Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five)

by Gregory J. Downs

  Dire Sparks

  Title Page

  Prologue, Part One: Beginning of the End

  Prologue, Part Two: Remnants

  Chapter One: Awakening

  Chapter Two: Breaking

  Chapter Three: Beginning

  Chapter Four: Bleeding

  Chapter Five: Fighting

  Chapter Six: Flaming

  Chapter Seven: Rebelling

  Chapter Eight: Believing

  Chapter Nine: Darkening

  Chapter Ten: Writhing

  Chapter Eleven: Searing

  Chapter Twelve: Ascending

  Chapter Thirteen: Breathing

  Chapter Fourteen: Healing

  Chapter Fifteen: Seeing

  Chapter Sixteen: Overcoming

  Chapter Seventeen: Clashing

  Chapter Eighteen: Roaring

  ABOUT the AUTHOR and the BOOK

  BOOK SIX

  BOOK ONE

  Dire Sparks

  Song of the Aura: Book Five

  A Novel by Gregory J. Downs

  Copyright 2011

  Photo Credit to Vanderfrog

  To all those who encouraged me

  to take the first steps.

  Prologue, Part One: Beginning of the End

  The survivors of the Giant’s Isle called him a hero. The spirits of the world called him a prophet.

  His best friend, though, didn’t seem to share either opinion.

  “You thief!” Lauro called to Gribly, jumping nimbly up to the top of the broken wall where he sat, thirty feet above the ground. “You stole breakfast from the quartermaster again, didn’t you? You’ve got to stop sneaking around the men like that… they’ll give you anything you ask for, you know. Scurrying about like you’re still a street rat just looks suspicious.”

  Gribly shrugged, biting ruefully into a hunk of bread and staring off into the silence. “Old habits are hard to get rid of, I guess… and those two who command your army look at me funny, especially the woman.”

  “The Winter siblings?” Lauro shook his head. “They’re just soldiers, Gribly. They’ve been fighting tooth and nail since this war began… especially Karanel. Don’t worry about trouble from them. They’ll obey me as… as their ruler.”

  Gribly stared at the prince, noticing the deep bags under his eyes, and the weary slump of his shoulders. “Oh… Been rough, without the King, then…”

  Lauro had effectively taken over the rule in his father’s absence. Thousands of troops and civilians, all who could flee the destruction and assimilation of Vastion, had appeared on the edge of the Fellmere, right as Gribly had transported himself and all the surviving rogues to the same spot. They were led by Karanel and Marvol Winter, two seasoned fighters who had passed on the command to the errant prince, though they still hefted the majority of the management burden themselves.

  Their story was a sad one, of battles fought and lost from coast to coast, as Vastion had been slowly pushed back by the undefeatable hordes of the Golden Nation. King Larion himself had gone missing during a raid to lift the siege of a Wind Monastery merely five days before the Vastic Remnant had met with the rogues, but Lauro refused to give in to the possibility that his father had died.

  Loss brings families together like nothing else can, Gribly thought.

  “Rough,” Lauro said, smiling sadly in response. “I don’t think that’s very grateful of us. We should be thanking the Aura… and you, Gribly… Without you we’d never have survived.”

  The thief shrugged, kicking his legs off the edge of the crumbling wall. “I suppose… but I haven’t heard from Traveller or Wanderwillow… or… well, nothing since the Giant’s Isle.” He did not speak of the Voice… he did not dare to. It felt like something he would die before speaking of, even to Lauro.

  “Well,” the prince began, glancing around them at the mist-shrouded terrain. “We aren’t doing too badly, no matter what little troubles I’ve got. With the rangers now working actively with us, and the Lost Walls to halt our enemies… we should be able to hold out for a while yet.”

  “But for how long…” Gribly muttered. Lauro didn’t bother responding. They both knew that when the next great surge came, the remnant of Vastion would be crushed. Sheolus was just too powerful, especially now that the Red Aura Automo had joined him. “I…” Gribly began, intending to ask Lauro if he intended to use the Midnight Sword- but the prince cut him off.

  “Blood of the Ghost, Gribly… look…”

  The thief looked, and for a moment couldn’t tell what he was seeing. Through the mists, approaching the Lost Walls, a seething mass of something was rushing silently forward, like a tidal wave that hugged the ground, glittering in the rare sunbeam that broke the clouds overhead.

  Glittering…

  “Aura help us,” Gribly murmured, food dropping from his nerveless fingers.

  “They’ve come!” Lauro shouted, leaping up to his feet, balancing precariously on the top of the wall. His voice rang out through the mists, and sounds of muffled surprise and consternation began to break out in the hidden camp all around them, as soldiers and rangers, striders and clerics readied themselves for battle. “The Golden Nation is here!” Lauro yelled, “The tide has come! Prepare! Take your positions! For Vastion! For the Aura!”

  Suddenly a bolt of lightning streaked down out of the sky, crackling with impossible energy as it smote the place where Lauro stood. Gribly yelped in shock as the force of the blast threw him backwards off the wall.

