Defense that might not cream him if he'd kept pace with his blockers.
Okay, so he wasn't playing football. He was fighting against mages with frikkin dragons, but the principle was the same -- you play to your strengths, you don't get overconfident, and you never, ever, act like you're the only one on the field. You've got a team for a reason. No matter how good you are, it's your team that keeps you in the game.
And here he was, way out in front, driving straight into the heart of the enemy forces, looking to pick a fight with whoever was in charge of the thing, with no clue whether or not he'd have anybody near enough to back his play.
Idiot.
* * *
"Idiot!" Retzu shouted at Sal, though he was sure his sodu couldn't hear him, as far ahead of the pack as he was.
Oh, if he wanted to, he could have made Sal hear him. He did have the sapphire chip behind his ear, after all. But however sizzled Sal was in the kippa, Retzu's beratement could only make matters worse. Whatever Sal had in mind, he needed his wits -- sparse as they were -- about him if he was to survive it.
Retzu dug his heels into Aplos' side, urging him to greater speed.
"I'm not a horse, you fool," the red dragon protested.
"Sorry, mate. Force of habit."
"Give into that habit again, and you'll be walking the rest of the way. Or crawling, depending on how you take the fall."
Retzu clamped his mouth shut against a retort that begged to be loosed, and leaned forward in his saddle. It probably didn't help the dragon any with wind resistance, as it would a horse, but Retzu had to do something.
It hadn't taken Retzu long to call the Cause dragons in to pursue. Menkal had already turned a good many of them, and directed those without riders to pick up as many allies from the battlements as they could carry. Aplos, who had lost his rider, had turned to follow Sal as soon as he saw the mage take to the skies, but Retzu called him back. It seemed like a fit match.
The fire wyrm's surly disposition confirmed it. Retzu couldn't have picked a more appropriate mount.
They were about the middle of the pack when they took off from the top of the turret, but Aplos was one of the largest dragons in his Flight. They reached the front of the pack in plenty of time to see Sal, about half a mile ahead and all by his lonesome, turn his nose earthward and fold his magical wings back, falling like a javelin straight for what Retzu assumed to be the commander of the Rank forces.
"Idiot," the assassin muttered again darkly, urging Aplos to even greater speed. With his mind, anyway.
* * *
"You idiots! I said four squadrons. Four of them, over here. Move!" Glyn shouted, using one hand to amplify his voice and holding a bandage to his head with the other.
The dragon handlers moved to comply, herding the strongest of the Spawn into groups of twenty. The remaining dragons were nearly enough for fifth squadron, but Glyn wanted to hold them in reserve, preferring to rotate them in as reinforcements where needed. The rebels were far more dogged than even he had accounted for, so any victory won here today would be a hard fought victory, one that they could be proud of, having wrestled it out of the hands of a worthy opponent.
To be honest, it was quite unnerving, the skill with which this band of rebels was fighting off the Highest's men. Even that sapphire with the ruined throat, a bare wisp of a girl and crippled to boot, and yet she was still able to not only survive his attack, but best him! Glyn had come here to mete out the Crafter's justice, at the behest of His Vicar, and here he was, on the verge of failing, just as the other Rank divisions had. It was almost enough to make him wonder if he actually didn't have the Crafter's favor.
And if he, the servant of the Highest in Ysre, didn't have the Crafter's favor, what did that mean of the man who had commanded him to be here? What if he were actually fighting those that the Crafter did favor? Had he thought to serve the Crafter, only to become His enemy?
"Form up! Form up! Form up!" he commanded, his voice cracking with strain. The dragon herders redoubled their efforts, and the granites moved in to find their mounts. Had Glyn become th---
He looked up into the sky, just in time to see the horrific visage of a mage with disparate eyes -- one natural, and one emerald -- before the mage slammed into him fully, driving him to the ground. He didn't have time to take a breath, let alone become one with the earth. His head slammed hard against the rocky ground, and chaotic stars erupted in his otherwise patterned vision.
