Just as they fired at Aireon, fire flashed in the cockpit of the one farthest to the right. It turned back into its companions, rail guns blazing. Its spikes tore into the one nearest it, and the second gunship careened into the third one as the first continued blasting the fourth into oblivion. The first gunship then exploded from the inside out, and Blaze boomed as he landed right next to Aireon while the wreckage of the four gunships fell to the streets.
They looked around and they were standing at the crossroads of four city streets. Damaged skyscrapers were on all four corners, and piles of flaming wreckage littered the streets around them. Then the two of them stood for a moment, just breathing deeply, but not rapidly. They could hear more High-Born coming, and there were a lot of them. Blue and red flames raced up and down Blaze and his sword beamed with near-white light while the air shimmered strangely around Aireon and whipped her hair violently.
They could hear the gunships closing in, and they could see the glimmering outlines of hover tanks rising above the ground from the hidden elevators across the city.
“Air Makes Fire Grow,” Blaze said, his voice as deep and booming as thunder.
“You Want Air, Hottie?” Aireon’s voice echoed as if a dozen women were speaking at the same time.
Then, she gave him a fierce grin, and opened her arms as both of their eyes flashed.
Blaze bent his knees, and pulled in his arms, and the fire surrounding him began increasing in intensity. His eyes shone with the horrible power of the sun as Aireon began twirling and spinning. She lifted slightly off the ground as she began her strange dance again. Dust swirls kicked up in the distance, and ran down the four streets towards them. Sand, ash, and small pieces of rubble mixed with the massive runnels of air, giving the wind a dark and visible shape as it surrounded them in protective fury.
Windows on the upper levels of the buildings began shattering as the wind started to howl. Then, dozens of gunships began swarming around the corners of the various buildings. The tanks in the distance had gotten closer, and they were surrounded again. This time by a force twice the size of the one they had already defeated. Aireon shouted as her arms moved faster, and Blaze’s battle cry reverberated as the flames on him turned a bluish-white. A couple of gunships began firing at them as the others turned in near unison. The spikes ricocheted off her and melted before they hit him. The tanks in the distance began firing, and a runnel of fire raced from Blaze’s chest as he released his flames into Aireon’s spiraling tentacles of air.
His fire spun around them and a tornado-shaped inferno snarled at the High-Born battle group. As the flames ascended high into the sky, her ire melded with his ferocity and became a growling vision of nature’s wrath. Although a host of rail spikes began impacting the outer walls of it, they instantly vaporized in puffs of purplish-white as their remnants twisted into the flaming tornado. As the tornadic beast’s roar grew louder and louder, the structures around them began swaying and small fissures formed in the cement at their bases.
For several moments, the High-Born bombardment grew in fierceness until a near-solid wall of purple haze circled around the lowest levels of the flaming tornado that was rapidly growing in size and intensity. In the eye of the towering inferno were Blaze and Aireon with asphalt bubbling around them. Her feet hovered just above the ground while her body rapidly whirled around, and he was arched over backwards with fire pulsing outward from him as they both poured in everything they had to feed the other’s power...
...The skyscrapers nearest them began splintering...
...The ground around them started rumbling...
...The cracks in the sidewalks grew...
...Their combined battle cry overpowered the flaming winds and explosions around them...
...And molten steel and large sections of concrete broke off the buildings, beating and battering each other as they merged with the fiery maelstrom. The sidewalks erupted into huge, jagged pieces as the skyscrapers groaned painfully, and the asphalt around Blaze and Aireon liquefied into bright orange spirals that whorled into the tornado. The High-Born battle group had apparently also let go of their strategy of not using high-explosives because missile detonations now flashed all over the outer wall, and so many rail spikes were impacting that they had become a solid purple haze.
All at once, massive cracks raced up the full height of the skyscrapers with pops almost as loud as the wind itself. Then, the entire buildings became part of the blistering cyclone as they crumbled before the power of the blazing winds. Aireon could feel that she would soon be unable to keep up enough air to fuel Blaze. He apparently knew it too, and shot her a glance. Through the unspoken bond of their shared power, she understood.
She stopped pulling in air, and she knew that Blaze would burn what was left in just a few seconds. Then, she gathered another tremendous burst of air from as far as she could possibly reach and heaved on it with all of her might. The fires around them suddenly doused, and they could see the entire High-Born force through the heated air for just a split second.
Then, her incoming rush of wind collided into his airless heat.
Blaze and Aireon stumbled as the ground quaked around them. If it had not been for their powers, they would have been swept completely away. Fire and wind joined in an immense, bellowing shockwave that sounded alive as it leveled the immediate area, and the nearest buildings disintegrated as they watched a crater form around them. Enraged, flame-soaked winds beset the entire High-Born battle group as the wrathful monster that Blaze and Aireon had unleashed swallowed gunships and tossed tanks as if they were children’s toys.
They watched as it stormed from them, flattening buildings, flinging gunships, and rolling tanks end over end for more than two miles in every direction. But the flames did not just stop, they continued across the landscape and rocked the outer buildings. All of those buildings wavered and cracked as the flames struck them. And they watched as the wall of fire continued even farther down the distant streets, and it seemed to travel outward for several more seconds. Finally, they could no longer see it, but they could see the evidence of fires starting somewhere beyond their vision.
