by Tim Paulson
“That must be why they've come, to steal all of it,” she said.
“We can't let that happen!” Celia said, slamming a fist on the table.
“It looks bad,” Aaron said as another of the black tree guardians fell and disappeared.
“Yes,” Giselle said. The guardians were dropping too quickly. Strange that a day ago she'd hated them for stealing Aaron from her, now she was hoping to help them somehow.
“Daniel, what can we do?” She asked.
The other skull creature she'd sent for veil glasses had returned. It handed out two pairs, one to Aaron and the other to Celia. Then it stood patiently, tentacles clasped in front of it, waiting for further instructions.
“Thank you!” she told it with a smile and patted the thing's skull. The creature appeared not to know what to do in response. It shook a little and rubbed a tentacle along its head in a decidedly bashful looking gesture.
Daniel had crossed around behind her. He was now pointing to a symbol on her right. It looked like an eye or perhaps just a circle with another circle inside.
Either way, she pressed it.
“Oh, so that's what you've been pressing,” Aaron said, clearly glad to see the glowing veil symbols again.
The view on the table changed again. Everything got smaller. Now it showed the inner part of what looked like an enormous cemetery with many old broken stones and statues.
“That's the city entrance. It's where you come in after the guardians,” Celia said. At least she was trying to be helpful.
Aaron gasped, pointing at the table. “What the hell is that?”
In the center of the entrance a gigantic black figure that had been lying down was now beginning to stand up. It was a massive colossus with a head like a snake, easily twice as tall as any of the large company goliaths who had just chopped through the last of their enemies and were beginning to advance into the city. The guardians must have incapacitated at least one of them however, as there were now only four.
“That's huge! Bigger even than a titan goliath by at least a third,” Aaron said. When he got excited, he sounded like a little boy, Giselle thought, smiling.
The incredible colossus looked ridiculously huge on top of the table. Giselle had a hard time even grasping what it would look like in person. Not that she wanted to head out and take a look, she did not.
“It has no weapons though,” Celia said, ever the pessimist.
“That's not entirely true,” Aaron said. “Look!”
Aaron was pointing to the fact that, rather than hands, each of the colossus's arms terminated in a weapon shaped end. The right arm was a spiked mace and the left a long blade-like spike, similar to a sword.
“Go get them!” Giselle said to the serpent headed monster, eyes flaring with murder.
This was her chance to get the company back for kicking her out of her home and she was not going to miss it. Obedient, the colossus stepped forward, raising its mace up high for a powerful downward blow while the four remaining enemy goliaths moved to encircle it.
“Tell it not to let them get behind it!” Celia said as she leaned in to study the table more closely. “Have it attack the one on the right. It's slower because of all those broken statues.”
“The one on your right, flatten him!” Giselle said.
With a slight turn of its torso the great snake headed monstrosity brought down its right hand mace, a cylinder covered in spikes that a whole family could live inside comfortably.
The goliath below must have seen the blow coming because it tried to evade it but as Celia said, the broken debris beneath its feet made that impossible. It raised its arms, hoping perhaps to deflect the blow.
The force of the impact was so great that both of the enemy goliath's arms were crushed and the legs snapped like twigs at the thighs.
“That's one down!” Aaron said, slapping the table in triumph. “We've got them now!”
“Not quite,” Celia said. “They're faster and they have the numbers. Look, that one's angling behind to the left. Quickly Giselle, order him to squat down!”
“What? Why?”
“Now!”
“Squat down, quickly!”
The stone monster began to shift its weight to drop down into a squat but it was too late. A goliath had gotten behind him on the left and was already charging in, shoulder lowered. It drove itself into the back of the Colossus's left knee joint. The leg below the knee came up like the root of a thousand year old tree, trailing debris and critically unbalancing the colossus. It fell onto its back with an earth shaking crash so powerful they all felt it through the floor and table.
“Wow!” Giselle said.
She hoped their protector would be alright, that he hadn't shattered like a clay pot dropped from a balcony. That was a long way for anything to fall.
“Why have him squat?” Aaron asked, a hand on his chin.
“Elementary combat technique. You avoid being upended by lowering your center,” Celia said.
“Well it didn't work,” Aaron said.
Celia glared at him. “I saw! He's slow. Giselle, have him get up as fast as he can. They're coming!”
She was right. The remaining enemy goliaths, displayed as large white figures on the table, were now all rushing forward, axes raised. They started hacking at the colossus's legs right below the knees. Giselle saw Aaron wince.
“Get up! Please!” she said as the enemies chopped away, driving their veil infused steel blades into the colossus's legs over and over.
The colossus did respond. It sat up, raising its body with its mace right arm for leverage.
“Don't let it get all the way up. You need to back them off. Tell him to attack right now!” Celia said.
“Stop right there and attack with your left arm! That one to the left, get him!” Giselle said and the colossus obeyed.
It pulled its left arm back and drove it forward into the goliath, hacking at its left knee. The blow pierced through the enemy's right arm and into its chest but also pushed it back and away hard enough to make it stumble.
