by Gabi Moore
Dion turned back to the other stairwell, but the grandmaster was gone. It was simply him and the sisters versus whatever was about to come through the stairwell entrance.
Once again, the Azuroth hordes poured through the door, with no fire salamanders to send them into retreat this time. Dion looked at the floor with all the small black spheres rolling around, invisible to everyone in the room except him. He closed his eyes and felt the energy from the aether flow through him and to the elementals. They were excited over their opportunity to be of service.
His order was simple. “Prevent the furry ones from taking control of the tower.”
Seconds before the Azuroth made contact with the sisters, the room filled with an equally large horde of winged sphinxes. As Dion suspected, they took the next basic form for their elemental class. Once again, the Azuroth halted their advance as they faced an equal number of large creatures with human faces, bodies of lions and wings of birds. This was not the lethal version of the sphinx, but they still could inflict a lot of damage on the Azuroth.
There had to be at least twenty black sphinxes in the great hall and twice the number of Azuroth. For a few brief seconds both sides were frozen as they faced off at each other. The furry creatures that came with Queen Lilith had some idea of what they confronted. The sphinxes knew exactly what they were up against.
The Mahen sisters, still encased in their body armor, stepped back from the spear point of the attack and moved to one side of the room. It wasn’t too hard for them to realize they would be in the way. Dion had stayed in his original position and watched the little black spheres on the ground metamorph into large sphinxes. Each one of the winged creatures where the size of an attack dog, but it was hard to tell them apart. Dion could hear the steady crackling of the fire in the fireplace as a silence descended over the great hall. He doubted a battle of this nature had ever been fought in the tower. It was only a thought because he knew so little about the history of this world. Right now, he would’ve been satisfied with one of Bernice’s dragons for support.
He couldn’t see Queen Lilith behind the Azuroth creatures. Dion suspected she would wait until the battle died down before she made her appearance. He had no understanding of how she fitted into what was inside the abyss or why she wanted out so desperately. He did know she had absolute control over the Azuroth and it was all he cared about at the present.
Both sides faced off and didn’t move until a clap of thunder broke the stalemate.
Four of the furry demons rushed the initial line of the sphinxes and collided with their opposite numbers on the other side. Two of the winged elementals were sent sprawling across the floor, while two more smacked the Azuroth hard after they ripped through the front lines. One sphinx grabbed an Azuroth and flew up the roof of the great hall, hurling the furry creature down at the front lines of its brethren.
The next thing Dion knew, the entire great hall turned into a massive rumble between furry demoniods and aether elementals. Tables flew through the air and the floor shook from the repeated slams of each side against it. The Azuroth made a roar when they fought, but the sphinxes unleashed a high pitch wail, similar to a cat on the prowl.
The Mahen sisters used their shields to block flying debris as it was hurled across the room. This time Kiley Mahen was ready when part of a table was thrown at her. Susan and Loris used their small shields to check chunks of wood, stone and even Azuroth, as they were sent airborne across the great hall.
Dion tried to back out of the way while two sphinxes grabbed an Azuroth and pulled it through the air. However, he was close to them when they swung their furred adversary in a loop. The Azuroth connected with him and Dion was thrown against the wall. His head connected with one of the blocks and all he could see was a curtain of light.
Susan Mahen saw Dion strike the wall and pushed her way through the massive fight between the sphinxes and Azuroth. She managed to dodge a chair leg as it was propelled through the hall. She reached Dion seconds after he hit the floor. With her shield in one hand, she repelled every interference attempt as she drug Dion across the floor back to the protective cover of her sisters.
“Is he okay?” Loris asked Susan as she brought him over to her side of the great hall. Over them, a wall hanging swung in the air after an Azuroth collided with it.
“He’s moving,” Susan said as she shoved a sphinx back into the middle of the room with her shield. An Azuroth had knocked it in their direction.
“We need to get him downstairs,” Kylie ordered. “He may have hurt his head against the wall. I’ll have Rudy take a look at him. Watch my back as I make for the stairwell.” It was located ten feet from where they stood.
The three women, while pulling Dion on the ground, made for the stairwell as the fight raged in the great hall. The furnishings were smashed to kindling as the sphinxes would fly down to the floor, grab something and use it as an aerial bomb against the Azuroth ranks. Because of the chaos, neither side paid the sisters and Dion the least bit of attention.
When they reached the stairs, the three women were confronted by the form of Dion’s mother, who put her hand to her mouth when she saw the blood flowing from his head.
“Get him downstairs,” Kiley ordered her youngest sister. “Help his mother take him down the stairwell. “Well keep the madness from going any lower.”
Dion saw it all through a sick haze of pain. His head still vibrated from the collision with the stone blocks on the wall. He felt something sticky flow from his head. All he could see as they took him down the stairs was figures of elementals bashing it out with their furry opponents. He prayed Queen Lilith stayed out of the fray for now, because any violence directed against her would only help the creature from the abyss.