* * *
Emerald fire erupted in Sal's bones as his current soulgem healed the various breaks and scrapes that his nosedive had earned him. The magic spread quickly, but he was in the midst of the enemy camp -- at the center of the Rank army's attention, and sitting on top of their commander -- so he didn't dare allow Emerald time to do its full work. Groaning against the pain, he released Emerald and touched Amethyst, throwing up an inverted null field around himself.
Just in time, too, as a barrage of magics pummeled the field. The spells all dissipated well before they could reach Sal, but he still felt the remnants of granite castings, showering him in dust.
He paid the spells no further mind as he raised a fist, bringing it down on the granite's face just long enough to raise it again. He got in three good licks before the granite shoved him off. Sal landed hard on his side, but kicked himself ninja-style to his feet, katana appearing almost magically in his hand.
The granite didn't seem at all that impressed. Slowly, intentionally, he raised a hand to cast a spell -- a granite sphere, just like the others -- only to watch it dissipate as it hit Sal's null field.
He didn't look surprised. If anything, he bore the expression of dread acceptance, coupled with fatalistic determination.
"One of flesh and one of stone," he recited, his voice eerily calm. "Both together, both alone. You really are him, aren't you?"
"What?" Sal asked, wondering why the granite wasn't jumping him at that moment, or why he wasn't jumping the granite.
"The Prism. The ender of worlds. It's really you."
Oh, brother. Seriously?
"Look, I'm just a guy," Sal protested. "I never asked to be the Prism. I never asked to be a mage. I never even asked to come to this dang world in the first place! I got no plans to end this world or any other. I can't end worlds. I'm just a guy."
The granite nodded gravely, then drew a longsword from its sheath at his side. "I hope so. I sincerely do."
"It doesn't have to be like this," Sal said as he started sidestepping in a circle opposite his opponent. "This world doesn't have to be like this. In my world, people are free... well, a heck of a lot freer than they are here. They live their own lives, chart out their own destinies. They grow and better themselves and better each other. And it can be like that here. That's what I'm trying to do, man!"
"Glyn," the granite replied, taking on an air of formality. "Glyn Farhaven of Schel Veylin, Commander of the Granite Guard, subordinate to High Commander Heramis Veis. I'd really like to believe that you are as you say, milord Prism."
"But you're gonna try and kill me anyway."
Glyn nodded. "I have people that I love, and are depending upon me to keep them safe. I want to believe that the same Prism that I grew up fearing is in fact a good man, that we've all been wrong about him our whole lives. But I can't take the chance that he's not."
Sal sighed, and nodded slowly. "James Salvatori of Caravan, formerly of Earth. I know what it means to fight for love, the choices you have to make. Whatever happens... I forgive you, and I hope you can do the same."
Glyn Farhaven, Commander of the Granite Guard, raised his sword in salute to Sal, locking eyes with him through the crossbar of the sword's hilt. Then he attacked.
Glyn showered blows upon Sal, using the dual edge of the longsword to his advantage, striking both on the initial swing and on the back stroke. Sal parried all these away fairly easily, but had a hard time landing any blows himself. It seemed that every time the silk-hilted shol'tuk put his katana s
omeplace, Glyn's longsword was already there, ready to turn it away.
The granite cut a sweeping blow at Sal's head. Sal raised his katana to block. The longsword skittered along the straight edge, only for Glyn to shift his weight, pulling the strike off the katana's edge and bringing it down hard on Sal's shoulder. Even with his boiled leather armor, Sal felt the impact. Hard.
With that side already presented to Glyn, Sal redirected his momentum and, taking the arm of that same shoulder, he drove forward. He caught Glyn with a massive forearm, the granite's nose crunching and spurting blood. Glyn staggered back from the blow, completely off balance.
The granite's eyes flared with a brilliant brown, and Sal readied another inverted null spell, practically begging that Glyn would try and melt. Instead, Sal felt the ground shift under his feet. He stumbled forward, off the shelf of rocky soil and into the dust pile that Glyn had created out of the surrounding area -- the area outside the influence of Sal's null field. As Sal fell, Glyn chopped with his sword, catching Sal just under his breastplate and opening a gash almost a foot long.
