by B. J. Keeton
If his Conjuring failed, he would find out shortly.
Damien knew that his abilities were not at their full power, and the best bet he had was to make an escape. He ducked as low to the ground as he could, feeling the whoosh of an Annuban's halberd sweep just above him. Energy crackled as the Horrith guards turned their bird-like heads to focus on him. He needed at least one of them to strike him, to pour at least as much energy into the nanites coating his body as he had used to maim the Annuban moments before. He hoped, though, that only a single strike would hit him while he prepared the Conjuring. He could probably—probably—withstand two strikes at once, but if he got a triple dose, his nanites would be too busy attempting to protect him from the attacks that they couldn’t do what he needed them to do.
When it came, the shock hit him like nothing he had ever felt. Maybe it was the close range. Maybe he was already expending too much energy keeping his arm from being a liability. Or maybe it was just that the Horrith stopped pulling its punches.
The reasons why didn’t matter when Damien felt the arc of electricity strike his back. As the energy began to burn into the nanites, he knew that he had one chance, one shot, one opportunity to live through this and find out who broke into his house and wanted him dead. For a brief second, he was thankful he had been able to Conjure himself invisible that night at his house. If he had been confronted with a situation like this as he first reintegrated his nanites, he would have been a dead man.
He saw the halberd crushing his left arm. He saw the two golems crashing into one another and convulsing as they died. And he saw Ceril's face as it was the last time Damien had seen him. When he had just been Gramps, and the world had finally been a simple place, at least for a little while.
He held onto that. He felt that sense of loss, of happiness, of anger and regret. He grabbed it, focused it into his nanites, and pushed outward. He redirected the energy from the Horrith staff weapon outward in all directions. The current kept coming in, and he felt the nanites in his back start to give way as the energy became too much for them to take. When he unleashed it, he felt that the force would never destroy his attackers. He was not strong enough yet. I’m sorry, Ceril, he thought. The pain from his failure, all his regret and anger, was picked up by his nanites. The tiny machines fed on his emotion, and Damien found himself surrounded in an arcing dome of purple-green energy that deflected all of the Horrith’s lightning and the Annuban’s axes.
Damien stood up. He was completely protected inside the dome of energy. Somehow, his rage, his fear—all of his emotions—were replaced by tranquility and calm. He held his hands out to his sides, palms up, and the purple-green shield pulsed once and expanded outward from the elderly technomage.
It was enough. When he had seared the Annuban's face off, it had been a directed strike, focused. Now, it was an omni-directional power play, and it was just enough to knock the constructs out of his way. The Horrith who had struck him got caught in a feedback loop and dropped its staff. The lone Annuban in the group stumbled backward as its axe buried itself deep inside its chest.
The other two Horrith sentries’ eyes crackled with electricity; Damien had given them matching scorches across the face, hindering their vision, if not completely blinding them. Electricity arced randomly around him as he ran past his attackers.
Smaller arcs of electricity fell from his feet as the nanites coating his body attempted to ground whatever residual current was in his system. He knew the golems would follow him, and he knew that he might run into more.
But he had survived—barely. The old man felt young again; he had not fought like that in quite some time. His feet carried him down the left-hand corridor from which the constructs had come earlier, toward—he hoped—the Library and Headmaster Squalt.
He heard heavy footsteps behind him; the security drones were coming after him. They had recovered. He knew that his attack wouldn’t kill them, but he marveled at the speed of their recovery. Damien could not tell how far back they were or how long it would be until they caught up with him. He never looked back to see, either.
Chapter twenty-Two
Swinton Marelotov hadn’t thought carrying another person’s supply pack would be that tough. It really hadn’t been at first, but the rocky, always-uphill terrain was having its way with him, and Swinton was getting tired.
He blamed it all on Harlo’s bag.
He couldn’t just leave it behind, either. She was the only medic they had, and if those angels hadn’t killed her yet, she would need her supplies to patch up any of them who got injured. From the way the past twenty-four hours or so had been going, there was likely to be quite a bit of patching going on before they were done.
A screech echoed all around him.
Swinton dropped to one knee as soon as he heard the sound. He ducked under an outcropping and tossed both bags on the ground at his feet. He peered around, doing his best to remain hidden, but saw nothing.
A second screech.
Another wonderful downside to being in the mountains was that everything echoed. If a single rock fell from a cliff, it sounded like an avalanche. Because of the echo and amplification, Swinton assumed there was just one angel screeching, but he couldn’t be sure. He also couldn’t tell where it was. He just knew that it was nearby. The rocky terrain echoed too much for him to locate its source.
It hadn’t even been an hour since Harlo had been taken, and he was already about to run into another freaking angel. He cowered under the minimal shelter he had found, and re-secured the packs he had to carry. If he waited just a little more, there was a good chance the screecher would go somewhere else and leave him alone.
Dust trickled down in front of his face from the edge of the overhang. He heard flapping, then a dull thud above him. Something landed on the rock he was using for shelter.
He heard another shriek.
Swinton closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He was shaking, and he felt like he needed to vomit. He thought back to his training with Bryt. What was it that Bryt always told him?
“You have to calm down at some point, Swinton.”
