“What are those?” Tom pointed out to sea. When the waters had drawn back, they had revealed Oi’alli’s plot for breaching the fortress. Approaching from what used to be a deep gorge filled with ocean water were three giant beasts. Each looked like a mountain with six ruddy, armored legs. On their backs they carried enormous shells, and their faces were covered with pairs of gargantuan, crustacean pincers. From where he stood Tom could feel a tremor in the sand when the giants’ spiky, pointed legs struck the earth. Slowly and deliberately the giants made their way toward the beach, the towering shells on their backs rocking back and forth.
“They are the Bol-Tok. Their kind is older than Alan’tillan, and even older than man. They carry the name of tok, the greatest creatures created by our mother ocean. Just like Dun-Tok, they are magnificent and powerful. They are nomads of the Atlantic Ocean, creators of islands and the keepers of lost treasures.” Oi’alli pulled her arms through the air once more and swept them from right to left, shifting her weight to her left leg and hanging in the air on one foot like a dancer. For many moments all was silent. The Bol-Tok stopped, squatting down and planting their legs deep into the sand. Then a quiet roar arose from the sea. The morning sun, which had just risen over the eastern horizon, disappeared again. A dark wall grew and grew, and the roar became louder and louder. The ocean came hurtling back toward Isla del Sol all at once in the form of a wave that was three or four stories high. The giants rocked forward, and their legs cut through the sand as the wave collided with their backs and fell in waterfalls around their flanks, crashing past them and stampeding into the bay.
The first of the Bureau’s ships to be picked up and carried toward shore were the ones that Oi’alli’s saboteurs had set on fire. Their flaming bows rose and whipped around as they rode the swell inshore, anchors tearing up the shoal. The rest of the fleet was unprepared when the two ships came sailing straight into their midst, ammunition stores erupting and exploding, spreading pandemonium to everything into which they smashed. Bodies flew through the air from the impacts and were tossed to the waves, which swallowed and drowned them. The crews who had left their ships when the tide had receded were long gone—crushed or washed away by the initial fury of the great wave. As the sea poured over the beach it crashed up against the walls of the fortress, but even that great wave did not have enough strength left to leave even a dent. It was just as well, because now there was no fleet standing between the Bol-Tok and the fortress. As the sea pulled back and Oi’alli calmed it, the giant shells of the Bol-Tok rose once again above the surface of the water, and they trudged through the cloudy salt water toward the beach. The morning sun bloomed in a bright flash as the sea on the horizon sank low again. Bright warm light struck the back of the shells of the Bol-Tok and cast their great shadows upon the walls of the Bureau’s fortress. By this time, the soldiers inside the fort had dispersed along the walls and were opening fire.
“We must move closer!” Oi’alli shouted, taking her soldiers up the beach and toward the fortress. “Wait for the Bol-Tok to breach the walls, and then we will attack!”
Just out of sight in the thick island growth outside the south fortress wall, Tom, Oi’alli and her warriors crouched down to watch as the Bol-Tok surrounded the east and north ends. From where he was, Tom could see Oi’tan archers climbing up the shells of the Bol-Tok, firing over the walls of the fortress and preparing to invade as soon as they were close enough. The Bureau’s cannons popped and thundered, hurling iron balls at the living siege towers as they crawled up next to the fort and began to hammer it with their heavy, clawed arms. The cannonballs bit off chunks of their shells but did no real harm. When the balls struck the noise sounded like the shattering of china plates and cups. Little pieces of shell rained down from the monsters, sticking in the wet sand. The soldiers inside the fort could not aim their cannons high enough to fire upon the Oi’tan archers, and so they ran along the walls and took shots at them with their muskets. It took too long to reload their weapons, and the archers tore into them with their deadly arrows, tipped with poison from cone snails. The whistle of arrows and boom of muskets were merely the opening exchange. From inside the fortress, Lord Poison was already changing his tactics. Tom was sure of it, because as soon as the Bureau realized its cannons were not going to repel the Bol-Tok and anyone along the walls was going to be shot full of arrows, the soldiers withdrew inside. In their absence, the Bol-Tok were free to chew away at the outer wall of the fortress with their powerful pincers, cutting through wood and breaking up stone.
