Heir To The Nova (Book 3)

by T. Michael Ford

  “This should be fun,” Maya exhaled beside me as we waited our turn.

  I turned and smiled at her. “You always say that.”

  “That’s because it’s always fun when we get to fight alongside each other!”

  “You know, I’m still not sure who the crazy one is around here.”

  She smiled brightly as she fiddled with Winya as a dagger in her hand, like a child with a shiny toy. “Oh, that would definitely be me, trust me on that one.”

  Nia came blasting through the portal in front of us with a serious look on her face. “The coast is clear! Looks like all the undead were either at the old portal sites or along the walls. I barely saw any inside the school grounds. Burrr…it’s really cold there, too.”

  “Are the students alright?” asked Rosa.

  She shrugged. “Didn’t see anything telling me they wouldn’t be, the towers are still sealed up.”

  “Excellent! Higs, waiting on your orders,” I said.

  The new captain smiled and unsheathed the sword I had enchanted for him, what seemed so long ago. “We’re ready; let’s go get our people back!”

  With that, Maya and I drew our weapons and charged through the portal. We came through the other side in only a few seconds but time almost came to a standstill when we emerged. The wondrous Xarparion campus was now a gore-covered battle field. There were bodies everywhere; staff, guards, wizards, undead, horses, and even some small children. Here and there, small flocks of crows feasted on the remains, hopping from body to body in a gruesome dance. In a way, the cold that permeated the air and made our breath come out in clouds of moisture was a blessing; at least our noses would catch a break. I was surprised that the dead were still here, I would have expected the Lifebane to have resurrected these poor souls into his foul army. The only thing I could think of was he left them here as a warning of sorts.

  Maya reached out and squeezed my hand reassuringly and murmured, “Oh, yes, there will be a day of judgment for this.”

  Higs and his men grimly filed out of the portal behind us and took their places, forming a perimeter around the portal. The dwarves, Elsa at the lead, followed and silently made their way to their objective with the map Rosa gave them. Finally, the girls came out with Hons and his team.

  “Not the same as any of us remember it, is it?” said Hons hollowly.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  He cringed a bit as his hands formed into fists. “They are going to pay for this, I promise you that.”

  “In time, Hons,” Lin growled. “Right now, we need to free our people before the undead know we’re here.”

  “Right, sorry; we will get to work then.” Hons and the others went to work on the Wind Tower leaving the druids with us.

  “Have fun you three,” said Maya.

  “Have fun she says, when they get the Water Tower and we’re stuck with the jackass wind users,” Lin spat on the ground and groused as they stalked off. I looked at Nia and motioned for her to go with them. She nodded and did so without complaint.

  ..................................................

  Ryliss

  Jules, Lin and I took on hawk forms; the trip up to the top of the Wind Tower was hardly a few beats of our wings to reach. The top of this tower had a pointed roof, sheathed in some form of coppery metal. A central flagpole projected from the top with the now ragged banner of the Wind Tower drooping heavily in the light breeze. With no apparent entrance there, we had to land on the topmost balcony overlooking Central and the portal far below.

  In the past few days, I had been working non-stop with the two druid girls to make some sense of the revelation that Prince Alex’s mother had revealed, that I was a druid, too. Not the moves-rocks-and-summon-lightning type, but more the shape-changing, friend-of-nature type. I found all this very funny and ironic, seeing that I am the least attuned-to-nature dark elf that I know. Julia says that the Earth Mother picks her servants, not the other way around; so I must have a purpose in life that is yet hidden.

  I do know that the more time I spend with Naurakka, the more in touch I am with her savage feelings. It’s like I feel her blood running through my own veins. Not a very scholarly explanation, but it is the truth. But there have been a lot of occasions where there has been no scholarly explanation during this adventure.

  The wings that Prince Alex and Maya have acquired are most curious. Not having been raised around much magic, I am stunned that they even work. Neither human or elf bodies were ever meant to have wings; but then, who am I to talk–I’m a hawk right now.”