Calm down, sure. Like he could be calm when he had watched the other four members of his team get kidnapped. Like he could be calm when he was the only one left.
But he had to be.
Bryt’s voice filled his mind. “If you’re spastic in a fight, you’re no good to anyone except your enemy. Take a second, calm yourself down, and look at your options. Most of the time, there are more than appear at first glance.”
Okay, he had stopped shaking. That was good. Not shaking meant calm. Next, options. What options did he have? He had his gun, his nanite sleeve, and his packs of supplies.
More dust fell in front of him. He heard scraping above him. He figured it was one of the big, purple men shuffling around up there looking for him.
As another screech sounded, he started shaking again, and had to take a few more breaths to calm himself before it became a problem. It was only going to be a matter of time before the screecher found him. The thing probably already knew he was there, anyway. Why else would it have landed directly on top of him? Swinton understood how low the odds were that it was a coincidence.
So he had to do something, or he would be taken like the others. But what could he do? Shoot the thing? Burn it with some kind of Conjured fire? Throw medical supplies at it and hope to heal it to death? Nothing stood out as a good idea, but sitting there until it snatched him up was an even worse one.
More screeching.
More dust swirled in front of his hidey-hole, and he heard wings flapping. The thing was taking off. Did he really get that lucky?
No, of course not. The angel’s feet appeared in front of him and descended from the overhang. They were bare and sticking out from beneath a flowing purple robe. They touched down softly, and the being they belonged to knelt down immediately. Its wings were outstretched, and their span was long enough that they fully blocked the purple sun from beam
ing in on Swinton. Darkness fell around him, and he stared into the angel’s bloodshot eyes. They almost glowed in the low light.
Swinton swallowed hard, and his assailant’s gaze never left him. Until that moment, Swinton had thought Bryt—small as he was—had the most intimidating stare he had ever seen. He felt like his soul was being examined.
Neither of them moved for a long moment, then Swinton decided to do something. It might not be the right option, but at least it was an option.
He pulled his gun’s nose up and fired at the winged man. The gun wasn’t a slug-thrower, either, and if it had been, things might have turned out differently. As it was, however, the pulses of blue energy that shot out of the gun were intercepted before they reached their target. They dissipated as they struck the broadside of the Flameblade the angel brought up to protect itself. Swinton kept firing, even trying to lower the intensity of the pulses mid-barrage to see if the wider, less focused shots would make it partially around the Flameblade’s sponge-like aura.
No such luck.
Any shot he fired, the angel’s sword absorbed, its purple aura glowing brighter with each burst it yanked out of the air. The purple man’s face might as well have been stone.
Well, that isn’t working, Swinton thought. He gulped and tried to remember what Harlo had said to get its attention. He was pretty sure it was just Charon.
“It’s okay,” Swinton said. “I’m a friend.” Like it would believe that after you just shot at it, Swinton. It has to be smarter than that.
No response.
“I’m a Charon.”
It screeched in response.
That was it, all right. The angel’s mouth didn’t move to emit the sound, but it very obviously originated with him. There was another word, though. What had the thing said to Harlo before it took her? Swinton briefly wondered if it was smart to go that route. If it took Harlo because she had said that word, would he fare any better?
Now that the creature wasn’t shielding itself from Swinton’s shots, it turned its Flameblade toward Swinton. It jabbed quickly at him, and he was able to move to one side. The thing slashed at him, and he just barely pushed himself far enough away to avoid being cut. The purple fire surrounding the Flameblade touched him, but he felt nothing. He sat still, and the angel pointed the sword’s tip deliberately at Swinton’s throat.
This is what I get for shooting at it, Swinton thought. I’m gonna die right here. I’m too dead to be kidnapped.
Then the word came. He remembered what Harlo had been saying. He licked his lips and started shaking. “Juh-juh,” he started. His mouth felt dryer than it may ever have. He coughed to clear his throat. He clenched his teeth and made himself focus. “Jaronya?” He had intended it as a statement, but it came out as a question.
The angel’s eyes narrowed and thrust the sword toward Swinton’s neck. He jerked to the side, and felt the metal bite into the flesh just below his left jaw. He put his hand up there to stop himself from bleeding out, but there weren’t torrents of red everywhere. The angel had missed his jugular.
He didn’t have long to celebrate being alive because the angel pulled the Flameblade back slightly and stabbed directly through his left shoulder. If the wall behind him had been anything but rock, he would likely have been pinned to it. Instead, he heard metal strike the stone behind him as pain radiated from his shoulder and into the rest of his body.
Being stabbed hurt so badly that Swinton barely even noticed when the sword disappeared. One second it was buried inside his shoulder, and the next it was just gone. It hadn’t pulled out. It had just vanished. The angel’s arm, however, had not. A large, purple hand gripped Swinton’s injured shoulder and pulled him out of his hiding place. He yelped in pain as his attacker’s fingers dug into his wound.
Swinton found his feet unable to touch the ground. He hovered there for a second before the ground began disappearing beneath him. The angel was kidnapping him, after all.
