Wurm War

by Christopher Golden

  “Let’s get them,” Timothy said, and he worked the left pedal and turned them to pursue the nearest Wurm. His plan had worked perfectly, bringing them in behind the Wurm raiders. The Wurm were not flying at anywhere near their top speed, taking their time surveying the city below to watch for an attack.

  Timothy increased the gyro’s speed and began to gain on the beast. Edgar flew as quickly as he could, a black blur beside him, but made not a sound.

  Farther ahead he saw members of Verlis’s clan take flight from hidden places on rooftops and spires. Off to the east a pair of Wurm began to tear into each other in midair, fire spilling down from both of them, magic sparking where their claws struck. Chaos erupted. The bells still rang across Arcanum. From a city square down below, a squadron of combat mages began to cast spells skyward.

  Timothy kept to the outer edge of the battle and doggedly pursued the Wurm nearest him. In moments he had pulled up near enough to draw its attention. The boy signaled to Edgar. The rook winked at him and then flew directly across the Wurm’s path, so close that the Wurm’s breath must have warmed him. Then Edgar circled around and back toward Timothy. The Wurm twisted its head to look back over its wings, and its yellow eyes narrowed in surprise and anger when it spotted the gyrocraft.

  With a press of a pedal, Timothy veered west. The Wurm dipped its left wing and turned to follow. Which was precisely what Timothy had wanted.

  “Have you got him?” he called back to Ivar.

  “Slow down,” the Asura replied, his voice curt. “Let him get confident.”

  Timothy glanced back to see the Wurm chasing after them, fire streaming from its nostrils and the corners of its mouth, jaws gnashing. It was thirty feet away, then twenty, gaining fast. It opened its maw, and Timothy could see the fire churning down inside its throat.

  “It’s going to—,” the boy began.

  Edgar came down at blinding speed, cutting across in front of the Wurm again, but this time with his talons out. He tore at the invader’s face, distracting it further.

  Ivar threw a knife. It sliced through the air and went into the Wurm’s open mouth. The beast flinched backward with a cry of pain, and when it shook itself to try to get rid of the blade, it turned its head and Timothy could see the point of the blade sticking out the back of its neck.

  The Wurm reached up to try to pull the blade out of its mouth—blood spilling from its jaws now in place of flame—and Ivar took that moment to act. The gyrocraft had been redesigned so that he and Timothy were back to back, Ivar facing what was behind them, and his seat was open to the sky on top. Now he stood and hurled one of the nets onto the Wurm. Its wings and arms became immediately tangled, and as it struggled, it weakened from its wound and loss of blood. A blast of fire came out of its maw and burned a hole in the net, but still it was tangled, and it began to fall.

  “Way to go!” Timothy shouted.

  He heard a loud cawing and then Edgar calling his name in alarm. But even as he heard the warning he saw something moving out of the corner of his eye. It was above him and to the left, and he turned the gyro toward it. A Wurm raider was bearing down on them. He and Ivar shouted warnings to each other in the same moment. Timothy raised his crossbow and fired, the gyrocraft’s propeller whirring above him.

  The crossbow shaft struck the Wurm in the eye, killing it instantly.

  “That was close,” Edgar called, flying beside him.

  Timothy’s heart was beating so hard he could barely respond. He veered the gyro around and headed west for several seconds to get some distance from the battle, then turned around. The Wurm raiders were all over the southern end of the city now, gathering in clusters to attack the buildings from which the acolytes were launching magical assaults and firing curse-cannons. Timothy had planned to follow his strategy a second time, like a prowling jungle cat, cutting the strays away from the edges of the herd. He would fly in again and lure a Wurm or two after the gyro.

  A massive flash of silver light like liquid metal exploded in the midst of a south Arcanum neighborhood. Timothy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the burst of brilliance, and then narrowed his eyes, trying to see what had caused it. As the silver magic dissipated, showering down like rain on the ruin of an entire city block, Timothy saw that Raptus was down.

