Cloak Games_Sky Hammer

by Jonathan Moeller

  I jumped onto the motorcycle, dropped my Shield, and cast the Cloak spell. I made both myself and the motorcycle disappear, and then I seized the handlebars and got the bike moving. Keeping myself and the entire damned motorcycle Cloaked at the same time was difficult, and the dizziness and the gray haze over my vision got worse.

  But it didn’t matter. I had to keep going.

  I rode around the edge of the melee, trying to keep out of the lines of fire. No one noticed as I drove around the side of the barricade. I suppose the Rebels and orcs and Archons firing over the top of the barricade would have heard the motor, but they couldn’t see me, and maybe they couldn’t hear the engine over the roar of gunfire.

  Twenty yards behind the barricade I stopped, still holding the Cloak spell in place, and lifted the grenade launcher. Despite my exhaustion and fear, I still felt a flicker of vicious satisfaction. I had been sucker-punched by rocket launchers a lot. Like, a ridiculous number of times. It felt good to be the one doing the sucker-punching for once.

  I braced myself, aimed the heavy weapon, and started shooting.

  It operated just like a pump-action shotgun, though the weapon had a hell of a kick. The first grenade soared out of the launcher and landed amid a group of Rebels firing from behind an overturned bus. For such a small grenade, it had a good explosion, and the Rebels went flying, the blast throwing them to the ground.

  I worked my way methodically down the barricade, blasting holes in it every twenty yards or so. The Rebels, of course, realized that they were getting attacked, and they whirled to face the new threat, but they couldn’t find me. By the time the launcher clicked empty, I had killed maybe a third of them and thrown their entire defense into disarray. One of the Archons must have realized that a Cloaked enemy was shooting at them because he started to cast a spell I recognized as the Seal of Unmasking. I threw aside the launcher and started to release my Cloak, preparing to strike before the Archon could unravel my Cloak and fry me.

  Before I could finish, the men-at-arms of Duke Carothrace attacked.

  They charged over the barrier and through the gaps I had made, shooting every Rebel and orc in sight. I saw Robert shoot a Rebel soldier, duck under the stab of an orc’s axe, and pump three quick shots into the orc’s face. The Archon whirled to face him, forgetting me, but Duke Carothrace was with his men, spraying fire from his submachine gun into the Rebels. Before the Archon could attack Robert, the Duke threw a lightning globe that hit the Archon in the chest, killing the black-uniformed Elf.

  I’ll say this for Carothrace – he led from the front. He might have been pompous and way too fond of the sound of his own voice, but he wasn’t a coward.

  But this fight didn’t matter. If I didn’t find Nicholas and the Sky Hammer, none of this would matter.

  I spun the bike around and hit the throttle as I dropped the Cloak spell, turning right and shooting away down 59th Street. There didn’t seem to be any obstructions or battles here, and I rode west for two blocks, and then turned left and drove down 7th Avenue. The motorcycle roared south down the concrete canyon, glass and steel and polished stone flashing on either side of me. I saw some Rebels running down the street, but not that many of them, and I shot past them before they could stop me.

  But I did see a lot of bodies on the sidewalk and on the streets. Men, women, children. People who had come out to see the Royal Progress, and had been in the wrong place at the wrong time when Nicholas had launched his attack. Probably the Rebels had emptied a few magazines into them to get them out of the way, or they had gotten caught in the firefights.

  Damn Nicholas for this!

  And damn Morvilind for making me work with Nicholas, for helping him to find the Sky Hammer.

  Ahead I saw the base of the Skythrone, the huge crystal flashing as it hovered directly over Times Square. I was almost to the square, and I saw flashes of light and heard the steady roar of gunfire. There was a furious fight underway in the square, which would make it all the easier for Nicholas to sneak the Sky Hammer in amid the chaos.

  Then I drove into Times Square, and I saw a battle underway that made all the fighting I had seen so far look like a skirmish.

