by Clayton Wood
“Urson!” Kalibar exclaimed, walking up to the man. Urson turned about, his green eyes narrowing for a split second, then relaxing. He broke out into a huge smile, walking up to Kalibar and embracing him, ignoring the mud covering the Grand Weaver. Kalibar chuckled, then held Urson at arm’s length. “You're alive,” he observed, looking the man over. Urson grinned.
“Better lucky than good,” he replied. “Almost didn't recognize you,” he added, gesturing at the dirt caking Kalibar's entire body.
“A bit of insulation,” Kalibar explained. “Keeps those Void spheres from draining us,” he added. Urson frowned.
“You'll have to explain how that works.”
“Kyle will,” Kalibar replied. “He's the one that figured it out. Where's Erasmus?”
“In a random residence in the Northeast Quarter,” Urson answered. “Guarded by a dozen of my best men.”
“Is he...?”
“Alive and well,” Urson reassured. “I'm keeping him there until I can confirm that the city is secure.”
“What's our status?”
“The Tower is secure,” Urson replied. “The fighting is mostly limited to the Southwest Quarter. A full legion entered the city about an hour ago. Most of the enemy soldiers and Weavers have been killed. A few of those Void spheres are still roaming the city, and we've evacuated the areas around them.” He shook his head. “Containing them is going to be a problem.”
“What about the Chosen?” Kalibar pressed. “There were...reports of one near the Tower right before it was attacked.”
“Dead now,” Urson answered. “After you were evacuated, that Void sphere decimated most of my men in the Tower. We managed to escape, then regroup with Master Owens and a few Runics. They had that new weapon with them...”
“The killerpillar gun,” Kalibar interjected.
“...and they managed to kill the Chosen with it,” Urson continued. “We haven't encountered any more Chosen since.”
“Why hasn't Xanos sent more Chosen?” Kalibar wondered aloud. He turned away from Urson, gazing out beyond the gently rolling grassy hills of the campus, to the shadowy cityscape surrounding them. “They're his most powerful weapon. It doesn't make any sense.”
Kyle frowned, following Kalibar's gaze. Black smoke lingered in the air above the tall buildings several miles away, mixing with the angry thunderclouds above. Brief flashes of lightning pulsed from cloud to cloud, faint rumblings echoing through the cool air. He felt a cold hand grasp his left arm, and turned to see Ariana staring up at the sky, her eyes wide with terror.
“Kyle...!” she screamed.
And then the heavens opened up above them.
Chapter 26
Massive thunderclouds loomed over Stridon, their black underbellies flashing as jagged bolts of lightning lit up the night sky, crackling thunderclaps rattling the windows of the buildings far below. Light from the countless unseen stars beyond lined the very tops of the clouds with the faintest silver, a stark contrast with the black tempest that roiled underneath. The thunderclouds blanketed the sky, dwarfing the city below, as if mocking the petty constructs of Man.
A faint light grew within that dark underbelly, widening and brightening until it shone like the sun. The thunderclouds tore open, a giant ray of light bursting through, cutting a swath through the gloom. The ray descended onto the buildings of the Southwest Quarter, bathing them in a huge golden spotlight. The stone walls flashed, their windows glittering brilliantly, like diamonds in the sun. The air above the rooftops rippled, the golden-brown walls turning a pinkish hue, which deepened into a dull red. The redness spread from the rooftops down, until the top halves of each were glowing in the dazzling spotlight.
And then the stone sank into itself, the rooftops turning to mush, molten rock dripping down the sides of the buildings. The spotlight intensified, every building in its path melting like so many burning candles, black smoke rising upward into the night sky.
A powerful wind tore at Kyle flinging chunks of dried mud from his clothes. He braced himself, feeling Ariana's powerful fingers digging into his arm.
“My god!” Kalibar cried.
The beam of light vanished, the dark clouds rushing inward to fill the void it had created, the four city blocks below glowing red-hot against the blackness of the night. Countless jagged bolts of lightning pulsed within the thunderclouds where the beam had been only moments before, the clouds darkening until they were almost pitch black.
A faint white light shone through the darkness.
