by Damien Lake
“You’re saying that the weight throughout that blasted behemoth is constantly changing on its own? Correcting itself every time the weather shifts?”
“You have seen the truth of it. Now project your mind into the problem of occurrence wherein a sudden change was not uniform. Where only specific portions of the air touching the Citadel underwent alteration.”
Rail mused for a moment. “The same as using a lever to pry up a boulder, I would assume.”
“I concur. The entire object so effected would tilt, especially if the air above the Citadel, where the stone is set to be heavier than its surroundings, were chilled further, making it increasingly dense. Following natural law, the peak would desire to sink beneath the heavy layers whilst the base sought to be lighter than the air it touches, and thus rise.”
“You said these Citadels were so heavily drenched in wards that even you would never succeed in attacking it magically. Any form of magic is supposed to rebound.”
“Exactly correct, friend. Yet these ingenious minds serving your homeland have circumvented the problem. Do you not see? They direct their magics to the air, never once seeking to touch the stone. It is the rapidity with which the environment changes that will doom the almighty weapon of Arronath.”
“That seems too simple. Someone in Herrigorn would have thought of that years ago. Especially in Tillsar! They’ve been attacked by the Citadels as much as the other Herrigorn kingdoms put together.”
“Simple the concept is, yes. Yet no single practitioner, however masterful, could accomplish the feat. A collective cooperates toward the same goal in this matter, combining their many talents into one. Also, the concept is based on a deeper understanding of the Citadel than Tillsar has garnered. They persist in their original misconceptions regarding its nature. Such an elegant solution to a monumental problem displays fleetness of thought.”
“Another trait those monkeys with cow dung between their ears lack,” Rail agreed. “If they knew the truth about Humus, a jumped-up ass in their ranks would have thought of using air to attack his creation long ago. Sounds like a classic Arm strategy.”
“Arm strategy?” The Red Man turned his gaze from the battle to rest it on Rail. “I fail to comprehend your meaning.”
“The Arm of Galemar. I told you about him before. Or them, if you prefer.”
Or Marik, he suddenly thought. The boy had said the royal council wanted his insights on the Arronath invasion mess. Wouldn’t that be a scream? Yet also strangely appropriate, in an odd way.
“This may afford an unseen opportunity. The play may involve moves to cause our quarry obstacles, in which instance we might find chance to strike. It would serve our cause best if we—”
“Wait,” Rail concluded before the other could utter it. “And watch. I wouldn’t expect you to say anything else, Red.”
* * * * *
The shudders worsened by the moment. Everyone in the control room felt painful bruises across their bodies from where they were thrown like rag dolls into the walls or floor.
“Have you isolated a cause yet?” Xenos’ voice boomed through the stone room.
“We haven’t,” answered the geomancer by his square blocks.
“You mean you have failed to do so,” countered Xenos. “You sense nothing wrong with the very stone the stasis controllers are unable to manage. Rather than stare uselessly at me, go down and aid them in their recovery efforts!”
The man scrambled through the doorway, then rolled down the hall when the shudders stole his footing. Xenos studied the scrying display, ignoring the havoc that had sent the others into a near panic.
Fewer deaths had occurred than he expected. So far. The Galemarans were using space to their advantage, inflicting damage on the black soldiers while moving to avoid absorbing any themselves by sacrificing land. It was a strategy best suited to open plains. They had succeeded well since the first clash, except they were rapidly running out of space. Galemar’s abundant trees would be their doom, robbing their ability to escape the headman’s descending axe.
It was well. In fact, matters were proceeding better than he had predicted. He carefully schooled his features to reflect a lesser level of confusion than displayed by those surrounding him.
The worst shudder yet accompanied a tremendous cracking noise. Xenos picked himself off the command table, pulling his sleeves out from images of swords rending flesh.
“Continue as planned,” he ordered. “Do as you must to regain control over the situation. I will check other matters.”
He swept from the room, his mind filled with glee.
* * * * *
Marik glanced away from the Citadel long enough to check on his twin combat forces. Torrance held up well, though for how much longer he could was questionable. Gibbon, with the easier job, had followed his orders exactly, and had proven lethal.
The lieutenant had received nearly all the crossbows except for the ones belonging to individual Crimson Kings mercenaries. Utilizing them in forest fighting tactics, he had done a nice job shredding the advancing enemy reinforcements. If his melee men wiped out the remaining majority, he hoped Gibbon would have the sense to move north and aid Torrance.
He returned his attention to the Citadel. His mental hands were poised, ready to craft any sort of shield needed if an attack came. Through his magesight he could see nothing of the geomantic energies or what they did in the vast space encroached on by the floating mountain peak. All he could see was the roiling torrent that the etheric plane had become. The mass diffusion’s purple mists were churning furiously in reaction to the massive geomantic workings at play.
An earsplitting crack echoed across the plain, loud to his ears despite the miles. Little visible change had been wrought in the Citadel except for a slight lean that might have only been wishful thinking. That changed with the cracking. Several moments after the ominous noise, a massive hanging stalactite parted from its base.
