by R. J. Batla
Chapter 49
Back at Harlingon, Ames Talco was in his office, furiously trying to gather intelligence on what was going on.
The amplistone blared. “Viper to Nest, come in.”
“Go ahead, Viper,” he answered.
“It’s getting pretty tense over here, sir. There have been a few attacks, but those seem to be creatures who just got bored with waiting. But it’s building, sir. It’s happening soon. You’d better get here quick or you won’t be able to get through.”
“Thanks, Viper, we’ll be there in eight days.”
Councilman Talco drummed his fingers on the table. If it’s as bad at the Wall as Viper said it was, they might not be fully prepared before the attack began. It was strange that Malstrak hadn’t attacked yet, just stationed his army right out there for everyone to see. Waiting.
Plus the weather wasn’t going to cooperate – it was going to get cold. He could feel it already. But that was out of his control, and he had more calls to make.
“Lonestar, come in, Lonestar,” Ames says into the amplistone.
Static.
Damn, that was the third time he’d tried to contact Lonestar – that meant Luling, and the entire island that it was on, was lost. Ames Talco buried his head in his hands and breathed deep, fighting back tears. He’d rather die himself than lose one man, let alone thousands of sailors and civilians alike. Those brave souls. They had known they wouldn’t make it back, and they attacked anyway. Brave men and women.
The badge vibrated again. “Beta, come in Beta, this is Gamma.”
“Beta here, what’s the situation, Gamma?” Ames said, glad for the distraction.
“High-level scouts put the enemy on a crash course just where we thought, sir. They’re definitely heading to the mouth of the Trinity.”
“Thanks, Gamma. At least we got that part right. Out.”
The attack would come towards the Elves, just as expected. His next call would be there, to warn them. Thank God they would be prepared there, and that Malstrak decided to attack that point. If they had gone further south…
***
The fleet of ships bobbed up and down on the waves. After eradicating the inhabitants on the island and looting the town of Luling of all its supplies, they were back underway, headed East to begin the invasion.
Out in front, on the biggest ship, the Skeptor threw down the ruined body he had been manipulating, its purpose done. Without the Skeptor’ s power keeping him alive, the Senturian died, a Ranger badge rolling from unmoving fingers. The communication had gone off flawlessly – the fool Ames Talco didn’t even realize he wasn’t talking to someone on his side.
The ruse complete, he turned and looked back over all those he commanded. He then shot a fireball into the air, which turned blue, red, then green.
At the signal, half his fleet of ships, including the one he was on, continued on their present course to obliterate the Elves.
The other half altered their course, turning slightly further south.
Chapter 50
“Arghhh!”
Those of us in front turned and drew our weapons, poised for defense, but saw the others staring at an empty spot of grass.
“What happened?” Royn exclaimed.
“G-G-Gilmer,” Celeste managed to stammer out, shaking a pointing finger at empty air. “He just…disappeared!”
“What do you mean?” I asked, frantically looking for my friend.
“She means he just vanished, poof, gone, not there anymore,” Arp said, trying to look everywhere at once, ice forming claws on his hands. “But that doesn’t explain what’s going on.”
Royn said, “No one move.”
We all froze again – was this like before, did we walk into another trap?
“Troup, Sonora, work together – slowly, slowly blow a layer of dust from you to me, six inches high, with as little force as possible,” he said.
They quickly complied, Troup raising his hands and Sonora pushing hers, the cloud creeping along the ground. How was this helping? My friend was out there somewhere in pain, judging by the scream, and Royn has them doing parlor tricks?
Halfway between us, there was a sudden void in the dust. The silhouette of someone convulsing!
“Gilmer!” we all shouted, moving towards him.
That was when we heard the horns – hunting horns. From all around us.
“Good Lord!” Royn exclaimed. “Troup, how much time?”
Troup stomped the ground hard, waited a couple of seconds, then said, “Three minutes, from every direction, at least two hundred of them. Not sure what they are…man or beast or both. Probably both.”