Sal screamed his pain. He released Amethyst and took Emerald again, this time to heal him. But as he did so, Glyn turned loose a volley of granite missiles, one after another in rapid succession. Sal was able to whither some of them, but not all.
He spun against the pummeling, swinging his sword in a wide arc. All at once, the barrage ceased. Emerald magic flooded Sal's sword as he made his cut. He watched in slow motion as the keen edge caught Glyn right above the jawline... and passed through it without the slightest resistance. Glyn answered the cut with a punch to Sal's chest. In horror, he watched the vaporous hand plunge deep.
Knowing what was next, Sal spun, not giving Glyn's hand the chance to solidify, to grasp his heart and rip it out, as had been done to Reit. He shifted to Amethyst again, and cast his spell even as he swung on Glyn, the null field solidifying the granite's temple just as the punch struck home.
Sal heard a cheer rise from around him, but he dared not look to see where it was coming from. At that moment, there was nothing else in the world but himself and the granite.
He cut a tight sweep toward Glyn's midsection. The granite parried it, but just barely. Sal pushed his advantage, launching a series of chops and cuts and jabs and sweeps. Glyn parried them all, but each strike brought Sal closer to home.
Glyn chopped desperately from the side. Sal brought his katana up to meet it, and let the force of the blow carry his silt-wrapped hilt forward, driving it into Glyn's throat.
The granite's hand came up reflexively to protect his windpipe, leaving his chest unprotected. Sal punched for that area of Glyn's chest, shifting his soulgems and wielding as his fist flew. The impact stunned Glyn, and he froze in midstagger, breathless.
Granite mage and diamond stood there, unmoving for a long moment. In some detached part of Sal's mind, he heard the silence of the battlefield around him, suddenly filled with a chorus of gasps. If he took a moment to let his conscious mind process, he would've noticed that their fight had gathered something of an audience.
But that was irrelevant. They didn't exist. The battle beyond them didn't exist. All that mattered was the look on Glyn's face, the shock, the horror, the clouded look coming over his already opaque eyes, the tiny dribble of blood pooling on his bottom lip -- colored a slick red in both Sal's natural sight, and in his magical granite sight.
Sal jerked his hand back to a wet, juicy sound somewhere between crunching and tearing. Glyn fought valiantly to stand a moment longer, before collapsing at Sal's feet with a fist sized hole where his sternum used to be. In Sal's still-outstretched hand, Glyn's heart quivered, sending out blood in erratic squirts as the muscle vainly emptied itself.
Sal tossed the hunk of meat to the side in newfound horror and knelt beside Glyn. "It didn't have to be this way," Sal insisted. "My fight was with the Highest, not you."
"O scatt-tt-ttered sh-a-a-ards of heart's-s-s des-sire," Glyn stammered as his breath ran out, ending in a blood-soaked gurgle. Glyn fell in upon himself as he died.
The split prophecy that Gaelen had talked about. The one that could go in either direction. Glyn could have cursed Sal for killing him, issued some stupid warning about "Blessed is the man whose light is darkness" or whatever the Shadow Magers said. But no. His last breath went to repeating the prophecy that had no definite outcome.
The sounds of disorder broke him from his musing. He looked around. Sal and Glyn had indeed gathered an audience, both of Cause and of Rank. Everybody had been stunned to silence up until this point, but now that the fight had been won -- or lost, depending on your allegiance -- things were starting to happen. The rebels of the Cause began cheering, their dragons roaring in dissonant harmony. Distantly, some of the granites called for attack, but those calls were few and far between. The greater portion of the granites abandoned their mounts -- abandoned their brethren -- and had melted into the earth, doing what they could to get gone while the getting was good.
Minus their riders and handlers, the Spawn shrieked erratically, like caged animals looking for a way out. The dragons of the Cause shifted nervously, moving to get between the Spawn and the rebels, but still reluctant to leap back into pitched battle with their "children".
The Spawn protested the movement, screaming their distrust of the Cause dragons and their abandonment by their masters. They settled back on their hunkers like winding a spring. One of the larger Spawn, a fire wyrm, took on the role of alpha, barking shrill cries and bowing up. Its hind leg muscles rippled under its scaly skin as the dragon gathered its strength to pounce.