  The monstrous Wurm—not really a Wurm anymore, but the biggest dragon who’d ever walked the soil of Terra—was on his side on the ground, one wing crumpled beneath him. Sparks of silver magic flickered all over him, mixing with the dark sorcery that emanated from within Raptus. But more than sparks. On the leathery flesh of his upper torso was a place where his skin had turned that same silver color.

  It began to run, the silver spreading on his flesh. Raptus roared.

  In a vast semicircle around him, the grandmasters began to move in for the kill as the spell they had all worked to cast together did its damage, poisoning Raptus with a magic that Timothy knew would seep into him, find his heart, and kill him. That had been Lord Romulus’s plan, and it seemed to be—

  Timothy could not finish the thought.

  Raptus roared again and spread his wings wide, beating them with enough force that many of the grandmasters were thrown from their feet. The gigantic dragon pushed himself up, all one hundred feet of him, and stood. With a rage like nothing Timothy had ever seen, eyes blind with fury, Raptus tore at his chest, digging furrows in flesh and silver poison alike.

  Then he lowered his massive head and snarled, and the magic enveloping him shimmered and grew brighter by far, and the silver that had been crawling over his flesh began to peel off and fall like metallic snow. Raptus shook himself once, gave another beat of his wings, and it was all gone.

  The Parliament’s plan had failed.

  Timothy thought back to Twilight, to the moment when he had realized that they had no chance at victory, that they were going to lose.

  This felt very much like that.

  A chill passed through him as he realized that he knew a way to beat Raptus. Maybe the only way And yet he knew that the price of victory might be nearly as terrible as defeat.

  Chapter Eleven

  Some of the grandmasters were shouting in triumph. Foxheart even called a hearty congratulations across the rubble of a school to Lord Romulus. But Cassandra noticed that the Grandmaster of the Legion Nocturne did not respond. He was still in combat stance, body low and legs tensed to attack, magic churning around his clenched fists as he watched Raptus reeling from the effects of the poisonous curse that the grandmasters had combined all of their magics to cast. The silver was spreading like fungus across the gigantic Wurm’s body.

  And then it wasn’t.

  Raptus shook, as though he were having some sort of seizure, and Cassandra felt the ground tremble under her feet. Then the gigantic beast began to stand. Even half-crouched, he towered over the grandmasters. She brought her hands up, summoning a combat spell that would shatter the bones of a mage and aiming for Raptus’s eyes.

  Then the monstrosity flapped his wings and the wind struck her, tearing her off the ground and hurling her through the air.

  Cassandra struck the ground in an open courtyard that had once held an elegant fountain. It was shattered and the water sprayed aimlessly across cracked cobblestones. She hit the ground and rolled, banging elbows and one shoulder hard enough that after she came to rest she had to lay there a moment to determine that nothing was broken. Cold water from the broken fountain pooled beneath her, soaking through her robes.

  “Up!” someone shouted. “Get up! We cannot let the monster recover!”

  Dazed, she forced herself to respond. Her ears were ringing, and she realized that she had struck her head on the cobblestones as well. Cassandra rose and looked around. So many faces that she barely recognized, their names a jumble to her. There were combat mages mixed in with the grandmasters now, their battle plan falling apart. But she saw the Voice and Foxheart and Arcturus Tot and so she began to head toward them.

  Then all
the mages and archmages around her were running, and she found herself falling into step beside them. She cursed, shaking her head to clear it.

  “Cassandra, are you all right?” called a voice.

  She turned and saw Tarquine and Parzival off to her left. Belladonna of the Strychnos was with them, and she recognized Aloysius of the Spiral Guild as well, an old man who seemed even more ancient in that moment, face blanched with terror. But none of them were looking at her and she had no idea which of them had called her name.

  Then she heard another voice shouting up ahead, a familiar, rumbling bass. Over the heads of grandmasters and combat mages who were renewing their assault on Raptus, she saw one who stood head and shoulders above all the others. Lord Romulus still wore his horned helmet and the heavy robes of the Legion Nocturne, and his very presence, his seeming indestructibility, made him even more of a rallying point than any command he might shout. The sight of him, blue light springing from his hands, was enough to help clear Cassandra’s head.

  She charged toward Romulus.

