Who’s next? she thought, eager to take someone else down.
She turned to see how Makias was faring behind her, when something struck the back of her helmet. Cong!
The impact launched her, and her face slammed into the snowy ground.
And then it all went black.
As soon as her senses returned, Alessa pulled her nose out of the snow, and pushed up onto her knees to look around.
When she turned her neck to look back toward Makias, crrrrr! she heard the grinding of bone against bone, and a bolt of horrible pain shot down her back.
She froze. She knew her neck was broken.
Alessa could tolerate many things, but she could not abide being weakened. Her rational mind told her that with a broken neck she was out of the fight, disqualified—she could only defend herself now. But her swelling anger quickly quashed these prudent thoughts and made her even more keen to kill someone.
Especially when she saw what has happening to Makias: a hulking purple army fighter was coming at him with a massive spiked mace held high.
With her blood ablaze with adrenaline, Alessa scrambled back up onto her feet, ran toward the man, and, leaping, she yanked his arm with both hands just as his mace was about to strike Makias’ head. It took all her weight on the foe’s arm to deflect the weapon away from its mark. Alessa, the enormous Frakker, and his mace slammed down onto the snow. Pain surged through Alessa’s body. She clenched her teeth and hoped it would end.
Makias drove his sharpened blade into the enemy giant’s side, moving it left and right to decimate the man’s insides. “I got him,” Makias announced. “He’s down.”
Seeing that Alessa was on the ground, three smaller Frakkers—teen boys—pounced on her. They jabbed their short swords up and under her armor. She felt one blade enter her flesh, and then another. She tried to bat off their blows with her heavily armored arms, but these kids were quick. Makias desperately swiped and poked at the boys, trying not to slice Alessa.
And then someone else skewered one of the Frakker boys right through the back.
It was King Radovan, wielding a long sword.
Seconds later, Makias swung his blade and took off the head of the boy nearest to him.
Down on the ground, Alessa threw the last boy off of her, but his short sword was stuck deep in her body, and when she pushed him off she felt his sword tear messily out of her side. “Aaaaaarrrrhuh…huh..!” She cried out like an animal, her scream ending in breathless sobs.
Hold on, love, Makias told her in his mind.
But Alessa had little left to hold on to… She screamed again, and all around her—friend and foe—felt their cells tremble.
Fierce fighting continued all around. Makias and Radovan stepped in close to Alessa, trying to defend her as well as themselves.
Again, Alessa got back up onto her knees, with pain bouncing through her pierced body like a shorting circuit.
Moving only her eyes, she tried to shift the blood in the Frakkers’ heads to make them easier for the others to slay, but everyone was moving too quickly, and her pain was crippling. She couldn’t keep up.
Finally, her body won out over her stubborn mind and pulled her down into a fetal position on the ground. With each pump of Alessa’s heart, only a portion of her blood was making it to where it was needed; the rest was flooding out of her new wounds into her body cavities, or onto the snow.
And then, in the distance, a shrill whistle sounded.
The Frakkers—all of them—dispersed into the woods like frightened mice.
Destaurian soldiers pursued them, where they could.
Makias and Radovan saw their chance to get Alessa back to the bunker. “Let’s get you out of here,” Makias said. He slid Alessa’s sword back into its scabbard on her belt, lifted her, and took a few steps, but he struggled to carry her with the weight of all her armor.
“Hand her to me,” Radovan said.
Makias handed Alessa into the king’s stronger arms.
Radovan carried Alessa toward the bunker, quickly but carefully. Her blood was leaking out all over the snow, leaving a trail. “I hear my father is dead,” Radovan said to her, trying to keep Alessa thinking and conscious. “Well done.”
“Our new friend…deserves the credit,” Alessa said, weakly. She had noticed Jewel, who had re-emerged from the bushes with her hands up. A few Destaurians had their bows aimed in at her.
“She’s with us! Don’t shoot her,” Makias shouted. “Jewel, walk with us.”
Jewel ran up alongside Makias and Radovan.
“Young lady, not all of us were corrupted by the tutor,” Radovan said to Jewel. “Some truly have black hearts. My father deserved to die, and you have done well. Think nothing of his life. Your soul is clean.”
Jewel nodded, overwhelmed.
Another wave of pain overtook Alessa, and she cried out loud.
“You’re going to make it,” Makias said to her. “We’re almost inside, and you’re in the arms of a mender.”
Just inside the bunker, there was a meeting room where Radovan could examine Alessa. He made Makias wait in the corridor, but he allowed Jewel in.
Soldiers tossed a huge white blanket over an iron table, and Radovan set Alessa down upon it. Jewel got to removing Alessa’s armor and peeling off her underclothes.
“Careful, my neck’s broken,” Alessa whispered to Jewel. Hearing this, Radovan ran to stabilize Alessa’s head with his hands.
Alessa’s body was coated in blood, and by the time she was undressed the white blanket beneath her had turned red. She shivered and shook.
Radovan, meanwhile, had tuned out, and he was already mending Alessa.
