"Break them!" Tulana screamed. The prince cut inward, firing bolt after bolt. Shigeru surged ahead, then suddenly drew up, coming to a complete stop and raising his hand. A slash of light cut out, hitting the net and smashing the bottle that held the red crystal.
The wall crystal detonated with a thunderclap roar, and the three demons disappeared in the flames. The shock wave washed over Mark, but he could see the flame of the explosion engulfing a dozen demons and sorcerers who had been flying close to the group.
"That's it!" Tulana screamed. "Now through the hole!"
Charging forward, Mark cut through the expanding fireball, his companions behind him.
The maneuver threw off their pursuit, and Mark saw that they were nearly to the city wall, with Patrice's palace not a quarter mile ahead.
Then crisscrossing lights slashed out from the palace and the walls surrounding it.
"Wall crystals!" Tulana hissed. "They must have a dozen of them!"
The water below seemed to explode as Boreas emerged, cutting straight up, the first of his companions following in his wake.
"In on them!" Boreas shouted. "We've got to close and finish it!"
A bolt from a wall crystal cut into the group behind Boreas, knocking two back into the sea, yet still the attackers kept emerging. Mark spotted Giorgini in the group, and inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Above us!" Saito cried.
From out of the boiling cloud of smoke, still expanding outward from the detonated crystal, a dozen demons were charging straight down.
"Block them!" Boreas cried. "My group follow me!"
Mark turned to meet the attack. Relentlessly the demons swarmed in, the leader disappearing when hit by half a dozen shots in the mad confusion.
"A wall crystal!" Shigeru cried.
Two of the demons in the center of the group had folded their wings and were plummeting, holding a crystal between them. Desperately Mark fired again and again, but the two shot straight past him. Winging up and over, Mark followed--straight at the water where Boreas hovered, rallying his sorcerers as they surfaced, and pushing them into the attack on Patrice's palace.
"Above you!" Mark screamed.
Boreas raised his hand and fired, and one of the demons exploded. Desperately, the other clutched the crystal to his chest and continued the fall.
Mark fired at the demon's back while trying to follow him down. He could see the flash of red as the demon reached into a pouch by his side, while still clutching the massive wall crystal within the folds of his wings.
"No!" Mark screamed. Boreas tried to cut in front, to stop the creature in his suicidal plunge.
The demon slammed full force into the ocean. For the briefest of seconds Mark thought the creature had failed. And then, with a blinding flash, the world before him seemed to disappear.
Chapter 16
"It sounds like they're getting swarmed under in the harbor," Ikawa cried, his voice edged with exhaustion. The interference that Patrice had been sending out had disappeared only moments before, and now Ikawa could clearly hear the shouted battle commands.
Straining his gaze forward, he could discern the outline of Patrice's city through the dissipating clouds and the flashes of combat on the far side.
"There she is," Leti cried, pointing.
For Patrice was winging up through the clouds with yet more reinforcements spread out behind her.
Desperately Leti looked around. After the initial onslaught, her sorcerers had managed to hold their own, trading nearly equal losses as the combat weaved back and forth across the heavens. Yet the defenders had fought with masterful skill, always keeping between Leti and the city, gradually forcing her group to curve off toward the shore--and away from the palace.
"Coming up from below!"
Ikawa looked straight down, and through the wisps of fog he saw scores of demons and a dozen sorcerers rising up. "Walker, Walker, where the hell are you!" he cried, but there was only silence.
Grimly, Ikawa looked at Leti. "Walker must be finished!"
"There's too many," she shouted. "We've got to get the Heart down on the ground where we can fight with it."
"To me," Leti roared. "Break off combat and to me!"
Motioning for the dozens of sorcerers surrounding the Heart to follow, she started to dive, cutting in toward the coast on an oblique away from the group coming in from below and Patrice's advance from the city. Leti's assault team broke away from their combats, turning to follow their leader, the enemy they had been battling swinging in to dog their flanks.