“Damn,” Royn said. “Katy, Sonora, Euless, get out there. Take out as many as you can before they get here. Long distance attacks only; don’t use too much energy. Katy, use your speed; keep them confused. Be back here in two minutes.”
They each nodded, Katy taking off in a blur of speed, Sonora literally taking off, launching to the air faster than I’d ever seen her fly. Euless took a few steps, then launched balls of energy in many directions, as fast as he could. They started exploding almost instantly, followed by shrieks and growls.
After the dust cleared from Katy’s speedy departure, Royn drew a circle on the ground with his sword. “Nothing crosses this line. Gilmer is in the center.”
“We need to help him!” Anton said.
We both tried to step across the line, but we were yanked back by Marlin Ralls. “You would do well to listen to our leader. He’s about to keep all of us alive.”
“Thank you, Marlin,” Royn said. Marlin let go and Royn put a hand up. “Gilmer can’t be touched right now or it’ll break the process and probably kill him. He’s getting a new Quantum Power sans the benefit of the Awakening Stones.”
“Getting?” I asked. “Now?”
“It happens sometimes,” Morgan said, pulling her staff off her back and spinning it in front of her, gathering fire at the ends. “Unless you’re a pure blood of one of the Races, you can get a Quantum at any time. You don’t hear about it much because, like Royn said, if you interrupt the process, which can take minutes or hours, the subject dies.”
“Right,” Anton said, “but where is he? Why can’t we see him?”
“The Quantum is Invisibility, Anton,” Celeste said, loosening the water containers she carried, preparing to use her powers.
Oh. Made sense now.
“Anyway,” Royn said loudly, “we can’t let anything cross this line. The idea is to spread out around the circle and keep everything out. Jay, transfer enough of the earth here into water with your Quantum for anyone with Water powers to use.” Nodding, I bent down and concentrated while he finished giving instructions. “Anton, you’re on shield duty. Stand right here and keep everything out in a three-hundred-sixty-degree area. You are the last line of defense.”
Anton nodded just as I finished transitioning a ten-foot wide, ten-foot deep length of earth and stone to water in a huge circle around us. The Water Senturians nodded and began manipulating the liquid.
“Marlin, Celeste, Arp, triangle defensive formation around the outside of the circle. Work together to keep a solid shield for anything that gets through us,” Royn said.
They nodded and got into position.
Sonora glided down from above, panting. “Took out as many as I could. There’s maybe four hundred left now.” She landed harder than she meant to, stumbling slightly.
Katy and Euless stepped up at the same time, all turning toward Gilmer.
Through the stones in our ears, we heard Heath Goodrich. “Poor man! What a spot to pick! Is there anything we can do, Commander Crowell?”
“Negative, Heath. We will have to fend them off until Gilmer is ready, no matter how long it takes.”
“But sir, the mission, we –“
Royn said, “People trump the mission, Heath. Now, everyone else, we’re outside the water circle. It’s going to be pretty obvious, pretty fast what we’
re defending, but it can’t be helped. I’ll not leave a teammate to die,” Royn said, and put his finger to his ear. “Heath, we have trouble!”
Heath’s voice chirped in my ear. “What’s your location? Can we get someone there in time? Do you need an extraction?”
Royn looked at his badge, gave him our location. “Negative on the evac or reinforcements. We’re still supposed to be on a low profile; we can’t risk it. The only one capable of doing it is Queen Aurora with her Shimmer power, but she’s never been here before, and by the time we track her down, it would be too late for the rest of us.”
“We can’t risk losing your team, sir. This isn’t Malstrak doing this, intel puts him here at the Wall. I don’t understand. I’m going to send –”
“Troup, where are they concentrated the most?” Royn asked, ignoring our operator.
He stomped again. “North and south, about one-fifty each way. Fifty each on the east/west. Forty-five seconds.”
I could hear the drums, growls, and yells getting very loud. Very fast.
Remain calm. Remember your training. We will get through this.
