The Ryle of Zentule

by Michael Green

  Around the far side of the first tower they found the missing ravager, half submerged under debris.

  “Have them bend down, and we’ll pick up any survivors,” Ziesqe commanded.

  A moment later he realized that a gushing torrent of etherium was bubbling up around the collapsed ravager. The creature was tensing and shifting under the debris.

  “The mutation factor will be too great!” Kal insisted.

  “She’s right,” Boqreq added, shocked at the sight. “This is happening all over the city.”

  For a moment Ziesqe wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Stake it! Kill the beast before it becomes exponential!” Viqx screamed, unharnessing herself.

  “Yes, we must,” Ziesqe said, focusing.

  She was leaping through the air, her wings flashing like fire for a moment before she tucked them in and dove onto the mutating ravager.

  Ziesqe looked over and saw her and the ravager’s pilot drive a huge steel stake through the creature’s thick skull.

  “That might not do it,” Kal said. “I’ve never seen that much precursor spilled before.”

  Viqx flew back aboard, carrying the pilot of the lost ravager.

  “Up!” Ziesqe called out.

  The helmstox pulled back on both antennae, and the creature rose.

  The blue ravager pulled alongside, and the General called out, “What’s the plan?”

  “We chase the boy!” Ziesqe yelled, holding the ebony rod, and pointing.

  The fleet moved out over the destroyed city.

  “We’re making better time now that everything has collapsed,” Veloiz commented.

  Caspian is moving. But what’s he planning?

  Ziesqe saw the thick clouds that spewed from the now fallen Hyacap slowly thinning.

  The ravagers slowed.

  “What’s holding us up?” Boqreq asked.

  Ziesqe looked overboard but recoiled as a barbed tentacle rose from the street below. The ravager veered away. Ziesqe had glanced long enough to see fleshy appendages and writhing forms lifting from the rubble of the ruined city.

  “The land crawls!” Kal yelled.

  The other ryle grasped their pieces of the Counter-Argument. Blades, shields, and purple, glowing armor appeared.

  I didn’t want it to come to this, but there’s no choice.

  Ziesqe did likewise, peeling off his robes to reveal the crimson armor beneath, and grasping his priceless piece of the Counter-Argument. Curiously, Viqx only summoned a blade. He looked down at his solid steel armor, tensing and flexing the nerves and muscles across his body before a glowing suit of Counter armor rested above the steel. Two suits had always felt more secure than one. He recalled ryle grown complacent from so much dominance. Calling the etherium armor took effort and mastery, and those failed ryle had mistaken a hefty orb of Counter for protection enough. When the moment came, a crossbow or dagger in the hand of the lowest creature could fell the mightiest ryle. Though the steel chafed, and others might sneer, he wouldn’t make their mistake.

  A tentacle came crashing onto the ravager, but Viqx struck with her blade. It sliced half-way through. The tentacle cracked and fell.

  “Well done!” Kal said, using her axe to chop through another bladed arm swiping their way.

  “The ground is coming to life. Giants are trying to rise!” Veloiz screamed.

  “Of course they are!” Viqx yelled at the wavering ryle.

  “Our eyes are the first to witness such horrors!” Boqreq muttered.

  Ziesqe felt the rod and motioned for the helmstox to steer slightly to the left.

  Ahead of them was a living forest of misshapen limbs tearing and ripping at each other.

  Ziesqe heard a shrill clicking. They looked back and saw the General’s blue ravager being pulled down by a colossal tentacle, tipped with a lobster claw.

  The brutox on board swung and chopped with their weapons, but it was useless. The General fought at the head and dislodged the claw, but their ravager was giving way. Its legs stabbed out in a hundred places at the living floor, but it couldn’t kick free. A second and then a third arm rose and clamped on. A massive, toothed jaw snapped up from the earth and subdued the ravager.

  “We need to go back!” Veloiz yelled, manic frenzy in her voice as she approached the helmstox. “Pilot us out of the city!”

  Viqx restrained her.

  Ziesqe grasped the rail as he saw the General’s blade flutter out.

  “We can’t! We have to keep moving,” Ziesqe spoke, though he refused to look her in the eye.