  The balcony was large enough to hold all three of us as we returned to our natural forms. Lin and Julia as humans, and me as a dark elf magically disguised as a human; all of us in standard earth wizard robes.

  Jules tapped tentatively on the leaded crystal door that appeared to lead to the interior. When no one answered, she shrugged and looked at me, at a loss for what to do next. Sighing, I produced a small bone dagger from my robes and slid it into the seam between the two swinging doors. A brief bump up on the latch released the doors to open inward and we walked inside, closing the doors behind us.

  The room was empty save for some classroom chairs and tables and a huge number of gaudy tapestries on the walls, all depicting great cataclysmic events of wind damage. Great, another wizard discipline that teaches destruction before creation. These guys were starting to sound like the fire wizards’ only slightly less evil twins from the stories that Lin and Jules told me.

  We quickly hit the corridor and found all the other classrooms on this level empty as well. Racing down the steps, Lin complained, “By the stars, Jules, slow down, you’re going to trip and kill yourself!”

  The next level had larger classrooms yet, and again was completely deserted. Bursting down the steps to the next level, we found it to be one large circular room. Windows extended across all the walls in this place, giving it the appearance of a child’s fishbowl. Forty or so astonished wind wizards, students and staff looked back at us from the windows on the central building’s side, where they had been watching the guardsmen below defending the portal.

  Julia plowed to a stop and raised her voice, “Come on, you guys; we’ve come to rescue you!” The two druids walked casually to the middle of the group and I followed, eyeing the wind users carefully.

  Three of the older male students stalked up in their grey robes, inspecting us like we were some new form of insect.

  “And who are you?” the tallest demanded.

  “I’m Julia from the Earth Tower,” Jules bubbled, smiling and scanning the crowd. “Hey, Sammi, Petra, Besha…you remember me!” Three younger wizard girls at the back of the group nodded in half-hearted assent. “Ok, get whatever is valuable to you and can be carried on the run; we need to leave this place in less than five minutes.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until we get some answers,” growled the same older student. “And never, ever call a wind wizard by their real name. We don’t need your help; we have a plan of our own.”

  “No time,” Lin called out to everyone. “Your outer wall is coming down, so we all have to be ready to leave!” She and Jules attempted to bypass the three aggressive ones and appeal directly to the main group, but the loud one’s two friends grabbed them by the collars as they passed by and threw them roughly to the floor.

  “You two dirt crawlers weren’t listening, we don’t take orders from apprentices! Maybe we’ll just hold you three here until someone with real authority comes looking for you.”

  My punch took the first of the three squarely in the solar plexus, and I watched his eyes bug out as his lungs stopped working and he dropped to the floor unable to draw a breath. Spinning, my elbow caught his companion in the same spot, with similar results. Before the crowd could draw a full breath, I had the loud-mouthed one on his knees, my one arm locked around his forehead, and the other hand tickling his throat. I was concentrated on maintaining eye contact with the group, but the hand at his larynx fel
t strange and it strained at my control.

  Lin looked up fearfully from the floor and stuttered, “Ry…Ryliss, your hand!”

  Without letting up the pressure in the slightest, I risked a quick glance to my right hand. Surprisingly, large two-inch claws extended wickedly out from where my fingers should have been. The rest of my hand was changed as well, soft underpads had grown on the bottom, and dense black fur ran across the top well past my wrist. I flexed slightly in surprise, and a small rivulet of blood ran down the neck of the wind boy, who was frozen in terror.

  An older grey-robed man, probably a teacher, plowed through the crowd angrily. “You there, unhand that student at once!”