It fell, looking ponderously slow from the distance. Marik saw it smash into one of the platforms bearing a full load of men. Their auras were snuffed completely in an eye blink. They vanished as gnats under a toppling tree.
The impact into the ground broke the stone finger into a thousand large boulders. Uncountable brick-sized rocks scattered like porcelain shards from a dropped teacup.
His group did not hear the impact until after the stalactite had completely broken. It came in the same manner as thunder after a distant lightning flash, sounding eerily similar. A long, rolling grind of rock on rock.
“That’s the way!” he crowed to his team. “We’re starting to hurt it! Keep it up!”
Neither Felda nor Truda reacted to his encouragement. Their faces were set in concentration, their eyes tight, focusing on their geosight. The combined magical energies imbued with the essence of fire from the bright sunlight needed the same professional direction that icing needed when a baker applied it fancifully to a cake’s rim. Felda oversaw those in the group who heated the lower air pockets while Truda managed the others in cooling the upper reaches. Or at least the upper reaches on the eastern side, applying the downward pressure on the direction they wanted it to topple.
The tilt in the Citadel became increasingly pronounced. He could see the lower stalactite tips shifting to point westward. At the apex, the topmost peak had leaned east.
Marik pumped the air with his fists. It was going exactly as he had hoped. His idea, born in a room crowed with the magic he had never wished to possess, was correct. It would work.
A second huge chunk fell from the main body, its deafening crack this time following its descent. Its whip-like report bounced off the mountain walls around him until it sounded as if an avalanche were in progress. He worried it might be for a moment when he heard several stones nearby scraping from their rest to tumble down-slope.
The stone had tilted twelve or thirteen degrees. Crimson Kings mercenaries kept up the fight yet several Arronath squads paused to point, to stare, to goggle at w
hat they knew they could not possibly be seeing.
When the angle achieved a pronounced twenty degrees, Marik saw it. His spine exploded in numbing tingles at the same moment. He threw up his shields…
A blast of raw energy smashed into the mountain overlook. It shattered Marik’s shields. They tore into thousands of wispy strands. The blow hammered through to hit the corner of the drop-off at Marik’s feet.
Marik was caught in the explosion. Most of the stone was hurled to left and right, if not out into empty space over the ledge. He felt his body lifted.
It seemed as if there was endless time while he lazily flew backward. The attack had come from the Citadel. He had seen the boiling mass streak from atop the tallest peak barely in time to build his meager defenses. Through unconscious decision, instinct reacting faster than his mind could evaluate, he had recognized the attack for the raw energy it was and chosen the two shields best suited for it. Errant Energy and Hammer Blow. In the short time available he had created six shields, three of each sandwiched in layers.
Yet the attack, which should have been halted before breaking the fifth shield let alone the sixth, had passed through as if nothing were blocking it. What did that mean? A group within the Citadel, like his own, working together to counter his? Combining their strength?
What wind he still possessed was knocked harshly from him when he struck two investigative mages. They toppled over each other like cordwood.
Marik lay looking into the cloudy sky for eons before realizing he still lived. Also, sore as he felt, he could still move. His tender skin felt sunburned but otherwise he had taken little damage beyond bruising.
“Whaho ista ken?” Marik heard his words and paused. His head buzzed, his brain rattled. Shaking it only disoriented him. He stopped and breathed deeply, focusing on a dirt smear across his boot before making his second attempt. “Who is hot? Was the warking borken?”
“A few are hurt,” Lynn replied. She studied him carefully. “And the working remains unbroken. We had best weave a tight defense.”
“Be careful,” he reminded her as she steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “We have to leaf them a channel to wark through. They can’t reach through shells that aren’t bulled of their own energy.”
Marik stumbled back to the point where the blast had hit. The female mercenary mage kept him from falling on his face. He leaned heavily on her shoulder until he reached his fallen sword. There she raised it, with effort, until he could use it as a battlefield crutch. Jeremy and one of the stronger city mages joined them to begin weaving shields.
Since he had never performed group workings before, Marik built his separate, a bit further forward of the blended shields so any new attack would hit his first. That might slow it down enough that the blended shields could deal with it.
The vision in his right eye was stained red. Blood had run into it. There must be a cut on his brow.
His head cleared while he worked. What must have happened dawned on him. It had happened so fast it only appeared as if his shields had utterly failed. Instead they had absorbed enough of the power that what remained only caused a blast strong enough to hurl him off his feet. The only injury the two city mages had sustained were due to his crashing into them.
They quickly finished setting the shields, Marik slightly disconcerted. Why hadn’t the Arronaths followed quickly with a second attack? He had expected one to come before they were prepared to meet it.
Marik drifted out of his body. His consciousness could float through the etheric without sacrificing control over his mage talent despite the fact that physical activity was close to impossible. Rarely had he ever been able to command his body while not still inside it.
He kept a tight grip on the channel maintaining his shields. It felt as if his arms stretched miles back to hold the power channel while he flew to the Citadel. Once there, he quickly located the attack’s source.
