And then, as quickly as it had started, the jump ended.
“Ugh,” he said, sliding down the staff until he was kneeling in a slouch. A wavy sea of grass was all around them, heralding their arrival in the Greyfeld. The light from his eyes vanished, but…
“Good heavens,” Raenin burst out, “you really did it!”
“Gribly,” Armir said, “your eyes are steaming. Steaming. What did you just do?” They had both let go of the staff, and now crouched beside him.
“Ugh,” he answered. “Can’t… do that… again…” Everything seemed dimmer now, without the Power of Spirit filling him. It was entirely different, entirely superior to Stone… though less solid, in a way.
“Blast,” Armir said, “look, Raenin. A troop ship. But… where are the troops?”
“Ah… Gribly? You need to see this.” It was Raenin talking now. Her voice was disbelieving.
With a painful effort, Gribly rose to his feet, using the staff for support. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, and when he could see again, the sight made him gasp.
The Giant’s Bridge stretched out to the North, like a titanic white bone stretched across a dark sea of blood. But between it and them, where the Greyfeld ran down to a sandy strip of land rimming the sea, the hulk of a Golden Nation troop warship had run aground and tipped to the side.
“There’s blood in the water,” he said quietly. “A lot of it.”
“How can you tell?” said Armir, squinting against the failing light.
“I can… sense it, in a way. Striding gives more sight than what the eyes use. We need to get down there… now.”
“Alright, Gribly, but why?” Raenin supported him as he hobbled weakly towards the ship. Armir slipped on ahead, almost invisible in his gray cloak against the ashy space of the Greyfeld. He leaned on her gratefully, as well as the staff.
“There may be people down there who need our help.”
“Ah…” she said. “The mysterious quest that’s taken us from the battle.” She sounded slightly bitter, all of a sudden. He wasn’t surprised. Both rangers rued being separated from Vastion’s last stand.
“Don’t worry,” he said grimly. “If I’m right, what we’re doing here will save not just Vastion, but the world.”
“Right,” she said. “It’s just that-”
Up ahead, Armir gave a surprised cry. Raenin let go of Gribly, sprinting ahead. “Armir!” As she crested the hill ahead of him, she slipped, trying to turn and run back… but something seized her, dragging her bodily down out of sight.
“Blast, blast, blast…” Gribly muttered, hobbling along. With every step, he drew strength from the earth… but it was not coming fast enough.
He reached the top of the hill, and immediately a ball of fire raced towards him. He cried out, raising the staff, and the flames parted on either side. The long grass blades wrapped around his ankles, slowing him, and suddenly a fountain of earth sprayed out from below, rushing towards him. It can’t be…
Dropping the staff, Gribly thrust out his arms, shouting. The writhing arm of stone and dirt twisted to the side as he diverted its energy, bending it around him to strike back at whoever had thrown it. With a whooshing crunch, it struck the dark form at the bottom of the hill…
…and was stopped by a wall of ice that sprang up inches from the attacker. Gribly stopped his own assault as a beautiful nymph girl rose up from the grass where she had been hiding.
“Elia?” he shouted down, barely able to believe his eyes.
“Gribly?” she said. She threw her hands over her mouth. Yes, it was her! He couldn’t see her face clearly, but…
The wall of ice melted away into a splash of water. Elia started forward slowly, unbelieving, and the dark figure threw back his hood with a harsh laugh.
Gramling. Gribly halted, suddenly wary.
“You.”
“Me,” Gramling agreed. “Here, want your friends back? I only stopped them because the first one tried to stick a blade in me when I surprised him.”
The ground opened up on either side, and a coughing pair of rangers flew out as if they’d been kicked, sprawling on the grass and spitting dirt and dust from their mouths. For a moment it looked as if they would attack Gramling again, but Gribly spoke out quickly.
“Raenin, Armir! Don’t! These are the ones we came for.” It all made sense now… except the part where Sheolus had let him go. Or had that really been him? Had the dream-world invented its own twisted way of giving him information about the future? “I apologize,” Gribly said. “It was my fault for not telling them why we came.”
Gramling said nothing. The rangers said nothing. Only Elia moved, walking forward slowly as if in a trance. Her hair had been dyed black, and cut shorter, and she wore strange black clothes with black skirts that swirled in the wind. She looked gaunt but strong. More beautiful than ever.
“Gribly…” she said again. “It’s been so… I can’t… I…” she seemed to be crying. Gribly ran forward, forgetting all fatigue to embrace her, to comfort her after whatever hellish ordeal she had undergone…
…and stopped dead, three feet away from her. Her eyes… he could see them now, and they were glazed and white. Suddenly he realized why it must have been that she walked with her eyes closed in his dreams.
“I’m blind, Gribly,” she whispered. “I’m blind…” her tears kept coming. He went to her, overcoming his shock, and embraced her.
“I know… you’ll be fine. We can still…” he broke off. Still what? What was he going to say? What could he do?
He glanced at Gramling over her shoulder. His brother looked solemn, and there was a yearning glint to his eye… but no more.
