The distant rocks jumped into his view with astonishing clarity, as if he were seeing them from only a fraction of the distance. It wasn’t like looking through a lense at all; rather, it was as if his perspective had simply moved closer. It was actually a bit disorienting.
“It adjusts the aon perception of your eye so that the scene is viewed from a closer perspective,” Ralley said. He spoke this as if it was a common fact that he had known for ages.
Using the device, Jack scanned the enemy’s stone tower.
He could make out many details now. There were large silver guns of some sort on an upper ledge, and he thought he saw the outline of a blue-black flyer parked there as well. A guard stood in a round opening very high up on the rock, a silver handgun braced in his grip.
Jack lowered his gaze to ground level, to the base of the rock fortress, where two guards stood chatting near a wide doorway leading to some kind of tunnel—or so it looked. Wide enough to slip a flyer through, perhaps?
“All right,” Jack said, lowering the spyglass device. “I may have a plan. Granted, it’s quite desperate, bordering on insane. And most probably fatal to both of us. But then, any plan which would take us towards that fortress in broad daylight would share such characteristics.”
Ralley smiled and placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “Let’s hear it.”
#
“You’re from Garatayne?” the captive girl asked.
Brace Aubren was startled to hear this brown-skinned woman speak his own language. “Yes,” he replied. “I am.”
The girl was about twenty years old, pretty, though quite thin. She hung suspended inside a circular contraption that appeared to be some sort of torture device. An upright ring of blue-black crystal surrounded her, and she was locked into it by silver-plated manacles at her ankles and wrists; several needle-like projections poked towards her face from the top of the ring. He wondered if this was the girl he’d heard screaming earlier.
She stared hard at him, and he could feel the willfulness in her yellow eyes—though it was nothing compared to the power that his new mistress held in her own crimson gaze.
“Do you know a man?” she asked. “Orange hair, eyes the color of … green? His name is Ralley.” Her accent was heavy, and it was if she was quite unused to pronouncing the Garataynian tongue, despite her apparent fluency in it.
Aubren realized that she was asking about that clerk Quenn, the one who’d gotten him into all of this.
Hmm … He knew this might be a good chance to learn more about his situation, and especially about the powerful woman general he had now vowed to serve.
Why not play along with her questions, let her think him a friend? This one was more lady-like, and he knew how to manipulate a weaker female.
“Yes,” he said. “I do know him. His name is Ralley Quenn. I came here with him, but alas—we were separated shortly after we arrived. And then I was captured.”
She studied him intently. She had a proud bearing, despite her current position, spread-eagled in the grip of the fearsome looking device. She wore a pale blue tunic, stained and torn, and her jet-black hair hung down in neat braids.
Something in her sweat-glazed face reminded him of his new mistress—perhaps the shape of her chin, the delicate nose and mouth? She might almost be a close relation.
But of course, that same intense power was not there.
Ah, his new mistress. When he’s awakened, she’d been gone, leaving him feeling empty and alone—a feeling he was quite unused to. Soon after, guards had come with clothing for him—simple trousers and a rough tunic—which he had put on without protest. Much to his disappointment, they had bound him before taking him from the bedchamber.
Oh well. He could only hope to earn his mistress’s trust in time …
As he talked with the girl, one of the workers came over to Aubren and motioned for him to lift his head. He held up a crystalline device to the center of Aubren’s forehead, mumbling something all the while. After a moment, he grunted, apparently satisfied, and moved to fiddle with some silver instruments on a table nearby.
“They are probing you,” the girl said. “I believe they wonder if you are the one linked to me.”
“Linked?” he asked.
“There is a prophecy. A man from another world is to come, and I am chosen to be with him.”
“They think I am the one?”
“No. She believes that you are not. But they still test, are making sure.”
“Who is she?” he asked. “The mistress of this place?”
The girl closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “She is my womb-sister. Lanaya Culcras. She was a General of Damerya, but has betrayed us.”
Sister! So that explained the resemblance. And his mistress’s name was Lanaya. He mouthed it silently, liking the taste of the syllables on his tongue.
“She is very strong,” Aubren said. “And brutal. She hurt me terribly.” He pulled down his tunic to show her his bandaged knife wound.
The girl nodded. “She has no belief in mercy. She calls herself a goddess of blood.”
Time for a performance, Aubren thought. Need to convince her I am a fellow victim …
He took a deep breath, then let it out in a series of choking gasps. He had studied the weak-willed for so long that he found it surprisingly easy to mimic a state of distress.
“She … Lanaya … is horrible,” he rasped. “Why does she do these things? Tell me about her, please. It would make me feel better, to understand. Where I come from, we have never seen such evil!” He hid his face in his hands and emitted a sob as he told her the last bit.
“I think she was born that way,” the girl said. “I have known always that she was wrong, in her ways and in her mind. Ever since we were first in clothes …”
And so he listened, fascinated, as Lanaya’s sister explained what she knew of the past of the living goddess he now worshipped.
