by J. F. Lewis
“We must leave now, Snapdragon!” Faulina shouted.
“No.” Where elves ran for the central fortress, the fog parted before them, sparse wisps catching here and there on the forms of the elves. A small few were caught in the midst of their own personal clouds, wreathed in the stuff and, as they cast their spells, rolling tendrils of fog reached out from cloud to target, connecting the two long enough for the spell to take effect, then trailing away like suns-banished mist.
“To arms!” an elf with an elemental foci like a silver mask across her eyes shouted using Aeromancy.
“A Thunder Speaker,” Kholburran said. “Like Wylant!” He recognized Queen Bhaeshal, who flew toward a bare patch of sky. Kholburran winced, certain she would fall . . . but she did not.
Energy arced from the elemental focus that had replaced her eyes. Coursing lighting-like from Bhaeshal to the cloud and back, this secondary force maintained the connection she had to the clouds with only a brief interruption. Others who flew into the clear spaces experienced a similar reaction between their foci and the clouds or fell, their magic too unreliable to continue, until they hit another section of the nebulous cloud.
Sighing, Kholburran lowered himself back to the ground, digging his toes into the dirt again.
“What do you mean you aren’t going?” Faulina reached out to try to physically pull him away from his spot on the soil. Arri, on the other side of the small open-topped enclosure from Faulina, easily made it across in time to block her, literally leaping across from her perch atop the opposite scaffolding that the Aern had placed along three of the four cloth walls.
Arri swept aside the grasp, shoving Faulina back with a palm to the chest. The other Root Guards stood back, torn between the confrontation between the two highest ranking girl-type persons and the oncoming danger from higher up at the keep.
“He can’t stay here, Arri!”
“A prince on his Root Taking goes where he pleases!”
“Not if it gets him killed!” Faulina drew her Heartbow back, ready to fire, and held it. “He’s going back south. You should never have let him come here, you—”
“We will enforce his right of choosing.” Arri and another, deeper voice that came from the whorls on her body spoke in unison. Light bloomed brighter from the whorls of Warrune at Arri’s throat and on her arm. The upper and lower limbs of Faulina’s Heartbow bent inward, string slipping from the notches at either end before returning to its usual shape.
“You don’t get to just—”
“The magic of this place is broken,” the voice of Warrune thrummed. “It is different than the flaws in me, the rot that corrupts me, but you may find I recognize it enough to turn it to my will.”
The magic of this place. Kholburran, only superficially cognizant of their actions, focused on the enigmatic clouds (What were they? Elemental power? Were they related to the words his father spoke?) he could see, but the others appeared to not see at all, to ignore, or to understand but not feel the need to explain. I am not seeing spirits, he thought. This is . . . magic itself? The magic of this place?
If the clouds he had seen, scattered and broken, represented the magic upon which spell casters drew, what would it look like if it was unbroken? He remembered walking through a morning mist and wondering at the way it was more visible when viewed at a distance than it was from within. Inside the mist, if it was thin enough, it filtered sight but was hard to discern as a distinct object. Was it that, rather than being unable to see magic like the girl-type persons, he saw the raw foundations upon which others drew, able to notice it only if it were broken up?
“Prince?” Arri asked, noticing his gasp even in the midst of her own exchange with Faulina. “What is it?”
Closing his eyes, he reached out for the living wood of the scaffolding. He could sense it just as he sensed his own warpick, and the Heartbows of his Root Guard, the other Vael, and his father’s presence, connected by a long, thin strand of magic that wound its way through the soil from where Arri stood all the way back, he presumed, to the Twin Trees themselves.
“We who Take Root are not blind to magic,” Warrune thrummed. “We see on a larger scale. Places like this are the exception. Broken. Unrooted, you are too close to see.”
“Can it be fixed?” Kholburran asked.
“To fix this tiny fortress would be the work of a moment for one who took root here.” Warrune’s whorls began to smolder as he continued, and Kholburran wondered whether the frail wood could contain the intensity of his presence without failing. “But the damage spreads far and wide, and that would be the work of long life and, perhaps, more than one tree. Many trees, to spread the forest to these shattered plains and restore what the one who made us wrought upon it.”