He first used his ability to seal a gash in her liver, and then he repaired the arteries and major veins that had been sliced, starting with the largest artery. Next, he repaired her neck.
Alessa fought to stay conscious, crying out whenever her wounds pulsed with sharp pain. She felt the prayers of Elaina and the Celmareans, who, wherever they were, had stopped what they were doing to contribute their will to her fight to survive.
Makias sat on a stool just outside the door, feeling Alessa’s agony, and saying his own prayers to the divine spirit. He sensed more than just pain in her cries. She was mad—mad at herself for not being fast enough, and for being bested so quickly. She was embarrassed that her boyfriend had to see her in such a weak state. And she was frightened because she had lost control of the situation. Despite her deep connection with the divine, it was Alessa’s utterly human feelings that ruled the moment.
I’ll survive this, Alessa told Makias in her mind. You watch! He felt her presence recede and then return, and recede, and return.
I know you will, he replied.
I didn’t come this far to be cut down by a few sex-crazed boys in purple pajamas. Errr! If one could scream in the mind, Alessa did just then. A shock wave radiated out from her, stunning those in the room, shaking the walls, and opening a few cracks in the ceiling.
The wave of energy even reached the corridor where Makias sat, causing an electric lamp above him to swing. Look how strong you are, Makias said. You’re not going anywhere.
Errrrrrrrr! What? What was that? What did you say? I’m not what?
Going anywhere.
I’m fighting, Makias. I’m winning! Do you know what it’s like to have a sword through your body? Of course you don’t. It makes you feel special. You feel different about your… He lost her for a few seconds. And then she came back with: What did you say?
Nothing, love. Stay with us.
I’m here…
Radovan found another place where Alessa’s spine had fractured. Four of her ribs had snapped. A few more times, the pain of whatever Radovan was doing made her clench her teeth, but it was bearable. She started to gain control over her breathing. Makias felt her presence more consistently.
A medical team soon arrived. They infused Alessa with several bottles of the best blood in their stock. Radovan ke
pt mending her severed muscles and tissues until finally he fell asleep, and soldiers had to carry him out.
Eventually, the medics finished cleaning and sewing Alessa up. They carefully lifted her, slid a fresh blanket beneath her, covered her with another one, and, at last, let Makias in to see her.
“How are you?” Alessa asked Makias, clutching his arm. Her eyes were watery and still unfocused.
“Me? A few cuts and sprains,” Makias said. “I’ll make it.” He bent in and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I thought you were invulnerable, though,” he said.
“Guess not,” Alessa replied. “They almost got me. I’m so sorry, Makias. Thanks for defending me.”
“I, uh…” Makias said. She noticed Makias’ hands were shaking. In his mind, he was replaying the awful fight—what he had seen, what he had done, the fear he had felt for himself, and for Alessa.
Tears fell from Alessa’s eyes. She realized that the battle had left Makias with wounds of the mind that he would need time to recover from.
“We’ll get through this,” she assured him.
Once the area had been better secured, Princess Eleonora arrived. Makias looked after Ia while Eleonora worked further on Alessa’s wounds, using her traditional mending skill to touch up any spots that Radovan had missed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Snow was falling again in Arra.
A squad of sixteen purple army soldiers had been hiding in a vacant home in the city’s merchant district, and now they were on the move, carrying out what they thought were their grandmaster’s orders.
Few lamps were lit in this deserted neighborhood, leaving plenty of shadows. The squad followed these rivers of darkness to the castle moat, where they found the drawbridge down, just as their great leader had described.
These young people had been trained to face deadly situations with confidence in the precision of their honed abilities. Their bodies and minds were fine-tuned. Their gear was the best of the best. If they had one weakness, however, it was being out in the open. Many of them trembled as they stepped onto the drawbridge, which was lit up yellow by two massive torches that blazed on the castle’s face. Why had their grandmaster urged them to enter the castle through the front door? Fear eroded their edge just a bit. Their boots crunched the snow and ice louder than normal. They kicked bits of powder that floated down into the moat.
Their squad leader scurried ahead into the shadows of the gatehouse, stopped, and scanned for any threats. Three of her soldiers joined her, and when these four moved on to a new hiding spot, four more took their place.
The Frakkers followed the colonnade on the east edge of the courtyard, dashing from shadow to shadow like river striders. An eerie mist rose off the snow. A machine was humming nearby, behind a wall.
As the squad leader approached the giant doors to the Royal Academy, she noticed that she was paying far too much attention to the hum of the nearby machine. When she turned back to look at her team, she suddenly felt dizzy.
Her mind slipped fast from there.
Her legs failed.
She tried to make the hand signal for retreat, but before she could even lift her hand she was consumed in blackness.
Some of the stronger ones in the squad made it three steps before falling to the snowy ground. One made it six. But, most importantly, none made it out of the courtyard, and none had been able to call for help. Within seconds, sixteen dark-clad bodies lay on the snow, asleep.
Alethea, watching through a slit in a second floor stairwell, relaxed her efforts, and the water vapor, laden with the sleeping poison Nastasha had brewed, settled gently back onto the snow’s surface.