Before it could, a loud blast -- reptilian, but not -- boomed through the air. It was indescribable in sheer power and authority, but if Sal had to describe it, he would've said it sounded like Gabriel's trumpet. All eyes looked up and to the north. Coming in low and fast was a massive water serpent, head and tails longer than Aplos. The trumpet sounded again, but the dragon never opened its mouth. It was still too far for Sal to see anything with his natural eye, but with the help of Granite he saw a figure on the dragon's back, his softer, more pliable skin yellow and orange against the dragon's blue-black scales.
At the sound of the draconian command, the Spawn bowed their heads low, submitting to whatever the terrible voice was saying as the serpent and its dread passenger soared overhead, past the battlefield and toward Bastion.
It seemed almost anticlimactic when the last remaining granites abandoned the fight and retreated.
* * *
Mik emerged from the ground in a ripple, breaching the surface in a wide arc and coming down lightly in the grass beyond. It wouldn't be long before Heramis dug that amethyst dart from his flesh, and he'd likely be after a bit of revenge, so Mik had to make himself scarce.
Far to the south, rising from the trees on the horizon, he could just make out the smoke of the Rank camp's fires. If he had to guess, he'd say he'd come about a league north, maybe a bit more. Certainly no more than five miles.
Not near far enough.
Shifting the grip on his tanto, Mik activated another set of runes, this time connected to the amethyst gems in his hilt. At the contact, Mik Lifted into the air -- more slowly than an actual amethyst mage, to be sure, but the amethysts were pulling double duty, erasing the auric residue of the spell while still carrying him into the air.
The wind grew chilly as he climbed higher and higher. He stopped about halfway to the clouds, the air getting a bit thinner than he was comfortable with. The sun to his east, just bluing the sky where he'd been on the ground, now caught him full in the face, blazing in all its glory. He shielded his eyes to consider his position.
Just under the blazing sun, he found the Icewater River, stretching from the Icebreaks far to the north and running south to the swamplands and the deltas beyond. He couldn't see Icewater Ford from where he was, but he could hazard a guess by following the twists of the highroad.
To his south, the Rank camp was more evident than
it had been before, but it was still nearly indistinguishable from the surrounding forests. If not for highroad that ran through the middle of the camp, he'd never have found them.
He thought for a moment which way he should go. Far to the west, still huddled in the early morning twilight, stood Bayton. It was a massive port city, the only one on the Inland Sea large enough and close enough to cater to the Rank army. He bet that if he pushed it, he could beat the Rank there, but not by much, and certainly not without using the granite artifacts on his tanto, leaving a trail for Veis to follow.
No, Bayton was out.
Mik turned his eyes north. To the northeast, nestled into the Icebreak foothills, he could see the crumbling remnants of Schel Caspia. Even from this distance, at least a hundred miles away or more, its broken spires rose high enough into the sky that he could pinpoint the massive ruin, the city of ghosts that dwarfed Schel Veylin. The plains near Caspia were dotted with villages, as Mik recalled, built by scavenging the ruins for otherworldly scraps dating back to the Rending and before. It was possible one of the coastal villages would have an established trade route with other parts of the Mainland. The thought intrigued him, but no. Taking a ship there would just find him back on the Inland Sea, sharing the water with the Rank army -- or navy, at that point.
So, further, then. Sighing, Mik willed himself forward, and the amethysts in his hilt obeyed. It would take a while for him to get far enough north that he wouldn't have to worry about Veis sniffing out his artificial granite aura, so he decided he'd best get to it.
* * *
Sal stood there for long moments, unmoving, as he let the enormity of his situation sink in. They were still alive. He raised his chin and looked about him, and amended his thought. Some of them were still alive. Judging by the bare handful of dragons he found standing with the rebels of the Cause, opposite the Spawn dragons now cowed and silent, he'd be hesitant to say that "most" of them had survived.
Fractures (Facets of Reality Book 2) Page 40