The Last Winter (The Circle War Book 2)

by Matt King

  Shit. I was supposed to have a plan by now.

  Out at sea, the Phaelix’s boats moved closer, pushing up large waves along their pontoons as they sped toward the coast. Hundreds of Garoult stood ready along their decks. He didn’t have much time.

  He tried to shimmy up the metal tube, only to slide back down immediately. It was too wide to hold onto.

  Come on, think of something!

  Pinpricks of heat erupted on his back as the Garoult on the platform started to fire again. More were climbing up the other side, getting closer by the second.

  He could only think of one thing to do.

  Gripping his sword, he began to chop away at every wire that wasn’t currently holding him in place. One by one, the Garoult fell away. He looped the thick wire around his fist and cut the piece beneath his feet before the last of the Garoult could get close enough to grab him. He hung from the lone remaining strand still attached to the tower, his feet pressed against the curved metal, barely keeping their grip.

  Though he couldn’t hear it, he imagined the high-pitched whistle his sword must have been making as he started chopping away at the tower’s hull. Each hit sliced farther into the metal. Needles went soaring past him as the structure started to sway in the heavy winds off the ocean. A bolt of electricity struck the shoulder of his arm holding the wire. He slipped down to nearly the end of the line.

  Come on, one more.

  His grasp slipping, he gave one final swing, throwing every bit of his weight behind the blade. This time, his sword passed through to the other side.

  In an instant, he and the Silence were falling toward the platform fifty feet below. He landed feet-first, then crashed flat on his back. The Silence came down on the flat edge of its side, crushing what was left of the tower’s shaft and exposing a large orange disk on top that pulsed in time with the sound waves. The tower fell into the ocean, crushing the Garoult hoverdisks beneath it and leaving the Silence lying nearly flat only a few feet away.

  Still spinning despite the crash, the Silence suddenly went into overdrive, deadening the already muted sound coming through August’s ears. He pushed himself up on weak legs. Sound waves ripped through his chest. He held up his hand as though he might be able to shield himself from it, but the pain of the vibration traveled in waves up his arm. The surviving Garoult tried in vain to get close. The thrust of the sound kept them pinned on their disks.

  He pushed ahead, trudging through the waves of sound like he was fighting his way through a hurricane. Finally, he made it to the swirling orange light in the center. Through the warped air, he could see the Phaelix’s ship only a few seconds away. He looked down at the churning heart of the Silence.

  Oh God. This is gonna hurt.

  With both hands gripping his sword, he raised it above his head and drove it straight through the center of the pulsing orange light.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Aposthe. I’lanyo. Severine. Ollayne.

  Aeris repeated the names in her head as she fought, reading off the list of the dead taken from her by the Phaelix and his relentless war. The last two names were always the most bitter.

  Cestia, the mother she had never known.

  Eldoran, the father she had failed.

  Upon saying his name, she picked out the closest Garoult and tore him in half with a blast from her hand.

  If only she could hear his dying scream.

  Like the rest of the Vontani, the Silence left her without the use of her senses. Her hair should have been able to feel the vibration from their cannon fire, her ears hear its streaks of heat rumbling noisily through the air. Such clumsy weapons should never be a threat to the Vontani, and yet her people were dying, brought down by an enemy who would rather hide in the shadows than fight them with honor.

  She narrowly escaped being hit by the clubbed fist of a Garoult that had snuck up behind her. She charged the energy in her hand and sent him sprawling into the night.

  Aposthe.

  Another came running toward her. She freed him of his legs.

  I’lanyo.

  A swarm of Garoult sprang out of the trees next to a Vontani who’d wandered too far from the safety of her family’s troops. Aeris gathered her energy and sent out a wave to take them down.

  Severine.

  The girl looked around in shock. Once she knew where her attackers were coming from, she used her chakrams to clear out two more still in the trees.