Aireon’s eyes flickered to normal as she ran to Blaze. He doused his flames and dropped his sword as she jumped into his arms, hugging him tightly as she drew in cooler air for them to breathe. They both laughed as Harold took off his helmet and then they breathed deeply for a few moments. Just as they were catching their breath, Gabby cupped Harold’s face and kissed him with as much passion as she had put into her cyclonic dance...
...He hesitated for a moment...
...And then he returned her kiss with the intensity of his hottest flames. She cradled his head in her arms as his arms tightened around her waist, and they embraced for several moments, kissing feverishly, not hiding their mutual attraction or feelings for the other.
As the seconds passed, the kiss slowly became light pecks that faded into a gentle hug. Then, they just held one another. When Harold’s eyes met hers, he noticed the tears in her eyes, and she brushed away a tear on his own face. Then, she laid her cheek on his shoulder, and he rested the side of his face on the back of her head.
And there they stood, just breathing, victorious against all odds.
Chapter 48
“I can’t believe we just did that,” she said as she raised her eyes to his.
“I can’t believe that we’re still alive,” he said as he eased his hug.
“We need to go,” she replied as she stepped back.
“Yeah, we’ve already been here too long,” he said as he raised his finger to her chin and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “But it was worth it.”
She smiled girlishly nearly giddy with excitement as he retrieved his sword. Then, they intertwined their fingers and walked toward the west.
“I’m exhausted,” he said.
“I know,” she replied. “I feel like I could sleep for a week.”
After two more steps, Harold saw a fire in d
istance that reminded him of something. It took him a moment, and he felt Gabby tensing as he realized what it was. This is just like that dream I had before I left Foxx Hole!
“We’ve got to go,” Harold said, panic edging in his voice.
He could see the terror in Gabby’s eyes as she said, “It’s too late, they’re everywhere!”
She pulled an air-dome around them just as rail spikes streaked at them. Aireon’s eyes beamed, and flames covered Blaze. He looked around, trying to find a place to air-burn to safety, and he realized that she wasn’t exaggerating when she had said that they were everywhere. Their moment of passion had blinded his sense of danger, and apparently hers too. Dozens of rail spikes were already slamming into her barrier, and he barely had time to add his fire to her shield to save them both as dozens more began pounding them.
There was something else, too. A strange sound that was unlike anything he had ever experienced. He could not tell where it was coming from, but somehow, it was interfering with his ability to focus. He noticed that Aireon’s eyes were flickering and she was going to one knee. He grabbed her and air-burned toward a large pile of rubble that would give them some cover.
When they thundered back into existence, they were not anywhere that he had intended. He spun around, and noticed that the pile of rubble he had aimed for was at least a hundred yards to his left. The ground next to them exploded, and they staggered in the wake of a rocket strike. He held her hand and they began running toward the rubble as rail spikes began rattling all around them. He noticed that she felt heavy and he glanced at her. She was holding her leg, and he could see a piece of metal stained with blood sticking out of her leg. The power in her eyes was barely a twinkle now, and she seemed dazed. And then he heard that noise again, but this time it was much stronger and coming from all directions around him.
He heard her shout and he saw her air dome kick up dust around them, and then rail spikes began pulverizing it. Whatever the noise was, it was making it difficult for him to think, but he had to move. The effort it took for him to air-burn was nearly too much, but they thundered out of sight.
When they came back into being, he didn’t know where he was, but the noise had only lessened by a little. He held her tight and air-burned again, aiming for a group of buildings far in the distance. Dirt spun around him and he fell into a pile of tank wreckage, and he found it nearly impossible to stand. He looked at her, and she was on her hands and knees throwing up. The noise was all around, louder than it had been yet.
“I will not die like this!” he shouted, lashing out with feral despair at where he thought the noise was coming from.
He was surprised to see the cloak of a hovering machine fail just a few yards from him and only a few yards above the ground. It rattled in the fury of his flame-jet, and fell to the ground. He staggered and caught himself on the tank rubble. As more noise closed in on him, he realized that he recognized the machine in front of him.
It was one of the A.I. Drones from the High-Born Vista. Blaze’s heart sank because there was nothing that could help him now. The only things that had ever stood up to the High-Born were apparently on their side.
He blistered the air in the direction of the increasing noise, and Aireon weakly gestured toward another source of the incoming noise. His flames brought another one into sight and it exploded while Aireon managed to cause the cloak to fail on a third one. He hit it with a flame-jet and it wobbled but did not fall. The air rippled all around him, and the noise was now deafening. He could see the muzzle flashes of incoming rail spikes, and he could no longer think at all.
He grabbed Aireon and he heard her shriek as he poured everything he had into his air-burn. He heard thunder and fire flashed. Then, concrete, steel, and brick tumbled all around him. When he realized what was going on, he heard Aireon screaming frantically, and he was so dizzy that he fell. Aireon tumbled out of his grasp, and he saw fire on her back and legs. He reached for it, and pulled it off her as he fell to his all fours, sword tumbling from his grasp.