  With a shrug, I complied, shoving the jerk away to join his buddies on the floor. As Lin and Julia got back on their feet, I looked at my Jag’uri paw curiously, then snarled and addressed the wind wizards loudly, “In exactly two minutes, the outside wall protecting this tower is coming down whether you are ready or not. Fifty people out there are risking their lives to give you this chance to escape to safety. Personally, I don’t care in the slightest if you come or not. But if you wish to live, I suggest you remove the wards from the main floor immediately, and start filing down there so you can run for it the instant Hons opens the door. Xarparion guards will escort you through the portal. Follow their instructions! Now move!”

  The teacher’s mouth popped open but no sound came out as he fought to process the information. By now the three belligerent ones were back on their feet and readying spells.

  “If you think wind wizards are going to be ordered around by some slip of a girl, then you don’t know us very well!” the one I had bloodied spat viciously.

  I felt a slight weight on my shoulder and felt the breeze from a tiny pair of wings as they settled there.

  “And which little slip of a girl are you referring to, bub?” Nia called out loudly, leveling her twin toothpicks of doom at the three.

  The crowd immediately drew back, and I heard murmurs of consternation, “It’s the Combat Pixie from the tournament! Remember what she did to those fire jerks?”

  Starting out low but reaching a crescendo in seconds, the room was filled with the highly amplified buzzing of extremely agitated hornets, causing the younger students to clap their hands to their ears and crouch down low in panic. Abruptly it stopped, but Nia’s voice still boomed just as loudly, “Whatever these druid girls said to do, do! Do it now!” she screamed, crazily waving her small swords around pointing at the crowd.

  Immediately, like a plug pulled from the bottom of a water-filled sink, the room drained of its inhabitants. The wind wizards, the three punks included, charged down the steps like a vision of hell was behind them. Left alone, the teacher finally found his voice and he shook a finger at all of us. “The Headmaster will hear of this, don’t think he won’t!” Pale faced, he turned and ran after his students.

  Lin hugged Jules and looked at me. “Whoa, Ryliss, way to go all dark elf warrior on them. Maya couldn’t have done it better herself! Hey, can you teach me that thing you did with your paw?”

  I blushed at the rare praise, absently scratching at the back of my hand where the puma fur was still slowly receding, and grinned. “Well, the training manuals recommend taking a firm stance when faced with panicked civilians.”

  ..................................................

  Alex

  We watched Lin, Jules and Ryliss change into hawks and launch themselves into the air. This left just Maya and me. “Shall we?”

  She frowned and put her helmet on. “Ready when you are, Magic Boy. But one thing, Alex; don’t dwell on what we see on the ground here. Think about what we are about to accomplish…stay positive.”

  I sealed my own helmet in place and launched myself into the air after her. The past few days of workouts had strengthened our wings considerably, allowing us the freedom to fly for hours if needed, so the relatively short distance to the top of the tower was no trouble at all for us.

  Maya touched down first on one of the uppermost balconies and stepped aside to give me room to land as well. As Lin had said, our wings were that of a giant snow owl, in style anyway, meaning they were completely silent in flight and had excellent agility and speed.

  We shrunk our wings down and away as we both moved to the door. The door was made of stained glass with waterfall symbols and looked rather expensive. I reached out for the handle but Maya grabbed my arm.

  “Alex, this is a stealth mission. I am the one who’s good with the sneaking abilities, so I should be the one to open the door.” I shrugged and let her go first; she did have a fair point, after all. She tried the handle. “Locked.” Well, that figures…wait, why did she sound happy that it was locked? Next thing I knew, her fist was through the glass door, shattering it into hundreds of pieces. The rest of it was no barrier to our armor either.

  “What happened to stealth?”

  “Nothing, I just really always hated that pretentious window,” she said smugly. “Now come on, we have water wizards to scare so try not to clank too much, Mr. Walking Armory.” She swayed her hips and hit me in the side as she went in. The top floor was pretty much empty, not even stocked with furniture; so we continued through a door in the back of the room that led to a staircase. I knew we needed to go down, but that was about all I knew, and I had never been in one of these towers before, so I had no idea what the layout was either.

