by Dale Furse
About eight skarks darted toward his ston, forming a half-circle line of attack.
Nell flew behind their line. ‘Get out of there,’ she screamed into the prince’s head.
As if on a command, the skarks fired simultaneously, exploding holes in the viewport and crushing the metal on each side of the prince’s ship, sending it nose-diving down until it crashed with a roar onto the ground. Dozens of Yexers charged toward the skarks. The skarks separated, flew toward Sam’s ston and began firing. With the skarks gone there was nothing between the Yexers and Nell.
‘Ugh, what now?’ Nell hissed, turning rattled thoughts over in her mind. The prince appeared beside her. ‘Eph,’ she said. ‘Are you okay?’
He threw his arms up and blocked a rain of fireballs. ‘Not now. Dodge and weave through their fire and try to get behind them.’
Nell nodded. The air was so thick with the monsters, she found it hard to focus her mind to send her own energy blasts into them and evade their attacks. She decided to evade.
Nell dodged and ducked, but as she bent forward to elude another, it burnt her back as it flew past. The dozens of Yexers fired at such a speed that sooner or later, they would strike her down. She could shift into Eldorap. No. It wasn’t worth losing the Eldoraps’ friendship. She stopped trying to dodge and concentrated, throwing her barbs of energy against the nearest fireballs. She rose as fast as she could, but the Yexers could shoot in every direction and she still had to weave side to side to avoid being hit.
Lunging away from one fireball, Nell scooted straight into another. Its force to her upper back hurled her high into the air. Not feeling any pain on impact, she wasn’t prepared for the depth of agony that spread over her body from the wound and her burnt wing. Pain wracked her as she tried to twist enough to see the damage. Her wing was gone. It was no different to losing an arm. She thought she screamed but it could have been in her mind because a thin veil of blackness began to wrap around her brain. Half aware that she had gone as high as the force of the shot sent her, she plummeted toward the ground.
Deesc came from nowhere, grabbed her and deposited her on the ground under the mangel trees. He laid her onto her uninjured side.
She opened her eyes and blinked at the trees as she rolled onto her back. Something like a water balloon burst over her back. She cried out. Her head began to swim and her stomach convulsed. She couldn’t concentrate to see her back with her mind, but she guessed that wasn’t water, it was blood. Clenching her teeth, she grimaced as she retracted what was left of her wings. She squealed in pain. Her vision blurred and the sound of a butcher’s blade cutting through bone faded her senses. With one last effort, she pulled in what was left of her burnt wing and fell into blackness.
‘Nell,’ someone called from far away. ‘Nell.’ Closer now. ‘Please, Nell.’
‘Deesc?’ she gasped.
‘Yes.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘I am sorry, Nell. The palace is lost.’
She tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t open. Hot tears filled her closed eyes and trickled down the sides of her face. She wanted to scream but the now familiar fire of rage had erupted in her stomach, pushing out the remaining nausea. She sank within herself. Found the heart of her power. Her centre. Grow, you wretched thing, grow. I know I’m stronger than this. Her stomach fluttered as if the power moved. Then nothing. A thought lodged in her mind. She gave it a silent shrug and screamed with her mind at her inner force. Rise up Wexkia and fill me.
Like a fast moving, incoming tide, wave after wave of Wexkian potency crashed through her. She revelled in the raw power.
Hoisting herself upright, she floated without wings above Deesc. ‘I will sweep the enemy away like dust.’ She vowed through clenched teeth.
With his wings extended, Deesc rose to face her, said, ‘Nell, cold power has turned your heart to stone. Clear your eyes…remember compassion.’
He pushed the curls away from her eyes, but Nell didn’t feel his touch, the only thing she was aware of was the broiling power.
He looked hard into her eyes. ‘I can see you can do as you say, Dar-Nellen. Think about your enemy, as you call them, they have families just as the defenders of Grarlon do.’
She glared at him. His words had no effect on the fire raging through Nell’s body. The agony of too many deaths swamped her. Explosions, new synapses, connections filled her mind.
Following his eyes, Nell drew in her breath. The yellow laser beams from five skarks commanded by Varlor rocked Sam’s ston on its axis.