  Aeris turned from side to side, searching first for an attack she couldn’t hear coming, and then to assess her battlefield. Dondannarin’s forces were holding their own against the crossfire attack, but she had lost many in the process. The rest of the matriarchs did as Aeris had ordered, forming circles with their family’s warriors to combat their loss of senses by giving themselves a circular view of the fight. The strategy worked as well as it could when they were in the open, but when the fight moved to the low-hanging trees and tall brush, they were scattered by cannon fire from the tops of the jungle.

  Farther back was Colliere. The Garoult were making a push to take out the solemirs, as Aeris had predicted. Colliere was holding back the surge admirably, but even the mighty daughter of Heremith couldn’t withstand their assault for much longer.

  Ollayne, Aeris hissed to herself as she caught an incoming Garoult and tackled him to the ground. She bombarded his chest with charged fists, denting his black armor. A final blow to his helmet ended his fight.

  When she looked up, she saw three of her Vontani electrocuted by a volley of charged daggers, then dragged into the brush and pounded to death by a squad of Garoult hiding in the shadows.

  Gods take them. August, you must hurry.

  She ran into the trees to take revenge. Halfway there, a stabbing pain ripped through her head, buckling her knees and sending her crashing to the ground. The pressure was more than her healing factor could take. A steady flow of blood streamed from her ears and nose. Her head felt like it was on the verge of shattering. All around her, Garoult and Vontani alike were grasping their heads with their hands, trying to cover their ears from the relentless pressure.

  The ground beneath her feet shook violently only moments before she and everyone else were thrown backward by an explosive blast rocketing through the jungle.

  She came to a rolling stop next to a stream. Her arms quivered as she pushed herself up. It wasn’t until her head started to clear that she recognized the gurgling noise in her ears. Her heart thumped with excitement. Could it be? Is my mind playing tricks? She dipped her hand in the water and let it flow between her fingers. Each drop made a clear sound that drifted easily across her ears.

  The Silence had been destroyed.

  With the machine’s pressure gone, her eyes were able to focus on her surroundings again. At last, she felt the rush of sensory input as her hair and ears began to register the sounds and movements of the jungle. She could feel the vibration of the leaves as the backdraft of the blast rumbled through the trees. She heard the labored breaths of a nearby Garoult as he struggled to take in air through the blood in his lungs. She rose to her feet, feeling the same wave of adrenaline coursing through her that every Vontani within her range broadcasted. She could sense their confidence return like a blossoming flower.

  August had done his part. Now it was time to do theirs.

  “Sisters!” she shouted. “Remember the faces of your fallen and make these Garoult know their names!”

  A single chorus of Vontani answered, and together they went to war.

  Their senses regained, the Vontani abandoned their close-knit circles and fanned out to take on the Garoult in a rushing wave. Those Garoult who’d recovered from the blast opened fire. No longer able to focus on a huddled mass of targets, their shots were wild and sporadic. Aeris dodged them with ease, feeling their disruption in the air before the streaks of fire ever got near. She heard movement in the thick branches of the trees and fired a series of blasts through its limbs, knocking three Garoult from their perches
. As soon as they hit the ground, a nearby Vontani shouted the names of her fallen as she sliced through one enemy throat, then another.

  Chakrams screamed through the night, chasing the fleeing Garoult into the jungle. Aeris didn’t need to signal the others to follow. With Dondannarin and the rest of the matriarchs behind her, she rushed into the darkness of the trees. Her hands aimed true, and the names of her fallen flowed through her mind as she sent the Garoult to their deaths, one after the other.

  Aposthe. I’lanyo. Severine. Ollayne.

  Cestia.

  Eldoran.

  She pushed farther into the trees. The environment favored the limber Garoult, and yet they were no match for her warriors. The Vontani aimed at the gaps in their armor with deadly precision, hobbling them with one throw of a chakram and finishing them off up close with the other.