Once down in the warehouse, Rudy quickly checked his vital signs over and bandaged Dion’s head. He sat Dion in a chair and waved a hand to check his response. Rudy seemed satisfied for the time being and gave Dion something to drink.
In the far end of the warehouse ground level, Dion could see the ten women with the writing club stand near the lion’s gate and comment on the big cat. Draco seemed to like the attention and let them pet his head through the bars. Dion wanted to warn them away, but his own head hurt too much.
He knew the sphinx elementals wouldn’t stop fighting the Azuroth until he either gave them the order or the Azuroth quit their attempt to take control of the great hall. He needed to get up there and check on the progress of the fight. If Queen Lilith decided to intervene, the entire tower could collapse. All it would take would be for the sphinxes to concentrate their assault on her; she would absorb the energy from it and begin to grow again. Unless she had some way to regulate the growth, she would eventually cause part of the tower wall to rupture when it could no longer contain her size.
Dion stood up and heard the sound of objects flying across the floor above him. He could hear the sound of glass breaking and both sides howling at each other. He needed to get back up there.
“Dion!” his mother, who stood next to him, yelled. “You need to stay put. We don’t know what kind of injury you sustained up there.”
“I’m fine, mother,” he told her. “My head hurts but I need to get up there and prevent the tower from being destroyed. The entire place could collapse if they keep it up and…do you hear something?”
“I hear that commotion upstairs,” she told him.
“No,” he replied. “I hear the fight, but I don’t hear the storm. Is it over?”
Dion wobbled over to the set of double doors, which protected the entrance to the tower, and opened the peephole. He looked out and saw the stars and, best of all, no rain, thunder, or lighting arcing across the sky. For the first time in months, the storm ceased its assault on the landscape. There had to be a reason for this to happen.
He needed to get everyone outside the tower while they still had the opportunity. Outside the tower, with the moat still between them, they might have a chance to escape the chaos on t
he inside. He looked at the ground on the other side of the moat and saw the bus the women took to get here. It was huge, big enough to get everyone in it and head for the time circle gate in the rock walls. He turned and looked at the small room where his uncle was locked up. Seth Bach still had the sigil that would unlock the gate and let them all through. It wasn’t the best plan he could come up with at the moment, but it was the only one he had.
Dion saw Miles who stood by the stairwell and went up to him. “You have to come with me,” he told him. “We need to open up the doors to the tower.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Miles asked him. “Aren’t we much safer inside here with the storm and all?”
“The storm is over,” Dion explained. “This tower could collapse if Queen Lilith tries to attack the sphinxes. She'll become so vast it won’t be able to contain her.”
Dion saw Susan Mahen, still in her body armor, began to climb the stairs back to help her sisters.
“Can you have your sisters come down here,” he told her. “We all need to get out of this place. The tower could collapse on all of us at any minute.”
“I thought your elementals had the situation under control up there,” she said to him in disbelief.
“They are part of the problem. I need to get them to retreat too, but I’ll wait until your sisters are down here.”
Susan’s helm nodded and she clanged back upstairs, shield in hand.
Dion and Miles went to the cranks which controlled the door and draw bridge. While the women of the writing club looked on with curiosity, they turned the cranks that opened the doors to the tower. It was a slow process, designed to prevent sudden attacks, but there was no way to accelerate it. Once the doors were open, Dion, his head a little more clearly, stepped out into the cool night air and looked at the landscape.
The stars shone over the hills of the valley and the moon illuminated the pass, which the tower protected. He could see the small pavilions and huts the other Azuroth had place on the opposite side of the moat. It was time to get the drawbridge down so they could reach the bus. Hopefully, the tower mechanic could get it to work while he had the sphinx elementals keep the Azuroth at bay.
“Get the draw bridge down!” Dion yelled. “We need to get to the other side of the moat.” He watched as the bridge descended to the fill the gap. It was still in poor shape and they would have to leave in groups.
The servants and guards streamed out of the tower as the bridge went down. Dion stood in place and made sure everyone was safely outside. His parents came out with his uncle, a foul look on his face. When the three Mahen sisters were outside the tower, the bridge made its final descent over the moat and rested to close the gap.
It stood there for a few minutes. Dion went over and place one foot on the bridge. It felt solid enough. He looked across the moat at the Azuroth pavilions on the other side. One or two heads emerged from them and starred in his direction. Time to put the next part of his plan into action.
Dion closed his eyes and ordered the elementals to cease the attack. They were to join him outside the tower to defend the tower refugees against the Azuroth on the other side of the moat. As they were aether elementals, he could use them repeatedly.
Dion watched as the sphinxes flew out of the open doors and circled around the tower. Perhaps it would all work out now that everyone was outside the tower. He did a quick head count and made sure everyone he’d seen inside the tower was safely on the outside.
“Is that everyone?” Dion called to Kaylie Mahen, who stood on the edge of the gathering of her servants and retainers.
“They’re all here,” she yelled back. “We can start to cross at any time.”
Which they would have done had the bridge not collapsed and fell into the moat, busting into sections as it hit the spikes on the bottom.