Nell bolted away from Deesc and inserted herself between the skarks and Sam’s ston. Closing her eyes, she drew her arm across her as if shooing away a fly. The air sizzled at the force of pure energy emanating from her fingertips. Visible as a purple wave, it struck the skarks as if they were fishing boats tossed around by a fierce storm. The skarks tumbled end to end through the air and over the distant mountain range.
Sam’s ston shuddered as chunks of metal broke away from his ship’s hull and cascaded toward the ground. Nell searched around and spotted the prince. He had just felled another skark. Like a falcon on the hunt, she darted to him, but Deesc got there first.
Nell missed whatever it was that Deesc said. The Prince glanced at Nell, and said, ‘Nell is flying without wings or talons.’
Deesc nodded, his own wings fluttering to keep him aloft.
‘Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,’ Nell said.
The prince ignored her and spoke again to Deesc, ‘How can we overcome him?’
‘Overcome who,’ Nell wanted to know. She pointed to a large number of skarks pursuing Varlor’s force. ‘Who are they?’
Every now and then one of Varlor’s ships fired yellow laser shots at the newly arrived ships. Protection shields held on both sides. Dancing a ballet, they played cat and mouse, changing characters at will. The blasts echoed around the valley.
‘They are friends,’ the prince shouted above the racket. Switching to telepathy, he continued, ‘From all the allied planets, including Bants whose giant ships are on the other side of the mountains where enemy stons are awaiting Varlor’s next command.’
‘Varlor is onboard an orbiting ston,’ Deesc said.
‘Wha—?’ Nell dipped as fireballs from Yexers rained on them, hissing and sizzling.
The prince separated from Nell. He began to throw ice-spells at the Yexers’ fire orbs, dissipating them into steam. Deesc used his Wexkian force to block the clouds of heat with his hands.
Nell gathered the energy from the air around her and sent a purple wave against the closest Yexers. It had no effect. She couldn’t understand it. It had worked on the skarks earlier. The dragons didn’t even pause in discharging their fireballs at anything that wasn’t Yexer. They even hit one of Varlor’s skarks every so often. Wow. They were stronger than she had thought they were and they were getting angrier by the minute.
She turned to the prince and Deesc. ‘Let’s try and get them to follow us to the mangel trees.’
Nell flew some distance to Deesc’s left, but kept in front of the Yexers. She paused. Taking her bait, they moved closer. She dodged and weaved the fireballs as she made her way closer to the mountain. The prince scooted to the right of Deesc. The three of them flew in line toward the mountain of mangel trees.
The Yexers complied with her plan and again, the three of them had to evade the hot balls of fire. With the memory of her recent encounter with a dragon’s breath and pain still lingering in her back, she evaded every burning breath in a blur.
Not far from the first trees, the Yexers stopped.
Nell hovered, turned and threw waves of purple energy at them. Nothing. Not even a puff of smoke. They weren’t even looking at their prey. They were staring behind her. She spun around. ‘Look!’ she called to the other two.
A massive ship, the size she’d never seen or heard about before rose above and over the top of the mountains. Hatch doors that lined the front and sides opened.
‘Krolls,�
� Deesc said, as he dashed to her side.
He was right. Hundreds of Krolls streamed out of the doors.
The noises of the ongoing battle faded from Nell’s ears as Pren and Melt floated toward them. Their heads, held high, were majestic. Nell couldn’t see it, but she could imagine the power that seeped from their bodies. Nobody was going to get in their way. Not even her.
‘Move out of the way,’ Pren said. He didn’t shout, but his voice was clear above the din of battling stons and skarks behind them.
Nell opened her mouth.
‘Not now, Nell,’ said Melt.
Taking hers and Prince Ephry’s hands, Deesc guided them below the Krolls and out of the way.
The Krolls’ voice rose in song, slowly increasing in volume.
Nell wrenched her hand out of Deesc’s grasp. ‘They’ll need my help,’ she shouted.
‘Not with this song,’ he said directly to her mind. ‘The Yexers are distant relatives of the Krolls. They will understand one another.’