#
The flyer shot along at maximum speed, barreling forward barely a yard off the ground, blowing up sand in its wake. Jack hit the side jets to send them skidding around a large rock in their path, then turned them so that they were headed towards another formation of stone that might provide a shield between their flyer and the enemy’s stone tower-fortress.
Ralley was still leaning over Jack’s shoulder, his unblinking eyes staring in the direction of the tower.
“Ralley,” Jack shouted, “you have to get down! Behind the seat, please. This canopy won’t do us much good against their fire.” Of course, ducking behind the seat wouldn’t be much safer, but at least it was something …
“They’re not firing yet,” Ralley observed.
Just then, a brilliant line of white fire shot from high on the tower to rip into the sand twenty feet to their left. The energy gouged a narrow, deep cut in the earth.
“Here it comes!” Jack shouted.
A second beam joined the first, slicing the ground in front of them. Jack jetted the flyer hard to the right, out of reach for the moment. Then a third beam flitted past, narrowly missing their left wing.
The gunners in the tower weren’t just firing single shots; rather, they were launching constant streams of white energy, unrelenting beams that tilted and swiped the ground like giant whistling blades.
Obviously they weren’t worried about wasting ammunition, or whatever it was that powered those guns. That made things even more difficult than Jack had anticipated. With constant beams, the enemy gunners could trace their aim and adjust accordingly.
And so Jack tried to evade them. He swerved and jerked and skidded the flyer just above the ground, never letting it gain too much momentum in one direction, lest their opponents predict its course and hit them.
The tower was getting closer. A mile now, maybe less. Not so very far for their swift craft to go …
A tall rock formation loomed directly in their path. Suddenly, a beam cut through it, parting the stone as if it were soft clay, sending tons of rock crashing to the sand. Jac
k jerked the flyer left and another whistling white beam lanced over to slice at their right wing—amputating it to a stub in an instant.
The flyer listed to the side, vibrating violently.
Jack turned his head to see fragments of wood and iron and a tangle of silver wire where the wing had been. But he kept going, zigging and zagging, trying to keep the rock formations in front of them.
He caught a brilliant flash of white, pointed directly towards them, and he ducked. A moment later, there was a whistle of energy and a whoosh of air as the canopy above his head was shaved off, leaving only a few partial panes of glass clinging to the bottom rim. Jack held onto his Dragoon’s hat on with one hand, then remembered a more important concern …
“Ralley!” He risked looking back, and saw his friend’s red-haired head tucked low in the rear seat. He’d stayed down, thank God.
“I’m fine!” Ralley yelled back. “How much farther?”
How much was it? Half a mile, or less? They’d likely be under fire from ground troops as well before long.
Even as the thought crossed Jack’s mind, pulsing, intermittent bolts of hand-gun fire joined the tireless beams of the tower’s main weapons in assaulting them.
Damn! Hugging ground was no good anymore, too many gunners now. Would their wounded craft fly higher with only one wing?
Time to find out.
Jack shoved his plumed hat under his seat, and said a little silent prayer.
“Going to have a little jump,” he told Ralley. “Throw off their aim. Hang on tight for God’s sake … NOW!”
He slammed the control harness down, driving the bronze rods into their sockets and sending the flyer shooting skyward with a force that threatened to crush him into his seat.
The desert floor dropped swiftly away below them, and soon they were very high, hundreds of feet above the stone tower but still jetting forward, speeding closer to that enemy fortress.
Jack gasped for air, then locked his legs under the front panel of the craft, and held onto the seat with one hand while pulling the harness up with the other. The craft dropped like a lead weight, leaving Jack’s stomach far above.
For the first time since he’d gotten into the flyer, Jack was truly afraid. He felt himself rise from the seat, and he could clearly envision his body sailing free of the flyer, wrenched out by inertia.
But that didn’t happen. Somehow he held on, and was still inside the flyer as the ground flew up to meet them. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Ralley’s red hair, enough to see that his friend was also still on board.
Thank you God, he thought. Despite what the Stefanites say, you must still love Dragoons.
Jack pushed the harness in to ease their descent, then used the jets to send them forward. He meant to bring them to near ground level, but he knew that any miscalculation would send them smacking hard into the sand. There was no time to worry.
The craft leveled out perfectly, the wall of the stone fortress almost close enough to touch. The gaping maw of the low tunnel loomed to their right. Jack sent them sliding in that direction, gliding forward—
And they were in!
The tunnel was straight and level, but piloting in such confines was difficult. The craft slid too far to the left, and they lost their left wing-tip to the wall in a screeching shower of sparks.
“Damn!” Jack swore, just as a burst of white bolts whistled over his head. A cluster of guards blocked the tunnel ahead, firing with their hand-guns. In that instant, Jack could see sheer terror on their faces—yet none of the men made an effort to move from the path of the flyer.
“They won’t move!” Ralley shouted. “Got to—“
“I know!” Jack called back. He reached up and jabbed the “weapon” button on the front panel with his finger, holding it down. White light erupted from the needle on the front of the flyer, streaming towards the guards.
One of them was hit square in the chest, and his body disappeared, vaporized when the energy touched him. The flyer slid sideways and another man was hit by the beam, his head and shoulders simply gone.
