Dire Destiny of Ours

by John Corwin

  I deactivated the amplification spell for a moment. "There's a difference between following someone out of fear and following them because they deserve it."

  "Has this boy truly brainwashed each and every one of you?" Daelissa said. "I assure you he is nothing but a liar."

  As Daelissa spoke, I examined the goliaths. In addition to the crystal shards, ruby-colored gems gleamed in their eye sockets and jagged teeth protruded from their mouths. Golem makers rarely went through the trouble of making mouths or noses for such massive creations. I assumed it must be for the fear factor. Intimidation could be an effective tool as evidenced by the unsettled looks on the Darklings from Pjurna. I wondered if they'd ever seen anything like goliaths on Seraphina.

  I knew from experience the feet and legs were the best places to attack these monsters. Unfortunately, it appeared the engineers had thickened the legs and reinforced the connection to thick, domed feet. The golems didn't have bendable joints to attack. The magic, which animated the stone, also gave it flexibility almost like rubber. The only other weak spot would be the magic spark, which animated the golem. The spark could be located just about anywhere—the chest, the head, or even the butt. On something so ginormous I wouldn't even know where to begin looking.

  Daelissa finished her little speech. I was still trying to come up with an appropriate smart-assed remark when she thrust her hand forward. The golems opened their mouths and roared. Although I knew the sounds came from magical special effects, it was still scary as hell. A throbbing hum filled the air and a sullen glow infected the crystal shards.

  Archangels leapt from their high perches. Brilliant white wings unfolded as they streaked toward the Darklings on cloudlets. The goliaths simultaneously stepped forward, giant feet crushing the asphalt. The hum rose to a shriek.

  Yellow light lanced from the crystal shards with a grating screech. Several flying carpets bearing Blue Cloaks burst into flames and spiraled toward the ground. A torrent of deadly energy engulfed a Darkling cloudlet, leaving nothing but ashes to fall in its wake.

  Thomas shouted orders. Our catapults launched crucibles at the golems. Most of them exploded ineffectually against the stone, though a couple managed to crack the weapon shards on the jade golem. I heard the low humming noise again. When it reached a high-pitched whine, the shards once again erupted with screeching death rays.

  Archangels engaged the Darklings on the cloudlets. Dark steel clashed with vjatis. One archangel ducked and spun. His wings flared wide and sliced through two Darklings. The other three defenders blocked the blow with their swords. The archangel leapt into the air and blasted them with Brilliance. The Darklings screamed and died. A fleet of flying carpets rushed to their aid. I spotted Joss and Otaleon, both revived Darklings, spearing the enemy archangels with bolts of Murk. Other revived Darklings who'd had time to feed from humans helped to shield soldiers from the brutal attacks of the archangels.

  Another burst of deadly energy from the golems obliterated flying carpets and cloudlets, sending our people falling to the hard ground below. Blue Cloaks and Templars managed to catch some of the survivors amidst the ashes of those who'd not been so lucky.

  A third wave of crucibles crashed into the golems, destroying one of the crystal shards on the onyx golem. At this rate, we'd all be dead before we disarmed even one of the damned things.

  Thomas turned to me. "We've got to do something about those shards."

  I had something of an idea percolating in my head. "Maybe if we get up close and personal Ivy and I can blast the shards apart."

  "It might work," Mom said. "Lanaeia and I will assist."

  "Target designations Onyx and Jade should be priority," Thomas said.

  "Why those two?" I asked.

  "Watch targets Bronze, Ash, and Quartz." He motioned toward the brown, gray, and white golems as they fired another salvo of death rays. One laser hit a flying carpet but didn't destroy it. "The other golems don't have as much firepower. I think their weapons spells were rushed or are incomplete."

  I winced at the rain of ashes where the jade golem's attack had directly hit another target. "We're on it." I pointed to Onyx. "It's already damaged, so let's finish it off if we can." I urged the flying carpet to top speed and raced toward the goliath. Its head rotated. Twin red beams speared from its eyes. I twisted the carpet into a barrel roll over the attack.

  "It burned my hair!" Ivy said in an outraged voice. "I knew I shouldn't have worn pigtails to war."

