The flare of light subsided, leaving him on shaking hands and knees, flesh smoking and hot from the transformation. He drew a breath and settled his body. A nola-wielding Kriar with three shaladens. He pulled the threads of the shaladen weapons together, and shoved his nola into them feeling the riveting surge of resonances meshing and humming together in perfect symmetry. Three synchronized shaladens.
So, let’s hope that’s enough to keep me alive.
Bannor pushed to his feet, gold skin glistening and sparking with Eternity’s energy. He knew from the feel of his body that the combination of efforts had healed the last of his wounds. He was as healthy as he was going to get.
He moved forward to put himself in front of his injured friends and loved ones.
Garfang watched him with icy eyes, the wounds on his body steaming and bubbling.
This creature killed all the eternals? He was powerful certainly, and nothing any sane creature would trifle with, but Quasar seemed to him far more deadly. The threads of the Tarkath’s aura had appeared deceptive and dangerous. This creature’s threads were primal. Eternity’s power did course through his body, but he didn’t seem to have the right threads though, or the right arrangement to kill one eternal, much less all of them… His brain was too addled. He’d seen something like this arrangement before. Where? In any case, the creature was more than deadly and that was enough.
Going head on with Garfang was a mistake, one he would avoid. The creature was tough, but not invulnerable. The creature stood holding the wound that Vera had inflicted. He could be hurt, it simply had to be done so that the power could not be turned back or used.
Bannor looked past Garfang to the barrier and through it to the genemar. It didn’t matter what Garfang was—that weapon could kill him. Too bad it took so long to master and use the thing. The ancient Jyril weapon hovered in a cylindrical crystalline chamber reinforced with giant girders of solid alloy. Networks of glossy material fed into the casing from dozens of sources around the room.
He guessed that the Kriar had managed to use their artifices to gain some modicum of control over the thing.
To have any chance of getting to the device, much less use or escape with it would require breaking through the barrier and all that armor.
He flexed a burning hand.
That might be possible.
He drew a breath, feeling the riveting strength of Eternity lash back and forth through this form. As strong as this Kriar body was, it wouldn’t last long under this kind of strain, he had to end this fast.
Bannor ignored Garfang and concentrated on Garadhyr and Melakanir and merged the two weapons into one. He launched forward past the gray haired creature at the barrier.
Fast as he was, Garfang nearly intercepted him. He got only an instant to focus his nola. He swung the blade home into what appeared to be the weakest spot of the force barrier. The impact created a roar that shook the decimated structure causing the metal under his feet shriek and fracture. Bolts of energy splashed outward as the shield shuddered and wobbled under the intensity of the strike.
Garfang who was trying to prevent his hitting the shield staggered back from the shock of the blast, shaking his head and growling.
Bannor located another weak spot in the shield and leaped toward it. Still staggered by the first blast Garfang remained a few steps back when Bannor loosened the threads of the shield and smashed another building-crushing strike into it. Rainbows of color shot through the barrier, making the artifices inside the guarded area spark and smoke.
The concussion knocked the powerful creature back yet again and Bannor bounded away through the debris toward another weak spot in his sight. The third time he had a handful of heartbeats to summon his nola and shaladen powers, gauge his attack and execute.
This time the energy defense quivered and for the tiniest sliver of time, a gap appeared in the defense where a thread could slip through. Without knowing Kriar artifices, he could only guess at what would be vulnerable. He grabbed the threads of one of the globe-shaped devices that had reacted to his first two hits, and ripped through them.
The response was more savage than Bannor ever imagined. The crystalline sphere detonated with incredible force, causing other devices inside the area to also explode. The shield bottled up the monstrous conflagration, liquefying metal and incinerating composites. Reality itself seemed bend and sway, everything in sight blurring and distorting as the forces volatized all but the toughest matter in the confines.
Even that horrific blast had only weakened the shield. The barrier remained firm. Bannor stared, feeling his whole body go cold with disbelief. What did it take?
The genemar was a trap. A tar baby guarded by a defense that would take tremendous time and effort to breach. Any attempts on it gave the Daergons opportunities to deal with the intruders. The strategy was working too.
The blue jewel around Garfang’s neck flared and sparked. He clutched his head.
At first he thought that jewel was part of the monster’s power, now he had other suspicions.
he answered. He bounded away as Garfang charged.
The monster was so addled and agitated that he wasn’t using his powers. In trying to keep out the eternals, the Daergons had crippled a large part of Garfang’s fighting ability. Chronal and dimensional movement was being blocked and they were the Kriar’s two most powerful weapons.
He dodged around another rush. It wasn’t as fast or as on point as the attack that almost got Vera. The debris and poor footing made excessive speed a hazard to the attacker, not the defender. Garfang had healed, but was still feeling the effects of the explosion and Vera’s counter-assault. Getting caught in the shock waves of his attacks against the shield had shaken him up further.