  Beyond him, Raptus roared again and spread his wings. For the first time she noticed that there was no sign of the silver poison on his flesh. Her stomach gave a sickening twist as she realized that Raptus was completely unharmed. The entire Parliament had combined their power to cast that spell, and the Wurm had only been staggered a few moments before his own magic had burned off the curse.

  We should have used a combat spell, not poison, she thought wildly. Should have tried to just blast a hole right through him!

  But from what Romulus had told them about the way Raptus had healed after such attacks during the battle of Twilight, they had all agreed that the monster’s hide was too tough, and that the magic that seemed to suffuse his entire body would just heal him.

  What now?

  Cassandra glanced around for cover. They should all be falling back, she realized, withdrawing from the burning rubble to the next block. But Romulus wasn’t ready for a strategic withdrawal yet, he was shouting at the combat mages and grandmasters, ordering them to spread out again and prepare for another attack.

  But Raptus wasn’t going to give them that much time.

  Many of the grandmasters continued their attack as they raced to follow Romulus’s instructions. Bayonnis of the Celestial Guild opened his mouth and, almost as though he were a Wurm, black fire erupted and seared the air. It struck Raptus’s left wing and stuck there, burning the flesh like acid. The Hecate Grandmaster, a woman whose name Cassandra could not recall, raised her hands—fingertips as black as those of a Nimib assassin—and purple-black magic crackled from them, striking the gigantic Wurm in the lower torso. The attack was harmlessly absorbed.

  Fool, Cassandra thought. Dark magic was not going to affect a beast such as Raptus.

  She had to get to Romulus, convince him to command them all to find cover and attack from there. Parts of the city were going to have to be sacrificed. Hard decisions had to be made. If the Wurm raiders could all be destroyed—and she had no doubt that they would be—then every mage in Arcanum could converge on Raptus.

  Every surviving mage, at least.

  From off to her left, someone cast a spell that struck Raptus in the face with a flash like lightning. Ice formed on his horns and covered his eyes, and steam rose from his great maw. But Raptus only shook, cracking the ice, and more steam rose as it melted away.

  There were dozens of people all around her, grandmasters and combat mages both, and she shoved past a woman she didn’t recognize, and a man that she did only vaguely. With a sideways glance she saw Tarquine and Parzival, and from the motion of his arms and the disappointment on his face, she realized that the ice spell had come from Parzival. Again she felt a twist inside her. If the Grandmaster of the Order of the Winter Star could not use an ice spell on Raptus, that was another type of magic they could forget about even trying again.

  They were running out of options.

  Raptus spread his wings again. Cassandra stopped running and dropped into a crouch, throwing up a magical shield. She had been fortunate not to brake any bones after being blown across the cobblestones and rubble the first time.

  But Raptus was not trying to blow them back. He did not even flap his wings. Instead, he darted his head down at them like a serpent ready to bite. His jaws opened wide. Cassandra saw the rows of long, thin fangs, each as tall as she was.

  Then the liquid flame shot from his burning maw, a tidal wave of fire that engulfed the entire left side of their crescent attack. Cassandra screamed and threw herself back as the fire roared and splashed only twenty or thirty feet away from her. The heat seared her flesh and singed her hair. Smoke rose up from her robes as she stared in horror, watching all those mages being buried beneath that volcanic blast.

  “No!” she cried, throat raw from the heat.

  She tried to remember who she had seen over there. Aloysius, certainly. Tarquine and …

  The lake of fire began to dissipate. There had been dozens of men and women there, combat mages and grandmasters alike. Now there were four, each of them encased in a shimmering golden sheath of magic. Only those four had erected defenses in time and been powerful enough to withstand Raptus’s fire.

  Of the four, she recognized only Tarquine of the Caerleon. She put a hand over her mouth in horror as she saw him look around for Parzival, saw the look in his eyes as he realized his friend was dead. And yet Parzival had been only one of so many. Aloysius of the Spiral Guild. Bayonnis of the Celestial Guild. Mistress Belladonna, Grandmaster of the Strychnos, and for so long filled with hate for Timothy Cade.

