I doubled my speed, then doubled it again. The fighter whipped over the prow of a battleship, and as I passed it, I finally spotted the Remora, close enough to see.
“Three minutes total,” I murmured with a grin. “Not bad.”
Reaching her before she reached the Word of Xal was a certainty now, and that was a very good thing, because I did not want to try tracking down my new mistress in the belly of a dreadnought. I could have died of old age before I found her, and my people didn’t even age. Well, not like you do anyway.
As long as we regularly ingested magic, we remained youthful, but if we were denied it, then we got just as wrinkly as a human.
I urged my fighter into a roll that took me wide of an entire wing of Mark XI fighters, the pride of the fleet. I dipped a wing, but not a one returned the gesture. I wasn’t offended. I was just some paladin-elect in an old fighter. They’d probably fought in the battle at Osmium, and who knew what they’d seen before that?
The Remora grew larger on my viewscreen as I clawed my way closer. Time to introduce myself. I wasn’t certain what to expect. Soulcatchers were rare enough that I’d only seen a few, and that at a distance. They were mysterious, more than a little feared. What was my new mistress like?
I decided to find out. “Remora, this is Paladin-elect Seket reporting from the Karnak Kamiza. Permission to escort you to the Word of Xal?”
“Negative,” came back a lilting feminine voice. The accent was faint, but unmistakable. She was a drifter, another surprise. “Joost dock your fighter in Remora’s cargo hold and get to the bridge as quickly as possible. We are nearly out of time.”
I didn’t ask her out of time for what. That would become clear if I followed her, and a paladin’s place was not to question their mistress or master. Their place was to keep that person alive and trust that they knew how best to serve the gods.
I guided my fighter to the Remora’s aft rear quarter, where I spotted a familiar blue membrane, the fleet’s standard energy field. It rippled through my fighter, and through me, as we entered the cargo hold.
I landed smoothly, though it was a tight enough fit to make me a little nervous. The Remora was too small to be carrying a fighter, though it worked, as long as we didn’t need to store anything else.
Did that mean the other paladins didn’t have fighters?
Or that there weren’t other paladins?
I was about to find out.
* * * * *
Chapter 2
I leapt from the cockpit and landed in a crouch next to my fighter, but unfortunately there was no one to witness my acrobatic feat. I rose with my hand on the hilt of my spellblade, though the idea of there being a threat here was ludicrous.
Still, my training was clear. Never enter a new situation unprepared for combat. Ever. I considered snapping open my spellshield, but entering the bridge of my new vessel ready for a fight was likely to make me the butt of quite a few jokes.
I hurried up the Remora’s wide ramp, which narrowed as it passed through the ship. It was effectively one long corridor that passed through the cargo bay, the mess, and then up to the bridge.
To my shock I passed no guards and no other crew. There were no magitechs or artificers scurrying about, no paladins guarding intersections. Not even a war mage to posture in my direction, like every war mage I’d ever met.
By the time I reached the bridge I was genuinely concerned, but a note of relief thawed that concern when I spotted Patra standing in the vessel’s matrix.
Unlike a fighter, most space-faring vessels have a much larger matrix, which is large enough to stand in. I could stand comfortably in this one, easily able to reach the furthest sigil on the gold ring as it whirled past.
That was less easy for the current pilot, who hovered a meter off the deck using a glimmering cushion of air magic. As I’d expected, she was a drifter, a rarity among soulcatchers, who themselves were a rarity.
The drifters were shorter versions of my race, the Inurans, with delicate features and ready smiles. Patra would only rise to my waist, though anyone who dismissed her would likely learn to their detriment that mages came in all shapes and sizes.
“Ahh, there you are.” Patra tossed a river of golden hair over one shoulder as she turned in my direction, the rings rotating around her. “You’re a pilot, yes?” Her lilting voice had almost none of the drifter accent that made them nearly unintelligible. “Are you a drakeling or a man? I asked you a question. Answer, boy.”