“Why can you speak to me and not Hashan?”
“I am insane,” Warrune responded.
Arri’s arm caught fire, but she did not scream, could not scream in Warrune’s grasp.
Warrune continued, “My brothers can see the larger frame and love their work, but I have always longed for the life I left behind, not only to care for you and abide, but to be one of you.”
“You’re hurting Arri.”
“I am killing Arri.”
“What?! Why?!”
Warrune’s thrumming grew louder, Arri’s bark vibrating as her throat began to smoke. The Heartbows of the Root Guard sprang to life, writhing tendrils wrapping themselves around the neck and shoulders of Kholburran’s Root Guard. “She acted against my seed. All of them have. After all I sacrificed, they dared!”
“Stop.”
“No.” Warrune’s voice grew in volume until it seemed there was no other sound, would never be another sound in the whole of the Last World, until it cracked and broke under the strain. “You are my seed, my beloved sproutling, but a sprout may not question one who has Taken Root!”
No one gave instructions on how a Vael Took Root. There existed no books or scrolls, no ancient songs. The stories all told about the circumstances surrounding or resulting from a Root Taking, not the activity itself. Everyone assumed that Kholburran would know how to do it when the time came. For once, they were right.
“Then I will also Take Root, father.” Kholburran’s toes sank into the dirt and surged forth, drawing nourishment from the minerals therein and from the clouds of magic that billowed nearby. “And we will continue this discussion.”
*
“Magic seems to work on them,” Bhaeshal shouted above the din, her voice booming with Thunder Speaker magic. Civilians kept getting in the way, and there weren’t enough elemancers to go around. Those there were kept hitting areas of Fort Sunder in which their magic did not work at all or where using it caused their elemental foci to grow at a debilitating rate. Several of her most experienced elemancers with more prominent foci looked more like automata than proper elves.
Younger elemancers, like Kam, found that their elemental familiars would not follow them into some areas at all, while others vanished upon doing so, leaving their masters powerless until they could find a stable enough location to summon them once more.
“Pyromancers, target the dead closest to the keep. Geomancers, try to keep them back, but do not try to affect the ground too deeply, or you risk focusing out before you realize what is happening.” Bhaeshal spotted one Geomancer standing in the midst of a flow of fleeing refugees, a statue of brass and steel, his elemental focus having consumed him utterly.
Warsuits struggled to make it past the crush of humans and elves heading for the main gate, to the presumed safety (Please let Tsan’s army camped so conveniently around Scarsguard be innocent of any collusion with the undead) outside the walls of Scarsguard, but many found themselves bogged down or halted if they opted not to injure the panicked refugees.
I wish the Aern weren’t being so blasted careful about it, Bhaeshal thought. If we don’t keep this contained . . .
Able to remain aloft and casting, the numbness accompanying her mask-like focus spread
across her forehead and down along the sides of her face, but a queen could not abandon her people, not when they had already lost so much.
Dead poured out of the keep and down the steps of Fort Sunder toward the populated sections of Scarsguard. Fire worked best, but the closer they got to the hastily constructed tents and barracks, the bones of the new construction, the more dangerous flame became to the refugees.
A new front broke out in the middle of Scarsguard as those humans trampled in the first crush rose with jerky movements to fight their former allies. Warsuits echoed orders that passed unheard from Aern to Aern, allowing Bhaeshal and her people to coordinate their efforts. Elemancers with enough power to do so transported warsuits as close to the keep as possible. Too many of them spent their lives doing so. Ringing the walls, Overwatches, the crimson crystalline eyes of their warsuits flashing, stepped free of the animated armor, sending their skins into battle below, while they kept watch above, relaying what they saw, directing the efforts of the army below.
Still the dead came on.
Killing.
Recruiting.
Unstopping.
“Bash!” Kam shouted, his elemental familiar vanishing as they delivered warsuits into battle, using his Aeromancy to transport a cart holding three Armored Aern. The young Aiannai hit one of the dead spots in the magic and fell. Bhaeshal reached out for him, but he dropped with the Aern, landing amid the crawling, clawing dead.
