by Keri Arthur
“Scouts, retreat,” I yelled.
As the scouts obeyed, gauntleted fingers appeared at the top of the break point, and then several Volker hauled themselves up. I took another of those deep, shuddering breaths that did very little to bolster my strength, but just as I was about to order another wave, a metallic creaking caught my attention. I frowned, stepped away from the wall, and looked up. Several of the struts holding the old water tanks in place had bent, and both of them had gained a rather precarious lean. If they gave way….
I grabbed Margreet’s arm and said, “The cannons—are they out of ammo?”
“The ones near the breach are, but it’s possible those down further aren’t.” She frowned. “Why?”
“I'm thinking the bipeds are in need of a bath.”
She glanced up and then grinned. “I like your thinking. Roz, take over and get clear of this place.”
As the other six rattled down the stairs, her gaze returned to me. “Let's do this.”
I freed my knife and then ran after her, leaping over rocks, acid trenches, and broken bodies until I’d reached a cannon. I checked it was loaded, hit the standby button to activate it, and then swung the heavy weapon around and up. We fired as one—Margreet at the Volker who were scrambling over the breach and me at the compromised supports holding the tanks up. My arms shook with the force of each shot and my head was beginning to pound in time with the cannon's rattling, but the struts were far stronger than they looked. Then, with what sounded like the groan of a dying beast, two supports on the first tank gave way and it began to topple, slowly at first and then with gathering speed. Water spilled over its edge and thundered down to the walkway; rather than run through the torrent, the Volker turned and sprinted for the safety of the breach, flinging themselves over the edge, as if desperate to get away. A third strut gave way and the tank came down with a massive clang, a noise that reverberated through the stone as the walkway gave way under its weight and several battlements were shattered. The rest of the water whooshed out of the tank, a fierce tide that flooded the wall and poured over the edge. The Volker who’d escaped the first wash were snatched up by the second. Their screams filled the air as they were swept over the edge and cast to the ground far below.
I switched aim to the second tank; after a dozen hits, it too began to fall. As a backwash of water swirled around our feet, I released the cannon and said, “Let's get out of here.”
Margreet didn't argue. She simply took off with the speed of a horned swift. We’d barely reached the stairs when the second tank came down; already stressed stone gave way under its impact and huge chunks of both wall and walkway were sent flying in all directions. But it was the huge whooshing that had me quickly looking back; a wall of water was sweeping down the stairs toward us.
“Margreet, wrap your arms around the railing and hang on!”
I lunged for the metal, locked my arms around it, and then braced as best I could. The water hit a heartbeat later; the sheer force of it snatched my breath and swept my feet away. My arms slipped down the metal and thudded hard into a support. I gritted my teeth against the scream that tore up my throat and hung on grimly as water, stones, and even bodies pummeled me. It seemed to take forever for the flow to ease, though in reality, it was only a few seconds. I regained my footing and did a quick check; a few cuts and scrapes but no major injuries. My knife was still in place, but the rifle was who knows where. Then I remembered Margreet and quickly twisted around; she was nowhere in sight. I released the railing and then ran down the stairs as fast as I dared. The last thing I needed with several hundred Volker about to gatecrash the garrison was to fall and break a leg.
I found Margreet two levels down, squashed into the corner of the landing. I quickly pressed my fingers against her neck but couldn't find a pulse. I swore, turned her head so the water could drain from her mouth, and then began resuscitation. After only a few seconds, she started coughing and vomiting up water. I pushed her onto her side so that she didn't choke, well aware that I might be doing more harm than good if she had other injuries. But if she didn't regain full consciousness, didn't start moving, we were both dead. The bipeds attacking the main wall might have been swept away, but that didn't mean anything when there was a greater force coming at us from above. I had no idea why they hadn’t hit us yet, and no intention of finding out.
After another few seconds, her eyes opened and she said, voice hoarse, “Did a fucking house just fall on me or what?”
Despite the tension rolling through me, despite the knowledge that the Volker were coming, I smiled. “You able to stand?”
“Yeah,” she said, and began to get up.
I rose with her, steadying her when she wobbled. She didn't say anything else, just gripped the railing and moved down the steps, slowly at first and then with increasing speed and confidence. Pools of water now covered much of courtyard, oily expanses in which bodies lay, some of them human, many not.
There was no one else in the courtyard. No one alive, at any rate. But the gates into no man's land were still manned and there was a force of ten red-clad soldiers running toward us. Marttia had sent her finest to our rescue.
The Volker’s howls filled the air and blobs of yellow-green splattered all around us; some melted the ground while others disappeared into the nearby pools, causing the water's dark surface to bubble and steam.
As Marttia's soldiers dropped to one knee and provided cover fire, I swooped to pick up a pulse rifle to replace the one that had been pulled from my shoulder. A quick check of the chamber revealed fifty rounds. That was all that stood between me and possible death. Fifty rounds and Marttia's soldiers.
It would be enough.
It had to be enough.
The ground started shuddering under the weight of the approaching Volker. They lined several levels now, but not all of them were armed or firing. Which was probably just as well—the twenty or so who were made our retreat difficult enough.