It happened so fast Bannor didn’t have time to think. He flicked his wrist up and a rasp filled the air. The gold blast hit a burning red shaft of plasma and deflected into the debris with a crash that made Bannor’s hair flutter.
Bannor looked down at his left hand, and the blade of energy gleaming in his fist. It had been instinctive. Some part of the Kriar who once inhabited this body remained intact. The thought of it made him sick again.
Breathing hard, Garfang glared at him, cold eyes narrow. The blue gem around his neck sparked and flared. He let out a yell and gripped the band, as flares and sparks flashed around his body.
It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Bannor launched forward and brought the full power of both shaladens blazing down.
Garfang’s internal conflict broke at the last instant, and the blade aimed to split him in half hit his upraised hand instead. The force made the metal underfoot shake, and the whole chamber trembled with the impact. The blade itself stopped instantly like it had become stuck, and a flare of sparks spun around the gray-haired creature’s body. Open wounds in the creature’s flesh closed, he straightened, and the glow in his eyes brightened. He countered with redoubled speed and Bannor barely blocked with the force blade. The impact still knocked him staggering and sliding backward.
Ow. Spit. That was a mistake. At least he knew for certain now. Garfang’s threads had looked familiar in their configuration. They were like Wren’s! The Daergon weapon was a specially designed creature similar to a force savant. He probably possessed some insanely high threshold for energy redirection. The eternals had probably killed themselves in a head on attack trying to break the monster’s upper limit.
If that was the case, focusing on the shield remained the best strategy. Giving Garfang free energy to use against him was stupid.
Let him waste his power chasing. Enhanced by the shaladen, this Kriar body possessed lightning speed. With time powers blocked, he could keep away from Garfang as long as he stayed alert.
A couple more hits and he’d be able to get at the genemar. Any delicate control machinery the Daergons kept inside that chamber had been vaporized in that last explosion. The amazingly tough armor around the genemar itself appeared to be scored and pitted but otherwise unharmed by the titanic release.
He dodged Garfang’s follow up attack. The creature’s movements showed a significant increase in speed. Damn it, he should have trusted his instincts and not gone for that opening. This was taking too much time. After that explosion, the Daergons were bound to know there was a risk of losing the genemar. If more warriors came on the scene, he couldn’t possibly defend the others and make a go for the shield. He had to break that thing in the next two tries.
Bannor scrambled around and through the debris, dodging blasts and leading Garfang further from the shield. The creature’s movements were faster, but still forced and somewhat clumsy. The way he acted and responded made Bannor certain he was being controlled. The question was—did he become a worse monster if the control was broken?
Breathing harder, lungs growing hot and hard, he circled back. The instinct for blocking the energy blasts continued to serve him and he avoided most of the attacks thrown at him.
He turned and focused his thread sight on the shield, picked a weak spot and blazed for it. Garfang tried to cut him off too late, he brought both the shaladen and the plasma blade down on the screen, focusing on a rippling of the force.
The two weapons screamed, creating a blast that sent massive hunks of debris flying. The shield quivered and in that instant of weakness, he grabbed the heaviest thread in the room and rather than try to break it, kinked it around the other threads nearby and knotted it off to impede the balances.
He lunged aside as Garfang smashed into the shield only a step behind him. The extra drain seemed to be all it took. Something in the chamber burst and grayish mist poured from one of the large crystalline cylinders that had not been broken by his first major assault.
Garfang grunted and looked over, white eyes narrowing at the sight. His attention shifted back to Bannor and he growled.
The creature dove at him.
It was time to use one problem against another. Bannor snared Garfang’s threads and sent him face first into the barrier. The shield had weakened considerably so he was able pull enough threads of power away from it to ensnare Garfang in them.
The creature let out a bellow as the energy of the barrier arced and rasped around him. His force ability absorbed the power to protect him.
As fast as the creature started to break away Bannor grabbed more and more weakened threads and pulled them around him, pushing the Daergon weapon deeper and deeper into the weave of the force construction.
Go ahead, Fang boy, break all the threads you like.
The more the incredibly powerful creature struggled, breaking and stretching the construct, the more he weakened the skein, making it possible for Bannor to further ensnare him.
The harrowing part of this plan was Garfang’s rising potential, the shield was feeding him. Giving him strength that could be turned against Bannor.
Bannor swallowed. He was committed now. To break free, Garfang would have to bring down the shield itself. His efforts were already causing other components in the chamber to shudder and smoke.
Apparently, whoever or whatever was controlling Garfang recognized the ploy, and he stopped struggling and simply snarled and cried in pain.
Bannor raised the plasma weapon and pointed it at the back of Garfang’s head. With his defenses down, that plasma blade would pass through meat and bone like a string through water. The creature continued to howl and writhe in pain. He lowered the tip toward the collar.
