Thread Skein (Golden Threads Trilogy Book 3)

by Leeland Artra

  “We can use the city’s LUMEDs.”

  They finished forming, and the displayed images were perfect, as if they had a window open to the scenes shown. The controls all glowed, but the switches, dials, and keyboards looked solid.

  Ellua glanced around at the floating consoles, which showed the city from dozens of positions. Electra reached out and pulled the air that held one of the screens. Her hand gripped the edge of it, and she was surprised that it had a tactile feedback. She’d assumed they would be light images, but there was some form of power that also gave the interfaces a partial, ghostly presence she could touch. Although her hand could press into the surface, deforming it.

  She pulled two displays to her, and started adjusting their settings to show the two breaches in the city’s walls.

  Ellua came up next to her. Her eyes were so wide, she looked like she didn’t have eyelids. She stood and gazed around the room at the multiple screens showing graphs of power, defensive system statuses, and highlighted maps with colored dots representing people.

  “How?” was the only word Ellua could utter.

  Electra heard Vesta’s worried voice in her ear. ‘Yes, what are you doing?’

  Electra whispered, “Fight them. Rainbow, you can act now, and I’ll claim it was me.”

  Still mesmerized by what she was seeing, Ellua murmured, “What did you say?”

  Electra was too busy typing commands into the console she’d taken for her own. She was activating all of the city’s defenses she could.

  Seeing that the city was waking, she realized she needed Vesta to act as well. She racked her brain to try to find a way to direct her. She almost hit herself when she realized she could use the command language she’d been studying since she met Vesta. It would sound exactly like all of the other ancient artifact commands, and more importantly, Ellua would assume it was something Electra had learned in Gracia.

  The command language was an ancient dead language that the Empire had adopted to use for controlling all of its machines. That eliminated the need for massive processing power in the devices to try and separate natural language and commands meant for the machines. Even though she didn’t have the permissions needed for most defensive commands, she crossed her fingers, hoping, Vesta would react as if she did have that authority.

  “Socium hostemque pugnae signum,” she called out.

  ‘Good thinking,’ Vesta said as she complied with the request for colored identification of the combatants. The displays started to alter, and the ones tracking people started color-coding into red, blue, yellow, and green dots. All of the forces outside the wall were red, so that was easy to figure out. There were far more green dots than anything else, so they must be the general population. That left blue for guards and yellow for Daggers. One of the dots moving with a large group of Daggers turned into a silver crown.

  Electra pointed. “Bayion.”

  That snapped Ellua back. She looked over the screen, and began figuring out what it all meant. “Urdu! He’s leading the charge. He isn’t Dohma!”

  One of the red dots, in a large group moving through the streets from the southern wall towards the palace, started blinking and changed to a set of red crossed swords.

  Electra noticed and pointed, touching the new symbol. “Quis est, qui?”

  Some text appeared next to the symbol in old Imperial. ‘Warlord Eshra-Zunia.’

  Electra’s heart skipped three full beats at seeing the name. Her stomach tightened. “What is she doing here? Is Hiri-Rula here, too?” She blurted out, immediately realizing and regretting she hadn’t used the command language. She sent a silent prayer up that Ellua was too distracted to hear.

  Ellua started touching another display, rapidly figuring it out. She’d been issuing orders, which Electra knew Vesta was complying with, if perhaps altering them slightly to help defend the city better.

  “Who is Hiri-Rula?” asked Ellua.

  Electra knew her face was stone white as Ellua turned around and stepped over, she still felt light headed from the shock. Electra willed her body to loosen up, heart to slow, and took a deep breath as quietly as she could to regain her composure. Following Electra’s gaze, Ellua puzzled out the translation. “Warlord Eshra-Zunia. It’s amazing that it can figure out titles and names. I don’t see a Hiri-Rula listed here.”

  Electra swallowed.

  Urd, I screwed up! She’s smart. I must be more careful to protect Vesta while we save the city.

  “I provided a report on Nhia-Samri officers for the assembly, and Hiri-Rula is this warlord’s second and a powerful mage. I presume she and her mage came in those additional troops. She must be here to capture the city.”

  Ellua’s lips flattened as she gazed at Electra’s face. Then she turned back to the monitor.

  Thank you, Lords. I know she didn’t buy all of that, she knows I’m holding something back. At least she accepted most of it.

  The warlord had been on the western side, heading southeast towards the palace. But she changed course and was heading north, deciding to go around. She came to an intersection and moved through it rapidly, choosing the more northerly path, which put her on a different street, bypassing the palace complex completely.

  They heard more explosions. On the monitor showing the city’s shield status, the entire thing vanished. The throne room turned red, and alarm bells sounded.

  The warlord was coming to the palace. Why would she change her path?

  Looking over the displays, she realized the warlord was on an intercept course for Bayion.

  “Lords and Ladies, she’s going after Bayion personally!”

  Ellua looked around at the screens, and when she spotted the same one Electra had used to come to that conclusion, she choked up. “No! We have to warn him!”

  Vesta’s voice came to Electra’s ear, ‘Call for the announcement voice. Da mihi nuntius vocem.’