The noise had stopped, but he could still hear it some distance from him, and it was getting closer. He looked up. He had made it to the edge of the blast wave, and had apparently materialized in the outer wall of a burning building. The flames on his arms were dousing and rousing, and he picked up his sword as he crawled to Aireon, and grabbed her by her armor. Then, he drug her deeper into the burning building. He nestled her in a corner, behind some debris. She had lost consciousness, and he could see a trail of blood behind her.
He did not even want to look at her burns.
The dizziness was not as severe as it had been a moment ago, but the pounding in his head along with the ringing in his ears had replaced it. He lay down by Gabby, and noticed that her eyes were closed, and she was not moving. He tried to pull on the air and air-burn, but couldn’t get a good grip as his headache overwhelmed him. He turned to his side and vomited.
And the noise was getting louder.
He staggered to his feet, using his sword to help him rise. At least we made a death worthy of remembrance, he thought. Then he summoned what remained of his fire. It weakly rolled over him as what was left of the roof tore away to reveal the outlines of three cloaked A.I. Drones, and their horrible racket. He lashed out at the nearest one, and it wavered as it came into sight, but it did not fall. Blaze could feel his senses slipping into blackness as he struck out at the thing again. He was pretty sure that he saw it explode as he went to his knees.
He heard something clatter next to him, and he realized it was his sword.
His senses were so contorted now that he swore he could hear the noise with his nose, and he picked up the scent of ash with his fingertips. Something rocketed by him, and he felt concrete or maybe it was steel hit him in the chest, or was it his leg. He looked through his ear as another rail spike passed just above him.
He saw a mother standing at her stove stirring a pot of turnips... A little sister peeking around the corner of the kitchen... A little girl smiling in her new dress... A little boy poking out his chest as he gave his hero a new pair of overalls... A smiling young woman whose hair was full of white and purple flowers dipping her head as she leaned in for her first kiss... Another young woman professing her love at the moment before her impending death... A little boy in a burlap helmet holding up a stick...
“They can’t never win, ‘cause they ain’t good... And don’t you never forget that.”
He could have sworn that he just heard an explosion, or maybe it was two now.
His tongue saw something glitter, and his finger saw an explosion where one of the last two A.I. Drones had been. The other one turned, and he thought it blew up too, but he couldn’t be sure, because dust and ash were all over his fingertips, getting in the way. His eyes heard what sounded like a sledgehammer repeatedly hitting tin, and he thought he felt tremors going through the ground.
The remains of the wall in front of him collapsed, and he was sure he was dead now because what he saw was too incredible to believe.
A large, bald, black man was pummeling a hover tank with his bare hands, and shouting a terrific battle cry. The tank’s cloak had already failed, and it rocked furiously with each blow. The man was as large as an elite High-Born, and he wore armor similar to their ground troops, but not their visor. He squatted, grabbing the underside of the tank, and half-jumped as he lifted. The tank rolled onto its top as it cluttered to a stop, and he glanced around in several directions as if looking for something...
...His eyes met Harold’s and he smiled...
...Then he went out of Harold’s sight into the sky...
...And the ground rumbled...
Harold looked up to see the mysterious black man standing in front of him. He grabbed Harold and said something, but Harold could not understand anything he was saying. The stranger stepped back, turned around and looked toward the sky as he stuck his finger in his own ear. He looked like he was talking, but Harold still could not understand him
. It was not that he could not hear the words, it was just that they were jumbled.
The man turned back around and shook Harold, who could do nothing but offer him an idiotic smile in return. The newcomer just shook his head, and stood back up. Harold looked beyond him, and saw that two other tanks had been destroyed. One was upside down and the other looked like it had somehow impaled itself on a large section of glittering, dark-colored rock.
Harold noticed that he was looking at the buildings around them, and he turned to Harold and Gabby and squatted as if lifting something. Harold watched in amazement as a large wall of dark rock rose from the ground just in front of him toward the blasted-out area. Imbued within the rock were hundreds if not thousands of tiny, shimmering crystals. Chunks of the glittering rock began flying everywhere, and loud pops crashed as High-Born rail spikes began slamming into the other side of the new wall.
He did not know how, but the man was suddenly standing in front of him and Gabby, behind the wall that had just appeared. Harold’s senses were beginning to return to normal and he looked at him more closely. His skin was similar to the rocks that had just risen and it nearly glinted as it seemed to have tiny crystals imbedded within it. The man’s back was to Harold, and his broad shoulders were thick and dense, and his arms and legs carried an unnatural amount of threatening muscle.
But the most important thing Harold noticed was that he had placed himself in between him and Gabby and the High-Born that were trying to take their lives.
The stranger stretched his palms toward the ground, and Harold thought he had lost his mind, but the earth around him seemed to momentarily liquefy. Harold watched in amazement as sharp, sparkling rocks began leaping from the ground into his hands. About 500 yards away, Harold saw multiple shimmers of cloaked gunships appearing just above the crest of the wall.
Blaze (The High-Born Epic) Page 37