  Maya didn’t seem to think that was a problem, though. We passed quite a few doors making our way down with her only stopping for a second at the occasional door. I lost count of how many doors we passed when she stopped at one that didn’t look any different from any other door. She held up her hand, signaling for me to stop. She put her helmet on the door and listened for a second before pulling my head to the door with her. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was having fun with this. Finally, I could hear the voices from inside.

  “Sis, you need to eat. Even if it’s just these crummy crackers and salt pork, you have to keep up your strength.”

  “Why? Ranny, do you still think anyone is going to save us? It’s been weeks now. We don’t even know if the others made it out safe or not; and even if they did and came back, the undead are still here,” said a girl from inside. That name sounded familiar, so did that voice. While I was pondering that, my dark elf snickered and took off her helm, handing it to me.

  Maya silently opened the door, revealing a young boy and his older sister standing at the room’s window, looking out. This side of the tower faced out, so they weren’t watching our operation in the main courtyard. There was a large bed in the middle of the room, and Winya activated the enchantments that lightened the weight of our armor just as Maya leaped on the bed, rolled on her stomach and propped her chin on her palms, kicking her feet playfully behind her.

  “Soooo…” Both water wizards let out a startled squeak and spun around, plastering their backs to the window. “You two looking for a rescue? I hope you are up-to-date on your damsel-in-distress classes or this could get awkward.” Maya winked.

  “Who the…hey, wait a minute! You’re that hot…I mean that lovely woman who was Alex’s date at the dance after the tournament!” Ranny gaped in amazement. “And you’re wearing his kind of armor, too! Who are you?”

  Maya grinned and laid it on thick. Her wings sprouted out of her back once again and flapped gently. She even turned on the glow a bit, which I must say, added to her silver and white armor and made an absolutely stunning combination. “Would you accept a guardian angel?”

  Ranny and his sister were absolutely stunned. “Are you real?” asked Ranny.

  “Depends; do you want me to be?” She smiled.

  Ranny looked rather confused. “Yes?”

  His sister, a tall brunette, was a bit more energetic about it. “Yes! Please be real. Oh, and is Alex with you?” she asked breathlessly.

  Maya’s wings vanished, the glowing stopped and she sprung to her feet. “Great, gla
d that’s out of the way, now let’s round up the rest of your friends and get you out of here. Oh, I almost forgot to introduce myself. My name is Maya and I’m sure you know my mate.” Smirking outrageously, she grabbed my shoulder plates and pulled me into view, watching the brunette’s face fall in disappointment as I removed my helm.

  “Hey, Ranny, how have things been?” I grinned sheepishly. He looked older and quite a bit more mature than that day I fought him in the tournament.

  “Alex! Wow! The food sucks, but it’s better than being outside. If you’re getting us out of here, then it’s about to be a lot better.”

  “Indeed, where is everyone else?”

  “They are in the lower areas. My sister and I are some of the youngest here so they told us to stay in our rooms. The older students and a few teachers are on the second floor to hold off the undead if they make it in.”

  “You still have teachers here?”

  “Yeah, they weren’t in Central when it was hit, so they ran back here. They were the ones who told the earth wizards to seal us in.”

  “Why didn’t you people leave with us?” asked Maya.

  “We wanted to, but the teachers said it was safer to wait it out for the undead to leave; but it’s been weeks and you can still see them in the streets.”

  “No matter, I guess. We need to get everyone gathered in the lobby for the earth wizards to reopen the tower.”

  Ranny nodded energetically. “We can help with that, I think. Come on, we will take you to the others.” He started gathering up some of his belongings while his sister openly gawked at Maya.

  “Are you dead?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Are you dead? You have wings like an angel and you glow like one, so are you dead like one?”

  “No, not dead just not what we once were,” my dark elf muttered, now looking very self-conscious. I could see she was wondering if her showing off had backfired on her.