A flash of yellow-green flew past my ear and hit one of Marttia's soldiers. He started screaming, but it didn't last long as his face, neck, and vocal cords melted away. As he fell, another took a hit in the arm; she immediately dropped into the water and steam rose as the acid was neutralized.
I risked a look over my shoulder; the Volker were everywhere. Racing along the walkways, crawling down the walls, or leaping from level to level. And yet none of them were venturing out onto the courtyard.
Why?
There was so damn many here now that they could overrun us with very little loss of life. And yet they remained on the upper levels, for the most part content with screaming at us.
It made no sense.
Then I remembered the bipeds who'd run from the water spill long before the tanks had actually come down, and my gaze fell to the black pools covering much of the courtyard. Maybe it wasn't just their weapons that were neutralized by the water.
Maybe they were.
Given they were born out of the deep heat of the earth, it certainly made an odd sort of sense. It also gave us another means of protecting our cities.
We reached Marttia's guards; they rose as one, surrounded us, and continued to lay cover fire as we all retreated. I unleashed the rifle, but my shots were lost in the noise of nine other weapons and had little impact on the bipeds.
We weren't going to stop them—not with these weapons, and especially not when their numbers were so much greater. The minute one went down, three others took its place. And, right now, they were racing for the rear wall; if they reached that, they could avoid the water in the courtyard and get to the gate.
If they reached it before we did, we were all dead.
The knife began to burn against my hip. I switch the rifle from my left hand to my right and then pulled the knife free. Rays of golden light spun through the darkness and energy pulsed through my fingers—one that matched the rising heartbeat of the earth.
I might not be touching her, but we were nevertheless connected.
Seal the cracks, she whispered.
My gaze went to the still open gates and the broken, water-slicked landscape beyond it.
“Stop shooting and run,” I shouted. “We need to get into no man's land before they do.”
“That won't stop them,” one man replied.
“No, but I think water will—if there’s enough of it.”
His quick frown suggested he either didn’t believe or didn’t understand, and there was no time to explain. But the halo remained open and Marttia was undoubtedly listening. I had no doubt she would know exactly what I meant—and what I intended to do.
We ran as hard as we could for the gates. The Volker screaming got louder, and across the various levels, the stream of ashy gray racing for the wall increased. It was going to be tight.
The gate guards stepped inside and began firing. Bipeds fell from the upper levels, but it didn't stop them. Hell, even reaching the gates and no man's land wouldn’t. Not until the fissures were all blocked.
Order it done, said the earth.
I gripped the knife tight and did so. The earth shuddered and shook, and the knife burned brighter as energy flowed from my body, a wave that would only weaken me further. One that would kill me if I weren’t very careful. But better that death than the one the Volker would give me.
We made it to the gates. As they locked into position, I spun around, shoved the knife into one of them, and ordered stone and metal to fuse. The ground flowed upwards and sealed the doors. My head was now pounding so fiercely spots were beginning to dance in front of my eyes and my vision wavered. But I wasn't finished yet.
I spun and ran after the others. Behind me, the Volker screamed. I didn't need to look around to know they had reached the rear wall and were now flinging themselves down it.
We had a couple of minutes, if we were lucky.
The rattle of a pulse cannon started up and the air began to sing with the sound of their bullets. But the garrison wall was heavy with the weight of the bipeds, and even a dozen pulse cannons were never going to be enough to take them all out. Not when there were hundreds more still coming down the mountain.
We were splashing through an inch of water now, and earth wasn't finished yet. As more and more of the fissures closed up, I stumbled and would have fallen had not one of Marttia's men grabbed my arm and not only kept me upright but hauled me on. Rodestat's gates loomed high above us, and the pulse cannons continued to rattle—but those flashes weren't flying over our heads now. They were aimed at the canyon walls on either side. The Volker were climbing high and going around the source of the water.
“I hope that wire fence holds,” Margreet growled. “Or this escape is going to be a very short-lived one.”
“It'll hold,” a rather swarthy-looking woman said.
“If it doesn't, the city is gone,” I said.
She looked at me, her expression grim. “It’ll hold.”
I wasn't entirely sure who she was trying to convince—herself or me.
The huge gate swung open. Soldiers flowed out of it, holding what appeared to be pulse rifles, only twice their size. They didn't open fire. They didn't need to. A good three inches of water now covered the canyon floor and the bipeds weren't going anywhere near it.
My guess had been right.
We hit the safety of Rodestat. Relief swam through me, followed swiftly by exhaustion so deep that I probably would have fallen if not for the grip of the soldier. All I wanted to do was lie down somewhere and drop into a deep coma, but my job wasn't done just yet. As the mighty metal doors clanged shut, I pulled my arm free, staggered over to them, and dropped heavily to my knees. Pain reverberated through every inch of my body, but I dredged strength from who knew where and shoved the knife into the ground, ordering the stone to rise on the other side of the door and meld onto the metal, sealing the city against the rising tide of water. Then, as my strength faded and the darkness of unconsciousness loomed, I ordered a channel be created halfway up the canyon's vertical wall so that the rising water had an escape and wouldn't flood over the wall and into the city.