“…So much to tell you,” Elia was saying. He jolted back to the present.
“And I you,” he said.
“But first,” she interjected, wiping her tears away and stepping back from their embrace, “I want you to know who it was that saved me. The one who brought me here. The one who’s going to help us win this war.”
Gribly felt a cold stab in the pit of his stomach.
“Gribly,” Elia finished, “meet Gramling, your brother.”
“We’ve met,” Gribly said darkly. He put out a hand, and his staff flew through the air to land perfectly in his grip.
“No,” Elia protested, putting a hand on his neck and using the other to motion. Blindness seemed barely to have affected her at all. “Really meet him, this time. He’s not who he was.”
“You could say that,” Gramling said, stepping forward and offering his hand, “but the soldiers on that warship wouldn’t believe you.”
So Gramling killed them all. That explains the blood. Elia blanched, making Gribly want to strike his brother right then and there.
But he didn’t. Instead, he reached out his hand… and shook Gramling’s.
“We have a lot to speak of… Brother.” He inclined his chin, eyeing the Pit Strider.
“I can prove myself later,” Gramling said in a low voice, “but for now, I believe you need my help. Hang me afterward, if you want… but you’ve a battle to fight, or else you wouldn’t be here looking for us.”
Gribly opened his mouth, then closed it. “You’re… right.”
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter Eighteen: Roaring
Lauro stabbed, and another Coalskin bled and died. He whipped the jagged edge of his sword out from the soldier’s body, and hot blood spattered his breastplate as the corpse fell to the ground. He whirled, taking off the head of another as it charged a wounded Vastic warrior from behind. The armor on both barely slowed him. Gold might make for good show, and the enemy had a lot of it… but it was terrible armor, too soft.
“Wind Prince!” roared a guttural voice. He spun to face a red-robed Coalskin Heart, with hair dyed a sickly white and a braided beard flecked with blood. The Pit Strider summoned a whipping line of fire, slashing it at him with a hideous war-cry.
Lauro dodged the strike then hurled his sword straight into the He
art’s heart. The Coalskin went down, burbling like an imbecile, and he raced to recover his blade. Fools, he thought, they think their powers protect them better than armor. Stupidity… but who am I to complain?
Retrieving his blade proved harder than he’d thought. Was the blasted thing stuck in the ground?
“Heh… heh…” The bloody Pit Strider! He’d made the ground cling to the blade as it pierced him through! So he was a Stone Strider, too… odd, and not encouraging. Lauro stomped on the Heart’s face, silencing his laugh forever, and pulled the blade free. He turned back to the battle wearily… but there was no one to fight.
He was standing a few yards back from the breach in the barricade… one of many. The Golden Nation had lost hundreds of soldiers trying to scale the hill, but at last, with the help of golems and destroyers, they had done it… and now most of the wall was torn down. The ebb and flow of the battle had passed on from him, but through the smoke and bloody haze of battle he could see golden-armored reinforcements marching in to finish the job.
There were too many to face alone there. Lauro turned, to the press of men and Coalskins back almost a half-mile behind him, right up against the Gray Cathedral. Time to end this, he thought… a little sadly, but not much. He was too tired to feel much of any emotion at this point. I hope Gribly makes it somewhere safe… Elia, too, wherever she is.
And Avarine. Aura save Avarine, whatever else happens.
Roaring a battle-cry, Lauro charged back towards the scattered combatants.
Traveller, he prayed inwardly, if ever there was a time for you to rain death on our enemies… it’s now. And, to his utter shock, there was a reply.
It is already done. May you never doubt again, Lauro Vale.
Lauro halted, mid-charge. What was that supposed to mean?
Lightning streaked down from above, smiting the ground in dozens of places around him… always around him, wherever he turned.
“Ah! What is this? What’s… Traveller! Agh!”
The booming and plashing of thunder overwhelmed his ears, and he was thrown to the ground from the force of the exploding earth all around him. It was as if all the collected energy of a thousand storms had suddenly decided to lance down on him from on high.
Then everything was absolutely still. His ears rang, and the sounds of battle were drowned by the painful white noise. His vision was a mass of rolling lights and clashing colors.
Then, slowly, it died away. Lauro staggered to his feet in disbelief.
In a perfect circle around him stood at least two dozen of the most wild-looking men and women he had ever seen. Their clothes hung in tatters around them, and dozens of jagged, twirling white patterns were burned into every visible inch of skin. Some of them were missing fingers or hands, and their hair… every one of them had hair as white as snow, and it glowed with radiance beyond comprehension. They had obviously used lightning to transport themselves… something he had only done twice, and in the greatest need.
“Wh… who are you?” Lauro said, turning in a slow circle. He knew, though… these were faces he recognized. Faces of people Karanel and Marvol Winter had told him were dead…
“They’re the Windmasters, Lauro. My Windmasters.”
Blood of the Aura…
A hand came to rest on Lauro’s shoulder. He turned… and came face to face with the man he had never thought to see again.