“They know they cannot prevent those things from breaking down the walls,” Tom said to Oi’alli. “What they will do is organize and fight us on the beach when the walls come down. They are going to leave the fort, but if Simbi Anpaka is inside, they will try to keep us out.”
“Yes,” agreed Oi’alli, “this is what I am hoping for. The fortress is really the only weapon they have that is greater than any of ours. They may have more soldiers, but we can outfight them if it is to be a match of spears and swords.”
“They will surely have some magic on their side as well,” Tom cautioned. “The Bureau has been learning quickly the secrets of magesmiths. There is no way of knowing what they may have at their disposal until the walls fall and the gates open.”
“There is always something left to chance,” Oi’alli said, “which we must meet with our courage and cunning.”
A calamitous crushing and splintering of wood came from the east wall, which meant one of the Bol-Tok had managed to pierce the fortress. Crumbling stone block fell in an avalanche and rolled off the arms and flanks of the giant beast as it backed away to avoid being buried and blinded by dust and rubble.
Oi’alli took the curved whistle from around her shoulders and held it up to her lips, giving it a blow. The shrill whistle let the Ty’il and Cui’oi know that it was time to attack the fortress. The Oi’tan waiting in the forest burst into sight, shouting and sprinting for the east gate. Hundreds of them appeared at once. The braces behind the east gate were slid out of place, and the gates opened as the Oi’tan approached. The Bureau’s soldiers were ready to meet them, marching forward out of the inner fortress with their guns raised, their white uniforms reinforced with a new armor neither Tom nor Oi’alli had ever seen. Four men huffed and puffed as they wheeled a single cannon out in front of the column, dropping it on its tail end and tilting the barrel down to aim for the attacking Atlanteans. Around the base of the barrel, the cannon was fitted with rubies, which magically fed fire into the barrel. Its nose was pinched and narrow, not meant for shooting an iron ball. The wooden vehicle on which it sat carried several buckets of water, one of which a soldier picked up and used to douse the outside of the cannon and the wooden components so they would not catch fire. A second soldier ran up behind the cannon, poured a small amount of magic oil into the cannon’s ammunition chamber and squatted down, speaking an incantation. A third, wearing the uniform of a colonel, raised his arm and dropped it as soon as the Oi’tan were within range.
“Now!” he commanded.
The soldier squatting behind the cannon finished his spell, and the weapon belched a stream of hissing fire at the charging Oi’tan. To Oi’alli’s horror, her warriors closest to the weapon were swallowed up in the blaze and burned to death almost instantly. She had not expected such powerful magic from a single weapon. The gun covered the ground with fire and made a disastrous mess of the battle ground outside the east gate. The Oi’tan stopped their charge and scattered, all trying to escape before the Bureau could pour a new flask of oil into the diabolical weapon and fire it again. As they ran, the column of soldiers inside the gate moved out onto the beach and opened fire with their muskets, shooting at the backs of the fleeing warriors. The Oi’tan retreated to the edge of the forest and took cover, drawing back their bowstrings and returning fire from a safe distance. The Bol-Tok were also withdrawing. The soldiers pouring out of the holes in the walls were hacking away at the giants’ legs with their
blades and were too numerous for the slow creatures to handle, try as they might to snatch up the men and crush them in their claws. If that weren’t enough, the Bureau’s dragon gun was hurling flames into their unprotected faces.
“Your friends are retreating,” said Tom, touching Oi’alli on the shoulder and pointing to the Bol-Tok.
“They have done what I asked of them.” Oi’alli was more concerned with the Bureau’s dragon gun, threatening to fry all her warriors as it advanced, hissing from the beach. “If my archers cannot kill those men working the fire weapon, we will never get inside. The soldiers will just kill us slowly with their guns from the beach. I did not come here to have my warriors slaughtered.”