Walls of ice generated with Hydromancy blocked some areas, providing defense where they could, but too often the walls were riddled with massive flaws where creations of elemancy would not hold.
A wave of magic sent Bhaeshal tumbling through the air, and she struck the side of Fort Sunder.
CHAPTER 29
GAME CHANGERS
“Come on Kreej,” the human-who-no-longer-smelled-human argued. “You need to send in reinforcements.”
“In support of whom?” Kreej snapped. He hated the cold and the way the air this close to Fort Sunder made his fangs ache. “Scarback corpses may not join the ranks of the Maker’s dead army, but Zaur and Sri’Zaur do. We hold out here.”
At the abandoned hamlet south of Scarsguard, the remnant of the Sri’Zauran Empire, camped like a besieging enemy, pulled back and prepared its next assault. Huge bonfires burned in the center of a series of rough stone dwellings erected by borrowed Geomancers. Each dome-like structure was built around a central hearth, feeding smoke up and out through inelegant yet functional chimneys. Bracing himself for contact with the cold wind outside, Kreej padded out onto the grass and stood on his hind legs, pointing a spyglass at the walls to the north and the chaos that could be seen: the fires, the smoke, the Aeromancers falling from the sky.
Raising a foreclaw, Kreej pointed to the lines of troops that escorted a few hundred yellow- and red-scaled Flamefangs, flanked by four Zaurruk and the required black-scaled handlers with the white rings and pattern on their backs matching the patterns painted on the back of the Zaurruk each group controlled.
“Flamefangs will be at the ready to burn the dead as they leave.” Kreej handed the spyglass to Captain Tyree. “The Zaurruk will be on hand to seal the gates and ring the entire fortress city with a trench to slow the advance of any that make it through. I’m sending the bulk of both specialized troops, even assigned Brazz to the Flamefangs. . . . What more would you have me do?”
Kreej glared at the human, annoyed with him even before he began to speak. He understood why the scaleless warmbloods wrapped themselves in so many layers of cloth: they were fragile, sickly things that needed protection from the world around them—even from simple things like rocky ground or rain—but why this human needed so many variations of clothing, so many sets, to so often dilute his scent . . . It was maddening having to check for the bright-white teeth and dented chin then get close enough to smell the mint leaves it . . . he . . . carried.
“You could send Flamefangs to the walls with Gliders to get them the top. Even rank-and-file troops armed with bows or crossbows would help. Fight from the walls if you are too afraid to fight in the general melee.”
Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Having been exposed to him on multiple occasions and then spent time apart, Kreej’s membranes nictated, nostrils flaring in shock at how obvious the human’s method, whatever form of Long Speaking it happened to be, was to one who suspected it. A need to trust the human all the same squirreled its way into Kreej’s core. Trust me. Trust me. Trust me. Trust—
“Stop attempting to influence me with your desperate little warmblood thoughts, human.” Kreej caught Tyree by both wrists with his forepaws, being sure to trap the bracelets the human wore. One need not know how magic worked to recognize enchanted objects. These carried the scent of elves and blood. Weapons of some kind. “You have received all of the assistance the Sri’Zauran Empire is willing to offer you. We are allied with the scarbacks by the will of Tsan’Zaur and He Who Rules in Secret and in Shadow. We have a similar arrangement with the Weeds. Unless you—”
Tyree bared his teeth in what Kreej assumed to be a warmblood attempt at a smile.
“What about the prince?” Tyree made no effort to free himself of Kreej’s grasp, leaning in closer instead, throat exposed, but mouth close to the Zaur auditory receptors.
“What prince?” Kreej hissed the last word, his forked tongue touching lightly on the human’s skin.
“Kholster-Face. Snappy Trap,” Tyree purred. “The son of Queen Kari? Fresh out on his sacred self-planting party?”
“What of him?” Kreej released the captain’s wrists but drew his Skreel blades to parry any incoming attack.