"That hill looking out over the city!" Leti shouted, pointing forward.
Ikawa judged the distance and could see that they were falling miles short of their target. He could only hope that the assault wing from the ocean would somehow gain the citadel after all.
The ground raced up to greet him and he landed alongside Leti, rushing over to where the team carrying the Heart settled in to land. Frantically, they cast aside the nets to free the crystal.
A shriek rent the air, and looking up Ikawa could see Patrice streaking in.
"Leti, come and meet me!"
"Like hell, you bitch," Leti growled, focusing her attention on the Heart. Extending his hands, Ikawa joined her, while the sorcerers who had carried it formed a circle about the two, putting up a protective shield.
A bolt of light shot out from the Heart, slicing past Patrice and cutting two of her sorcerers in half.
Ikawa felt drained, as if the Heart had somehow seized and drawn every ounce of his strength outward.
Gasping for breath, he staggered. The Heart was too powerful for him; he feared that to use it without Leti by his side might very well kill him.
Patrice stormed overhead, a brilliant slash of fire cutting from her hand, slamming into the protective shielding, the energy around the group snapping and glowing.
"Again!" Leti screamed. More of her sorcerers were now winging in, even as the enemy closed. To his horror, Ikawa watched as stragglers were cut off, overwhelmed, and sent tumbling from the sky.
He turned back to the Heart. Another snap of light, and several more of the enemy dropped from the sky, but Patrice dodged the bolt at the last second.
Swinging outward, she circled wide, her followers forming up into a massive cloud of attackers.
"Again!" Leti screamed.
A dozen sorcerers shouldered in around Ikawa, extending their hands to the glowing Heart. He felt his vision dropping into blackness as another explosive shot cut through Patrice's attack formation.
"They're coming in!" Leti roared as a hundred or more forms dived from above. Bolts of energy slammed out, rippling through the collective shielding, turning it white-hot. Stunned sorcerers fell screaming to the ground.
Leti, extending both hands upward added her power to the shield, bolstering it, her dark hair swirling about her in the incandescent storm.
Exhausted, Ikawa slumped to the ground, unable to continue. The balance seemed to hold, a struggle between the offense and defense, each side shifting more and more energy in. Patrice dropped her own shielding, shouting with triumph as she slammed bolt after bolt into Leti's group.
"Hey, bitch!"
A high, clear voice rang out over the battle. Ikawa looked up to see a sorcerer, dressed in the flame-colored livery of Patrice, swing in behind the demigoddess and slam a bolt into her head.
Stunned, Patrice fell away.
"How 'bout another!" A second sorcerer fired straight at Patrice, burning her arm.
With a shriek of rage, Patrice fell backward, her hair smoldering. Turning, she looked through the swirling confusion for her tormentors, her protective shielding snapping back up to full. Ikawa could feel the strain on the defense dropping away.
"Time to get the shit outta here!" the first sorcerer screamed, diving straight toward the defensive circle.
"It's Walker!" Leti cried. "Let him in!"
The shielding snapped down for a second, as Patrice's forces, s
tunned by what had first appeared to be a betrayal, broke off the attack and scattered.
Laughing, Walker alighted beside Leti, who embraced him and turned to kiss Kraut on the cheek as he landed next to his companion.
"Almost had her," Walker said ruefully, looking over towards Patrice who, still stunned by the double blow, had cut away from the group, her battle team following.
"Just how the hell?" Ikawa asked, coming to his feet.
"I thought our shit was cooked," Kraut said, beaming, though Ikawa could see that the man was trembling from the strain of what they had just pulled off.
"Anyhow," Walker interrupted. "There we were flying straight into a cliff. There was no way out, so I went to ground."
"He actually flew into a narrow crevice and stopped cold," Kraut interjected. "I thought we were dead. Well, it drove them crazy, it looked like we just disappeared. We stayed there for a good ten minutes, and finally they broke up and started filtering through the trees looking for us. It was easy pickings then, we jumped them as they came through."