  Times Square is this big triangular space lined with shops and giant gaudy glowing billboards. If you see it on TV, it doesn’t look all that big, but it’s a lot larger when you see it in person, and it’s capable of holding thousands of people at once when things get crowded. In the center of the square, a stage had been set up where the High Queen and the other chief nobles would greet the various dignitaries.

  Right now, hundreds of Archon Elves were doing their best to kill the High Queen.

  I somehow doubted that Nicholas and Karst had mentioned to the Archons that they planned to use them as sacrificial distractions, which meant the Archons thought this would be their best chance to kill the High Queen. Hundreds of Archons converged on the High Queen’s stage, casting spells.

  Atop the stage, the High Queen and her nobles battled their foes.

  I recognized the High Queen Tarlia. Her image was everywhere in the United States. Hell, her face was gazing down from some of the Times Square billboards, solemn and imperious. The High Queen stood over seven feet tall, clad in form-fitting armor of some metal that looked like silver but probably wasn’t. Her hair was like a banner of flame, mixing with the crimson cloak that streamed from her shoulders. In her right hand was a slender sword that hummed and flickered with lightning as she fought, killing Archons with every blow. Volleys of fire spheres erupted from her left palm, and every single one of them found and killed an Archon. A dozen Royal Guards fought around her, wearing armor of similar design to the High Queen’s, though their swords were thicker. Their movements were dancelike, almost balletic, which would have looked ridiculous if they hadn’t been butchering Archons left and right.

  The Lord Inquisitor Arvalaeon stood a dozen yards from the stage, fighting for his life.

  Even through my exhaustion and terror, I still felt a stab of hatred at the sight of the man who had sent me to the Eternity Crucible. He was wearing the black uniform of a Knight of the Inquisition beneath the gold-trimmed black coat of an Elven archmage. The silver fire glowed in his eyes and his veins, and even as I looked, he cast a spell. Suddenly a dozen Archons near him glowed with silver fire, and they lifted their hands to their heads and cast spells.

  Every single one of those Archons cast lightning globes into their own skulls, killing themselves in an instant.

  Creepy.

  A score more Elven nobles and their men-at-arms fought around the High Queen, struggling against the Archon assault. I saw magical spells rip and snarl across Times Square, saw the men-at-arms trading fire with the Archons’ orcish mercenaries. Normal bullets wouldn’t work on the Archons but they worked just fine on the orcs, and the men-at-arms battled the mercenaries as the Elves fought with magic.

  It was a horrifying display of destructive power, and I saw humans and Elves dying every second.

  But it was nothing, nothing compared to the fury that Kaethran Morvilind unleashed.

  Yes, he was there.

  I saw him standing on the edge of the stage, tall and gaunt in his gold-trimmed black robes and crimson cloak. He looked old and frail, but I knew that was deceptive. I could hold a Shield spell in place while casting other spells.

  Morvilind currently had twelve different Shield spells rotating around him, all of them glowing with arcane glyphs. Lightning and fire and ice snarled and slashed around his hands, and blasts of magic killed any Archons that got too close to him. He gestured, and three Archons went screaming into the air, hurtling skyward as if they had been fired out of a cannon. After a second, I saw the tiny specks of their bodies slam against the bottom of the Skythrone and disintegrate into crimson mist. The Archons hurled spells at him, but the attacks shattered against the revolving armor of his Shield spells, and Morvilind’s answering spells cut down the rebel Elves like grass under a mower.

  The noise.
God, the noise of the battle. It was like the heavens had opened.

  I froze at the northern edge of Times Square, watching the carnage, and for a moment I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t see any sign of that blue box truck, but I knew Nicholas would be here at any minute. The High Queen and her allies were fully engaged with the Archons, with no attention to spare for anything but their own defense. This would be the perfect moment for Nicholas to slip the Sky Hammer into the square. He would probably wait until there were only ten seconds or so left on the timer, and then he would escape back to Venomhold and leave New York to burn. But he would only have a minute or so to pull it off. The High Queen, Morvilind, and Arvalaeon were all archmages, and they were unleashing appalling casualties on the Archons. Too much longer and they would crush the Archons, and they would be free to deal with Nicholas. Hell, I could even tell Morvilind what was happening. This entire damned mess was partly his fault, and he could help clean it up.