  All dead.

  And so many more.

  Cassandra forced herself to push her fear aside, and she reached down deep within herself, deeper still, tapping into the magical matrix from which they all drew. She dredged something up from the depths of the matrix, magic like nothing she had ever dared try to wield. Her body thrummed with it, her hair crackling with static, and white light of such purity as she had never imagined burst into illumination around her hands.

  She cried out to the three moons as though they might hear her, and she punched the sky, letting her rage carry that pure white magic. It shot from her hands, chilling the air as it passed, snuffing the flames beneath it. The spell struck Raptus in the left shoulder and the crack of bone could be heard echoing all across the remains of southern Arcanum.

  Sickly yellow eyes wide, the hundred-foot Wurm looked down at his shoulder in astonishment at the pain. He had been injured.

  A sudden tumult of voices rose, then, mages shouting in triumph. Despite the death of so many, they redoubled their efforts. Spell after spell painted the sky, striking Raptus, most of them doing nothing. Again liquid fire dripped from the corners of his jaws, showering down to the ground like lava slipping over the edges of a volcano mouth.

  He could be hurt. Cassandra was glad of that. But her assault had caused the others to do the opposite of what she knew they ought to be doing. Lord Romulus shouted again, and now he was running at Raptus as though he could attack the Wurm directly, hand to hand.

  “No,” she whispered, unable to hear her own voice amid the cacophony of battle.

  It had felt good, hurting Raptus. But they could not defeat him. Not this way. His magic deflected most attacks and healed others, and his fire would soon raze the entire city to the ground. The Xerxis would be nothing but embers soon.

  Cassandra looked around her at what remained of the most powerful mages in the world. Some were already dead. The rest would soon join them. A great weight of sadness descended upon her as she realized that she, too, would die before the morning was out.

  Tears slipped down her cheeks as she raised her hands, summoning another spell, mustering as much destructive force as she could manage. Then she ran to join the others in battle. To join them in death.

  Ivar held on to the sides of the gyrocraft and hoped that Timothy wasn’t pushing the invention beyond its capacity. They were diving toward the g
round at such a hard angle that Ivar was looking almost straight up at the sky. He forced himself to twist sideways so that he could get a look at their destination.

  Raptus was under attack. The grandmasters and combat mages who still lived were circling around the monster. Instead of another unified assault, however, they were casting magic with wild abandon, one spell after another. The cumulative effect of the attacks could not be great, but they were at least keeping Raptus distracted for a moment. None of those spells was going to kill the beast, but for the moment they were annoying enough to have stopped his advance into the city. Soon, though, the furnace in Raptus’s chest would replenish his natural flame, and he would let loose another fiery attack on his enemies.

  And then it would be over. All that would remain would be for Raptus to complete his destruction of Arcanum, after which the Wurm would begin their march across the entire planet of Terra, scouring the world of mages.

  Ivar’s entire tribe had been destroyed by the mages. Once upon a time he would have celebrated Raptus’s victory. But he had learned since returning to Terra with Timothy that it was only a handful of powerful, cruel, and vindictive mages who were responsible for what had happened to the Asura. Like any other race, there was more good among them than bad.

  The gyrocraft turned hard to the left, keeping well away from Raptus, swooping low over the heads of the mages. In the sky above them, farther to the north, Ivar could see the aerial battle. Verlis’s clan fought fang and claw against Raptus’s soldiers, tearing at one another, breathing fire. And on the rooftops, the acolytes of every guild had used up many of the magical weapons they’d been given and were now combating the Wurm with blades and axes and fundamental spells.

  Death walked the streets of Arcanum that day, and it had already claimed far too many lives.

  “Ivar, go!” Timothy shouted.

  The Asura was ready. At the boy’s word, he gripped the metal bars of the gyro tightly and hurled himself out of the open back of the contraption. He spun in the air, twisting around so that after he’d fallen the ten feet to the broken, smoldering cobblestones, he landed in an easy crouch. Ivar glanced up to see Timothy veering back into the sky, flying the gyro away from Raptus just in case the monstrosity let loose another volley of fire.