  Striding quickly, the thief ripped chunks of stone from the wall, molding their shape to his desire. A heartbeat later he landed, crouching, on a lumpy platform of stone and earth that had risen from the ground at his command.

  Lauro had vanished. For a half-second Gribly feared that a Pit Strider had somehow learned to control Sky, killing the prince… But then he remembered the tale Marvol Vale had told of the war, and King Larion’s powers.

  Blood of the Ghost, indeed, he thought, whistling aloud, he’s learned to transport himself with lightning! Heavenly useful, that…

  Another bolt struck the earth out beyond the walls, throwing up a fountain of rocky shards. Blast! That meant the prince intended to take the invaders all on his own… brave, but stupid.

  “You could’ve waited for me,” Gribly grumbled. He didn’t have Traveller’s staff with him, but he also didn’t have time to get it from the tent where he slept. “Ah…” he groaned, “I guess it’s not a bad way to go, if it comes down to it.”

  His hands swept to the sides, and the earth responded, sinking into the ground in an explosion of dust that threw him into a somersault. He landed atop one of the tallest walls and began to sprint along it. When it dropped away beneath him in a gaping hole, he Stone Strode, pushing himself off the block in an arcing leap. He landed on the far side of the gap, but a heavy whistling in the air alarmed him, and he leaped to the side as a huge orb of metal crashed through the wall.

  With a startled “Oomph!” the thief landed in the grass, rolling back onto his feet without breaking stride. What had that orb been? More of Automo’s mechanical devilry, probably.

  The next second, the walls around him were peppered again and again by more of the orbs, which fell from the sky like thunderbolts, smashing stone and earth with equal ease, sometimes bursting apart in flames and deadly shards of metal. Gribly cursed and ducked and dodged, trusting his reflexes to keep him alive… but it was only a matter of time before one of the things took off his head, to crush him to a pulp.

  Screams and wailing came from the camp behind him, raucous cheers from the attackers beyond the last few walls.

  “Fine, be idiots,” Gribly gru
mbled. The Power of Stone coursed through his body, stiffening his limbs and strengthening him beyond mortal capabilities. Without pausing to think of the enormity of what he was about to try, Gribly leaped into the air, curling into a tight, spinning ball.

  WHAM. The ground gave way like water beneath him, blowing away as he sank into the dirt, then closing over his head.

  Several meters into the earth, a tunnel opened where only solid soil had been before. Gribly dropped into it and began to run, opening a path before him with punches of his fists, simultaneously hardening the ceiling and walls so as not to collapse the tunnel on himself.

  Speed. Silence. Stealth. The attackers would never see him coming.

  The sounds of destruction reached him in muffled thuds and booms overhead, but he did not listen. His mind was emptied of anything but awareness: the Stone spoke to him, and he felt in every slight tremor and movement the reality of events above, below, and on every side. Beneath the earth, he was king. No Sky, and precious little Sea, but much, much life.

  The earth lent him speed, but it still felt like hours before the Stone creaked with the sounds of hundreds of marching feet.

  Above, thunder boomed. Beneath, Gribly smiled… and pushed.

  The earth exploded upward in a torrent of whirling earth that moved so fast it began to smoke. Gribly felt himself lifted upwards on the boiling tide of rock and soil he had summoned, as daylight broke in over him and the outer world came into view with a violent jolt.

  There were Coalskins everywhere. He kept himself protected in a cocoon of swirling Stone, lashing out left and right with hurling boulders and cracks in the ground that swallowed golems whole… but it wasn’t enough. Gribly poured all he was into the Striding, forming a hard plate of earth for him to stand on while he wove and spun, struck and kicked, forcing the world around him to mimic his motions. Bodies flew, stone ate up foe after foe, but the golden tide kept coming. Lauro was nowhere in sight, but there was no time to worry.

  A Pit Strider managed to break through his protective stone-storm, setting her own body on fire and bulling through the torrent with a spray of liquid flame that melted anything within yards of her.

  Perhaps it was because she was a woman, but Gribly’s reaction was too slow. He lifted a fist of stone from the ground, intending to smash her with it, but a gust of hot wind lifted his feet and flung him to the ground. His stone-fist disintegrated on the air, and he tasted warm blood in his mouth.

  He rolled, but was too slow again. The Coalskin woman leaped at him, a fiery spear blazing to life in her hands, veil-like garments fluttering madly in the wind. The flames running from her body did not seem to harm them.

  Lightning struck. Gribly cursed, stumbling to his feet, and there was nothing left of the Pit Strider but swirling ashes.

  “Nice move!” Lauro shouted over the tumult, hurling bolts of power at the horde that surrounded them, “But next time, don’t hesitate! She would have killed you!”

  Gribly spat out the dirt and blood in his mouth, not bothering to answer as he re-vitalized the stone-storm around them, continuing the fight in silence. In a moment Lauro was gone again, streaking upwards on summoned wind, adding his own abilities to Gribly’s storm, just as they had in the Grymclaw, what seemed like ages ago.

  Wind, Lightning, Stone and Earth. It was a world-shattering storm that ripped apart metal and flesh alike, tossing Coalskin corpses like dead leaves in a blaze, smashing the Golden Nation’s war machines easier than tinder.