  And then I saw the truck.

  7th Avenue passed through Times Square, and south of the square, the avenue was lined with parked school buses. And there, far to the south, just where I couldn’t look down the skyscraper canyon any further, I saw a blue box truck driving towards Times Square.

  It was the same box truck I had seen in Venomhold.

  Nicholas was coming with the Sky Hammer.

  It would only take a minute or two for the truck to reach the square. Come to think of it, he had probably already armed the bomb and started its five-minute countdown. But I wasn’t too late, I could still stop him…

  I heard the roar of helicopters overhead.

  Four Homeland Security helicopter gunships swooped overhead, diving towards the battle around the High Queen’s stage. Each state branch of Homeland Security had its own logo, and these four helicopters had the logos of the Indiana branch of Homeland Security on their side.

  And Nicholas had suborned large sections of Indiana’s Homeland Security branch.

  “Death to the tyrant!” boomed the loudspeakers mounted to the choppers. “Death to the Elves! Long live the Revolution!”

  Yeah, even Nicholas’s followers couldn’t resist a speech.

  Morvilind’s gaze snapped up as the gunships fired every single one of their missiles at the stage at once.

  He made a gripping gesture, and the missiles froze in midair. I felt the surge of immense magical power, even across the distance separating us.

  One of the helicopters whirled out of control, caught in Morvilind’s telekinetic grip, and he spun the helicopter like a top. It smashed into the other three, and all four of them lost control and spun toward the ground. Unfortunately for them, Morvilind was also holding their missiles frozen in midair, and the fuses on the warheads went off. A huge fireball engulfed all four helicopters, and Morvilind made a squeezing gesture.

  The fireball and the twisted metal compressed together in a single roiling sphere.

  Then the sphere hurtled towards Times Square.

  I shouted in alarm. I couldn’t help myself, but no one could have heard it over the howl of the battle anyway. It screamed into Times Square like a comet…and landed at the entrance to one of the side streets just as a troop of orcish mercenaries and more Archons rushed towards the battle.

  The explosion blew out half the windows in Times Square and made my teeth rattle, a hot gale howling past me. The blast knocked half the Archons over while avoiding the High Queen’s forces, and Tarlia and Morvilind whirled and began to butcher Archons in storms of lightning and fire.

  Even after all the carnage I had seen today, I was stunned. Kaethran Morvilind had just wiped out four helicopters and something like three hundred orcish soldiers and a hundred Archons, and he had done it in the space of about fifteen seconds.

  But it didn’t matter. Morvilind could kill every Archon and Rebel in Manhattan, and it still wouldn’t matter.

  Because when that blue truck got to Times Square, the world was going to end.

  There was no time left. I had to stop Nicholas…and Morvilind’s attack had left me a clear path through Times Square.

  I slammed the throttle on the motorcycle, and the NX-100 howled forward. I cast the Shield spell, angling it between me and the battle in hopes of intercepting any stray bullets. I screamed past the stage at sixty miles an hour, and I glimpsed the High Queen frown in my direction before she resumed killing.

  And for an instant, Morvilind’s eyes met mine, and I felt the shock of recognition.

  I had the distinct impression that he had not expected to see me here.

  Then I was past Times Square and hurtling down 7th Avenue towards Nicholas and the Sky Hammer.

  Chapter 10: Ninety Percent

  School buses lined either side of 7th Avenue.

  And, to my horror, they were filled with children.

  Probably every school within driving distance of New York had headed for Manhattan to see the High Queen and the Royal Progress. It would make a heck of a field trip, wouldn’t it? The kids would get to see the big city, the High Queen, and have a history and civics lesson all in one day.

  Except they had found themselves in the middle of a war zone.

  I caught a glimpse of a little girl as I shot past a bus. She must have been five or six years old. Maybe about the age I had been when my parents had died and Morvilind had found me. She was screaming in fear at the top of her lungs, and I saw a thirtyish woman, maybe her mother or her teacher, trying to pull the girl away from the window. I hoped the kids were sheltering under the seats, for what little cover that offered, because I spotted bullet holes in the sides of some of the buses.