"What about the others?" Leti asked quietly.
"We lost most in the fight and the chase," Walker whispered, the exhilaration of the moment before gone. "Two more hit the cliff. We lost the others fighting in the woods. Finally there was just Imada, Kraut, and me."
"Anyhow, Imada, he's the one that thought it up. He said why the hell don't we strip their dead and see what we can do. Ain't that right, Imada?"
Walker turned around, smiling. The group surrounding them was silent.
"Say, where the hell is the little guy?" Walker asked nervously. "He was right behind us when we jumped that old witch."
"Imada?"
"He didn't come through," Leti whispered.
Stunned, Walker looked around the battle-scarred group. "Goddamn it."
"I think they're forming up again!" one of Storm's sorcerers cried.
Turning, Ikawa saw Patrice skimming low around the base of the hill, swinging in and out through the scattering of trees.
Ikawa watched her intently as he stepped up to the Heart to concentrate for another blast.
"Get ready," Leti shouted.
"For Christ's sake, it's Imada!" Walker shouted, pointing to a lone sorcerer who rose from the ground a hundred yards away and streaked towards Patrice.
The lone figure climbed up, shield off with arms extended.
"What the hell is that kid doing?" Walker shouted. "Imada, get your ass in here."
The boy continued on, not looking back.
"He's surrendering," Kraut said, his voice edged with disgust.
Ikawa watched in unbelieving silence. Imada hovered in the sky, the demigod winging in towards him. The boy continued to float in the sky, and then with a dramatic flourish fired a bolt back toward his comrades.
"The bastard's turned traitor," Walker snarled.
Ikawa was silent, unable to comprehend that one of his own would do this. Leti hovered before Imada for a moment, and in his heart Ikawa found himself praying that she would strike him down and thus end his disgrace. She suddenly pointed back towards the city, and two sorcerers fell in on either side of Imada and started off.
"Traitor!" Ikawa roared. He concentrated on the Heart and sent out a blast, but his shot went wide and he staggered back, drained.
Suddenly, in the distance a brilliant flash snapped through the sky beyond the city.
"What in hell was that?" Walker whispered.
"Maybe they got through!" Kraut cried.
Struggling to control his anger, Ikawa returned to his primary responsibility and focused his attention on his communications crystal. Instantly he picked up the wild shouts of a battle in progress.
"A wall crystal"--it was Shigeru's voice--"they're going to blow another wall crystal!"
Shouted commands slashed through the command link.
"I'm on him, I'm on him." Ikawa recognized Mark's voice.
Seconds later, a brilliant flash lit the sky, and a towering column of steam and fire mushroomed into the heavens.
"Green Leader," Leti screamed. "Green Leader, what's happening?"
The comm link was overloaded.
"Green Leader!"
The distant thunder of the exploding wall crystal rumbled across the plain.
"Green Leader is down," a shaken voice reported. "Repeat, he is down."
Horrified, Leti turned to look at her companions.
"In and on them." It was Tulana, his voice washing through the confusion.
"It's finished," another voice cut in, and then faded.
"She's pulling back!" Walker shouted.
Patrice, turning, started back toward the city alone. The rest of her sorcerers fanned out and pulled back beyond the range of the Heart, where they went to ground.
Leti watched with cold interest.
"Shall we go in?" Ikawa asked.
Leti looked around at the battle-worn group.
"The Heart's the only thing that's giving us the edge at this point," she said quietly. "We go into the air, we lose its firepower. We've made it as far as we can. Whoever is left over there will have to finish it. We're fought out."
Another thunderclap and burst of light snapped through the sky, engulfing one of the high pinnacles of Patrice's palace, and the massive tower collapsed into ruin.
Ikawa, heartsick and exhausted, looked over at Leti, who wordlessly shook her head.
"She's coming back."