A stone rain fell from every inch on the floating mountain. Whatever magic had altered its basic nature to keep it whole was failing. Massive stalactite spears arrowed toward the ground. Palm-sized rocks shed like dead skin from the entire surface when the cliff faces were pulled in opposite directions. Uncountable tons of stone moved in separate directions, or pushed inward to converge on a single spot, grinding together. It created fantastic stress throughout the entire Citadel beyond his imagination. The Citadel had never been intended to flip over on its side.
Near what had been the tallest peak, he found a lone man. Marik could not see his aura because he was surrounded in a growing cloud composed of raw energy. This was why no second attack had come straight away. Whoever this man might be, he was strong, more powerful than anyone Marik had ever run into. He prepared a fresh attack of such magnitude that the overlook would be destroyed.
Marik acted without thought. Far back in his body, his mental hands drew energy from his core. He focused it, imbuing it with the most power he possibly could pour into his etheric orb. The instant the last drop flowed into it, he fired it off.
One mental hand held the shielding channel. The other guided the orb along the track he wished. All Marik knew was that the stranger was busy building the second attack. He only had one chance to kill this powerful foe who meant to destroy his entire group. Kill him before he could raise a defense of his own.
This powerful man…this frighteningly powerful enemy…this… This man? Was this…this the man his…father spoke of?
No choice. Strike before he is aware of you. Hit him while he builds his attack. Kill him before he can kill you.
Marik curved his etheric orb around on a collision course with the stranger.
* * * * *
Xenos gazed in annoyance when his first blast did little except scorch the mountainside. He stood on a twenty-yard square plateau with a cave opening onto it. The grass covering the small area had been an ideal spot to relax during long journeys when one needed fresh air. Assuming, of course, that one were an officer privileged with permission to climb the tunnel leading to it.
Such a low energy level was unacceptable. He reached far down to the harvesting field below, collecting the slippery life essences that lay clinging to the half-ground in the etheric plane. They had already begun their slow diffusion, glowing dust motes drifting away in bubble streams to turn purple, joining the otherworld mists.
A single man’s rent life energy, laying where he died, provided less than half of what he could have garnered on the service altar. He collected a second, feeling the inrush of power through his channels. Then the third, which quenched his immediate thirst from the long drought. Five days worth of power harvested in an instant. War, strife, chaos. It truly was god’s blessing.
Another instant brought him three others. A second service’s worth of energy that he normally would have been forced to wait five days for. And more! Six. Nine. Fifteen. Thirty.
Sweetest were the Taurs. Their aggressive natures, their size, their lives lived in constant combat between their own or outsiders; it served to produce beasts with obscene amounts of life energy. They were tougher to absorb, being non-human. It took longer to sooth the wildness from them as befitted the species. Yet the efforts were worth the rewards.
Xenos opened secondary channels, then a new set entirely. They collected the available energies efficiently from the plains. So efficiently that he could not absorb them as quickly as he retrieved. He held them in abeyance until they surrounded him, several dozen willow-wisps in an engulfing cloud, two new ones blinking into existence for every one he consumed.
His sharpening senses detected the orb before it closed half the distance. A laughable attempt. No matter his depleted state, a simple orb such as that would never have scratched him. He allowed it to continue, reconstituting his hand while he waited.
The flesh twisted, veins bulging to the surface thick as cords. Skin changed in color until the peach darkened to gray. His nails grew several inches, hard as steel, sharper than daggers. At the end, his hand
looked closer to a Taur’s rather than a man’s except his nails were straight rather than curved.
When the orb streaked at him, he thrust his hand at it. His nails pierced the simple surface, smooth as a leather ball. The etheric orb shattered. Energy shards dispersed before fading.
Xenos could see the audacious group clustered on their ledge. His eyes narrowed abruptly when he took in the man who must be their leader. That sword! The kkan’edom? Impossible!
Yes…impossible. After the first shocked moment he could see the man below was not the eul’kkandr’s despicable servant. A sword likened to that warrior’s, but a different man wielding it.
At the swordsman’s back worked the group who had claimed a colossal victory over the Citadel where none before could boast a single scratch. A remarkable feat. Finding success with minimal resources against certain odds foretelling doom. Leading them to create geomantic energy pockets that transformed the air below to molten lava beds and the air touching him to glacial icebergs.
“Is that you, Arm of Galemar?” he called loudly, far too distant to actually be heard. “Your predecessors find pride in you! You are worthy of inheriting their title! Again Galemar proves none can conquer their preeminent warrior! I offer my thanks for safeguarding my homeland until the day of my return! Yet I can allow no one to stand in my way, not even my land’s greatest pride!”
He formed an energy disk of purest fire, so hot that the flames spinning sunwise within were brilliant white. This would be perfect as it would terrify the Arm’s group before he killed them. Their harvest would be rich. A hard flick of its channel sent the thin disk soaring toward the ridiculous shields they had clumsily pieced together. The disk sheered through them as if slicing through butter.