“Heath, we don’t have time to discuss. If we don’t report back, then we didn’t survive. Give us any intel you can as we go. Euless and Troup, you got the south. Morgan and I will take the north. Josey and Sonora, you take the east. Leona and Katy the west.”
“What about me?” I asked, drawing my sword and pulling energy together, ready to use.
“You’re the rover, Jay. You go where you’re needed most. And be quick about it when you do. All right, use your earpieces – communication will be faster. Take your positions.”
Everyone else moved – I just stayed put and breathed deep, gathering my power even more. It was almost like electricity running through my veins, hot and thick in my muscles and bones. The more I readied, the harder it was to contain it all. The energy wanted out. To be used.
“Twenty seconds,” Troup said in our ears. The earth actually started to rumble a little. “Ten seconds.”
Energizing my shield and sword, I felt the others do the same, saw the light from their weapons. I took a deep, steadying breath, and dropped into a fighting stance. “Here we go.”
Heat erupted from my back as Morgan let loose two huge streams of fire, each as big as a house. Orcs and ogres burst from the forest, roaring and shaking their weapons. Ice spears shot in all directions from the Water Senturians, Euless let loose with yellow energy blasts as thick as my leg, Josey and Sonora both sent blasts in various directions, Katy shot energy, and Leona fire. And me – I looked up about two stories into the face of the biggest damned troll I’d ever seen.
Twenty-feet tall, carrying a freaking tree trunk for a club, with warted and marbled, gray skin, blunted features, and no armor on at all, it gorilla-ran toward us.
I guess that was mine. Now trolls were big, but they were dumb. I was talking DUMB in all caps. Which didn’t help much when they slugged your butt over the leftfield bleachers with a tree, but hey, it was an advantage as long as they didn’t get close enough to touch you.
So I grabbed an ogre with my telekinesis and hit the troll with it.
Ogres are the bottom rung on the monster food chain – there was a whole lot of them, but as a singular entity, they didn’t pose much of a threat to a trained Senturian. So hitting a troll with one, well, that pissed a troll right off. And soured his mood to all the other ogres around him. Which he turned to snarl at. Which was when, if one were so inclined, one could hurl his returning sword, which would then impale itself in the soft spot on the back of the troll’s head, their only real weak point, right between the skull plates, and thus dispatch of said monstrosity. There, see how easy it was? Oh, you only had about three seconds to pull the whole thing off though. Forgot to mention that. Good thing I was a badass.
The troll landed with a thud, crushing an ogre in the process. The other monsters didn’t hesitate, simply swarmed around and over the dead troll to get to us.
“Nice, Jay,” Anton said in my ear.
“Jay, we’re gonna need your help!” came a call from Morgan and Royn.
Running around the circle formed by the team, firing energy blasts as I ran, I found them up to their ears in ogres, skints, and werewolves. Skints were like werewolves, only lizards.
Oh, there was a dragon, too.
Like, the big, winged lizard, fire breath, almost-impenetrable-skin type dragon. The ones that were extremely rare, and no one hardly ever saw. This particular monster happened to be black as night, huge wings folded on its back, snarling and thrashing, getting ready to take a bite out of my friends.
“I’m guessing this is mine?” I asked, turning the corner, planting my feet and hurling a boulder at the beast at the same time.
“Cor et Anima!” I said, my sword appearing in my hand. My boulder connected, right on the top of the head of the black reptile, which did about as much good as a wet paper towel.
Marlin, Celeste, and Arp kept up a barrage of ice spears, water jets, and steam blasts, forcing many of the ogres and other creatures to dive for cover. Anton launched attacks as well, which boded well, since he wouldn’t be in attack mode if Gilmer needed help.
The dragon’s attention, thanks to the boulder, swung to me.
What I meant to do? Yes.
Did I underestimate the scary factor? You bet your ass.
