by J. F. Lewis
“Kholster?” Jolsit asked. His face looked pained.
“Yes?” Bloodmane asked.
“Isn’t that a waste of . . . ah . . . war material? You and your fellow warsuits are powerful, but even in an enclosed space, one thousand are unlikely to hold against the many thousands of Zaur that surely inhabit the tunnels.”
“We will only need to hold them back long enough to get Geomancers into the correct position to expose the central cavern to the air. The presence of warsuits will ensure the largest number of Zaur militia are present when this happens.”
“And then?”
“Live long and see your answer,” Bloodmane said mysteriously.
This, Kholster sent, I suppose, is the point where you ask if you can enlist the aid of my friend . . . the dragon?
About that . . . Bloodmane replied. The plan could work without the dragon, it could, but the losses for the warsuits would be dreadful. Bloodmane thought of Coal, the great gray dragon and hoped against hope he could convince Kholster to lend him Coal’s aid.
CHAPTER 57
WAR STORIES
“Commander Jolsit,” Dolvek said brusquely, as he entered his superior’s quarters. A fraction of the size of Dolvek’s own rooms, the older Eldrennai’s living space was sparse in decoration. His bed, a small desk, and a chair took up most of the room. Weapons hung from a rack bracketed to the wall over a large, plain metal trunk. Two armor racks stood next to it. Jolsit looked up from his position kneeling over the open trunk.
He wore a suit of curious-looking armor, dark orange, nearly brown, like the dead leaves of winter. It resembled plate armor, but the vambraces, greaves, and sabatons looked more like bone than metal, while the rest of the armor seemed likely to have been fashioned from individual scales fused together. The helm, which rested on the floor near Jolsit’s knee, struck Dolvek as equally bizarre, like a great horned skull had been emptied of its gruesome contents, polished, and refitted as a helm.
“Ghastly, isn’t it?” The commander stood, gesturing to his armor and then the helm. “From the Demon Wars.” As he crossed to the bed, Jolsit appeared to flicker a hand or two to the left or right with each step. “It’s made from a Ghaiattri primus, one of their elite infantry. In the last years of the war, Kholster had them made for the Eldrennai who fought with him at Keirryn’s Peak.”
“To close the last open Port Gate,” said Dolvek, hoping he didn’t sound too awestruck. “And retake the final shard of the World Crystal.” He hadn’t realized Jolsit was . . . quite that old.
Jolsit nodded. “It’s magic-resistant but doesn’t hamper the wearer’s spells, and it’s as strong as enchanted steel. It holds up against the eccentricities that disable crystal armor when fighting against the Zaur, too.”
“It’s magnificent.”
“It’s unnatural.” Jolsit sighed. “When you wear it, the walls between this world and the Demon World grow thin to your eyes, and you see things . . . sources of magic glow. Smells come over wrong, and you can’t help but feel like the armor’s going to reanimate and eat you. It’s physically comfortable, though, lighter than it has a right to be, and it makes sense to wear it if we’re going anywhere near a Port Gate—open or closed.”
Dolvek nodded. “General Bloodmane says that he and his warsuits are ready.”
Jolsit picked up his helm. “Let’s not keep the general waiting.”
The two walked in silence along deserted streets that were usually filled with traffic, humans heading to and from their various jobs, harbor traffic, soldiers doing their turn on city patrol. The patrol was still running, but now people were keeping to themselves, or, rather, they were collectively avoiding the royal tower.
“They’re afraid,” Jolsit said, as if reading Dolvek’s thoughts. “For two days, the Aernese warsuits have walked the streets. Word has gotten around about Kholster and the guard he killed. People are worried. And scared.”
“We can beat the Aern.”
“No,” Jolsit told him flatly. “We can’t.”
“Wylant beat them at the Sundering,” Dolvek argued.