  Electra spoke the command as Vesta had instructed.

  Vesta said, ‘The whole city can hear you now.’

  Electra smiled. Good time to turn the tables.

  In a clear voice, Electra said, “Ostende mihi, Warlord Eshra-Zunia.” Her voice floated in from many directions, like an echo. Ellua stopped to listen, looking back with an odd expression.

  A side display shifted, per her request to see the warlord, showing a tall woman warrior in red armor, marching down a merchant street with hundreds of Nhia-Samri behind her. She stopped, her mouth falling open, as she heard her own name booming from around her.

  Ellua whispered, “Can they hear me, too?”

  In answer to that, they heard her voice coming from the city.

  Electra nodded. Ellua smiled and silently mouthed, ‘Thank you!’ She turned to the screens, calling out, “Bayion, Warlord Eshra-Zunia is proceeding northeast, down Porter, with 300 Nhia-Samri. They have breached the city shields entirely. There are 10,000 coming over the west wall, two blocks south of the west gate. There are another 10,000 coming over the south wall....”

  The warlord’s face contorted in rage, and she began shouting orders.

  “Tsk-tsk, Warlord. You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Electra couldn’t help taunting. In addition to her own voice, she heard thousands of voices cheering. In the displays, she saw that some guard and Dagger divisions were cheering as the Daggers began redirecting their actions based on Ellua’s reports.

  She’s giving them an advantage, knowing where the Nhia-Samri are and what they’re doing.

  Ellua’s voice became steady as she manipulated one of the monitors, dragging her fingers around the screen, scrolling from one place to another on the map of the city. She kept up a continuous monologue, describing Nhia-Samri movements and strength. It didn’t matter where they went or what they did; she reported everything. She especially repor
ted on where the warlord was and what she was doing.

  Unfortunately, it became less of a morale boost as the Nhia-Samri overwhelmed guard divisions, leaving the streets filled with dead and dying bodies. Electra noticed a new set of light green dots moving around the city. As she touched one, the image shifted to show a priest from Dalpha’s temple, carrying a blood-covered pouch, constantly pulling out medical supplies as he tried to tend to the wounded guards and Daggers. Moving the screen out wide, she saw that there were over 300 green dots, indicating healers moving around the city. But as she watched, a number of them went out.

  Electra shifted to a visual display and saw that a Nhia-Samri warrior had decapitated the healer, and was pulling his odassi out of the chest of the Dagger the healer had been tending to. It was more than she could take. She turned as her stomach clenched. Dropping to her hands and knees, she threw up on the floor. It took several minutes to pull herself together. When she started to stand, a hand came down and helped pull her up.

  She saw all the sympathy and understanding she needed in the eyes of Mandy, her personal Dagger guard captain. Mandy nodded and handed her a cloth, while another Dagger held out a cup of water. Electra cleaned herself up, and turned back to the tasks at hand.

  Bayion was trying to outmaneuver the warlord. He’d split his forces and was moving away, trying to take a circular route away from her and back to the palace. Electra managed to get the names of the Dagger commanders added to the displays she and Ellua were using. As soon as Ellua saw those, she bent close to the displays, providing specific intelligence by calling out names before specific unit reports.

  “Three hundred Nhia-Samri just turned south onto Silver from Jules. Remdian, take the second right, then left. Daggers out. Oshman, go back one block and connect with the Daggers there. Nhia-Samri have established a barricade facing east on Merchant Way near Olman.”

  Electra, more determined than ever, searched for what she truly wanted.

  Weapons have to be here. I should have figured these out weeks ago, but I didn’t think I would be the one trying to use them.

  The problem was that many of the weapons would not respond or activate. She tried verbal and typed commands, but nothing worked.

  ‘I’ve lost the empress’s command override. It went inactive when we discovered she’d been killed with her team in the blast zone of the gate explosion Lebuin tried to stop. I can’t bring any of the primary weapons online for you,’ said Vesta after the third combat system she’d found didn’t activate.

  Electra recalled the bloody pile of human and horse flesh being picked over by the carrion birds the hawks had found when they got to the power source location where Ticca and her team had been. Vesta and Arkady estimated there was enough to account for the whole team. Lebuin’s last location was a burnt-out crater. Given the destructive force, it was clear that Lebuin hadn’t been able to stop the attack.

  She glared at the defensive and offensive systems that would not respond. Then she noticed one system had a low level of power available.

  At last! One palace defense system is online.

  “Aperi aestus imperium radio,” she said as she touched the system’s icon.

  Her display shifted to show her a targeting system like the one used during her earlier clandestine attack on the Nhia-Samri base.

  Now, let’s stop some of those mages.

  Using the controls, she scanned for anyone who looked like a mage. Spotting one, she made sure the targeting locked onto him, and pressed the activation button. The air around him burst into flames as he stumbled backwards.

  Holding up their odassi, two Nhia-Samri warriors leapt between the mage and the weapon she was using. For a second, she thought they were going to be able to defend against the cannon. Then one of the odassi blades shattered. The warrior holding the broken blade tried to jump out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough, and was also set aflame.