Thirty foot black wings snapped open, knocking over ogres and werewolves too slow to get out of the way. Black scales a foot in diameter glistened in the sunlight, powerful legs ending in three-foot-long talons dug into the earth. It turned and screamed at me and my eardrums almost burst. Clapping my hands to my ears, I was frozen in place.
Which was exactly what it was waiting for. A huge stream of fire burst from its open maw past the hundreds of dagger teeth. Dashing to the side, I barely escaped the inferno, but my arm stung. The dragon saw me in my new position, took a deep breath, and fired. Again, I had to dodge, but this time I kept running, bringing its line of fire away from my friends.
“Jay, we need help,” Celeste cried.
“A little busy,” I replied, dodging a fireball, parrying a talon with my sword, and generally trying to stay alive. Someone screamed somewhere – I couldn’t tell who. Not knowing what else to do, I sheathed my sword, brought both hands up at the same time – one with dirt, the other with water. “Here’s mud in your eye!” I said, slamming the mixture into the creature’s face.
Yeah, it roared. And yeah, it was scary. But it bought me time.
“Who screamed?” I said through our communicator, turning and running, though not knowing where.
“Josey,” Sonora said. “She’s been hit with some kind of javelin. I’m holding them off as best I… ugh –”
“Sonora!”
Chapter 51
“Sonora!” I screamed again, turning to run to her just in time to see her fall, the rock that hit her falling beside her. Knocked out. Surely she was only knocked out. Josey was already down and the ogres were closing in fast. Ice spears were flying all around, the Water Senturians concentrating their projectiles, trying to keep the ogres off our friends.
The monsters didn’t care. Ignoring the deadly projectiles, they swarmed our position with renewed vigor. They could smell blood. They’d hit us. There would be no denying them their meal.
My wrist started tingling. Crap, the Morsenube! Not now! No time to think. If I lost it, I lost it. Now it was a low buzz; that would have to do.
“Earth Catapult,” I said, stopping and thrusting my hand upward, sending the injured women rocketing skyward. “Air Slice,” I said, sweep-kicking my foot at waist level, blowing a blast of air at the flabbergasted ogres with enough force to throw them clear. Pulling at the water in the trench, I said, “Wave Slide.” The liquid formed into a peak, with the slide ending behind Celeste.
Just in time too: the girls hit the water just as I finished, cushioning their blow, and landing them behind the line to be guarded by Water
Senturians.
Sending burst after burst of air, earth, fire, and energy, I tried to keep the ogres away, pushing back the line. But they were gaining ground. My teammates weren’t doing much better. I could feel them backing up, giving ground. Soon enough, we were all just barely in front of the moat I created. And we still had that damn dragon to deal with.
“Troup, how we doing?” Royn asked.
“Halfway there,” he said, “that dragon is helping things for us.”
“What do you mean ‘helping’?” I asked, parrying a battle ax and stabbing its owner, then throwing him into some ogres advancing while sending fire at others at the same time. I was getting tired, exerting a lot of energy to keep the creatures at bay and off my friend. We had to end this now, or we were done for.
“I mean he’s still got mud in his eye, so he’s attacking anything in his path, which is not us. Oh, not anymore. He just cleared it. He’s coming our way.”
Crap, no one had killed a dragon without almost an entire platoon of Senturians behind them, and we were only fourteen. Scratch that, eleven. This was bad – we weren’t going to survive this.
Suddenly the creatures stopped attacking. They backed up.
“Oh, this is not good. People, we need ideas!” Royn screamed in our ears.
“Jayton, transition as much earth into water as you can directly in front of me,” Arp Bardwell’s deep voice boomed in my ear.
“Do it,” Royn said.
Once again, I dropped down and transitioned. And I kept at it. He said he needed a lot, and I had a lot of reserves. Then we watched as the dragon strolled towards us following a black-cloaked man.
“Who the hell is that?” Katy asked.
Oh no.
“Well, look here,” the man hissed. “You’ve made it this far, despite my best efforts. I don’t know how you managed to get out of that clearing, boy.”