“Run!” Ariana screamed, yanking Kyle backward by his arm. Kyle cried out, pain shooting through his shoulder, and stumbled backward, falling onto the ground. Ariana let go of his arm, and he clutched it to his side, scrambling to his feet, his eyes on the single faint light piercing through the clouds above. It grew brighter, then sharper, turning from a dull glow to a brilliant white beacon.
The clouds parted suddenly, a massive domed head piercing through, a single white diamond-shaped eye staring down at them.
“Run!” Ariana screamed again.
Kyle tried to turn and run, but his body refused to obey. His legs gave out underneath him, and he landed on his butt on the grass below. His eyes were riveted on that brilliant eye hundreds of feet above, that domed head more massive than any he could have imagined. Enormous fists punched through the clouds, each wrought of black, shimmering metal.
This was a Behemoth, but not the one he'd been attacked by earlier. This was twice the size, its eye white, not green. Tiny white lights ran down the length of its limbs, like stars glittering in the night sky. Its legs, each twenty stories tall, descended through the clouds. Down it fell, until its enormous feet smashed into the buildings below, miles from where Kyle stood. The buildings crumbled as if made of sand, the Behemoth crashing through them silently, its feet slamming into the ground.
Kyle saw Kalibar cover his ears, saw Urson doing the same. Gravity shields appeared around them.
A deafening boom blasted Kyle backward, knocking him onto his back on the wet grass, the air blasting from his lungs. Pain shot through his ears, and all he could hear was a loud, high-pitched ringing sound. He covered his ears too late, crying out in pain, barely able to hear his own voice. Ariana appeared in front of him, grabbing him under his armpits and lifting him to his feet. The ground shuddered underneath them.
The ringing in Kyle's ears faded, his hearing gradually returning.
“Get them out of here!” he heard Kalibar shout. “The city is lost, run for your lives!”
“But the Empire!” Goran protested.
“I can't save the Empire,” Kalibar shot back. “But I can save my family!”
The Behemoth stood among the ruins of the buildings it had demolished, flaps on the front of its shoulders lifting upward, revealing dark chambers underneath. Dozens of tiny white lights shot outward from those chambers, arcing through the night sky like shooting stars, spreading outward across the campus as they fell. One of the lights arced toward Kyle and Kalibar, landing on the grass a hundred feet away, then bouncing toward them until it came to a rolling stop a few dozen feet away.
“No,” he heard Kalibar breathe.
The white object lifted up into the air until it was at eye-level, a white sphere floating in the cool night air. Kyle stared at it, then looked down at his arms, seeing blue light escaping through the gaps in the mud covering him, shooting forward toward the levitating sphere.
“Fly, now!” Kalibar shouted, grabbing Kyle.
Kyle felt Kalibar's arms tighten around him, felt a powerful force pull him to Kalibar's side. They shot up into the air, twisting around and flying away from the white sphere, the ground dropping underneath them with dizzying speed.
“Ariana!” Kyle cried, searching the ground frantically for her.
“Goran has her,” Kalibar shouted back. Kyle searched the sky, spotting Goran flying a dozen feet to their left, Ariana clinging to his back. The Behemoth stood there in the distance, one leg lifti
ng upward and forward, then slowly descending onto a few buildings below, demolishing them. There was a muffled boom a few moments later. Despite himself, a part of Kyle's brain began to count.
One, two, three...
The Behemoth's other leg lifted upward, demolishing a few buildings as it swung forward.
...ten, eleven, twelve...
The leg lowered to the ground, debris flying up into the air around it as it crushed everything in its path.
...twenty-one, twenty-two...
Another muffled boom echoed through the air.
“It's coming after us!” Kyle heard Urson shout. The High Weaver was flying a dozen feet below them, pointing to the Void sphere speeding toward them. Kyle wasn't too worried....it was moving far too slowly to catch up with them. His eyes swept the landscape, searching for other spheres. There were dozens of them, moving across the campus toward the Tower in a slow crawl, none of them moving as quickly or purposefully as the one chasing them.
Kyle looked forward, saw the Behemoth's lone eye turn to look directly at them. A chill ran down his spine.