Jack ducked and the craft smashed through the rest of the men with an impact of bone and flesh, barely slowing.
“Jack!” Ralley shouted. “Slow down, we need to SLOW DOWN!”
When Jack sat up, he saw that the tunnel’s end was swiftly approaching. There, it widened into a circular chamber about fifty feet in diameter, where another trio of guards stood firing blasts of white fire their way.
Jack slid the flyer so that his weapon-beam sliced one of the men, while flicking the levers for the front jets with his other hand. They had to stop now, or they’d hit the far wall at a pulverizing speed.
They started braking, and Jack was pushed forward into his seat. As they plunged into the chamber, a bolt from a guard’s hand-gun pierced the skin of the flyer. The craft jerked, turning right and sliding sideways, out of control.
Jack heard a man’s scream, quickly cut off as flyer slammed side-first into the guards, brutally smashing their bodies.
Still hurtling along, it crashed sideways into the wall with a deafening crunch, and Jack was thrown up out of his seat …
-15-
General Lanaya Culcras stared down into the brilliant depths of the ambia forge. Her hands slid over the crystalline controls on the console, which was set at the edge of the well-like pit that was the forge. Electric anticipation coursed through every fiber of her body.
A large crystal claw descended from the ceiling shaft above the well to sink into the burning maw of the forge. With a few flicks of her fingers, she activated the sequence which would retrieve her newly-made prize from the depths of that unearthly white fire.
Finally, it was ready! She watched as the claw rose from the forge, its crystal fingers clenched. In its grip was a tapering green crystal needle, lined with veins of silver. It was a small thing, only as long as her arm. In the fisted grip of the crystal claw, it looked tiny, insignificant.
Yet it was powerful.
It was the tip of the blade of the sword which would destroy her hated family and Gaelti’s Order of Kion and eventually all civilization in her world, forever.
She used the controls to guide the claw over to her console, then opened the claw and removed the crystal needle, placing it in a silk-lined wooden cradle nearby. She stroked it for a moment, admiring its smooth perfection. Such a weapon!
A man approached her from behind. He stepped quietly, trying not to show disrespect. But his breathing was heavy and quick, and she knew the sound of it.
“Commander Mekron,” she said. “What is it?” He was the commander of this fortress, one of her trusted Baek Tayon officers.
“It is time, Pai General,” he said. “This place has come under attack by the royal forces.”
An attack? So soon? That was a surprise. She’d thought that her dual assaults on the delta city of Quaben and the capital of Laer had dealt them a significant blow. She’d expected them to take some time to reorganize and repair their flyers.
She turned to Mekron. The man’s long braids fell over his face, and he looked down at his feet. He was trembling.
“What is the size of this attacking force?” she asked.
“That is the odd thing, my General. Only a single flyer has been seen. But it has managed to penetrate the tower defenses.”
“I see,” Lanaya said. “They would never send a single flyer on its own. Perhaps this is a scout, or part of a vanguard force.”
In the end, it didn’t matter. They had found the tower of the forge, as she’d known they would. Refueling her flyers here, so that they could strike north as far as Quaben, had been a purposeful gambit. She’d realized that her enemy would be able to trace the route of such a large squadron of flyers, and locate the place from which they’d flown. After all, the Order of Kion had aon pattern seers, which her own forces lacked.
Her main base in the southern jungle was another matter, of course. Its ancient defenses
would continue to protect it from such scrutiny. She would fly there now, carrying the green crystal needle with her.
Then, in a few days, when the weapon was ready … the real war would begin. She could almost taste it.
Commander Mekron looked down, cowed, awaiting her response. She grasped the man’s chin and turned his face up. He was a middle-aged veteran of many conflicts, and his face was like rough leather, weathered by wind and sun over the course of his years. His brown eyes were wide and lips were quivering.
Weakness. But this one was her fault. She had this effect on some of her followers: the same fiery power that helped her secure their devotion could burn right through them, damaging their nerves in time. It turned out that even an old fighter like Mekron was not immune. But he could serve one final purpose …
“Look at me,” she said. “You know what must be done. In a few minutes I shall leave to continue the preparations in the south. You will do your best to delay them, fight until my little surprise comes to bloom.”
“Sacrifice,” he whispered. “But I am prepared, Pai General.”
She nodded. “Your courage and trust shall forever be burned into my mind, faithful one.”
Despite his trembling, a smile spread across his face.
“Now go,” she said. “I must finish here, and set the end in motion.”
He clasped his hand to his heart, saluting her, then marched out of the room, intent on his final mission.
Lanaya turned back to the forge console, closing her eyes and allowing her hands to feel the vibrations of the aon manipulation crystals there.
She was neither an aon seer nor a technician, but her ancient masters had given her an inborn perception of the music of the universe, and she could hear aon technology vibrating inside her mind.
Now, listening closely, she found the rhythm of the ambia forge’s vibration and set it to echo itself, building and building into a frantic, orgiastic drumming
In front of her, the brilliant white light of the forge pulsed. As the light pulsed, the floor under her feet began to vibrate as well.
Battle Across Worlds Page 10