
Elizabeth grabbed at the cargo netting running along the inside hull of the vehicle. Through the MRAP's wire-reinforced, bulletproof windows, she saw fires everywhere. Every single building burned. In seconds, they hit the bumpy open ground and raced straight for the reinforced perimeter fence. The chain guns atop the security towers along the fence line were silent now. Did that mean Base Operations was gone?
Clara joined her, peering through the windows.
"What can we do?"
Clara shook her head. "Nothing. The towers and guns were installed in case of another ground attack like the basilisk, not an airborne threat. We need MANPADS."
She had learned over the last year that MANPADS meant "man-portable air defense system," a ground-to-air missile for shooting down aircraft. The flames were now so bright behind them that it looked like daytime.
"It's seen us!" the soldier operating the turret controls yelled out. "It's coming around."
"Weapons free, weapons free!" Clara yelled.
The machine gun opened up again, a long burst that rattled Elizabeth's teeth.
"Brace yourselves!" the crew commander yelled.
Clara threw her arm over Elizabeth, pulling her head down onto the bench and holding her in place. Through the windshield, Elizabeth saw a flash of the fence line just as the driver gunned the engine. A second later, the MRAP rammed the fence, sending Clara and Elizabeth flying forward. The MRAP engine screamed in protest, metal screeching, as the vehicle climbed and tore through the fence, trailing large sections of it as they bumped their way forward.
"On us!" the gunner yelled, his voice shrill with terror.
Blue flames lit up the ground ahead of the MRAP. An entire copse of trees flared up and vanished in a moment. The dragon flashed overhead, having just missed them, but now the heat inside the vehicle became unbearable. Elizabeth screamed.
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