“It's using the spheres' movement to track us!” Kyle realized. He saw Kalibar glance back at the Behemoth, felt them accelerate forward with gut-wrenching force, arcing tightly to the right. The white sphere fell farther behind, far too distant to absorb their magic, but the Behemoth's diamond-shaped eye tracked them unerringly, growing even brighter as Kyle watched, until it flashed once.
“Kalibar, dodge!” he shouted.
Kalibar shot upward and to the left so quickly that Kyle felt the blood drain from his head, his vision blackening. He grit his teeth, desperately trying to hold on to consciousness, feeling his whole body go numb. An impossibly bright light burst into life below them, hot air rushing up and around them, searing Kyle's lungs. Kyle coughed uncontrollably, his eyes watering with the heat. He heard Kalibar coughing, knew that the only thing preventing them both from burning alive was Kalibar's shield.
The impossibly hot air rose up around them, following them as Kalibar shot almost straight upward, a huge expanse of the lawn below bursting into flames, the grass blackening and curling instantly. Despite the gravity shield, Kyle felt the temperature rising, sweat pouring from his roasting skin. Sweat dripped from his forehead and into his eyes, making them smart even more.
Water!
Kyle wove magic in his mind, creating a stream of water at his feet. He felt hot air rush in, burning his skin, heating the dried mud on his clothes until it was unbearably hot. But it was quickly followed by a blast of cold air that swirled around him. The cool air felt incredible, and Kyle continued his water stream as they flew ever upward, until he was so cold he was shivering.
“Nice work,” Kalibar shouted, leveling off and shooting forward. They were hundreds of feet above the massive campus of the Secula Magna now, the dormitories like miniature toys below. The intense spotlight below them faded, the superheated earth below the vaporized grass still glowing red-hot from the Behemoth's beam. To Kyle's relief, he spotted Goran and Ariana flying above them, Urson and his Battle-Weavers to their left. The Void sphere that had been tracking them earlier was nowhere to be found.
“I think we lost it,” Kyle observed.
“We need to lose that,” Kalibar countered, gesturing back at the Behemoth. Kyle twisted his head around, spotting the gigantic war machine as it stepped forward onto the three-story fence surrounding the Secula Magna, the black metal crumpling under its incredible weight. The lawn beyond buckled, the foot sinking deep into the soil as it touched down, creating a massive crevice there. As Kyle watched, the Behemoth's eye flashed once.
“Watch out!” Kyle shouted.
Kalibar dipped downward and to the left, making Kyle's stomach flip-flop. Kyle kept his eyes glued to the Behemoth, watching as its lone eye pulsed one more time.
And then it turned blue.
A tidal wave of blue light rose upward from the earth around the Behemoth, traveling upward instantly to be sucked into its eye. Light burst forth from the buildings around the machine, all condensing into blindingly bright rays that were pulled into that massive eye. Kyle looked down at his arm, saw the gaps in the mud caking his clothes start to glow blue, rays of light shooting toward the Behemoth's head. He saw Kalibar's shield waver, felt gravity take hold of them, pulling them into free fall.
“Give me your magic!” Kalibar shouted, shooting forward in stuttering bursts, then losing control of his gravity boots. Kyle responded immediately, streaming magic toward Kalibar's forehead, which – with extraordinary good fortune – happened to be wiped clean of mud. Kyle felt Kalibar gain control of their fall, slowing their descent while picking up speed forward, gaining distance from the Behemoth. Kyle saw Goran and Urson far ahead of them, trails of faint blue light shooting backward from their mud-caked bodies.
“Get to ground!” Kalibar shouted at them, descending at a steeper pace, clearly struggling to maintain control of his boots. Kyle grit his teeth, his magic continuing to drain.
“I'm running out,” Kyle warned.
Kalibar veered toward the ground, decelerating rapidly and touching down behind a small hill. A patch of grass before him tore free of the earth below, and Kalibar crouched down, creating a small waterfall to wet the dirt. He grabbed handfuls of mud and rubbed them on himself.
“Replace your mud,” he instructed. Kyle did so, covering himself with fresh mud. The blue light seeping from his body faded, the fresh mud insulating him from the Behemoth's terrible eye. Goran, Ariana, and Urson dropped through the air to land next to them, and Kalibar instructed them to cover themselves as well.