  The mage turned back towards her view. He appeared to be calm, and seemed to have already recovered from the initial attack. He stepped out between the weapon and the remaining warrior, as the weapon’s power slammed into his strengthened shield. His defenses absorbed the energy, as he looked directly at her. Actually, he was glaring at the weapon, but it was an eerie feeling. He raised both hands, and a few moments later, the display went blank.

  ‘The mage destroyed the photon cannon,’ Vesta confirmed. ‘A repair unit is in route. If we can get it back online we can use it against the normal warriors.’

  Electra slapped the console in frustration.

  I thought we could get some of them before they took out the weapon. I think all I did was get him upset.

  Electra glanced at the screens. In spite of Ellua’s reports coordinating the city’s troops and preventing any surprise attacks, the Nhia-Samri had taken control of the western and southern portions of the city and were making progress. They weren’t suffering many casualties, and it was obvious their numbers were sufficient to the task of subduing the city. Llino just did not have enough seasoned soldiers to face them.

  Further, the city’s defenses were proving useless. The ancient weapons were easily blocked by their mages, and the flying enforcer sentinels were being blown out of the sky without stopping their advance. It was only a matter of time.

  “BAYION RUN! TAKE THE ALLEY! RUN, URDU!” Ellua’s screams, laced with fear, caught Electra by surprise, and she looked over to see what was happening. The warlord and her warriors were rushing in on Bayion’s position. The entire city heard her cry as it echoed around through the streets.

  Bayion was fighting with his personal Dagger guards. As Electra and Ellua watched, a Nhia-Samri cut down two of the Daggers. The warlord ran, slicing into the fight and, in a rapid series of strikes, killed all of Bayion’s Daggers and disarmed him. Electra’s stomach tightened, and her heart leapt into her throat as the warlord clubbed Bayion down and turned back towards the palace, issuing orders. The warlord’s eyes seemed to look right into the display, directly at Electra.

  Her whole body shivered with the revelation of that action. The warlord’s orders were to capture the regents.

  Her mind raced, and her heartbeat rang in her ears. With shivers running down her back, she looked at her guards, imagining Mandy and her team cut to ribbons.

  She’s coming for all of us! Lords and Ladies, can they know about me? We’re going to lose this battle!

  Vesta had the same thoughts. ‘You need to evacuate.’

  Vesta

  The areas around the Nhia-Samri forces were finally clearing of non-combatants. Vesta had been focusing all of the flying Imperial enforcer sentinels on pushing them in specific directions, while she’d taken advantage of Ellua’s using the announcement system to issue orders via the same systems, claiming to be by order of the regents for evacuation.

  Bayion had taken the lead, combining several Dagger teams into full squads. He’d been directing a platoon of Daggers overseeing the guards, getting people out of the city using the eastern gates. But his position had been overrun, and he was a prisoner of the warlord.

  “If we don’t get Ellua and Electra out of the palace, they’re going to be cut off.” Arkady’s urgent tone caught Vesta’s attention.

  She reviewed the data, and saw that Arkady had correctly predicted the Nhia-Samri’s goals to take the palace. They weren’t fighting as they had in reports from the north. There, they’d focused on capturing the ancient cities, and had pushed out or killed all resistance.

  In Llino, they’d attacked from only the western and southern gates in a coordinated assault. Their mages had blown out six shield emitters at both locations, and then created magical bridges over the walls. The use of magic negated the need for any kind of war machinery or siege towers. The Nhia-Samri warriors simply ran over the walls without any hindrance.

  Once the
attack began, their remaining forces had abandoned the blockade lines to rush to the nearest breach. Since they held two sections of the city, they were pushing in, ignoring the houses and populace and taking only the needed sections to create a path deeper into the city. The two paths they were creating pointed straight towards the palace, except that the warlord had specifically gone after Bayion.

  Agreeing with Arkady, she told Electra to begin evacuations. Electra and Ellua were collecting the regents’ family and guards. The other nobles had been told to return to their families and, if possible, to escape the city.

  With the sixty-one confirmed mages in the city, Vesta almost missed the three mages doing something unexpected. While the other mages were battling with their warriors or attacking the Guildhouse, three mages had split off, and were standing on a section of the southern wall. Away from all the other activities, they bore into it with powerful magical blasts that broke down the molecular bonds of the nearly indestructible materials.

  They were a few degrees off from breaching the paths inside the walls. She knew they were looking for those. If they got inside the city’s sealed maintenance tunnels, they would be able to find critical systems which, if knocked out, would cut off power to many of the palace defenses, as well as much of her control infrastructure — not that those defenses were useful at the moment.

  Given that she was supposed to be asleep, Duke wouldn’t care if those systems were fixed. He would probably just fix the wall, leaving those systems to be repaired when she was awakened. But she needed those systems to maintain full control. There would be no explaining how they got repaired when Duke came looking.

  “Arkady, can you do something about those mages on the south wall? They’ll soon discover they’re not in the right place and adjust for their error. I don’t know how they know what to expect, but I’m sure they know exactly what they’re searching for.”