“Is that your question?”
“No.” Jodocus smiled. “My question is, are you willing to assist us in attacking the army guarding the rift through which our enemies came?”
Her mouth became compact, lips pressed together, and it seemed to Erik that Anadia’s reaction was one of immense tiredness.
“We fought the enemy with all we had. And we lost. The survivors lingered in out-of-the-way places, such as your rather cleverly designed volcano, until they were discovered and killed. So my answer is no. Not unless you have something new to offer.” Her attention was now on Ghost, Athena, and Milan.
“We do.”
“Then that’s my next question. Tell me more. What do we have here?”
“These new friends of mine are from Saga. Our enemies have opened up a rift there with a view to conquering it next. But they will not find it easy, because the people of Saga have powerful weapons—much more powerful than any we have seen before.”
“Interesting. You will have to show me. I’ll accept that as an answer. Your question.”
“Can I ask one?” interjected Ghost. Erik was immediately intrigued about what his friend wanted to know.
Jodocus tipped his head toward Ghost. “By all means.”
“Why are you hostile to Jodocus?”
“Didn’t he tell you? Well, I don’t suppose he would.” Anadia, whose features had been severe since they had first met her, now bore an expression colder than the mountain peaks. “He was exiled because he is a murderer.”
No one spoke. Milan and Athena looked as surprised by the answer as Erik felt. Jodocus looked impassive, as he often did. It was impossible to tell if he was outraged or angry at the statement.
“Go on,” urged Ghost.
“Karazan, the sultan of the fire elementals, killed Lord Tanley in an ambush on Mount Woe. Lord Tanley was a member of the Supreme Council, and one of the twenty-four remaining domini . . .” She looked up. “You know what I mean by domini?”
Milan shook his head. Athena, however, nodded. “Most of your people and creatures have only a very limited consciousness. The domini are the fully intelligent people.”
“Oh right.” Milan rubbed his chin. “Jodocus did tell us that. I remember now.”
“There were a lot of rivalries among the domini, but none of us would consider killing another—or so we thought until Jodocus set his most powerful elemental on Tanley.”
Erik stared at Jodocus, shocked.
“I deny it,” the elementalist replied. The tone of his voice was aggrieved, although his expression remained calm.
Anadia sighed. “Only a handful of people knew that Tanley was following a quest that would take him to Mount Woe and no one else in the world could command the sultan of the fire elementals.”
“Karazan would kill any one of us if he could.”
“Anyway”—the mistress of the birds brushed aside Jodocus’s objection with a wave of her hands—“we’re not going to resolve that debate here. But that’s the answer to your question.”
“I see.” Ghost glanced at Jodocus, and Erik wondered what she was thinking. They would need to chat privately later. This was alarming information, and suddenly the elementalist did not seem quite so benevolent. Was he really a murderer?
“My next question: what do you hope to achieve by fighting at the rift?” Although Anadia was looking toward Jodocus, the elementalist was scowling and seemed no longer to have any interest in leading the answers, so Erik answered for them all.
“We want to go to the world on the other side of the portal and find the guiding intelligence behind all this destruction.”
“To what end? To kill them?”
“No. Certainly not. To find out what they want and reason with them.”
“Indeed.” She gave him a smile of wickedness and complicity.
“Really. I mean it. I . . .” The sincerity in his voice would not be enough to convince her, and his impression of this woman was that she would see his commitment to non-violence as hopelessly naive.
Ghost came to his assistance. “Erik’s people live without violence. It is the central law of their society. He genuinely will try to solve this crisis without killing any sentient life.”
“Forgive my skepticism. The humans abandoned us here in Myth, and before they did so, some of them strove to kill all the domini they could find; the new enemy has fulfilled their goal for them, with the exception of myself and Jodocus.”
“The humans learned of the attack by the people of Saga against the population of Earth,” muttered the elementalist, “and they feared us. Feared that we, too, might find a way to attack them.”
Anadia ignored the comment. “In any case, I can tell you in advance that if there is a guiding intelligence behind the invasion of our world, it is not one that is amenable to reason. They are like insects. They just keep coming, destroying everything in their path and converting it into the raw material for more armies, more factories, more farms. It seems to me they are not guided by intelligence, but by an iteration that makes them fight, destroy, build; fight, destroy, build; over and over. They have spread out over the land, cutting down forests, diverting rivers, making enormous dams, and leveling every city and town in favor of their own soulless factories. Mile after mile of stone buildings, constantly busy with mindless production. My feeling is that even if you get through the ‘portal,’ as you call it, you’ll find just more of the same on the other side and no one in charge; no one to reason with.”
“That’s possible”—Erik felt discouraged as he conceded the point—“but we have to try before they attack Saga.”
“What a curious concern. Why do you, a human, care what happens in these worlds?”
“Because the people of Saga are our friends.”
“Humans and electronic lifeforms are friends?”
“Yeah.” Milan nodded earnestly. “Well, some of us, anyway.”
“What about you?” Erik asked her. “Didn’t you have any human friends?”