Bannor didn’t look back, he didn’t need to. The threat to the shield had finally brought more of the Daergon beasts to the dance. He drew a breath. He couldn’t give up. Sarai and Vhina would die if he didn’t come up with something. Keep calm, find an opening.
He heard the rasp of a plasma blade springing into being. He heard metal boots clanking through the debris, the sound getting closer.
Damn it. His thread sense told him there was more than one nearby, but they were using that stealth armor. He couldn’t pin-point any of them.
Garfang let out a roar, heaving and struggling against the shield. The whole structure fluctuated and flickered.
Bannor kept his shaladen readied, but the plasma blade only hairs from chopping through Garfang’s collar.
The enemy Kriar came up behind Bannor and held the blade in front of his throat.
Bannor backed up as the blade advanced but at the same time sent his thread sense into the collar controlling Garfang. The Daergons hadn’t reacted until it looked like he might cut the beast loose. He didn’t like the odds, but they were better than counting on mercy from these dark spawn.
In the time it took to take a step he had he discovered the nature of the device and the trap mechanism in it that would kill Garfang if he should try to remove it. The thing was too delicate and to intertwined with the creature’s body for a simple breaking or redirecting of flows.
He had only instants to act. The only recourse was to map all of its threads at once and do something he had never tried to do before.
Erase them.
He rocked his head back gathering the thing’s entire pattern into his nola, swallowing it up, knowing each nuance and substructure of the skeins within the object and all the threads related to and connected with it. He focused all of the garmtur’s power on it and sent it forth.
Destroy.
On the instant of willing it, Garfang let out an even louder scream, his whole body seeming to go translucent as the power of eternity shafted through him. The collar around his neck imploded with a crack and vanished.
Bannor only caught a glimpse of the Kriar beside him, but Garfang breaking free was enough of a distraction. He launched backward, transforming the shaladen into a shield, as shots whined toward him from three directions.
Garfang, free of control, let out a roar. There was the unmistakable crack of artifices breaking under the strain.
Bannor’s thread sense detected the build up of energy and he dove over the bodies of his injured comrades willing the shaladens to engulf them all.
The Daergon’s words were never finished as a star-hot detonation drowned out everything…
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* * *
Chapter Thirty-Three
I have never been more pleased to be
chastised. He looked a seemingly impossible
situation in the eye and somehow made it
come together…
—Vatraena Marna Solaris,
Fabrista Peerless High Counsel
It burned. Even through the protective skin of the shaladen surrounding him—it burned. The shock hit with a deafening blare and within an eye-blink the metal around them went cooking grill hot. He heard his exposed flesh sizzle and a searing pain clawed into him. At the same time, his body and the enclosed structure formed by the shaladens slammed forward. The world and its pain went brown, then gray, but did not go black as he and the rest of the occupants of his protective barrier appeared to twist in upon themselves.
Through the agony, he focused on only one thing, keeping the integrity of the barrier around them intact. Holding the threads of the structure rigidly in their configurations and not letting them fly apart under the bombardment of an eruption of truly unfathomable intensity.
As quickly as the battering, burning, crushing experience started, it ended with a single rough slam that felt like being punched in the stomach.
The threads he was trying so hard to control slipped from his grip and the shaladens wrapped around he and the others melted away and became their respective weapons.
Feeling like piece of cooked meat, he managed roll between Sarai and Kalindinai look up at the circle of figures around him. He caught a glimpse of massive eternal Nethra on her knees gasping for breath and noble Koass clutching Sharonsheen with blackened hands.
He blinked up in the defuse light of what must be an open area somewhere on Homeworld. In the distance, something was making a shrieking sound that rose and fell.
“H—h—hi,” he croaked. Everything in his vision did a roll. “H—h—help…”
The friends and allies of the Homeworld assault team rushed in, gathering around the injured members of Bannor’s party. He saw King Jhaan and Ryelle come to Kalindinai and Sarai. Wren’s parents, Loric, Cassandra, and the rest of Shael Dal gathered around. Every figure that he saw looked injured, clothing and armor rent and torn, faces dirty and hair ragged. They had been through Hades and he was certain the Baronians had paid a heavy toll for every cut and every drop of blood lost.
The exquisite face of the green mother came into view as she leaned over and touched his cheek. Her echoing voice, warm and soothing made his hearts seem to slow. “Be calm my son, let yourself heal. That was very, very close.”
He nodded. It was so hard to focus. Sarai was all right, she had to be. He kept his mind trained on that. She would be okay. They had already survived worse. Gaea was with them. Marna was with them. Cassandra and the eternals—they were in the best possible hands.
Reality's Plaything 5: The Infinity Annihilator Page 51