“Perfect! Now get him up!” Celia said.
“Get up, now!” Giselle said.
The colossus pulled the point of its left arm out of the smaller enemy goliath and drove it into the ground, using it to roll on to one knee. The stumbling enemy had run into its companion, tangling the two of them and leaving only one enemy to attack, which it did, from the right side where the colossus's mace arm was now free.
“Tell him to swing that mace!” Celia shouted.
“Can't he just finish getting up?” Giselle shouted back.
“Do it!”
“Girls... there's another problem,” Aaron said.
“Hit that enemy on your right with the right arm mace!” Giselle said.
It complied instantly, pulling its right arm to the left first and then swinging it in a wide arc to the right. The attack appeared poorly aimed, a little too high, but the mace came down a hair as it traveled, decapitating the enemy goliath and smashing its left shoulder into a mash of twisted metal and pulverized rock.
The enemy goliath fell over onto its left side as the snake headed colossus finally found its feet. It then took one step, stomping the fallen enemy's torso flat.
Giselle and Celia whooped with glee and hugged.
“Girls!” Aaron said. “Look!”
He pointed to the other side of the table where the lines of tiny white soldiers stood together in rows. Next to them was something else, something big. It looked like it had just been dragged in by two smaller service goliaths who had just dropped their drag chains and were lumbering around behind.
“What's that?” Giselle asked.
“Oh... no!” Celia said clapping her black painted nails over her mouth.
The new large white thing, shaped vaguely like a bell that had fallen on its side, jerked violently backwards. Their colossus staggered as if hit by some great force. Its right arm exploded into pieces.
“N
o!” Giselle cried.
“They brought a siege cannon,” Aaron said, sounding deflated. “Those are made for pounding through the stone walls of forts. It's over.”
“No!” Celia said. “We can't lose! Have him run up. Have him stomp on it!”
Aaron shook his head.
“Go! Destroy that cannon!” Giselle ordered her colossus, pointing to it on the table.
The Colossus recovered its balance and did its best to comply. It was slow however, too slow, and the remaining two enemy goliaths did their best to impede its progress. It wasn't even half way before the cannon fired again.
“You're just giving them a better shot,” Aaron said.
This time it was the right knee that exploded. The colossus collapsed to the ground once more as remnants of its knee rained to the surface of the table before them.
“No, no, no!” Giselle said.
“I told you, it's over,” Aaron said, shaking his head.
“It's never over!” Celia said,l virtually snarling. “We have to stop them from getting here.”
Giselle had an idea. There was a story she'd told the children a many times with a trick in it.
“Lie down flat, pretend you're dead!” she ordered her colossus. “And make it believable!”
Aaron gave her a look like she was crazy. Giselle responded with her dead stare, “trust me” look.
She wasn't sure it would work but Celia was right, it was better than just giving up. They had to try.
The colossus seemed to pause for a half a second as if considering her request, then it reached up with its sword hand, acting like it had been stabbed in its heart and dropped flat, head to the side, immobile.
“Perfect!” Giselle said.
“Bravo,” Celia said, adding a slow clap.
Aaron buried his face in his hands, rubbing his temples with a long sigh.
“Now just wait there, motionless and when one of those big enemies gets close, stab them!” Giselle said to the colossus.
“This is never going to work. They'd have to be idiots to...” Aaron was saying but he was wrong.
It wasn't long at all before the two white figures, each a forty foot tall goliath carrying an ax as big as a horse carriage, began to cautiously approach the colossus. One made for the head, while the other was moving toward the left arm weapon.
“I can't believe it!” Aaron said.
“Now!” Celia and Giselle yelled in unison.
The Colossus lurched forward. Its target tried to dodge the blow but it was too late. The tip of the left arm sword punched straight through its chest and out the other side. The goliath went limp instantly, dead.
Unfortunately the other enemy goliath responded by using its ax to hack four times at the colossus's neck. The great snake shaped head fell and it dissolved from the table.
“No!” Giselle said.
“I admit it, that was impressive, but they still have a Goliath and a small army and now they're in the city,” Aaron said.
“I know that Aaron,” Giselle said, glaring at him.
Another symbol was now flashing on the right side of the table. It looked like a little skull with crossed lines over it. She reached for it but Daniel blocked her hand. He shook his head vigorously.
“Well what do you suggest we do?” she asked him.
Daniel stood there for a moment, brushing one of his tentacles against the top of his skull as if scratching it, though he had no hair to scratch, only a bare white skull. There was a pause where Giselle stared at Daniel and those red glowing eyes stared back.
“So...um...” Celia said.
Then Daniel seemed to start as if he'd been bitten. He tilted his head and motioned to follow him. Giselle shrugged, looked to Aaron and Celia and followed.
He took them down a hall and through a door and down two sets of spiraling stairs until they arrived at a dead end where Daniel activated a hidden button secreted away in the wall. A door revealed itself, appearing as if from nowhere and dilated open. Inside was a very peculiar room.