  Aeris chased a large group of Garoult that had broken away from the rest of the pack. There were ten in all, and when they realized she was the only one chasing them, they tried to double back through the trees and surround her from above. She let them gather. Just as they looked ready to strike, she aimed her charged hands at the trees and fired in a sweeping arc, eating up her store of energy. The shaggy trees fell one by one, crushing most of the Garoult and trapping others beneath heavy logs of wood. She made sure that those still breathing knew the names of her fallen before she ended their lives.

  A shout rose from the jungle up ahead, beckoning Aeris to join the rest of the army. The voice belonged to Dondannarin.

  An uneasy feeling gripped her stomach. When she caught up to her army, they stood at the edge of the wetland woods with their eyes focused on the ocean ahead of them. No one spoke to her as she moved through the crowd, fueling her fears that something had gone terribly wrong.

  Someone has died. The Phaelix has taken another.

  Finally, she found Dondannarin at the front of the army, standing with Colliere and the rest of the matriarchs. They watched her approach. She followed along with Dondannarin’s eyes as she turned her gaze to the wide stretch of sand below.

  The Phaelix’s ship bobbed in the waves offshore, flanked on either side by a pair of Garoult warships. What was left of the Garoult army stood ten deep at the edge of the waves, creating a crescent along the shore. Standing in front of them was the Phaelix. Beside him, his lieutenant held a sword to the neck of a kneeling August, his hands wrapped in shackles connected to a chain the lieutenant held firm. With the mask still covering his face, she couldn’t tell if he was conscious.

  “We are winning, Aeris,” Colliere said. “Don’t let them use this against you. Let us finish the fight.”

  Aeris answered coolly. “And if you were in his place, Colliere, what would you counsel then?”

  “The Phaelix knows he has lost. You would throw away our advantage to save one man.”

  “This man helped save us all. I have no intention of letting him die now.”

  She walked past Colliere toward the beach.

  Dondannarin caught up to her and took her by the arm. “Colliere is right. We can beat them, Aeris. Are you sure about this?”

  “This is my fight to finish,” she replied. “Not August’s. Not yours. I will not watch more people die because of my mistake.”

  “Is this what your father would do?”

  Aeris glared at her. “We’ll never know.”

  She stepped free of her grasp and continued down the beach. The Vontani closed in behind her, marching through the thick clusters of weeds surrounding the shore.

  “Far enough,” the Phaelix bellowed.

  Unlike the rest of the Garoult, the Phaelix stood on his two powerful hind legs, putting him several heads taller than the rest of his army, and Aeris. His wiry hair stuck out from underneath the silver metal armor plates over his arms and thighs. A large raised disk representing the planet of Garoult protected his chest. He showed his angled rows of teeth through a grin.

  “It is yours?” he asked, pointing to August.

  She could sense August’s anxiety. At least he was alive. “What do you want, Phaelix?”

  “You dishonor your house this way.” He spit a stream of yellow mucous across August’s mask, bringing a chuckle from his lieutenant. “Need someone to fight your wars for you. Full of shame.”

  “Perhaps you find it more honorable to hide behind a machine.”

  “What are you waiting for?” August said. “Light these bastards up!”

  The Phaelix punched him across the side of his face, leaving him hanging forward from the chain.

  “Noisy,” the Phaelix said.

  “Is there a point to this nonsense?” she asked.

  “Come to offer you what you want.”

  She flexed her fingers. “And what is that?”

  “Me,” he said. He took a long torch from a Garoult soldier. The top burned green. “A contest. If you win, your people can have this island, never to see the Garoult again.”

  “And if I lose?”

  He shrugged as if he hadn’t considered the thought. “Your people lay down arms. Still live on island, but under Garoult rule. Peaceful. You see. Either way, Vontani survive.”

  She didn’t have to look back at the faces of her matriarchs to know what they were thinking. And they wouldn’t have to see hers to know what she would do. “I have your word?”

  “Yes, yes.” He stepped forward with the torch. “But before I have yours, want to give you back your pet. Khyris, free him.”