I bristled internally at the boy comment, but this was my soulcatcher, and I was sworn to obey her commands. I did not want to start off our relationship with an argument.
“Part drake,” I allowed, “and part man. Mostly man. All pilot.”
She snorted a laugh. I guess humor had been the right tack. She hopped off her cushion of air, and rolled through the rings, then tumbled to her feet with a grin.
I took my time approaching the matrix she’d just vacated. In principle, it functioned just like my fighter’s, but I’d never been linked to a vessel this large. The Remora was small for a capital ship, but the largest thing I’d ever guided had been a shuttle, and that only twice.
It would be fine. I’m a fast learner.
I ducked through the rings and tapped the initiation sequence, exactly as I would on my fighter. Life magic rolled out of my chest in waves and sank into the golden disk beneath my feet. The vessel rumbled to awareness as the link between us was forged, and I could feel the vessel around me.
“Should I make for the Word of Xal?” I asked, as Patra had offered no destination.
“I thought that was clear.” She waved dismissively, and moved to stand before the curved wall along the bridge’s far side. That wall had been configured to show the tapestry of stars and ships around us, though presumably I could change it to display whatever I wished. “Joost get us there as quickly as possible. I don’t care what regulations you need to break, or whose bloody bow you need to scrape.”
I faced away from her as a smile grew. I had a feeling I was going to like Patra. I focused on my link to the ship and poured another wave of life magic into it. That increased our speed, though it drained more magic than I was used to losing.
It took several deep breaths to stabilize myself as the magic left my body. The ship accelerated, and we whipped past a carrier, then up under a frigate, then around a wing of fighters.
The Remora’s maneuverability was nothing like my fighter, but she was fast and fairly nimble for a capital ship.
I glanced over at my new mistress to see what she thought of my amazing piloting skills. I’d have been fine with indifference. I’d have loved to see that she approved. There was none of that.
Patra gaped at the viewscreen and as I watched, horror bled into her expression. It took me a moment to realize what had caught her attention. I’d been too focused on flying and reaching our destination.
I hadn’t noticed the planet-sized dragon that had translocated into the system. I’d have noticed it soon enough, because the Wyrm generated its own gravity field, and I’d have to compensate for it.
“Nefarius,” Patra whispered, her voice clotted with emotion as she uttered the name of the deity who’d just arrived. “Why? Please, Mother’s memory, tell me her presence here is not connected.”
I stifled the urge to ask her what she meant by connected. My mistress was alarmed by the arrival of a member of the pantheon, but I didn’t understand why. I’d never seen Nefarius, and I didn’t know any void hatchlings, but they were part of the Vagrant Fleet. They were allies who’d helped us win countless wars.
Patra’s expression said that doom had come for us all. Why?
I turned back to the dragon and studied the first goddess I had ever seen. Growing up on Inura meant that I knew all about gods, but despite being our father’s favorite world, he’d never come in Wyrm form.
Nefarius’ wings shadowed our world, quite literally blocking out the sun and casting it in darkness. Fissures
opened beneath each of her wings—tiny, jagged, purple cracks that veined across the sky.
Ships poured through the Fissures, re-entering reality from the Umbral Depths, the shadowy realm that underlies our own. They were unfamiliar, and not simply some new model. No, these ships were a mix of organic and inanimate.
Massive asteroids had been hollowed out as frames, and something dark had been stuffed inside. Some sort of malevolent magic that I had no wish to see any closer.
“Mistress,” I called, aware of the quaver in my voice, “what is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped, then stabbed a finger at the viewscreen. “Focus on flying. Get us to the World of Xal. Now. Before whatever this is truly begins. Admiral Kemet is going to die. If we are not there at the precise moment when that happens, his soul will be lost to the void. We must recover it. This is of paramount importance.”
“Mistress,” I asked, though I focused on flying faster as she’d asked, “where are the other paladins?”