“We were lucky; she was a monster, and there is no longer a Life Forge to shatter,” Jolsit said. Outside the Tower of Elementals, the Eldrennai soldier touched its smooth surface, reciting his rank and a prearranged code. White stone melted away, revealing an open passage into which the two Eldrennai stepped. “Flight gave our Aeromancers an advantage, as it did the Crystal Knights, but the rank and file cannot use spells so effectively for long. If we fought them now, without their armor, then our archers would give us an additional edge, but if I know Bloodmane . . . um . . . Kholster, I mean . . . the Armored will keep coming after us even if it takes a thousand years to win. They don’t really die, you know. You stuff their bones back in their armor, add blood, and poof . . . instant Aern.”
Dolvek mulled that over in silence.
“It was the right move, destroying the Life Forge,” Jolsit said reservedly. “A particularly hard move, but the right one. Even after millions of them died, the surviving five thousand Aern marched on. Then, Wylant had the Crystal Knights raid the crèches of the unborn Aern, steal the unawakened lumps of metal. She threatened to destroy them, too. Melt them down. Kholster acted like he was proud of her. Each monstrous act she took made him bloom with praise.
“Near the end we tried surrendering, but they wouldn’t accept our surrender. Kholster gave the order to advance. You could feel the tension; everyone knew we were standing at the final Port Gate, as the saying goes, but . . . Aldo knows I’ll remember it to the last day. . . . We were saved by a little scullery slave, Merri. She floated down from the tower, still holding her mop and bucket. She was a beautiful little thing, the guards used to pass her around . . .” Jolsit’s voice trailed off in sudden embarrassment.
Dolvek opened his mouth to say something about that, to make an excuse, but he couldn’t find one.
“That tiny wisp of nothing walked up to Kholster, put a hand on his chest, and said, ‘Please stop.’” Jolsit continued, “Once the rest of them saw that it had worked, the other servants came running; they stood between us and the Aern. Kholster looked down at Merri—she was short, even for a Vael.” There was a slight hiss at the end of “Vael,” as if Jolsit had nearly said “Vaelsilyn” but caught himself.
“He got down on one knee so that he could look at her face-to-face. To this day, I’ve no idea exactly what she said, but they whispered to each other, and she laughed.” He smiled reminiscently and shook his head. “And took their unawakened children and left in peace. Grivek and Kholster were in talks for two weeks after that, but we all knew Merri had negotiated the truce out there on the Lane of Review.”
Jolsit paused as if clearing his head.
There was no more talking on the way to the Port Chamber; both Eldrennai walked with only their thoughts for company. Prince Dolvek had only been inside the chamber once, and even then it was only to be shown what a Port Gate looked like, how to close one, and which markings to hack away after it was closed so that it could never be opened again. Every Eldrennai who took basic elementalism lessons learned that much, and Hasimak taught the class himself. If you couldn’t learn to close a Port Gate, then the elemancers forbade you from practicing any kind of magic. Even the Artificers had to know how.
It looked as cavernous and foreboding as Dolvek remembered. Thirteen Gates stood at the top of thirteen raised platforms, spaced evenly around the circular chamber. At the center of the chamber, the master gate lay crumbled, broken as it had been when Kholster and his troops charged back through it with the stolen shard of the World Crystal. Dolvek had never believed the story, but now, standing next to a knight clad in armor made from the remains of a Ghaiattri, looking out at the fifty warsuits standing in the chamber, having met Kholster, having seen him fight, Dolvek began to believe all kinds of new things.
Bloodmane stood before the shattered Port Gate and demonstrated to the warsuits the most reliable way to seal a Port Gate if
the only magic you possessed was a hardened warpick.
“Kholster Bloodmane,” Jolsit called.
“You are here,” Bloodmane answered in his throatless voice. “We can begin. Thank you for wearing the demon armor, Jolsit. Tell us which Port Gate looks safest.”
CHAPTER 58
A HATE THAT
BURNS FOREVER
Kholster sat slumped against the obelisk at Oot, gazing out over the obsidian pier toward the water. He was supposed to have begun an invasion by now. Port Ammond should have been in flames, and the Eldrennai should have been hiding at one of the Watches trying to rally their defenses. Bloodmane and he should have been reunited, not unable to work as one because of the armor’s desire to forgive the enemy. And Rae’en should be alive, at his side, and taking the reins of command from him. Where did it all go wrong?