The doors to the Royal Academy flew open and Arran soldiers rushed out to drag the drugged foes indoors. Following this, the widow Triona, Makias’ sister-in-law, trotted out and did her best to smooth the snow with her mind before the next enemy squad arrived.
Nearby, in the Royal Academy’s engineering lab, Nastasha sat monitoring the humming transmitter that was jamming the purple army’s local frequencies. The Arrans had built the apparatus from equipment left behind by the Destaurian General Lazlo, and Nastasha had fine-tuned it after analyzing the communicator taken off of Jewel’s partner on Celmarea. The jamming signal, which needed to be incredibly strong, was powered by alternating current arriving in huge copper cables from the castle’s prototype hydrothermal generator.
Packed into the castle’s basements, sub-basements, halls and residential wings, Arran civilians waited and prayed. Princess Tori kept busy by making the rounds to every huddled family, reassuring them on behalf of the royal family that the Arran nation would soon be free from fear.
Princess Elaina and Prince Jaimin were conversing with Galen, the Arran chief physician, when the first cartload of unconscious purple army soldiers was wheeled into the infirmary.
“Here we go,” Galen said, as the first enemy soldier, a young man Jaimin’s age, was hoisted by Arran troops onto a recovery chair. “May the divine spirit forgive us. Are you ready?”
“Ready. I’ll go first,” Elaina said, positioning her hands on the sleeping man’s forehead and chest.
The doctor drew a precise dose of pentobubitol in his syringe, found a vein in the man’s left arm, stuck it, and pushed the plunger. Everyone waited and watched. After a few seconds, the man turned a ghastly grey color, and his nose, mouth and eyes began to twitch. And then, as expected, the light flared up around both of Elaina’s hands and grew outward, consuming the man. His eyes and mouth opened, and he took in a long breath. Through the brilliant light Elaina watched the color return to his face.
Elaina smiled, becoming instantly acquainted with this man through the union of souls. He looked at her, “Mother,” he cried.
“No, Dimik, I’m not your mother,” Elaina said, in a motherly voice. “I’m your friend. You’re free now. Stand up.” As the light died away, she helped Dimik to ease toward the edge of the chair and find the floor with his feet. Even as she was doing this, Jaimin and Galen were murdering and resurrecting another soldier on an adjacent chair, with equal success.
Galen was in awe of what he was seeing. “The spirit is truly the key to all medicine, isn’t it?” he said to Elaina.
Jaimin and Elaina kept up their healing without losing a single patient. And they had to work fast, before the sleeping poison wore off. They abandoned the idea of lifting the patients into chairs and simply treated them on the ground.
More and more cartloads of passed-out foes were wheeled in. Elaina and Jaimin knew from experience that being a conduit for the light made one’s hair grow longer. They healed so many that soon Jaimin’s curly hair extended halfway down his back. And Elaina’s hung nearly to the floor.
Outside, the broader plan was that the Audician and Arran armies, which had practically encircled coastal Arra, would gradually close their circle as the purple army filtered into the castle—not so close as to spook them, but close enough that the foes couldn’t retreat without being detected. Thus, at least in Arra, the purple army could be contained. Only the purple army units still in Destauria, including those guarding the baby mill, would remain to be dealt with.
Hours passed. The holding areas teemed with redeemed purple army soldiers. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred…and dawn wasn’t too far away. In their crowded halls and corridors, the Arrans began to celebrate.
But then the foes stopped arriving.
Nastasha had her feet up and was actually getting quite bored with babysitting the transmitter, when Alethea and her guards burst through the door.
“Power it down,” said the queen.
“Of course, Your Majesty. What’s the problem?” Nastasha flipped a few switches and the apparatus ceased its maddening hum.
“They’ve stopped coming. How many more did we estimate were in the area?”
“Six hundred maybe,” Nastasha said.
“They must have found another frequency,” said the queen. Nastasha quickly donned her heads
et. She turned a dial and found that a frequency just outside the range she had been jamming was alive with local transmissions. The young killers spoke calmly in code and slang.
Alethea activated her communicator and transmitted a message to Nastasha’s father, General Valeriy: “Option two. Now.” And then she asked Nastasha, “Can you disrupt the new frequencies?”
“Yes, yes—it won’t take long.”
Jaimin, Elaina, get yourselves underground, Alethea pleaded in her mind. We’re in for a fight up here.
Elaina and Jaimin heard, and they looked around. They still had a backlog of over a hundred patients. Suddenly, a volley of burning fuel gel canisters smashed through the infirmary’s towering three-hundred-year-old windows, raining fire onto a row of unconscious purple army soldiers, and setting them ablaze. Other bits of gel landed on nearby beds and ignited them.
Elaina grasped Jaimin’s hand. Guards ushered the royal couple away from the chaos, and toward the exit. On their way out, they saw soldiers frantically grabbing bags of “sand” from near the doors. Working day and night, Arran scientists had come up with a sand-like substance that could extinguish the purple army’s signature fuel gel. The sand would foam up green when it made contact with the gel, snuffing out the flames.
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