Wild white hair, blowing in the wind. Shaved temples with the white hawk tattooed in white ink on each side. A neatly trimmed beard, framing a muscled, square-jawed face. A crisscross scar across one eye. A winged crown of silver.
Larion Vale. King of Vastion.
“Father.” It wasn’t a question.
“It’s been too long,” Larion said. From a distance, Lauro could hear the sulfurous crackle of more lightning strikes in the distance… and the screaming that followed. So Traveller had made good on both his promises.
“Has it?” Lauro said quietly, danger in his tone. “Has it really? I fight alongside the Lord of Rogues, now.”
“I know,” Larion said. “And I have not forgotten anything that passed between us. But I will not let my kingdom die because of our quarrel. Now is the time to fight the Golden Nation… not each other.” He sounded hoarse, and for the first time Lauro realized how very sunken and red his eyes were. That bespoke either utter exhaustion, or total insanity. His father’s irises were red, too, a far cry from their usual deep blue. What had happened to him?
“You’re here to lift the siege, then?” Lauro asked. His heart pounded. Fear, anger, hope… he felt all these things, but he could not let them control him. Survival was the first order of business, and he had to see his men through.
“Far from it,” Larion laughed without mirth. “We’re here to win the war, Boy. Have I taught you nothing of strategy? Do the unexpected!”
“What do you mean?” Lauro worked hard to keep his growing ire in check.
“First,” the Wind King said, “we rescue your army. Next… we charge the Golden Nation’s lines.”
Lauro stood, stunned. This was madness! Yet Larion seemed totally unaffected, ordering off this and that Windmaster, sending them off one by one to lift the siege on the left and right, and in the center. They departed in flashes, just as they had come… a stunning display of power, and one Lauro wasn’t even sure he could imitate. How had they gotten so powerful?
When the two of them were alone again, Larion Vale drew his enormous black-bladed greatsword from its sheath at his back. It glittered in the weak light that escaped through the cloud cover above.
“Now, Son,” the king said, “we will see to the defense of the Cathedral.”
He raised his sword aloft, roaring his defiance to the skies…
…and the skies answered with death.
A pillar of fire five yards wide burst from the Thunderhead, striking the earth with the force of a hundred thunderballs… right on the heads of the prince and king.
Lauro was slammed to the ground like a twig beneath an onslaught of boulders. Reacting instinctively, he threw up a shield of rushing wind and sizzling lightning. It saved his life, as the fire whipped to either side of his body, but the sheer power of the mysterious Stride still crushed him to the stony, blood-slicked ground. He tumbled and flipped about like a leaf in a storm, and the earth spun in wild circles around him. Up was down and left was right, inside was out and right was wrong. The world was a massive furnace and a freezing peak, a sea of air and a land of fire.
Then, finally, the inferno abated. Shaken, singed, and bloodied, Lauro lay in the midst of a crater as wide as the pillar had been. He was alive, by some miracle, but just barely. Across the crater, he could see that his father was in a similar position. Wind whirled around Larion’s motionless body… thank the Aura he thought to make a shield, too. I hope it kept him alive…
But soon, they might both be dead. In the center of the crater, between them both, stood an enormous red-armored figure wearing a silver helm. He bore no weapon but a spiked metal shield, and a voluminous scarlet cape swept down from shoulders at least nine feet off the ground. His boots were silver, as was the flaming hammer device that glittered on his cape.
“Automo,” Lauro hissed, spitting a tooth from his bloodied mouth. The Red Aura paid him no notice, but swept towards… his father. “AUTOMO!” Lauro roared, trying to struggle to his feet. His sword was still in his hand. He used it to lever himself up.
Automo turned slightly, staring at him flatly with one blue eye. The prince quailed under the stare of his metallic visage, but kept his stare level.
“I have no time for you,” the Aura snapped, in a voice so like Sheolus’s that Lauro almost gaped… but he couldn’t. Invisible bonds of air wrapped him, stronger than any he’d encountered in his life, and many times stronger than he himself could manage. Air flowed continuously into his mouth, blasting down his throat and silencing him more effectively than any gag. “Larion Vale,” Automo boomed, turning back to the fallen k
ing, “look upon me! Look, mortal… and fear your Master!”
Larion lifted himself up on shaking arms, despite the enormous hurt he appeared to have suffered. His breastplate was dented in a way that made Lauro want to wince, and blood dripped from a gash in his forehead and temple. The winged crown of Vastion hung crooked on his head.
“I am no one’s servant!” the king snarled. Without warning he lurched to his feet, throwing out a fist and bellowing, “For my son!”
For my son.
Blue lightning flashed into existence, arcing from man to Aura faster than the eye could follow. But even quicker was Automo’s reaction. In a trice he had lifted his own fist, and a bolt of red lightning crashed into the blue. For a deadly moment the two arcs dueled between the combatants, perfectly aligned, crackling and bursting in a thousand places, growing brighter and brighter until Lauro’s eyes were forced shut by the sheer brilliance.
Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) Page 16