  And the buses would do nothing to protect the kids from the nuclear bomb, or from the Skythrone falling from overhead like the hammer of God.

  Suddenly I felt nothing but rage, blind, molten rage. Nicholas and Sergei Rogomil had used to talk about how they would be content to kill ninety percent of the human population if the remaining ten percent could live free of the Elves. The remaining ninety percent of the human population was around me, right now, hiding under their seats and probably crying for their parents.

  The rage turned to ice, and I suddenly didn’t feel tired.

  One way or another, Nicholas Connor and I were going to settle our disagreements right here and now.

  I sent the motorcycle screaming towards the truck.

  As I drew closer, I glimpsed two men in the front seat. One was Nicholas himself. He was driving the truck, of course. The man next to him was Mitchell Swathe, Nicholas’s security chief, an AK-47 in his hands. Both Nicholas and Swathe saw me at the same moment, and even through the windshield, I saw them flinch with surprise.

  The truck twitched a little before Nicholas got it back under control.

  Then Nicholas turned the wheel, the truck’s fender swinging towards me. He intended to run me over. Rock beats scissors, paper beats rock, and in a collision between a motorcycle and a box truck, the motorcycle would lose every single time. Swathe leaned out the window, a murderous scowl on his thick face, and raised his AK-47.

  I flung out my right hand and cast the Shield spell, and the half-dome of flickering gray-white light appeared just before Swathe opened up with his AK-47. The truck was still a good distance away, and I was moving quickly, but Swathe was a good shot. Most of his rounds struck my Shield and bounced to the ground. One got through, clipped my left thigh, digging a shallow groove in my flesh. I barely noticed the pain through the cold rage and the plan coming together in my mind.

  The truck hurtled towards me, and at the last possible moment, I let go of the handlebars, jerking my weight to the left. The truck roared past, and in the same instant, I extended my right hand and cast the elemental blade spell. A sword of elemental fire leaped from my fingers and slashed through the diesel tank slung under the truck’s passenger-side door.

  Naturally, the tank exploded.

  The blast of hot air hit me and threw me from the back of the motorcycle. The explosion knoc
ked the bike to the ground and sent it spinning into the curb with a clang. But I had already dropped my Shield spell and cast the telekinetic grip spell before I hit the ground, my will closing around a streetlamp pole like a vise. I used the telekinetic grip on the lamppost as a fulcrum, spinning around and trying to soak up my momentum from both the explosion and the bike.

  Except I had way more momentum than I had thought.

  I hit the street hard and rolled. Something popped in my left knee with a flare of agony, and I tumbled to a halt, my head bouncing hard off the asphalt, the voidslayer gun digging into my back. I was in a lot of pain, but I ignored it as I pushed off the ground. My left knee blazed with pain, the wound the bullet near-hit had carved into my left thigh throbbed, my arms had lost some skin during the landing, and it felt like I had second-degree burns on my right arm and neck from the explosion.

  Still, not bad for a motorcycle crash. But I didn’t care about the pain. I had been hurt way worse than that in the Eternity Crucible.

  I heard the children in the buses screaming and shouting, and I turned towards the truck.

  The explosion had flipped it onto its side, the cargo door ripped open. Inside, I saw the Sky Hammer lying on its side. The thing was a big metal box that looked like an oversized commercial refrigerator. I wondered if the crash would have been enough to disable it, but given that it had been designed to be launched in a ballistic missile, I doubted it.

  I ran towards the truck. Or I tried to run, anyway. My left knee kept jerking, and the best I could manage was a hobbling run. I grabbed the voidslayer gun as I ran, sweeping it before me as I sought for Nicholas.

  I spotted Swathe first. The explosion had thrown him from the truck, and it looked like he had landed on his head. To judge from the brains puddling around him, he wasn’t getting up ever again. I ran around the burning truck, voidslayer gun held like a rifle, trying to spot Nicholas.