“Other paladins?” She delivered a very put-upon snort. “You were all they agreed to send.”
I went cold. I didn’t know what was happening, but if it scared her, then it should scare me, too. I plotted a slightly more roundabout course to the Word of Xal, which allowed me to watch the Wyrm-goddess who’d entered our system.
Fissures continued to open beneath her wings, and Nefarius’ fleets grew in size and strength. There were hundreds of those strange asteroids, some as small as the Remora, while others rivaled the god-forged vessels themselves.
“Why is she here, Patra?” I finally dared to ask. “Is there any risk of an attack?”
“Wiser minds than ours, Kemet among them, are asking that same question.” Patra moved to stand before the part of the viewscreen where Nefarius loomed over her world. “I don’t know why she’s here. It makes no sense, unless she wishes to provoke her younger brother. Inura is no warrior god, though, and he’ll run to Virkonna, whom Nefarius fears. I don’t understand what is happening here.”
Nefarius craned a serpentine neck, and her breast expanded. I’d seen the motion a thousand times from smaller Wyrms. “She’s going to breathe!”
“Mother, no,” Patra whispered as she clutched both tiny hands to her breast. “Please, no.”
Nefarius, the mother of all Void Wyrms, exhaled a cloud of pure dark magic. It washed over the planet and obscured my view completely. When the cloud dissipated several seconds later, half our world was a scorched ruin.
The Kamiza I’d just left. My master. My friends. My parents. My people. All gone, as casually as I might crush an ant.
It was a good thing I’d already locked in a course, because my ability to consciously pilot, to react in any rational way, had fled. I’d been trained to recognize shock, but that didn’t help me combat it.
A shining beacon winked into existence in the sky over our world, a second sun, though this one didn’t hurt to look upon. A titanic white Wyrm hovered in space, opposite his sister. He was smaller than her, but not by much.
“Inura has come,” I murmured. “He will save us.”
“Will he?” Patra snapped. “Watch. This must have been years in the offing, and Nefarius is nothing if not cunning. Inura is a dreamer. Blind to everything but his creations. I am terrified that what we’ve already witnessed is just the beginning.”
As if summoned by her words, the Remora’s hull shook violently, and sparks flew from one of the quartet of consoles flanking the matrix.
“That’s spellfire,” I realized aloud. My attention snapped back to combat, and I ignored the divine battle playing out over my world. “Executing evasive maneuvers. Brace yourself.”
Then I was the ship. I focused on flying, on twisting around other ships, and trying to sort the chaos around us. Flights of golden fighters had started firing on other flights of fighters. There was nothing visible to separate friend from foe, and everywhere I looked the fleet was tearing itself apart.
A trio of golden fighters had locked onto us, which was where the spellfire was coming from. They’d hit us with life bolts. Lasers, basically, which had done some superficial damage to the hull. Small comfort.
I rolled the Remora to the side in time to dodge another volley of golden bolts, which instead slammed into the side of a cruiser I’d used as cover. The cruiser’s side exploded into space, venting both atmosphere and crew as the larger vessel spun away behind us.
The fighters adjusted their attitude and came around for another pass. These were much faster than my fighter, which had been fast enough to catch the Remora. There was no way I was outrunning these guys.
I glanced at our destination, which loomed large on the horizon. We were close, but not close enough. And the space between us and the Word of Xal had exploded into the largest post-atmospheric battle in history.
“Can you get us there alive?” Patra pressed as she clasped her hands behind her back.
“It’s more likely if you don’t interrupt me with pointless questions.” Flippant, maybe, but odds were very high we wouldn’t be around long enough for her to retaliate.
I considered options and decided to focus on our one tiny strength. Fighters were small, nimble, and deadly, but they were also extremely fragile relative to other vessels. The slightest damage could send one into a spin, and a direct hit would take one out.
“What are you doing?” Patra cried, her voice a half octave higher. “Joost take us to the Word.”