*
Teru and Whaar moved through the tunnels, one pair of fifty Armored Ossuarians reunited with their armor, hacking their way through Zaur with purpose. Zaur swarmed them from all sides, a writhing mass of scales, teeth, and claws. Teru’s warsuit, Bonestripper, ran thick with Zaur blood, a clump of ragged flesh clung to the tip of one of the small, sharp horns mounted over the eye slits of his skull-inspired helm.
Whaar’s warsuit, No Escape, covered in a similar gore, clove a Zaur’s forepaw from its wrist with the axe-like blade which ran from the crown of its knobby brow to the base of its helm. Striking out with his sword, No Surrender, Whaar pinned a Zaur to the tunnel wall with a thrust through the throat as Teru split two Zaur in unequal halves with Last Kiss, his double-bladed axe.
“She’s still moving,” Teru called.
“First Bones has metal here.” Whaar whirled Last Kiss in arcs of death. “We find one then the other.”
“And don’t report back until we have both,” Teru completed. “I remember Zhan’s orders.”
*
Grivek remained wisely silent, sitting motionlessly in meditation at the end of the pier. Yavi, on the other hand, was not so obliging.
She paced around and around the obelisk, wanting to speak. Kholster knew she wanted to say something because every third or fourth revolution, she would pause, look at him, lips slightly parted, and then continue pacing. He wondered absently if it could be called pacing, as the movement was circular rather than a back-and forth-repetition. Circling, perhaps?
Closing his eyes again to check on Bloodmane’s progress at the Port Gates, he noted things were going well. There had been one close call, but four groups had made it away already, and he had confidence in Bloodmane and all the warsuits, whether they were his or belonged merely to themselves.
“Why did you kiss me?” Yavi asked on her sixty-eighth orbit.
“Because I love you,” Kholster answered easily, his eyes still closed.
“What?” Her eyes widened. She obviously had not expected that response, which was fair since he hadn’t been aware he was going to say that until the words had escaped him. She had so much to learn. He could feel her desire to respond, but he made no move toward her. The Vael did not like to be grabbed or cornered. They did not like pursuit.
“I did not know what else to do,” Kholster answered, finally looking up at her. “We are both physically mature. When an Aern and a Vael are in proximity for an extended period of time, it tends to happen.”
“What do you mean it tends to happen? You hardly even know me,” she demanded.
“That generally comes later.”
“I could never . . . you, I . . .” Yavi began orbiting the obelisk again, but Kholster remained still, quiet. He wasn’t being fair to her, he knew. She’d never been sought after by an Aern. The best way to woo a Vael involved knowing when to be still, when to be . . . passive.
“Shall I start dinner?” he asked.
“Are you going to eat any?” she countered.
“No.” He closed his eyes and watched Bloodmane push a demon back into the Port Gate, only to be thrown back as a Ghaiattri forced its way forward. Grudge slid into Kholster’s hand. “Ghaiattri,” he muttered.
“How many?” Grivek shouted from the pier, moving closer.
“Just one so far, but the gate is still open.”
“Why don’t they close it?” Grivek demanded.
“They’re trying.” Kholster rose to his feet.
*
Rae’en, Wylant, and Tyree burst out of the tunnel system through an air vent much like the one through which Rae’en had entered. She gasped in a breath and looked at the sky; there were barely enough stars still visible for her to gauge the location of Oot.
“This way.” She took off at a run.
“Keep up, or go your own way,” Wylant clapped Tyree on the back. “Your choice.”
Calling on the wind, she rose on a wave of magic and shot off after Rae’en.
“You have got,” Tyree said between pants, “to be kidding me.”
*
Port Gates were basically eight-foot-tall doorways with crystal double doors. To close it properly, a mage had to shut the doors and perform a short ritual. To Kholster, the ritual seemed too long. Two warsuits were trying to force the doors closed, but the Ghaiattri was lodged between them, halfway in and halfway out.
“A second Ghaiattri is heading toward the gate.” Kholster recognized Jolsit’s voice. He’d thought to wear the demon armor. Smart boy.