“I hated them all.” She gave a small shrug, and Erik was disappointed Anadia did not show any inclination to elaborate more. He wanted to try to win her approval, to show her that he was different from any humans that she had fought against. But he just didn’t know enough about what had happened in this world to begin. Perhaps there would be an opportunity to talk to her more later. “What’s more,” Anadia continued, addressing Ghost in particular, “I’ve some advice for you. Don’t trust them. They are as much our enemies as the people behind this new invasion.”
“But will you help us?” asked Jodocus. “Because this is not about humans; it is about revenge for what has happened to us here.”
“Show me your weapons.” Anadia got off her chair and opened the door of the room; a draft came in, disturbing the fire. She led the way back outside to the heights above the clouds.
Unstrapping his Atanski, Milan looked about. “Right. What do you want me to aim at?”
“How about that rock over there, shaped like a finger? Is that too far away?” Anadia pointed to a distant rock that was not being used as a resting place by the birds surrounding the dome.
“No,” replied Milan, lining up the sights. A moment later a bolt of green light flashed across to the rock, and they all had to blink away its bright afterimage as the echoes of the explosion rang out around the mountainside. Hundreds of birds leaped into the air, cawing in dismay, and their cries filled the vastness of the blue sky. The top of the rock had been blasted away and little chips were still falling through the air and clattering on the mountainside.
“Impressive.” Anadia gave Milan a nod of grim satisfaction. “All right. Give me a few days to summon all my forces and I’ll fight. But understand two things: first, if I ever see you humans approaching this mountain in the future, I will attack you; second, I’m not going with you beyond the portal. I shall direct my army from a very safe distance. Once you’re through, you’re on your own.”
“Thank yo
u,” said Erik. “That’s all we ask.”
Chapter 19
CHARRED AND LIFELESS
“What’s your plan?”
They had landed behind a ridge of hills and were now surveying the army posted in front of the portal, Cindella through the Eyes of the Eagle and the others taking turns on the binoculars. It had been an exhilarating journey. Anadia’s flock of birds had accompanied them like an immense cloak flowing across the sky, a mile across and several miles long. At their head was the sorceress herself, traveling in a chariot suspended on golden ropes, which was drawn by six enormous birds. They were monstrous creatures, much like the roc in Epic. Each was capable of grasping an elephant in its wickedly sharp talons, and the powerful beat of their wings could be heard over the rushing sound of the air elemental. With allies such as these, Erik was filled with confidence that they could defeat the army ahead of them. The enemy’s defenses and weapons no longer seemed anywhere near as intimidating as they had the previous day now that he had an army of raptors on his side.
“How about we crawl into weapon range, then you come storming down from the skies and we open fire?” It was Milan who replied to Anadia, even though she had addressed the question to Jodocus.
“Very well. See that copse of bushes?” She pointed ahead. “Crawl up to it, and when you are in position, I’ll attack from above. Aim low; I don’t want your stray fire hitting my birds.”
“Understood.” Milan lifted his rifle and held it across his chest.
“I’ll need a moment to summon an earth elemental, or two, if the terrain is suitable,” said Jodocus.
The sorceress of the skies glanced at the elementalist with a haughty smile. “If we were dueling, you would be dead before your summons could come into effect.”
“Not so, my lady. It is just that for now I choose not to release the elementals from my tattoos, not while there is good material beneath my feet from which to draw forth elementals of stone.”
“I see. Begin your spells. I’m sure you will be ready by the time we are high above the enemy.” With that, Anadia swept her blue cloak around her and walked off to her chariot, her head high. Without a cry, but with a vast fluttering of wings that sounded like the applause of a large crowd, the avian army lifted itself from the valley. The larger birds rose first, the smaller ones curving about them, a dark column rising into the blue sky with Anadia at its head.
“Come on. Let’s leave Jodocus here to cast his spells and get into position.” Milan led the way, crawling forward from rock to rock, bush to bush. Behind him was Ghost; then came Athena, Cindella, and Gunnar. And once the battlements of the enemy compound were comfortably in range, they halted, lying in a small dip in the land.
“Stay close to Ghost; she should be able to protect you,” Erik whispered to Milan. After getting his acknowledgment, Erik looked to Athena, who also nodded. “Gunnar, you should probably stay here, too.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Ghost in a low voice.
“Run around and have some fun.”
This drew a grin and a thumbs-up from Milan, and even Athena, who was looking pale, managed a smile.
Gunnar was watching the skies. “Get ready, they’re coming.”
Initially, the avian army seemed no more threatening than a dark cloud drifting high in the sky, but as it descended, the patch of shadow grew rapidly larger. All of a sudden the cloud stretched toward the ground, as though a stream of dark water was being poured onto the army compound. And just when it became possible to see that the leading edge of the cloud was made up of individual eagles, they dove downward with the swiftness of a hunter’s strike. The sharp claws of the birds struck the heads and shoulders of the gray soldiers. A storm of feathers and claws now swirled around the compound, accompanied by the screams of avian battle cries.
Although awed by the clamor and the sight of the massed ranks of raptors swooping down on their prey, Erik had not remained inactive. As soon as he had seen how swiftly the birds were hurtling to war, he had launched Cindella into motion. The rattle of machine guns and the hiss of bullets around her proved that the guards were alert, at least to enemies approaching over the ground rather than from above.