As if on cue, the Krolls circled the horde of Yexers. Pren and Melt changed their song. The Yexers lowered their long necks in what appeared to be submission. As one, the mass of Yexers flew to the closest trees. As they neared the mountain, they began to fade until they disappeared completely. The last of the dragons disappeared and the main force of Krolls floated back to the ship.
The battle sounds dulled once again as she stared at the trees, stunned by what she had just seen.
Melt flew to Nell and nudged her cheek. ‘We will see you on Gramlax, my special child,’ he cooed and flew for the mother ship.
‘Wait,’ Nell called after him. He didn’t turn. He just left without even an acknowledgement that she’d spoken.
Deesc laughed aloud and Pren too, soared back to the mother ship.
Nell gave a shake of her head. Now aware of the battle din, she realised that the aggressors had to be crushed, but first, she had Varlor to take care of.
She turned to Deesc and the prince, sending her thought to both of them. ‘A lot of Grarls would be well enough to fight by now. Get as many of them that you can, Ephry, and bring them here. Once their numbers join what’s left of the defenders’ forces, we will outnumber the invaders two to one. Bring Varlor’s army to its knees.’
‘We must find another way,’ said Deesc. ‘There will be more death your way, Nell.’
‘I don’t care,’ she almost screamed. ‘They have to be stopped. If you don’t like it, no one will stop you from going. ’ She spoke directly into the prince’s mind. ‘Once they are beaten, offer them terms of surrender as you see fit. If they refuse, destroy them. I don’t care if none lives.’
Prince Ephry bowed and vanished.
‘No, Nell. I will not allow it,’ Deesc said.
Nell turned on him. Her brain crackled with such fury, she could hear it. ‘You will not allow it?’ She was shrieking now. ‘You would fight me?’ She brought her arms in an arc above her head.
Deesc’s wings stilled, his eyes darkened.
She didn’t have time to wonder what his feelings were at that moment. Her voice softened without her say so. ‘Go back to Eldorapal, Deesc. I have business to attend to with Varlor.’ With her arms straight to her sides, she ascended like a laser beam.
As Wexkian, she was thankful her lungs held oxygen for a long time. She flew threw the thin atmosphere to the back of the ston carrying Varlor.
Now what? If she couldn’t shift into her Eldorap form, she had no way of getting inside. Too bad. There was no other way. She breathed a deep breath. She would just have to face the consequences of her actions whatever they were.
She shifted to Eldorap and, now invisible, appeared on the bridge.
Varlor growled as he watched a close-up screen of the planet below. ‘The Krolls have vexed me long enough. I will obliterate them too,’ he muttered. Stroking his blue, pointed nails across a black button on his console, he cooed, ‘You will triumph for me.’
Nell sent out her thoughts over the ship. A weapon unlike the ones on the other stons glinted against a stray sunbeam. It was small but no less threatening. Its outer skin wasn’t the gold colour of okfor but silver and smooth with no apparent joints. It melded so tightly with the ship’s gold hull both metals looked as if they had coalesced into one. The maniac means to wipe out every living thing on Grarlon, if not disintegrate the planet completely.
A chicken-faced alien, orange hair from the top of its head to its shoulders, sidled up and whispered to Varlor.
‘Ah, the child of Wexkia is here,’ said Varlor. He turned to face the bridge. ‘Show yourself.’
Nell blanched. Chicken-face could see her? Not only that, but he could see her within her Eldorap form. What sort of alien was he?
Varlor chuckled. ‘I can almost hear your confusion. You’re wondering how my friend here can see you. He can’t. But he can smell you.’ He growled. ‘Invisibility? You have come a long way since we first met on Earth. However, you will not go any further.’
Nell kept quiet, hoping he’d give his plan away. Mad men or aliens who think they’re unstoppable always gloat.
‘I will destroy you,’ he continued. ‘Once I have erased Grarlon, I will wipe your kind from the universe. No one will remember Grarlon or the people of Wexkia.’ As he spoke his blue claws danced around the black button on his console. He screamed to the air around him. ‘You are beaten. Show yourself.’