  I was too busy dodging the goliath's giant fist as it tried to smack us out of the sky. The air hummed and vibrated with magic as the giants recharged their primary weapons. Judging from the pitch of the hum, they were about halfway there. Jade's massive arm swung toward us as I maneuvered away from Onyx's strike. I jerked the carpet up at the last minute and took us into a steep climb. Onyx's head rotated a hundred and eighty degrees like an owl. The gem eyes fired another blast at us. I blocked it with a shield.

  I felt warmth at my back and turned. Ivy had channeled a shield to block us from Jade's eye lasers. Mom and Lanaeia swooped in behind us. Lanaeia thrust her fists toward Jade's left eye and unleashed a gout of Brilliance. The eye was nearly as tall as her and apparently magic resistant. For a second, nothing happened. Then a crack formed in the center of the red gem. Mom whipped the carpet around and flooded the crack with white light. The eye shattered.

  "I can do that," Ivy said. She gritted her teeth and pummeled Onyx's left eye with white energy. Heat washed across my skin from the intensity of the attack. The eye exploded. She raked the blistering energy across the other eye, leaving a furrow of molten lava in the stone golem's face. The other eye drooped into a molten glob.

  Movement caught the corner of my vision. I threw up a shield in time to intercept attacks from battle mages as they rose to stop us from crippling the goliaths. Mom and Lanaeia destroyed the second eye of Jade and turned to face the new threat.

  The weapon shards erupted with another discharge. More of our people fell. I swept our carpet to the far side of the goliath to avoid more attacks from the battle mages. Lanaeia swept Brilliance across the chest of a man and cut him in half. With her other hand, she burned a hole in a carpet, sending its occupants plummeting earthward.

  I took a quick glance at the battle. Nearly half of the Darkling cloudlets were either gone or empty of soldiers. Brightling infantry poured between the feet of the marching golems and into our ranks.

  "Justin!" Ivy shouted.

  I caught sight of a giant fist and whisked us out of the way just in time. Thankfully, the golems were big and slow with their physical attacks. I took aim at the nearest shard and blasted it with Brilliance. It glowed white hot, cracked, and splintered. I felt sweat break on my forehead from the effort. Ivy took aim at another shard with a massive pulse of energy. The target exploded, leaving a blackened crater where it had been.

  I gave her a surprised look. "You've gotten a lot stronger."

  "I've been dual feeding." She grinned. "I can channel Murk now too, but it's not as good as yours."

  I dodged a flurry of spells from pursuing battle mages. Mom incinerated one of the attackers while Lanaeia blew the other out of the sky.

  I gave Mom a thumbs up and turned to Ivy. "Your Brilliance channeling seems even more powerful than mine now."

  We circled around to the back of the golem as the shards discharged again. I tried not to look at the damage to our forces, but smoke and ash rained from the sky. Crucibles exploded against the other nearby golems, but noticeably didn't target Onyx. I was glad Thomas knew how to conduct a battle. Ivy and I blasted several shards on the back of the golem. Two battle mages zipped toward us. I heard a loud whoosh and slid the carpet to the side just as the golem reached over its back to swat us. Ivy flung a glowing white aether disc at the enemy carpet. It zinged through the air and sliced the rug in half. The mages fell screaming.

  Ivy pumped her fist. "Booyah!"

  "Great, now you're starting to sound like me."r />
  She giggled.

  Another flight of battle mages decided to try their luck.

  "We'll hold them off," Mom shouted. "You take out the shards!" She slid the carpet to a sideways stop and sent Brilliance streaking toward the oncoming attackers.

  I went beneath Onyx's arm and strafed around the front. Pulses of ultraviolet Murk streaked into the sky like arrows from the Darkling army. Some of the archangels fell to the ground. Deadly aether rained down on the attacking Brightling army. Their shields shimmered with hundreds of impacts.

  Ivy destroyed two more shards. I sent a weave of gray Stasis at one of the crystals. It rewarded me by crumbling apart like chunks of ice. We finished off the last two shards, rendering Onyx without weapons aside from its physical ability to smash our ground troops into meat pancakes.

  "Look over there!" Ivy pointed to Quartz. Dozens of gray men scaled the monster, planting gray bricks all along the golem's torso. One of its shards fired, blasting a gray man far into the air, its body burning like a meteor.