“We need to get out of here!” Goran exclaimed. Kalibar stared at the Behemoth grimly, then shook his head.
“There's no point,” he countered. “Xanos will find us wherever we go.”
“So what then?” Goran shot back. “We lay down and die?”
“No,” Kalibar answered, studying the Behemoth. “We fight.”
“What?” Goran exclaimed. “You just said we'd already lost!”
Kalibar said nothing, studying the Behemoth and the countless Void spheres dotting the landscape for a moment longer. Then he turned to Urson.
“The Void spheres sense magic,” he stated. “You should be invisible to them if you're insulated enough. If the Behemoth uses the spheres to help track us, that should make it harder for it to track you.”
“What are you talking about?” Goran pressed.
“I'm going to fight that thing,” Kalibar replied. When Goran opened his mouth to protest, Kalibar held up one hand. “I'm going to use the Void spheres against it.”
“What's your plan?” Urson asked. Kalibar turned to the High Weaver.
“The Void spheres are attracted to magic,” he explained. “If I fly near them, they'll sense my magic and come after me...which means I can lead them to that,” he added, pointing at the Behemoth.
“You'll never make it,” Urson protested. “Those spheres will drain you.”
“Not if I insulate myself,” Kalibar countered. “I can leave a part of me exposed so they'll sense me, but drain me slower.” Urson shook his head.
“That's a suicide mission,” he stated. “We need you to organize the evacuation. I'll go instead.”
“Guys!” Ariana interjected, pointing toward the Behemoth. Everyone turned, seeing the giant killing machine in the distance. Its diamond-shaped eye facing the Southwest Quarter. The eye flashed, a beam of white light shooting outward and striking another set of buildings, reducing them to molten stone.
“We need to act now,” Kalibar stated. “Urson, I make more magic than you do,” he reasoned. “I have a better chance of making it.”
“But wait,” Goran interjected, “...doesn't he make more magic than you?” he stated, pointing at Kyle.
Kyle blinked, staring at Goran, then turning to Kalibar. It was true, he realized; he made significantly more magic than Kalibar. If anyone had a chance at leading the Void spheres to the
Behemoth, it was him.
“Not an option,” Kalibar stated.
“Why not?” Goran pressed. “He has a better chance of succeeding than you do.”
“It's too dangerous,” Kalibar insisted. “I won't risk my son's life over my own.”
“So you'll risk the entire Empire instead?” Goran pressed. Kyle hesitated, then cleared his throat.
“He's right,” he spoke up, turning to Kalibar. Kalibar frowned.
“Kyle...”
“I'll do it,” Kyle interrupted. Kalibar shook his head.
“I won't let you.”
“Ampir saved his family instead of the Ancient Empire,” Kyle reminded him. “And millions of people died.”
“Yes, but...”
“If I don't do this,” Kyle continued, “...then I'll be just as guilty as he was.” He stood up straight then, taking a deep breath, then letting it out. “And if you stop me, then you will be too.”
Kalibar stared at Kyle silently, his jaw dropping. Then his mouth clicked shut, and he sighed, his shoulders slumping.
“You're right,” he replied at last. Then he turned to Goran and Urson. “We should give Kyle our magic,” he stated, reaching into his pockets and pulling out the gemstones he'd gotten from the gem shop earlier. Some were still glowing faint blue, protected by the mud on Kalibar's clothes. “Take these,” he added, handing them to Kyle. “Drain them of their magic.”
“Ok,” Kyle agreed. He felt magic flow from Urson and Goran into his mind's eye; it wasn't much, but it was something. He placed the gemstones in his pockets, then reached down, scooping up more handfuls of mud and smearing it on his body, making sure he was covered completely, save for a small section of his forehead. He hesitated, then covered that too while Ariana helped cover his back.
“You'll need to expose part of yourself,” Kalibar reminded him. “Otherwise the Void spheres won't follow you.”
“They will if I use these,” Kyle countered, pulling out one of the gemstones. Kalibar glanced at the gemstone, then chuckled, shaking his head.