He glassy blue eyes showed the madness eating his brain. The half-wit meant to blow up Grarlon. And he didn’t care if his own forces were caught in the holocaust. Nell decided now wasn’t the time to push him over the edge. He was way to close to that button. She had to evacuate the planet first.
Targeting the air above Deesc, she vanished from the bridge.
He was hovering as he watched the prince, Orenda and about a dozen or so other Grarls grounded Varlor’s skarks. They weren’t too picky where they ditched them. Some of the skarks hit boulders, some crashed into holes, half in and half out, and the rest smashed against the hill above the palace.
Nell shifted to her own form as she stopped alongside him
Deesc faced her with angry eyes. ‘You took Eldorap form.’
Ignoring his comment, she whispered, ‘I hope they haven’t damaged the ships.’
‘What is wrong, Nell?’
Whether her face was as drained as she felt or something else had alerted him to her anxiety, she didn’t know. She was just glad he hadn’t pursued her disobedience.
‘We have to evacuate Grarlon now.’
‘Tell me why.’
‘Varlor intends to destroy the whole planet with some sort of weapon.’
Deesc gazed down at the fallen ships. ‘Surely he would get his force clear first.’
‘I don’t think he plans to do that. He’s insane, Deesc.’
‘Do you know when he will fire the weapon?’
‘Soon, I think.’ She never thought she would see Deesc shocked, but his face paled as he digested what she had said. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ll stall him as long as I can, but you have to get everyone off this planet.’ She scanned the grounded ships.
Sam, Kale and Kandar, aided by a few Grarls, were removing the Corls’ bracelets and escorting them somewhere out of Nell’s sight. ‘Come on,’ she called, as she dived toward them.
Nell said as she landed, ‘Just listen to me.’ After explaining their plight, she said, ‘The only problem is, we still don’t know if there are more survivors.
A Grarl stepped forward, and said, ‘What remains of our healed people are scouring the planet. They have already found some fortunates.’ He took Nell’s hand. ‘Too many are still ill and it would take some time for the recovered Grarls to gain enough strength to travel long distances.’
‘And we still have all these Corls too,’ Sam said, waving his hand over three newly arrived prisoners.
‘We have to decide what to do,’ Nell said more to herself than anyone else. She searched her mind for answer
s, but found none. There wasn’t enough time to wait for anyone’s strength to increase. Should they stop searching for more survivors? Her blood heated in her veins. Could she stop Varlor before it was too late? Should they fill what transport they had and leave the rest to die? Her mind began that crazy crackling again. Her brain flared up. No! No more will die. ‘Deesc get Pren’s ship back here. It’s big enough for everyone to get off this planet. I’m going after Varlor?’ Not caring about how many Corls or Grarls saw her, she shifted to Eldorap from just as Deesc shifted also.
Nell’s fire lessened at the sight of him. She grinned at him, and sang, ‘You’re gonna be in trouble with Haast.’
His vacant Eldorap mouth smiled. ‘I guess I am.’
As he left, Nell gave Kale, Sam and Kandar a hug. ‘You three make sure everyone is okay, and, Kandar, if Mekie gives you any trouble, bop her on the head.’
‘I’d like to see him try,’ Sam said, and laughed.
‘Do what you have to do,’ Nell said. ‘Just do it fast.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KANDAR WAS QUIET, SO SAM DECIDED TO take charge. ‘Righty O, there’s only a couple more skarks up there,’ Sam said, jabbing his index finger at the sky. ‘I’ll go with Kale to the palace and tell everyone what’s going on then I’m gonna have a little talk with the Corls working for Varlor. We’ll need them to cooperate with us if all this is going to run smoothly.’
‘We will be there shortly,’ said Kandar, gazing at the last remnant of battle, his eyes wet with emotion.
Sam had never seen Kandar rattled. The usually stoic green Corl preferred facts and logic to guesses and emotions, but his body language unsettled Sam. It looked like Kandar didn’t think they had a hope against Varlor’s bloody plan.
***
Sam and Kale meandered through the hundreds of beds in the underground restoration looking for Dar-Seldra. Glancing every now and then at the ceiling, Sam hoped the Grarls knew what they were doing when they built the massive bunker. He saw no supporting columns or any beams holding back the weight of the ceiling.