  Ivy laughed. "They look like rabid butt monkeys in business suits."

  "Like what?" I gave her a confused look.

  "I dunno." She grinned. "It seemed like something you would say."

  "The scary thing is you're probably right."

  The gray men leapt from Quartz. I spun the carpet around and saw Brightlings on a carpet attacking Mom and Lanaeia. An explosion rocked the carpet forward and hot air buffeted us. I looked back. Quartz's torso was badly damaged. Nothing was left of its weapons but jagged stumps. The golem ignored the damage. The shards energized and pulsed. The crystals must have focused the energy toward a direction. With them destroyed, the energy had nowhere to go.

  Quartz's torso glowed. A muffled explosion rocked the stone creature. Its forward march stopped. With a loud crunching grind, the goliath toppled toward our army. I didn't have time to watch—Mom and Lanaeia were in trouble. Two carpets, each bearing a pair of Brightlings, streaked after them.

  Ivy sliced off the arm of one enemy Brightling with an energy disc. I threw up a refractive shield behind Mom as an attacker flanked them. Their attacks bounced off.

  "It's the Slade boy!" a seraph shouted to his companion. He veered and charged us on a collision course. Judging from their youthful appearance, they hadn't been revived for more than a couple of weeks.

  Ivy reached her arms around my waist. Brilliance burst from her fists. The seraph threw up a shield. It didn't last for long. His skin blistered red from the onslaught. A tortured scream burst from his throat as he threw up his arms in a futile gesture. The carpet swerved out of the control and slammed into Jade. Blood sprayed. One seraph fell to his death. The other was skewered by a weapon shard on the goliath. His body twitched and hung limp.

  The air rumbled as if a massive earthquake had just hit. I spun around and saw nothing but a huge dust cloud where Quartz had slammed to earth. The Darkling army was nowhere to be seen. The pavement below was littered with bodies. Brightling infantry pushed through the Templar ranks with slow, bloody efficiency. Archangels flew in circles around the Templar command platform like vultures.

  Our army was dying.

  Chapter 22

  Mom and Lanaeia glided close to us.

  Mom pointed to a large formation of flying carpets and enemy ground troops hanging back from the battle. "I think they're sending in more revived Brightlings."

  I narrowed my eyes and spotted Daelissa on a large flying carpet. Her face lit with a delighted smile. She knew she was winning. A swarm of carpets streaked toward us. I counted over a dozen—too many for us to handle all at once.

  "There's no way we can take down these golems before they get here." I looked back at our army. "We've got to retreat."

  "Justin, look." Ivy pointed to a stone tile on Jade's back that looked out of place.

  I took our carpet closer. The tile was positioned between two weapon shards and probably wouldn't have been obvious except for the blood from the dead Seraphim spattered across it. Using a wedge of Murk, I pried at the tile. Ivy pitched in and we broke the magic-resistant stone. A crackling sphere of energy hovered inside the revealed space.

  "Ooh." Ivy bared her teeth. "The spark." Without another word, she engulfed it in a blanket of Murk and snuffed it out.

  Jade stopped just as it was lifting its rear leg to walk forward. Seemingly in slow motion, it toppled backward toward hundreds of Brightling infantry. Most of them didn't even see it coming. With the clouds covering the sun, there was no shadow and no noise but a slight rush of air to warn them. I heard hundreds of voices cry out and just as suddenly vanish in a roar of dust, stone, and confusion.

  Ivy clenched her fists. "Die, you filthy bastards."

  Mom's eyes flared. "Watch your mouth, young lady."

  A trumpet sounded from below. Despite the heavy casualties the Brightlings had taken from the fallen golem, the Templar front was collapsing. To my left I saw the Darkling army falling back. I couldn't tell how many were left, but it looked like we'd lost hundreds. Another of the giant golems, Bronze, toppled sideways as explosions raced up one of its legs, severing it a third of the way from the ground. It hit Onyx on the way down, sending the disarmed golem stumbling sideways.

  Most of the golems were down or badly damaged, but it didn't matter at this point. The bulk of Daelissa's army pressed in from all sides.

  A Templar trumpet sounded again, this time to retreat. I saw a dozen portals open behind our back lines. The troops began falling back in an orderly withdrawal. The Brightlings cheered and surged forward.