Utilizing the powers of the Boots of the Lupine Lord, Cindella sprang right up on top of the nearest revetment, drawing her magic weapons as she did so. This was going to be hand-to-hand warfare for the moment. The Rapier of the Skies and the Dagger of Frozen Hate were both swift and both bore enchantments that allowed them to penetrate full-plate armor; but it was the dagger that was the more lethal of the two, as it had a tendency all of its own to seek out the weak spots in an enemy’s defenses and embed itself in them.
The gray gun crew could not turn their machine gun quickly enough to bear on Cindella and were dead before they could draw their pistols. Ignoring the flashes of hundreds of bullets striking his avatar—aimed by guards on the higher inner wall—Erik saw that the machine gun crew in the next revetment had unfastened their weapon and were pointing it up to the skies, causing havoc among the birds above them.
Cindella sheathed her rapier and leaped up to the inner wall, letting the Dagger of Frozen Hate find the throat of a soldier who tried to block her. As she sprinted toward the soldiers firing into the sky, she drew throwing daggers with her free hand and lashed them through the air to take down the medieval-style guards blocking the way. Toppling down either side of the wall, they were gone before she reached them, leaving the path free for her to leap down into the machine gun post. Whirling around with rapier and dagger once more, she cut and stabbed until all in the gun crew were down. Although it strained her strength bar to the maximum, Cindella was just able to heave the machine gun out over the revetment and as soon as it tumbled to the ground below, she leaped back up onto the inner wall, immersing herself in a desperate fight with the metal-armored guards there.
Despite being able to parry and deflect most of the blows coming at her from their iron short swords, some blows got through and Erik noted with concern that Cindella was on 74 percent health by the time she had cleared the walkway of her immediate opponents. This was still a comfortable amount; but even so, she should probably drink a healing potion while there was time to do so. But there were only two potions left. He took a risk and left Cindella as she was, hoping the small regeneration effect from one of her magic rings would be enough to restore her health before she took more damage.
It was hard to make sense of the battle, especially as it was easy to get distracted by the chaotic movements of individual soldiers struggling against the birds flapping around their heads. A particularly remarkable sight, though, was that of a roc sweeping through the skies with a tank grasped in its talons and releasing it to crash among the other vehicles, leading to a series of explosions and a scream of tearing metal that temporarily drowned out the cries of the birds.
Below Cindella, inside the compound, a giant creature formed out of boulders had torn apart the army’s gate and forced a path through the enemy soldiers, overturning troop carriers as he went and stamping on the soldiers who spilled onto the ground. But impressive as he was, the stone elemental was looking distinctly ragged and chipped as shells from some of the still-active tanks ricocheted off it.
Glancing back, Erik saw that Ghost and the others had come nearer to the compound so that they could fire through the damaged gates and pick off soldiers with their bolts of pink and green energy. Their proximity to the incredible storm of bullets and crossbow bolts made him a little anxious, but Ghost would not have advanced if she couldn’t deal with the weapons being fired her way.
A new sound, more regular than the wild surging noise of battle, came to Erik’s attention. It was a deep drone that immediately resolved itself as the powerful engine of an airplane rushing past in a roar of machine gun fire. In its wake the air swirled with feathers and falling birds. The plane banked as it turned, ready to make another pass. Already Cindella had her Longbow of Accuracy in her hands and Erik hurriedly sc
rolled through the contents of the Bag of Dimensions in search of his collection of special arrows. As the plane dove back, it rose high above the fighting, evidently making for Anadia’s chariot, which was carefully out of range of the ground weapons. Before the plane could rise any further, Cindella fired. His Arrow of Lightning met the plane with spectacular effect. The arrow’s magic was visible in the violent blue-white discharge of electricity that ran along the length of the aircraft and out past the tips of its wings. The plane lost all ability to steer and raced straight on past the conflict, eventually stalling, before tipping over and shrieking as it accelerated toward the ground. The crash was a massive explosion that sent glowing shrapnel hurtling in all directions.
More of the medieval wall guards were now running his way, but Cindella was able to fire the bow just quickly enough to deal with them. The enemy charge dwindled until there were no more assailants threatening her, only riflemen who persisted in shooting at Cindella despite the fact that their bullets had no effect at all.
Elsewhere, it seemed that the huge stone elemental was down and some of the surviving tanks were focusing their weapons on Ghost and the others outside. Erik could feel his heart pick up speed with concern over the near-deafening thump of shellfire, but there wasn’t much he could do for his friends, other than hope the shells posed no problem for Ghost. He reassured himself with the thought that he had seen her handle the much greater energies of Saga’s pulse weapons.
From the wall, Cindella had plenty of targets for her bow, and even while Erik was assessing the situation, she had been picking off individual soldiers. But perhaps the most help that Cindella could now provide was to tackle the officer units, whom Erik could glimpse when gaps in the screaming tangle of birds and soldiers allowed. His avatar leaped down and, weaving her way through the battle, came to the wooden structure on which the officers were standing, shouting commands into large handheld radiophones.
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