It wasn't odd in the sense that it differed markedly from the rest of their surroundings. Nor was the room overly decorated, it was a simple study with a smooth black desk, a few globular lamps and a table, all made of bone-like materials. What truly made it different were the scores of items that littered the room in haphazard piles on the floor, along the walls and stacked atop the desk and table.
Sitting at the desk and actually doing any thing would be impossible. The items stacked in these ubiquitous arrangements were themselves largely unidentifiable. All Giselle could say for certain about any of them was that looking at them made her very uneasy.
The worst of it all however was perched upon a low octagonal table on the right side of the room. It was a great golden chalice the size of a banquet punch bowl with skulls and bones beaten into its gleaming surface.
Yet instead of some noxious green fumes like one might expect to spew from a witch's cauldron, it was filled to the brim and above with a mountain of tiny bones. Each was similar in size and shape, like a single bone taken from the center of a little finger and each had a green glimmering symbol carved into its surface. It looked like a mound of death. Just to cast her eyes upon it made Giselle's stomach seize, an intense illness that shook her to the core.
“This must be Vex's study,” Celia said, fascinated, as she wandered around the room studying everything intensely.
“I don't think we should touch anything we don't have to,” Aaron said with a gulping swallow.
Giselle was surprised. It took a lot to bother Aaron, clearly this room had done it.
At that Daniel whirled around and pointed at Aaron, nodding with generous enthusiasm.
“Ah, so we definitely shouldn't be touching things. That means you Celia,” Giselle said.
“Fine,” Celia said.
Of all the things in the room that Giselle had no desire to interact with in any way, that bone filled chalice was chief among them. So of course that's precisely where Daniel went. He stood next to it, looked at her and pointed to himself, then he pointed to the bones.
“What's he trying to tell us?” Aaron asked.
“I think I know,” Giselle said as that sickly feeling began creeping up on her again. She was going to have to touch them, a lot of them.
Chapter 24
“She was only a hundred and forty meters distant when the brig's gun ports opened and her Arden colors were struck for the black skull.”
-Pyrolian Caravel first mate Pedro Devida, from his testimony before the governor of New Calinova, 1585
“Fire!” Buckley said with a self satisfied grin.
Henri dove to the ground with Adem, hoping to shield him with his body as the muskets snapped home and the powder ignited in a cacophony of reports. Musket balls whizzed by, slicing the air as they passed.
When Henri looked up Vex lay on the ground inert, clothes shredded, surrounded by a pool of expanding red.
Adem began to cry. Henri cradled his boy, putting a hand over his golden hair.
“It's alright,” he said, but it wasn't.
Christine Halett strode forth from the control room, her lip curled and her right hand raised with a spell already in the works. Hot red arcane symbols hovered just beyond the end of her finger tips.
“Buckley!” she said. “You tried to kill my husband and my children.”
Buckley chuckled at her, smiling. “It's my understanding Marcus Halett's head now graces the walls of castle Aeyrdfeld my dear. Your family has been a thorn in my side for too long. You were competition and as you may be aware, companies hate competitors,” he said, stepping toward her confidently as his men worked behind him to reload their arms. “A new era of rule by those who deserve it the most: the rich, the intelligent, the rational, is now at hand.”
“None of that will happen Buckley-”
“You're wrong! It is already happening! Your children are being pried out of that hidden city of yours as we speak. I will ha
ve its secrets. I will have everything.”
“Trying to stall me while your men reload won't work!” The baroness growled at him and flicked the final motion. A gout of red flame erupted from her palm, spraying forth like the mythical dragon's fire.
It would have engulfed Buckley and all his soldiers, such was its size, but instead it seemed to hit an invisible barrier and dissipate into nothing.
The baroness's eyes went wide. Frantically she began drawing lines for something else.
“Silence her but don't kill her, not yet. She is of use,” Buckley said.
Four men ran forward with cudgels. Before the baroness could finish her spell, they got to her and beat her savagely until she fell, bleeding and unconscious, her nose broken. Two of them began dragging her away by the arms.
Buckley then walked toward Henri. “Let's get the machine turned off gentleman. We need things firmly under control here. Overall though, I'd say today has been a resounding success,” he said cheerily as he approached the glowing sphere in the center of the room. “I know our people will be glad to see another one of these.”
Then he turned to regard Henri and Adem. His hand went up to the veil spectacles on the bridge of his nose, adjusting them.
“What have we here?”
“Nothing,” Henri said. “Just let us leave, please.”
“Sadly, I don't think that's going to be possible,” Buckley said. “Not if what I'm seeing is correct. There are more than a dozen veil demons in this boy! How in the world is he not dead? How is it accomplished? Oh I see, there's a necklace of some kind. Did that old woman do this for you? To what end?”
“To help him,” Henri said.
“Come now. You know as well as I that that creature-” Buckley gestured toward Vex's motionless body. The necklace that made him look like an old woman had ceased to function, making his true ghoul form visible. Red eyes stared at nothing. “-is an inhuman beast. It's killed many of our men, including my predecessor. I'm glad to finally be rid of it. Now tell me about this boy or I'll have you killed and take him and we'll find out anyway.”