With my heart laboring and my head feeling like it was about to explode, I wrenched the knife free and somehow shoved it home. As the screams of the Volker and the rattling booms of the pulse cannons echoed, I finally gave in to the looming darkness and collapsed.
When I next awoke, it was once again to the awareness of being watched. A smile tugged at my lips, but I didn't immediately open my eyes, instead listening to the murmur of the earth and to the weight of movement both close and distant. Neither spoke of danger.
As relief stirred, I opened my eyes. Donal lay on his side in the bed next to mine. He had a sheet across his hips in what I presumed was a vague attempt to protect his modesty, though I very much doubted he'd actually put it there, given the man didn't seem to know the meaning of the word.
“Hey,” he said, with a smile that creased the corners of his bright eyes. “We survived yet another encounter with the Volker.”
“Which is proof that miracles do indeed happen.” Or, at the very least, proof that I was indeed favored by the god of war. I reached for the glass of water sitting atop the nearby bedside table; various body parts greeted this movement with a resumption of pain, and a muted ache remained in the back of my head. But for the most part, I felt pretty good.
His gaze dropped to my wrists and his smile faded a little. “I see you’re wearing the bracelets again—why would you do that given all they represent?”
“Because we’ll need them if we’re to have any hope of getting near my father or the King’s Sword.” I paused. “Do you know what happens outside?”
Thanks to the murmurings of the earth, I was well aware that—aside from several attacking arms made up of at least fifty bipeds—their main force was still hunkered down on the other side of the garrison. But the earth couldn't tell me what they were doing beyond the fact they no longer tunneled, nor could she inform me what had happened in the Red City while I'd been unconscious.
“Rodestat's fence holds against the bipeds,” Donal said, his smile fading slightly, “and the dam you created has prevented them from using no man's land.”
“And the globules? Has Rodestat sustained much damage from them?”
“No, because for some reason, they're not firing.”
Once again relief stirred. It might be a short-lived reprieve, but it at least gave us time to regroup and plot our next course of action.
“Given the sheer volume they used on the garrison, maybe they're waiting for supplies to be restocked.” I gulped down the water and almost immediately the dull ache in my head eased. I grabbed the nearby jug and poured myself another. “Or maybe they're just figuring out a different means of getting into the city.”
“Possibly.” He shrugged and sat up. The sheet slipped from his hips and I tried to avoid staring, which was ridiculous given I'd already seen all the man had to offer. “My father sent word that eleven air mages are on their way—it's as many as he could send without completely stripping the five tribes.”
That many air mages would definitely give us an advantage against the bipeds and their globule weapons. And yet, if the biped mages decided to bunker in and dig, we'd still be in very big trouble. “How long before they get here?”
“According to the wind, about five hours.”
Surprise had my eyebrows rising. “How long have we been out?”
“Close to twenty-four.”
“No wonder I'm goddamn hungry.”
“I noticed.”
It was said so blandly that my gaze jumped to his. “For food.”
“Of course.”
His tone was disbelieving.
I grabbed my pillow and tossed it at him. He caught it with a laugh, and then said, “When and if we survive what still comes, you and I will be having a serious discussion about that hunger of yours. In the meantime, there's food over on the table.”
“You know where you can shove your serious discuss
ion, don't you, highlander?”
I flicked off the blanket, then rose and padded across to the table. It held several platters of meats, cheese, and delicious-smelling, still warm flatbread, and my belly rumbled in happy anticipation.
The other hunger would have to wait until survival was ensured.
Donal rose and approached. A delicious sort of tension wound through me and my breath caught. He stopped behind me, so close that his breath brushed the back of my neck and the heat of his body rolled across my skin. Pinpricks of delight skittered down my spine, but he didn't touch me. I didn't know whether to growl in frustration or sigh in relief.
Now was not the time for passion.
But that was the sensible part of me speaking. The long-ignored, long-caged part that had been given no choice for far too long wanted to revel in her freedom, to turn and pursue desire while it still existed, and while it still could. It very much felt as if the two parts of my soul were at war, and I wasn't sure which would win. Or which one I wanted to win.
Because it wasn't just a simple matter of choosing desire. Not with this man.
“If you don’t want a discussion,” he murmured, “what do you want?”
You. The word lingered on my tongue, but I just couldn't say it out loud. Which was beyond stupid given I'd waited twelve long years to be free to feel anything this strongly—to choose whom I wanted to choose, and not be forced to bed someone at the will of the king.
But maybe that freedom was part of the problem, if only because once I'd delved the depths of passion with the man standing so very close behind me, I might never want to lose it.
And we were two very different people with two very different agendas.
Or was that nothing more than fear speaking? Was it a decade of restraining emotions and fearing to take what I wanted because pain would undeniably follow?
I really didn't know.
“You didn't answer the question, Princess.”
Warmth teased my neck, a touch so light it could have been his breath. But it wasn't.