  He motioned to the lieutenant, who jerked August back up to standing. Khyris used August’s sword to cut through the chains binding his hands. The blade made a whistling noise as it moved through the air. “Weapon is sharp,” Khyris said.

  “Damn right it is,” August replied, turning toward the Garoult. “Now hand it o—”

  Khyris plunged the sword straight through August’s stomach. It came through his spine covered in red blood.

  “No!” Aeris screamed.

  August fell forward. Khyris took hold of his legs and tossed him across the beach separating the armies. He landed on his side, blood running down the blade still impaled through his torso. She could sense his body’s stillness and hear the last weakened beats of his heart before it stopped for good.

  She turned back toward the Phaelix. The fire burned wild in her hands.

  His grinning smile disappeared as he lowered the shield of his helmet, leaving only three screened openings for his yellow eyes to see her. He took his torch and held it to a black band surrounding his gloved hands, first one and then the other, coating his fists in green licks of fire.

  “Now, come and get what you came for,” he growled.

  So be it.

  She swelled the fire in her hands and ran across the sand to meet him.

  Instead of his fists, the first blow came from the Phaelix’s knee as it crashed into her stomach, stealing her breath and leaving her open for a fiery blow across her head. The flames singed her skin. Bits of sand grated against the wound. He hit her again, sending her flat on her back. She heard the rush of wind coming from his broad foot as it sped toward her face. She darted out of the way.

  “You are not your father’s daughter,” the Phaelix said. “He was a fighter. Even with your power, you are nothing.”

  Despite the pain in her torso, she launched herself at him, and he caught her with his flaming palms open wide. His grip dented the metal of her armor. She forced her arms wide, breaking his hold, and swung with all her strength at his head, missing the first strike, but connecting with the second. The Phaelix stumbled back. Her fist left an impression in his helmet.

  A hard, throaty growl rose beneath his metal mask. He charged over to August’s body, grabbed the sword from his chest, and swung it toward her in wild swipes. The weapon came whistling by her face, missing her by less than a finger.

  “Aeris! Here!”

  Dondannarin threw a pair of chakrams to her, and Aeris caught them just in time to block the sword from slicing through
her neck. Her eyes widened. The blade’s metal hummed with strength. Pressed against the ring of the chakram, it slowly sliced its way through the metal.

  She buckled the Phaelix’s knee with her own, pushing him away far enough so she could free the chakram before it was cut in two. She charged the metal with her fire, hoping to strengthen it against August’s sword. The next time the Phaelix looped it toward her, she blocked it with one chakram and held his arm in place to cut him from nose to stem. The chakram’s blade left a jagged rip through the planet on his crest. A trickle of blood leaked from the cracks.

  He tried to swat her away. She moved quickly, ducking one blow while delivering another. She raked her weapons across his legs and back, spinning him around as he struggled to keep up. His flaming hands reached for her time and time again, clumsy and slow, and she made him pay, first staggering him with a blow to the head and then dropping her chakrams to blast him with both hands. He went flying into his soldiers, screaming either from anger or pain.

  She chased him into the crowd of Garoult, not wanting to lose the momentum she’d gained. Her senses were on full alert, waiting to react to an attack from any of them. Those nearby reached down to help him to his feet. Something clicked in the melee. She swiveled her head at the last moment before grabbing him, looking to find the sound. She found it too late as the Phaelix came springing off the ground with a trio of darts wedged between his fiery fingers.

  The electrified ends of the daggers sank into her neck and throat. Her body seized as the current spread through her. She’d never felt pain so raw. Her muscles were hard as stone, each tugging at her limbs, threatening to break them in half. She clawed at her throat, trying to grasp the ends of the darts to pull them out.

  She could hear shouting nearby, both from the Vontani and the Garoult. The beach erupted into chaos.

  Finally, she was able to get her fingers around the darts. She let out a sharp cry as the barbed ends ripped back through her skin. Her body barely had enough energy to move. It felt like someone had drained her of life.