Let it past so they can close the gate, then kill the one you let through, Kholster suggested to his armor. One Ghaiattri could not create a Wild Gate, but two could.
Bloodmane charged up the steps, ducked under the Ghaiattri’s swordlike claws and grabbed it by the horns. “Let it pass, then shut the gate!”
“What’s happening?” asked Yavi.
“They’ve let one in so they can close the gate,” Kholster answered.
Bloodmane pulled the Ghaiattri through, and the gate slammed shut. The door buckled like an elephant had struck it from the other side, but Hasimak dashed for the gate and sealed it.
“Well?” asked Grivek.
“They’re fighting the Ghaiattri now.”
Kholster had not been present when the Ghaiattri had forced the Port Gates at the start of the Demon War, but he remembered the surviving Elementalist’s description. He claimed the door had been sealed, but the Ghaiattri had forced their way through after it closed. It was that very gate Kholster had later destroyed. When the gate had been forced from within, the doors had changed from blue to purple, then shifted to gold. It was happening again.
Bloodmane, have Eyes of Vengeance, White Light, and Death Knell destroy the gate that Ghaiattri came through! They’re forcing it!
Kholster felt the message slip wordlessly along the network of warsuits to Eyes of Vengeance. Eyes of Vengeance, Vander’s armor, could do it. The warsuit raised its mighty warpick, Scorn. Scorn’s haft was shorter than that of Grudge or Hunger, with a broader wedge-shaped head, splitting into two curved spikes at the poll.
Scorn struck the apex of the Port Gate, opening a rent in the stone but not shattering it. White Light and Death Knell struck the right and left sides, once, twice. Hasimak screamed for them to stop, his cries cut short as the door sprung open.
*
Dryga cursed the scarbacks as he rolled free of his mount, the canteen containing the Eldrennai’s blood and the one containing the Aern’s blood jostling in a mesh bag strapped to his back. A pair of Armored Aern, Bone Finders from the look of them, struggled to free themselves from where Dryga’s steed had pinned them to the wall.
“Kill them, Kreej.” Dryga tossed one of his two Skreel blades to the wounded Zaur accompanying them. “Make it back to the base alive, and I’ll petition for a second name for you.
“To His secret purpose,” Kreej hissed.
Dryga ran, vanishing in the dark of the tunnels.
Kreej eyed the Bone Finders in their warsuits, gripped his borrowed Skreel blade tightly, and ran the other way. No name was worth that.
*
“I
can’t get there in time.” Kholster opened his eyes. Grivek and Yavi were wide-eyed, panicked.
“What’s happening?” Yavi placed her hand on his shoulder; the touch distracted him.
Closing his eyes once more, Kholster watched the second Ghaiattri try to push through. Eyes of Vengeance struck the gate a third time, and the top of the gate crumbled into the yawning yellow light from the open portal.
When the gate collapses, it will try to suck everything into it until the runes are destroyed, Kholster transmitted. You must destroy them in the correct order, or they won’t break.
Do you remember the order? Bloodmane was panicking. The warsuits never panicked.
Yes. Kholster pictured the symbols one by one in the order in which they needed to be destroyed. Calm down. I remember everything.
In the center of the chamber, Bloodmane grappled with the Ghaiattri, the armor’s metal gauntlets glowing red-hot as a nimbus of lightning flowed over him. Scale Fist, a warsuit with a helm like a three-faced Zaur, battered the beast with its warpick. Darting in and out with perfect synchronization, the warsuits rotated through, hammering the Ghaiattri with blow after blow, but the beast did not bleed, would never bleed, not as mortal creatures do.
Reinforce the broken gate, Kholster ordered, wincing at the sudden matching heat in his palms.
Ten suits broke away from the fight, knocking mages out of their way. Confusion reigned among the Elementalists; Hasimak screeched uselessly, imploring the warsuits to stop destroying the gates. Kholster laughed out loud when he saw the flat of Jolsit’s blade strike the old Eldrennai from behind, knocking him unconscious.
“I need every mancer to concentrate on holding the other gates closed,” shouted Jolsit. “They’ll try coming through them soon. Dolvek, you have training; help them.”