  "We've got to help the retreat," I said.

  Mom nodded. "I say we strafe their forward ranks."

  "Follow me." I guided the carpet to the far right edge of the turmoil, dodging spells and bolts of Brilliance along the way. I veered sharp left, urged the carpet to full speed, and dove to about twenty feet off the ground. Ivy and I unleashed searing beams of destruction into the second row of Brightlings. Mom and Lanaeia aimed for the third row.

  Soldiers screamed as we raked their lines.

  A thrown spear with a wicked black blade narrowly missed me. Enemy soldiers began to aim ahead of us, hoping to strike us from the air. I bobbed and weaved, but it took all my concentration so I let my sister do the firing.

  Ivy cried out. I glanced back as she slumped to the carpet. Blood seeped from a cut in her Nightingale armor.

  "Ivy!" I gained altitude to take us out of range.

  "I'm okay," she said, tears in her eyes.

  I looked back. We'd sown enough damage and confusion in the Brightling ranks to give the Templars space, but the Darklings were still under heavy assault.

  A line of gray men, the elite fighting units, raced into the fray, inserting themselves between the Darklings and the enemy lines. One gray man leapt high into the air, flying over the front ranks of the Brightlings. Spears slammed into the golem. It hit the ground and exploded. Bodies flew in all directions.

  I took us back down and razed the disoriented Brightlings. "Retreat!" I shouted to our people. "Retreat!"

  I spotted Ketiss in the back ranks motioning his people into a full run. The enemy flung crackling energy and spears at us. I flipped sideways to avoid a rush of blades and death rays and flew out over our army. I looked back. For a panicked moment, I couldn't find Mom and Lanaeia. I finally spotted them guarding the Templar flanks along with other revived Darklings on flying carpets. Bolts of energy flashed back and forth in a dazzling display.

  The Brightlings recovered from our delay tactics and raced after us with a roaring battle cry. My bones went limp as noodles with fright. There was no way we'd get our army through the portals in time.

  I thought desperately for some way to slow down the onslaught. The Darklings had stopped running and turned to face the enemy while their fellow soldiers filed through the bottleneck: three omniarch portals. The Templars, having done this many times before, made much faster progress. Even so, allies were being cut down left and
right. The remaining giant golems fired into our tight ranks.

  Daelissa had a bigger army. Her forces were stronger in every way.

  I couldn't see her from my current location, but I knew she was laughing. She'd drawn us out and slaughtered us. Our attempt to stop her from attacking Atlanta had been futile. Even worse, her army would only grow stronger if they built more goliaths.

  I watched as the enemy cut down retreating lycans. I saw Saber in his massive prehistoric cat form savaging Brightlings in a desperate attempt to defend his people. Hellhounds swarmed around our right flank, throwing their bodies between Daemos and the attackers. The red demonic form of my father stood out. He swung a massive cobalt blade and cleaved through a Brightling. Kassallandra in her purple demoness form, spun, ducked, and weaved through enemy attacks, twin daggers flashing as she cut down infantry.

  A sudden blast from the weapon shard of a giant golem slammed into the Daemos. Bodies scattered. Hellhounds yelped and squealed. As the smoke cleared, I couldn't find Dad or Kassallandra. My horror turned to an inferno of rage.

  They're dying! We wouldn't escape. Daelissa would cut us down like fleeing deer. There was one thing I could do.

  I closed my eyes and sent my senses into the demon plane.

  I am here, said the calm many-voices of the Abyssal demon.

  Jeremiah Conroy had warned me not to do this. Hell, anyone I'd told about the Abyssal demon thought summoning it again was stupid. I wanted to ask this thing what it wanted for its help. Did it want my soul? Did it want freedom from Haedaemos? I didn't have time to play twenty questions.

  Get ready to fight. With that, I wrapped its presence in a strand of my essence. The demon didn't feel massive like other powerful presences, but like a brick of lead, incredibly dense, as though something tremendous had been concentrated into a much smaller space. The cold grip of fear touched my heart. Then again, it might have been the chilling touch of this demon. I couldn't sense its emotions, expectations, or anything else from it. It was a complete enigma.