  “Why? That is our fate, if we stay!” Veloiz yelled desperately.

  They shifted and felt a drop. A scaled leg had kicked their ravager sideways.

  Ziesqe was about to call off the pursuit before he saw a flash of silver light.

  “There!” he called out.

  The base of the tower jutted from the wreckage of the city. It looked like a huge stump, covered in a thick layer of rubble.

  There was another flash, and then a red flame burst into the sky.

  Caspian is fighting Xyth.

  The ravager hit the sloping side of the tower, and its legs failed to get traction on the slick layer of precursor still coating the walls.

  “Don’t slide into that stuff; if enough gets on our hull we’ll start to mutate,” Boqreq called out to the helmstox.

  The helmstox nodded, though his fine precision had given way to more desperate articulation on the antennae. The ravager seemed to ignore the instructions, until it finally jumped forward, onto a large piece of fallen wall that lay on the side of the slick tower.

  The ravager climbed higher and higher, sticking to the debris, before finally skirting the crest, where Caspian had sliced the mountain-sized tower in two. Ziesqe looked over his shoulder and saw no sign of his other ravagers.

  He sighed at the massive cost.

  The ravager pulled itself up the edge and finally came to rest on level ground. They could feel its massive body heaving from the exertion.

  Ziesqe unharnessed himself and rushed to the rail, the others right behind. A pool of boiling precursor bubbled in the tower’s stump. Chunks of curved wall floated on the surface of the pool.

  Ziesqe grabbed the binoculars. He spotted Xyth, held aloft by silver veined tentacles. Caspian leaned at the edge of a chunk of fallen wall and had his hand in the pool. A nexus of branching silver cords grew out into the pool from where he touched. The branches pulsed with light.

  “He’s killing Xyth,” Ziesqe said. “Do we stop him?”

  “We have to,” Veloiz cried. “He will reward us!”

  “I’m not sure,” Kal replied, “He may feel that we are at fault for all of this. It might be best to let him die, and then defeat Caspian.”

  “Yes,” Boqreq said, “that way, we control the story. We defeat the enemy and save the ruined city, no Xyth to contradict us.”

  “Interesting plan,” a lilting voice replied.

  Ziesqe nearly flew out of his skin.

  They turned and saw Caspian sitting at the head of the ravager. The helmstox slowly backed away.

  “He still wears the bracelets!” Veloiz shrieked. “Blow him to pieces!”

  If I do, Xyth will fall into the etherium, and that alone should be the end of him, and we will be responsible. But, if I don’t kill Caspian now, he might escape beyond the range of the rod.

  Ziesqe felt his stomach sink.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m busy with an old friend,” Caspian said in a friendly tone.

  “You aren’t going anywhere!” Ziesqe yelled, holding up the rod, as the others fell silent. He grasped the bottom half and twisted the top.

  A small crack echoed off the debris. Caspian was nowhere in sight.

  “Did it work?” Kal whispered.

  They stood in silence, everyone looking for Caspian’s body.

  “There!” Kal called out, pointing.

 
; Ziesqe looked through the binoculars. Caspian was still alive and laughing.

  “It failed. He’s still wearing his head,” Boqreq moaned. “Can you get nothing right?”

  “He kept the bracelets from exploding… he is centuries old, perhaps he’s experienced them before,” Ziesqe said.

  Cursing his stupidity, Ziesqe looked through the binoculars again. He saw that Caspian had lifted the visor on the Casque, and was talking with Xyth, who was still held in the air by a score of thick tentacles.

  “What in hell’s name?” Ziesqe waved for the pilot to lower the ravager. The ravager bent its many legs and Ziesqe hopped over the side. He heard a few grunts and footfalls behind him. He kept low and moved around the debris that rested on the rim of the trunk.

  Are they simply talking? Certainly not after all that!

  Ziesqe peeked around a corner and spotted them.

  Xyth was speaking between bouts of laughter, “Do you remember the Kaiser? Hahaha, the oaf was Victoria’s grandson; can you imagine if she knew what happened?”

  “Now, now, big lad, that’s just the supposition—that he was a fool and all—but it was von Hötzendorf who really made that whole war happen. Weren’t you in with the Austrians at the time? I mean, before you began impersonating a zeppelin?” Caspian asked, leaning back on the broken wall.