Luckily, the angel had adjusted his grip from his stab wound. Swinton was being hauled like he was some sort of sack, with the winged man’s arm wrapped solidly around his midsection. The mountains rushed by beneath him, and he saw for the first time that there was indeed a path through the mountains. At least, by air.
Walking that path would have been nearly impossible—ridges, crags, and chasms would have been impossible to traverse—but there was a clear, winding valley higher up that reminded Swinton of one of the Skylanes back on Erlon. He had only flown in the Skylanes a couple of times, but the angel’s flight-path was very reminiscent of weaving in and out of traffic between Bester’s skyscrapers. They were gaining altitude, even though the ground remained a consistent distance beneath them. Swinton had no way to gauge how high they were, but it was getting colder, which meant higher altitude.
Each beat of his kidnapper’s wings caused Swinton’s injured shoulder to throb. The pain was tolerable, but just barely. Luckily, the longer they flew, the less he felt the pain in his arm. The wingbeats hurt less and less, even though they were steady and never slowed. The numbness began at the wound, and worked its way all the way down his arm and into his fingers. They had been in the air for maybe five minutes when he lost all ability to control his arm.
It had never occurred to Swinton that the loss of sensation and control in his arm would affect his ability to hold onto Harlo’s medical supplies, but when he saw the pack plummet to the ground, he cursed himself.
Hope we don’t need those any time soon, he thought. A knot formed in his stomach as he watched the medical pack fall. He wished that he had stayed a scholar six years ago. He never would have been in this mess if he hadn’t been mesmerized by Ceril’s damn Flameblade. He never would have been in a situation to be kidnapped in the first place, and thus he never would have dropped the supplies that might have saved someone’s life. If someone died because they didn’t have something in that satchel, it would be on him.
Swinton paused deriding himself as his captor flew out of the Skylane. This must have been what Ceril had been talking about when he said they needed to find civilization. Ruins stretched out below him—broken buildings, foundations, roofless houses, shattered towers. He could see what had to have been roads once upon a time, but now, they would barely pass for footpaths. Swinton struggled for a better look around, and as he swept his gaze from left to right, he saw that the entire ruined city was encircled by mountains, as if it was in some sort of valley in the middle of the mountain range.
The angel made a beeline for the only standing and complete building Swinton could see. It was a tower that dwarfed the rest of the ruins. It was, of course, purple, but it was also edged in gold. Its entire surface shimmered in the twin violet suns, their light unobstructed by clouds at this altitude. Many of the roads connected with the tower, like spokes of a giant, broken wheel. Maybe half a dozen of the angels flew around the tower at various altitudes—probably security patrols—and Swinton saw three more standing in front of the tall doors at its base. His captor wheeled himself around the tower and spiraled toward the top, flying formation with the patrols until he landed on a balcony over three-quarters of the way up.
He dropped Swinton without warning, and the Flameblade once again appeared in the angel’s hand. He pointed the sword’s golden blade at the wall, the purple fire appearing to melt a hole large enough for Swinton to fit through.
Swinton didn’t move. He just looked at the hole, then back at the winged man standing over him. The angel gestured toward the opening he had made as though he wanted Swinton to hop right through so he could be sealed up inside the tower, but Swinton just stared at him. He wasn’t going in there unless he had to.
To be fair, he was probably going to have go in there very shortly, but any kind of resistance he could muster was good.
“Swinton, are you okay?” said a voice from inside the hole. “What happened?”
Swinton tried to peer inside, but he could see nothing. “Harlo?” he asked.
; “Yeah,” came the reply. “What happened to your arm?”
“How did you—”
“Medic.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Swinton said. “This one stabbed me before he flew off with me. I kind of shot at him first, though, so I might have brought it on myself.”
“Why don’t you come in here and let me take a look at it? Were you able to grab my pack before you got taken?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I did—”
“Well, throw it through to me, then come in. You’re not going anywhere else. That balcony’s not exactly accessible, you know?”
Swinton cleared his throat. “Did being the operative word there, Harlo. I…kind of dropped it on the way up here.”
“Oh,” she said. The one word conveyed a lot of disappointment. “How did you—”
“I can’t exactly…feel my arm. It went dead a few minutes after he started flying us up here, and that was the arm I had your pack around. I just couldn’t hold on anymore, Harlo. I’m really sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too, Swinton. The supplies would have been able to help your arm. I’ll just have to see what I can do like this, though. I might be able to work something out with my sleeve.”
“I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Most people wouldn’t. Anyway, come in here. Tall, dark, and purple over there isn’t looking too happy about us chatting like this.”
Swinton looked up at his kidnapper, who was still pointing his Flameblade toward the wall. He must have been keeping the hole open. He stared at Swinton, his face expressionless. The lack of expression was more intimidating than anger would have been. If Swinton had any indication of how the angel felt about his prisoner, he would have felt better. As it was, he felt he might be served a nice, homemade breakfast once he got inside the tower, or he might be thrown off the balcony. They were equally likely.
He pushed himself up with his good arm and felt his balance waver. The wind didn’t seem that bad when he was lying down, but once he stood up, Swinton felt the gusts more acutely. He tried to steady himself, but his left arm hanging as dead weight made it harder than it should have been. He put one foot back to brace himself, but he found only air.