I’d altered our course and was now moving at a ninety-degree angle from our previous course. That meant that the fighters would catch us easily.
There was a method to my madness.
I aimed the Remora’s prow at a carrier that had suffered catastrophic damage. A trio of Inuran battleships were raking it with a steady stream of life bolts, which superheated the hull into slag, and leaked atmo in a dozen places. The vessel was doomed, which is exactly what I was counting on.
“Let’s hope we’re around for you to yell at me,” I muttered as I tapped the life sigil on the gold ring, then the silver, then the bronze. Golden magic poured out of me in wave after wave, and I had to fight a wave of vertigo that threatened to topple me into the stabilizing ring. “Brace yourself!”
My ward completed the instant before the carrier exploded, and then a wave of fire and debris burst over us and the three fighters beginning their attack run.
* * * * *
Chapter 3
I tumbled to my knees as the very last of my life magic poured into the hull, then I toppled forward, my cheek pressing against the warm metal as my gaze unfocused.
I’m not sure how long I lay there, but I was aware of blurry movement at the edge of my vision. I blinked, and it focused into Patra’s concerned face. “Can you move under your own power, Paladin?”
“Yes, Mistress.” I snapped my hand over my heart, then flopped over and rolled to my feet. My head ached, and focusing on anything was difficult, but I had a job to do. I scanned the viewscreen and took in the current situation. “It appears all three enemy fighters were disabled. Due to the residual heat signature of the exploding carrier and our resulting battle damage, we should resemble battle debris.”
“...And not an active vessel. Very clever, Paladin.” Patra strode over to the viewscreen, which slowly twisted in a lopsided circle as the ship spun. “Can you even us out?”
I closed my eyes and reached deep. I had no more magic to give, but the ship and I were still bonded. I willed an attitude thruster to fire until the spin abated, and we were once more staring at my world, and the divine battle playing out over it.
The Word of Xal was closer now, but there was still a good ten thousand clicks between us and the safety of the docking bay. The Word still hadn’t moved, though guns all along its surface were firing at any vessel stupid enough to make an attack run. Would they fire at us, too?
“Running diagnostics now,” Patra muttered absently from one of the still functional terminals. “Your ward blunted
the explosion enough that it didn’t do much more than fry the paint. We’ve got some internal systems offline, but gravity, life support, and navigation are all joost fine.”
“Mistress,” I ventured, as I was unable to proceed without additional input, “how should I get us to the Word from here? I have almost no magic left, which will make our progress slow.”
“Slow is the only way we survive this.” She tapped her lip with two fingers as she stared out at the battle ending our way of life forever. “I will use dream to camouflage us as space debris. Give us a push and angle toward the Word. We can be there in ten minutes, so long as she doesn’t make for the depths.”
I shivered at that. I’d never been in the Umbral Depths and didn’t mind admitting they terrified me. They were eternally dark, and anyone stupid enough to use magic, or a light source, would pull down the denizens. My professors had been maddeningly vague on what lurked in the darkness, but they were quite clear that I did not want to meet whatever it was.
It hated the light, and my magic represented light and life. I’d make a tempting snack, which is part of why, even though I was nearing a quarter century, I was still star-locked. I’d never left Inura, not once.
I nudged my connection to the Remora, and we began drifting toward the Word. I imparted a slight spin, then leaned back against the stabilizing ring. The slow whum whum of the rotating rings moved around me, calming me and reassuring me that the people who’d invented this technology were on my side.
Unfortunately, our slow passage gave us little to do save watch the battle play out. The worst of that battle, the part that commanded our attention, were the two titanic dragons battling in the void over our still smoking world.
Inura, my god, sketched in the sky with a city-sized claw and spun out sigils faster than I could track. Spell after spell flowed from him as he created wards, counter-spelled enemy mages, and destroyed enemy vessels, all while battling Nefarius.
The Dogs of God Page 48