“I hope you have another idea,” Kiley Mahen called to Dion. “Because that one won’t work.”
Chapter 20
The Azuroth on the other side of the moat emerged from their hovels to see what caused the noise. As Dion stood there and watched, they began to fill up the space on the other side. Even if he could find something to bridge the gap between the embankments, they would have to contend with the other clan of furry demoniods. Dion noticed this bunch carried spears, unlike the ones, which accompanied Queen Lilith.
As he stood and tried to come up with another plan, Dion heard a sound from the front of the tower. Both massive wooden doors burst outward and were flung across the moat from the force directed against them. Masonry exploded into the front of the ramp and for a few seconds he worried the tower was at risk of collapse. The ground was still wet from the non-stop storms and the dust from the stone blocks was absorbed onto the ground. Nerveless, Dion could smell the mortar in the air, which was pulverized by the impact from the other side of the doors.
All the tower people backed away from the entrance. The ten women from the writing club did likewise; although they hung back to see what caused the blast. There were no fires or smoke, so it wasn’t a chemical explosion that took the doors off the entrance. Dion suspected the cause, but it was what he saw next that confirmed it.
Out of the entrance to the tower, lumbered the form of Queen Lilith. She was sixteen feet in height and had to leave the tower since it could no longer contain her mass. Dion’s fears came to life as the huge woman walked down the ramp and looked around, followed by her own horde of Azuroth, who looked up to their leader with a sense of fear and wonder. The flying sphinxes swooped lower and swept around the creature from the abyss, not sure what to do.
And then it all made sense.
Dion looked at the group of women writers who faced the enormous woman and it occurred to him that the Aether Elemental Grandmaster told him he needed to summon “Decemius”. Wasn’t “Decem” the Latin word for “ten”? Ten women who had appeared out of nowhere in the storm. It was so obvious! This entire trip to the tower was part of a plan, even though he couldn’t figure it out. Even the Draco the pet lion allowed them to stroke its mane.
Dion faced the ten women, who were in a circle next to the huge form of Queen Lilith, and said the words the elemental grandmaster had whispered to him. Then he stood back and watched. It shouldn’t take long.
The ten women began to shimmer in the darkness, illuminated by the moonlight. He was right; the words were a code to activate the only thing that could stop Queen Lilith. The shimmering changed to a ring of light, which spun around them as they stayed in place. Even the lion was included in the spinning light. As he stayed in place and watched the light condense, Dion was forced to turn away because of the brilliance. Then the light faded and he turned to see what remained.
Now there were two giants in front of the tower.
The new giant was also female and wore a set of plate armor on her. Dion looked to the crowd revering what was in front of them. The three Mahen sisters, still in their armor, were carrying their weapons, but they realized it wouldn’t have any effect on the two huge creatures before them. The crowd began to move back, more for safety than to give the giants some room. Even the Azuroth on the other side of the moat began to back up.
I’ve been waiting for you, Lilith, the new giant said to her opposite number. Dion didn’t hear the challenge in the usual way, but felt it through his very soul. What she thought was transmitted to everyone. He could see the same reaction on everyone’s face.
You think you can take me? Dion heard Queen Lilith send back to the new giant. Why don’t you try?
Dion inched his way over the assembled crowd who watched the giants face off. He needed to be with them, just in case they needed his help. It was a simple order he gave to the flying aether elementals, which circled the two enormous figures. Dion told them not to get involved in what was about to take place, but to protect the residents of the tower from any injury. The sphinxes flew away from the giants and swept down in front of the crowd. They were now a defensive barrier in front of the crowd a
gainst what was about to take place. Dino prayed the two didn’t cause the tower to topple over.
He made his way through the horde of Azuroth who were too amazed by what their queen had transformed into to pay attention to him. He could see the countless wounds from the damage the sphinxes had inflicted on them, but they didn’t seem to care about the injuries. They continued to stare up at the two huge women who were faced off at each other.
“What the hell is that?” Kiley Mahen said to him as Dion slid up to her.
Both giant figures began to move into position against each other. Although they were enormous, neither one of them were of mythic proportions. It was just possible a creature of humanoid status could grow to be sixteen feet high. And, as Dion noted from the way they moved, they would not function the same way a normal person might. Both of them were slow. If they were playing by the physical rules of this world, the reaction time of each would be much slower since the nerve impulses would take longer to reach their destination.
Dion once saw an elephant move slowly through a pen at the zoo and understood why it needed so much time to move. The elephant was huge and the cube- square rule applied to it. When the size of an organism doubled, its volume tripled. Therefore, the giants might be twice the size as the largest normal human, but their overall mass was nine times as much. This meant more power had to go into moving around than the most obese person on earth had ever contended with. However, they were built for the task.
The tower was constructed on an island. The moat, which surrounded it, only went so far as the river and was supplied by it during the wet season. In the dry ones, the water in the moat had to be pumped from the river. The island was rock and on a higher level than the surrounding landscape, but it occupied only enough land to place the tower and some out buildings. The giants didn’t have much room to fight.