“They won’t be,” said Tom. “Yata, I need your help. I need you to call the Emperor’s men. Can you bring them to the beach to fight for us?” He felt silly speaking to Ine’s sword, especially since Oi’alli hadn’t a clue what he was doing. She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Please, just be patient,” he said. Yatagarasu chirped, changing shape and taking the form of the dark wading bird with which Tom was familiar. With a couple of hops it flapped its big wings and took off, flying up high and out of sight. In the next moment, it called loudly and swept down across the beach in front of the Bureau’s offensive line. An inky black liquid fell from its wings and spotted the sand in dozens of places, and then the bird vanished over the trees.
“Hold fire!” The colonel shouted to the cannon operators, raising his hand and watching curiously as the black puddles on the sand bubbled and gave off a thick, coal-grey fog that crept up the beach and swallowed his ankles. “Load the weapon,” he ordered, not sure what to expect. As the dark fog tumbled in the sea breeze, the shadowy figures of heavily armored warriors rose up like ghosts from the grave. Moaning and breathing hoarsely, they drew long, shining swords and hobbled slowly toward the gate. The colonel gasped as he caught sight of their shriveled, decayed faces. Turning white and feeling a chill on his arms, he ordered his men to fire on the ghosts. The dragon gun hissed and sprayed a stream of fire, sweeping over the fog and covering everything in its path. When the blaze ceased and the nose of the cannon coughed, it appeared as though the gun had done its job, but then the crackling of burning flesh approached. Fire danced on the heads and shoulders of the undead warriors as they dragged their heels and walked right up to the surprised soldiers, raising their blades and cutting into the men trying to reload the weapon. The remaining operator dumped a flask of oil into the gun and readied it, trying to lift it and roll it backward by himself while the colonel drew his saber and prepared to fight. One of the corpse warriors capped its hand over the end of the cannon, and when the operator fired it, a wild inferno swallowed the cannon in a roaring flash, throwing burning magic oil against the fortress wall and all over the column of soldiers directly beneath the east gate.
“Blessings of the gods!” Oi’alli cheered, raising her staff and praising Thomas.
Burning white uniforms ran in all directions from the east gate, arms flailing as they ran into each other or fell to the sand, dead. From up above the gate, a trumpet sounded.
“They have no choice but to charge,” Oi’alli said excitedly, poised to run. “They no longer have the safety of their walls.” She pointed and showed Tom that her archers had climbed over the walls and were already fighting with the Bureau inside the fortress. “Are you ready?” she asked him.
“Let’s go,” he said with a nod as he took his jades from the sealskin bag he carried over his shoulder. Palming the jades, he intoned the beginning of the spell, “Manus magia,” watching as his arms lit up bright green. For the first time in a long time he let loose, feeling the rush of his curse as it swam in his veins and transformed his body. As he leapt onto the beach, right on Oi’alli’s heels, he grew tall and muscular, golden fur coating his skin and fangs bursting forth inside his snapping canine jaws. The Oi’tan warriors joined them, appearing from the forest a second time and bellowing their war cries as they ran for the east gate behind the warriors conjured by Yata.
At the gate a column of soldiers in white uniforms met them, pouring forth on foot and raising their sabers to fight, while soldiers with muskets fired over them. The undead swordsmen summoned by Yata held their own against the enemy, able to sluggishly cut down many foes without having to worry about being stabbed or sliced. A volley from the Bureau’s muskets took off the head of one of the swordsmen, but he kept swinging his blade as if he’d felt nothing at all, his clunky helmet flipping through the air in a comical way, full of grisly bullet holes. One by one the Emperor’s undead army was chopped and shot to pieces, but not until each of the Emperor’s finest had killed more than enough Bureau soldiers to even the battlefield in favor of the attacking Oi’tan. After the threat of the undead had been dealt with, the musketeers confidently moved forward and out through the gate.
Bullets whipped overhead and smacked the sand all around Tom as he beat away soldiers with his glowing paws. He withheld his usual aggression, needing only to disarm his opponents and break enough bones to keep them from getting up again. Something about him had changed. He didn’t enjoy the thrill of drawing blood any longer. He didn’t focus on the little moments that presented themselves each time a man swung a sword at him. The anger and excitement of violence were not with him. It was all quiet and clean.