  But the tide came on. A minute passed, worth ages in the midst of a battle, and the enemy showed no sign of retreating. Hopefully the storm would hold them off until the Vastic Remnant could regroup from the orb-attack and form up battle lines… but maybe not. Eventually the strain of Striding so much energy began to take its toll on both youths, and the attacks from Pit Striders outside their range increased in frequency and rage.

  It didn’t help at all that they could barely see past the edge of their own storm.

  “We’re not going to last!” Lauro called down, wind-casting his voice from where he floated high above Gribly’s head, controlling the elements. “Enough of these blasted fireballs and we’ll crumple like a rotten log!”

  Gribly’s blood boiled at the words, and a haze obscured his vision as fatigue wracked his body all at once. No! I won’t have it end this way!

  “We… aren’t… finished… yet!” he roared, raising his hands to the sky and screaming out words he had not dared utter since his last, nearly fatal encounter with Sheolus. “Aura of the Creator! I call you forth! Wherever you are, HEAR ME… and COME!!!”

  At his last word, the storm dropped silent around them, fading into deathly silence… and then rushed outward in a last, desperate finale, pushed on its way by both Striders. Lauro dropped out of the air beside him, falling onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. Gribly doubled over, wheezing, repeating himself again and again… “Come… come… come…”

  For a horrible, despairing moment, Gribly thought his prayer had gone unheard. Had breaking Fate broken his prophetical power, too?

  Then the world SHIMMERED.

  Traveller, the Gray Aura, Guardian of Men, stepped out of a blazing light onto the field of battle.

  The Golden Nation army, right on the point of breaking upon the Lost Walls, halted as one force, clearly frightened by the newcomer. Lauro struggled to his feet, clutching his mechanical sword in one hand, pulling Gribly up with another. The Gray Aura did not seem at all surprised by his summons; indeed, he almost looked as if he had been expecting them.

  “Now,” Traveller said, smiling grimly, “the real fight begins.”

  Prologue, Part Two: Remnants

  Calloway would have died without the Grove; so it was only natural for him to protect it.

  When the Golden Nation had poured into the Grymclaw from all sides, blasting away chunks of the cliffs that had protected the Four Villages for centuries, Cal had been the only one in his home not to lose his head with fear. The strangers who had come before, Gribly and Elia… they had told him such things would happen, and he had believed them. So he had spread the word through the village, and done what he could to help in the face of the crisis.

  At that point, the villages would have been overwhelmed anyway, despite all he’d done. But the nymphs had come, with the Golden Nation nipping at their heels, and they had helped the villagers flee, turning and fighting only when it was necessary to give the old ones and young ones time to rest. Bit by bit, they had managed to escape northward…

  But on the slopes of the rocky highlands, the armies of their foes had caught them. The nymphs, brave Reethe and sly Zain, had fought with all their might, and even the village men had joined the fray, but it was no use. They were all going to die… going to die…

  …but then the Grove had come, pushing its way out of the earth behind them, from the ruins of the Swaying Willow several miles to the north. A great mossy mountain broke from the ground, spreading life in rippling circles of greenery: plants and trees, grass and flowers that seemed to drive the Golden Nation back like an impenetrable stone wall.

  And the Brown Aura had come; the Silent One who slew the enemy with tendrils of bark and stone that sprouted wherever he walked. He had grown the Grove as a place of refuge, he and the Gray Aura, the Traveling One who had organized the survivors, putting forth power into the night, calling all nearby survivors to the Grove through the words of the clerics who still preached the old beliefs.

  With the Brown Aura’s Grove to protect them, and the Gray Aura’s dream-speaking to bring them allies, Cal knew it would take more than the Golden Nation’s demon-machines to trouble the Grymclaw. Still, it could never hurt to be ready…

  Today, like all other days since he had come there, the boy patrolled the edge of the Grove, quarterstaff in hand, ready to repel any attackers. The elders who had come with him might have said it was foolishness for a young boy to think himself a warrior… but they did not know of his Gift. Th
e Gift that the Gray Aura himself had given Cal in a dream; the Gift that made him powerful in a way no Village boy or man had been for generations.

  Cal could Stride Stone.

  The ground rumbled beneath the boy’s feet, too weak for anyone who did not have the Gift, but just strong enough for him to feel. Curious, Cal laid his staff aside, bending down to touch his ear to the grass. In this way, he had soon discovered how to sense who and what might be coming. Far from useless, that was… as long as he didn’t let the elders find out. They didn’t like Striding, even if Strider-nymphs had saved them.

  Rummmble… That was more than one person. More than a few. More than many. Cal couldn’t count, not well, anyway… but he knew the sound of an army when he heard it.

  Slowly, he got up, brushed himself off, and picked up his quarterstaff. His hands were shaking. That army couldn’t be too far off… would he be able to warn the others in time? One of the elders, perhaps? No, they wouldn’t believe him. What about the Raitharch? Or the Sainarch? Their nymphs might understand, if he showed them that he was a Strider…