“Guess where he is.” He nodded toward the chaos of Fort Sunder. “I know you wouldn’t go out of your way to protect an average Sproutling, but the queen’s own son . . .” Tyree let that thought sit with him for a few breaths. “You already cost her one Root Tree, to prove a point. How happy do you think your Imperial Dragonosity would be to find out you could have scampered in there and saved a Root Tree . . . and didn’t? Think of the advantage it would give you in terms of your alliance. Think of the political and personal debt it would force Queen Kari to incur . . .”
<> Kreej tapped the words instead of speaking them, but from the look on Captain Tyree’s face, the human knew exactly what it meant: Tyree had won.
*
I need to get an Aern inside Fort Sunder to close the Port Gate, Kazan ordered. He stood along the newly constructed walls, wearing bone-steel chain and scorched jeans that he believed would never stop smelling of smoke. Spread along the optimal arch for accruing maximal battle data, he felt as naked as he was certain the other Armored did in the absence of their warsuits. He’d hated to give the command, but it made sense. The soldiers and kholsters in the fight below needed every weapon they could deploy. They needed accurate intelligence, too, so . . . compromise.
M’jynn, Joose, and Arbokk stood nearby, pretending they were not on guard duty, but it was impossible not to notice that they had assigned themselves to protect their Prime Overwatch and Second of One Hundred.
There are too many opponents to manage this with any alacrity, Eyes of Vengeance thought.
En route, Amber and Glayne thought as one.
Want to run the plan by me? Kazan asked. He found them on his mental map, but their locations looked odd.
It’s what you already said, Amber thought back. We get in there and we close the Port Gate.
That’s the whole plan?! Kazan asked. They were running along a wall, but there was a peculiarity . . .
We have to test a theory and then there might be more plan, Amber thought, but if it doesn’t work, I don’t want to feel stupid.
It will work, Glayne thought. You are brilliant and your idea is elegant, inspired, and impressive.
Was that a compliment? Amber and several of the other Ove
rwatches asked Glayne.
Glayne’s token, wherever it was positioned in each Overwatch’s mind’s eye, flashed gold: affirmative.
There. Eyes of Vengeance enhanced Kazan’s vision, zooming in on a pair of figures climbing up the walls of Fort Sunder like spiders.
How are they—? Joose started.
The whole fortress is plated in bone-steel. M’jynn held out his warpick, fingers unfurled and palm down. It began to drop then snapped back against his palm, held there by the same connection that allowed Aern to sling their implements on their backs and hold them without the need for a manufactured sheath. Older Aern used the same trick to move without their mail clinking, by holding it against their skin, still and quiet.
Climbing a bone-steel wall using the same principle had never occurred to Kazan . . . not that there had ever been a wall plated entirely in bone-steel before Kholster’s ascension to godhood. Amber had seen it, though.
“Maybe she should be Second,” he whispered.
Have faith in yourself, Eyes of Vengeance intoned. Rae’en and Amber do. Even Glayne does, or he would still be second-guessing you instead of scouting out ways to help your plans work.
Shouldn’t Rae’en be kholstering all of this? Kazan asked.
You are here and she is busy elsewhere, Eyes of Vengeance told him.
Just make sure I have an army to come back to, yeah? Rae’en thought at him.
I didn’t know you heard that, I’m—
Heard what? Rae’en asked. Things look bad there. You’re sending me the battle data upper left, remember? Did I miss something vital?
No, kholster, Kazan thought. We’ve got it under control. As soon as Amber and Glayne destroy the gate and stop the flood of them, we’ll be in better shape.
*
“How can it already be in use?” King Rivvek asked.
He was not ready for another challenge. His ears still rang with the dying cries of the dragon at the center of the Never Dark. He still saw the fight in his mind’s eye whenever he closed his eyes, even to blink, but he could not spare the time to question what he had done to complete Kyland’s mission and to fulfill his own oath. Now, he had to make it through the Port Gate, then he could rest, collapse, die, or whatever the gods had in mind. With his oath fulfilled, it would not matter. But until then . . .