  Xyth laughed. It rolled out, a raucous and resonant warble, shaking the rubble loose.

  They’re discussing history!

  “Conrad was a poor commander, yes, but the Empire was foolishly conciliatory with its possessions from the outset. Imagine trying to do business at the time; the railroad tracks weren’t standardized! Every part of the Empire had their own type. A train would end up in a station, and the track would suddenly be wrong. A centralized nation simply organizes and has another train waiting on time, but—”

  “On time!” Caspian spat, laughing.

  Xyth failed to rebut and joined in the mirth. “Good years though,” Xyth finally replied.

  “What the hell are you remembering? The worst thing possible kept happening until we finally ran out of worst things. I was glad when you all finally killed me.” Caspian paused for a heavy breath. “And on that topic, I’m afraid the bumblers who let me loose have declined to retreat.”

  “Oh,” Xyth grunted and snapped his beak. “Are you going to kill them too, the ungrateful spawn?”

  “If I see them, but they have someone I need.”

  “Caspian?” Xyth started. “When I knew you during the war, your body was quite different; how is it I recognize you so, after so many years and with you in a child’s form?”

  “Sharp eyes don’t see the body,” Caspian said, standing.

  Maybe I can get Lysander to the fore in the boy’s mind, and push Caspian away.

  Ziesqe paused for a long moment, hesitation cloying his limbs, he clenched and finally called out. “Lysander!”

  “Ah, the boy, what will happen to him?” Xyth asked, not surprised at Ziesqe’s sudden arrival. “I’ve never understood how you took their bodies.”

  “Not now, Xyth,” Caspian answered, getting to his feet. “And that’s quite a rude question.”

  “Lysander! Do you ever wish to see your parents again? We are almost ready to go home!” Ziesqe called out from behind the broken piece of wall.

  The wall split apart as a silver blade cut through. Ziesqe stumbled away and nearly slipped into the lake of etherium. He looked back and saw Caspian, only a few feet away.

  “There, there, young man, don’t think to—” Caspian’s voice cracked, as his body twitched.

  The boy is trying to regain control.

  Caspian’s head tilted down, as if confused.

  Now!

  Ziesqe raised his claw and a purple blade shot out. He swung, but a silver shield appeared around Caspian’s hand, and he deflected the strike with such force that Ziesqe flew off his feet and slammed against the split chunk of wall. His hefty piece of Counter rolled away.

  “Ziesqe!” Kal screamed and rushed at Caspian, who slapped the air and sent her flying.

  “Careful, or you’ll end up in the soup,” Caspian said, as he ambled slowly over to the ravager.

  Viqx raised her blade. Caspian only sighed and lowered the visor on his Casque.

  Her wings flexed and she leaped into the air, but not towards Caspian. She flew towards Xyth and sliced through the tentacles holding him aloft.

  Caspian stopped. “You idiot!” He raised a hand towards Xyth, but it was too late. The lumbering ryle slipped from the few remaining tentacles and crashed into the pool of precursor.

  Caspian broke out into a run. “Thrag! Wake up!”

  He’s going for Thrag? Ziesqe pulled himself to his feet and grabbed his piece of the Counter-Argument.

  “We need to leave, now!” Kal screamed.

  The pool of etherium gurgled, and a bolt of piercing, violet light shot out from its churning surface.

  The ryle rushed towards the ravager, but Caspian was already aboard.

  I must get the boy to the forefront. He will reason with me.

  Ziesqe and the others climbed aboard. Caspian was about to slice through Thrag’s cage.

  “Lysander! Think of your parents!” Ziesqe yelled. He snapped a claw at the helmstox and pointed to the horizon.

  The ravager was on its feet in moments as the erratic flaring of light cast shifting shadows across every surface. A deep groaning rumble echoed through the air.

  “I can’t!” Lysander’s voice called out from inside the Casque.

  “No! I’m not going back!” Caspian yelled.

  Ziesqe ran up to them, but stopped short as a flickering silver blade swiped inches from his face. The blade was unhoned.

  “He’s weak!” Viqx cried.