Oi’alli fought with as much grace and as little mercy as Tom had ever seen. Nothing and no one touched her as she strode across the sand as though it were a dance hall. A stream of sea water followed her at her feet as she fluttered into battle. It crawled up her legs and thighs and hung about her waist, ready to fight for her at any moment. Her anchor staff—a relic of Atlantis called Puyutpa or “Trenchmaker”—pulled water from her waist, channeling it up along the shaft and around the anchor on the cap. It gathered into a raging, whirling sphere and continually sprayed from the end of the staff like a geyser, with tremendous, concentrated pressure. So strongly it flowed that her opponents’ armor and flesh tore like wheat under a scythe. Her arms strained and flexed as she wielded it, her sleek muscles stretching her skin tight as she controlled the power of the polearm.
The musketeers at the gate fired another volley that ripped into the Oi’tan down the beach. Oi’alli, fearing another volley would cost her dearly, decided to move toward the gate, underneath the wall and out of the gunners’ preferred firing range. Tom followed her as she hurried in a wide arc around the fighting and stayed close to the fortress wall.
“Stay behind me,” she told Tom. Walking slowly she began to sing a spell, accumulating a thick, protective column of water that surrounded her on all sides. It made her presence quite obvious to everyone on the battlefield. When a squad of soldiers broke away from the fighting to challenge her, she simply walked through them, stretching out her arms and swelling the bubble before blasting them away with jets of salty water. Next the musketeers at the gate turned their attention to her, reloading their guns and lining up to fire. Tom ducked behind Oi’alli, not quite trusting the strength of her aqueous shield, waiting nervously for the boom of gunpowder. When it came, he flinched and watched in amazement as the iron balls struck the bubble of water and burst uselessly into little shards that floated harmlessly past the sorceress’s body. If the musketeers weren’t confounded already, they were utterly baffled when Oi’alli suddenly stopped in front of them, disappearing from sight as the bubble around her fell with a splash to the sand underfoot, as if someone had been carrying it in a bucket and let it go. The soft sand lurched and sank suddenly, toppling the musketeers and swallowing them up like a living mouth. Caught in the heavy, soggy mush, buried up to their necks, they could do nothing. When the sand settled, they blinked their irritated eyes and spat sand from their mouths as they wrestled in vain to free themselves. Tom watched as Oi’alli appeared from the ground as a rising curtain of water and then quickly resumed her human form. He was glad she ha
dn’t buried them alive. The thought of dying in such a way made even a man of his constitution uncomfortable.
“Now!” Oi’alli cried to her warriors, “Take the fortress!” The morale of the Oi’tan rose and the warriors raised their long spears and heavy clubs as they cried out and charged up the beach. Another column of Bureau soldiers appeared at the gate, but they were not quick enough to push the Oi’tan back. The two armies collided inside the gateway and pushed against one another, swords and spears banging together, legs tripping over the fallen. Tom and Oi’alli were caught in the bottleneck, and both heaved and grunted as they threw themselves into the horde. After some struggle a commanding officer inside the fortress ordered the soldiers in uniform to retreat and fall back into the inner fortress. The mob of Oi’tan bodies lunged forward as the enemy withdrew and were chased inside the gate and through the next. The inner gates closed before the Oi’tan could make it inside, and the few Bureau soldiers who were not fast enough to make it through were speared and killed. The east gate closed behind the Oi’tan, shutting them inside the inner and outer walls of the fortress, preventing them from moving forward or going back to the beach. Even the gaping holes left by the Bol-Tok had been blocked and filled with debris.
“Hear this, ye savages!” There came a shout from atop the fortress walls. A man dressed in dark robes and wearing a simple, black mask walked along the hoardings, swinging what looked like a censer. As he walked it dripped a sinister cloud of mist that sank to the ground and filled the empty enclosure between the inner and outer gates. “On behalf of Lord Poison, I, the Magistrate-Doctor Ottenberg, command you to surrender now and pledge your allegiance to His Majesty the King and your Bureau representatives here in these isles. Comply and you will be provided with medicines. If you do not accept these terms, you will succumb to your final defeat here and now!”
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