Takgutha looked over at Patrice's battle commander and smiled. "Whatever for?" he said hoarsely. "She wanted the Heart, she should be able to take it."
"Not at the price of our wall crystals," the battle commander hissed. "You have no authorization to take them. And you killed some of our people doing it."
"It was an emergency," Takgutha snapped. "I heard how the offworlders introduced this little trick. I felt they should get a taste of it themselves."
"She wants to talk to you. You are ordered not to use any more crystals," the sorcerer growled.
"I have no time now," Takgutha roared. Turning away, he barked a series of commands into his own crystal.
"They still might break through," Takgutha snarled.
"We have enough firepower to block them!"
"I want them dead now, so their bodies can be laid before my lord as an offering."
"Not at the price of our crystals!"
With a curse, Takgutha raised his hand; the battle commander snapped up his shield in response. The two looked at each other warily.
"Later, little one," Takgutha laughed. "I'm going out now to draw some blood."
"She wants you here when she gets back," the battle commander shouted, though the fear was evident in his voice.
"Tell your," and he paused, "tell my lady she can find me fighting, where anyone who is a warrior should be."
With a cold laugh, he swept out of the room. Half a dozen demons greeted him by the door, carrying between them three wall crystals in slings.
"Boreas!"
His shield gone from the blast, Mark found himself in the water, unsure how he had fallen, or where he even was.
"Boreas!"
Mark, his shoulder numb, looked up at the vast pillar of fire and steam that rose heavenward and saw Tulana hovering above him. Feebly he rose upward and looked around. Bodies lay scattered on the water: ladulta who had stayed with the assault floundered on the surface, stunned by the blast or lying still in death. Mark felt as if he was somehow caught in the end of the world.
"Over here!" It was Shigeru, Giorgini by his side, holding Boreas's senseless body.
Mark flew down to join them.
"I think he's still alive," Giorgini said grimly, his face a vision of horror from the blood pouring down from a torn scalp.
"You two get him out of here," Tulana roared. "I'm going in and finish this!"
Mark looked at the warrior with disbelief, and then started to rise.
"You're out of this," Tulana ordered. "Your arm, Mark!"
&nb
sp; Numbly, Mark looked over at his right arm and for the first time realized that it was broken, saw the shard of bone sticking out from a wound that pulsed with blood. He suddenly felt giddy.
"Organize a rear guard with your offworlders. I'm going for the palace," Tulana said, and soared upward, a scattering of sorcerers winging up around him.
Mark tried to follow. But Goldberg cut in front to hold him back.
"You heard him," Goldberg shouted. He grabbed Mark's good arm and fumbled for his communications crystal.
"Mark and Saito battle teams, this is Goldberg. Tulana's battle orders rally on me, rally on me."
"I've got to go in!" Mark cried, struggling.
"You're finished, Captain." With a violent pull, he streaked down, wrenching Mark so that he felt he was going to pass out.
"Anyhow, it's finished," Goldberg whispered.
For a moment, there was silence. The demons that had been circling above swung about to pursue the attack group.
"We better get organized," Goldberg shouted.
Rising above the water, he called out a series of commands, and Mark could see Saito coming in with the rest of the Japanese, Kochanski by his side. Smithie appeared from the water, blood pouring from his nose and ears.
"I can't hear," Smithie screamed. "Damn it, my ears."
Kochanski settled by Smithie's side and finally calmed him down.
A series of bolts snapped down from above. Looking up Mark saw a covey of demons cutting low across the water.
With his right arm gone, all he could do was snap up his defensive crystal and hope for the best.
"Come with me, Mark friend."
Looking down into the water, Mark saw Sul hovering by his side.
"Not yet," Mark whispered, unable to stop watching Tulana's mad rush for Patrice's palace. The sky rippled with light as the attack force doggedly pushed in, dodging and weaving through the interlocking blasts of half a dozen wall crystals, the pursuing demons breaking off to hover above. Onward Tulana pushed.
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