  “Stay back!” Ziesqe ordered.

  Ziesqe loosened his hone and struck Caspian’s blade. A small crack pushed him back a few feet, but his foe had slumped over.

  Caspian isn’t careful with the Argument and uses it so extravagantly in every motion. Destroying the tower and battling Xyth must have drained him, but it barely showed when we were fighting.

  Thrag flew into a slurring fit as he watched. Viqx leveled her blade as he bent the bars of his cage.

  A small, marble-sized piece of Argument rolled from Caspian’s hand.

  “I’m alive—” he said with a weak voice.

  “Lysander! Take off the helmet! You can save Lysette if you only take off the helmet!” Ziesqe commanded.

  “Letty—I,” Andy’s voice was barely audible. He fumbled with the helmet, and finally it cracked open.

  The boy lay there, silently, as if asleep. Zava and Inxa, who had remained hidden for the ordeal, came to return him to his chains.

  Once he was out of sight, it didn’t take the few remaining brutox long to calm Thrag with jabs of their electrified lances.

  Ziesqe looked back to the ruined city of Hyadoth. “Caspian was free for less than an hour, and he managed to destroy the city.”

  “Destroy it?” Veloiz snapped, “Nothing will live here for centuries!”

  “It was a failure for the historians,” Boqreq agreed, venom in his voice.

  “The advantage is ours,” Kal insisted. “We decide what they hear at the Maelstrom.”

  “We aren’t even out of danger yet!” Veloiz complained, pointing across the city.

  Ziesqe was silent as they moved through the wreckage. He saw the lumbering forms of ravagers, covered in extra heads, bearing legs that pointed in every direction. Beneath those were fields of building-sized beasts of indiscernible species ripping one another to pieces.

  The helmstox avoided the obvious fighting, making a course straight for the city walls. The ryle and the few remaining brutox bodyguards took up watch. They fought off a rogue tentacle that tried to pull them down.

  Ziesqe looked back to the ruin of the Hyacap and saw the mutated body of Xyth wrack and spasm. His bloated body was even larger. Ziesqe felt his heart br
eak at the sight of the once proud ryle.

  A shuddering groan rolled out over the ruined city. Its old master will rule still, his armies and subjects replaced with mindless abominations, though not a one as fearful as he.

  When the border of the city finally fell away behind them, Ziesqe called the helmstox to a stop. “We need to convene,” he said to the ryle. “We have lost one of our own,” he took a deep breath, “and our plan is failed.”

  Kal looked like she wanted to rebut, but Ziesqe held out a hand.

  He looked around at the others. Viqx was not that bothered. She even seemed pleased at being a part of so much slaughter. Boqreq, on the other hand, was barely standing. Veloiz was frazzled and had a manic look about her eyes. She was fond of the General, and he will be as etherium-cursed as anything else in that city. Finally, Kal herself was not discouraged. He saw her racing mind, written clearly in the tense lines that played about her face.

  “I will accept the responsibility for our failure, alone. If any of you should decide to go to the Maelstrom, I will not try to stop you,” Ziesqe said.

  Boqreq rounded on him in a fury. “You are absolutely responsible! They won’t even force you to ascend—” Viqx reached out and snapped his neck with a single hand. She flung his body overboard and ordered her locusts to slaughter Boqreq’s remaining brutox and ychorons.

  “You said you wouldn’t try to stop anyone…” Veloiz complained. Her voice, softer and softer, until it finally petered out.

  “I did,” Ziesqe said, “but I can’t speak for Viqx, who does as she pleases. It seems that traitors do not please her.”

  Veloiz had no comment.

  “Very well,” Ziesqe rushed ahead brusquely. “I’ve concluded that there is no explaining this away. Even if we tell the most slanted version of events, the facts are: The Casque was known to have been in my collection, the Argument he wielded was also supplied by my estate, and there are certainly other survivors. These survivors are already racing to be the first to report what has happened. We cannot lie about the previous facts. Our actions have destroyed the capitol city of Euboia and consigned its master to an end worse than death.”

  Even Kal didn’t care to argue with that.

  “We must now be proactive. To regain the Maelstrom’s approval, we must do no less than capture the city of Degoskirke.”