The Weapons of War

by Dan Schiro

  Orion rose and approached with limping steps, dark life force already flowing into his spellblade as the pool of black blood spread around Vargas. Orion gazed down at a collection of shattered horns, smashed spikes and broken bones sticking through putrid gray skin, but somehow Vargas still took ragged breaths of the dusty air.

  “No, no,” Vargas gurgled through gobs of black blood. “I am… the last of my dimension… you cannot…”

  “Time to send you home,” Orion said as his katana morphed into an executioner’s axe. “Back to hell!”

  He hefted the axe over his head and threw his body behind the downward swing, planting the wide blade between Vargas’ jaws and taking off the top of his fractured face. A spray of black blood spattered Orion, and he staggered back as the sum of Vargas’ life force mainlined into his spellblade. He trembled for a moment, not sure he could absorb blood so old, rich and dark, so unlike anything he had ever tasted. Then his training took over, and he found his way back to the White Room. Between his altered mental state and the intoxicating bloodlust of the living metal, Orion fell into what he could only call a calm fury.

  “By the stars,” Dalaxa said as she ran up to him, her multi-fire assault rifle carried cross-body. “Are you alright?”

  The veins of Orion’s spellblade gauntlet surged thick and bright with blood magic, and the living metal spread. Manacite crept past Orion’s elbow and up his bicep, solidifying at his shoulder in a multi-plate piece of gleaming silver armor.

  “I’m fine,” he said as he called the executioner’s axe back into his gauntlet.

  “Aurelia, Kangor,” she panted, pointing back toward his fallen friends.

  They ran, Orion quickly outpacing her. When he reached his companions, Aurelia was on her knees, feebly hauling Kangor’s thick legs toward his moaning upper body. The Lady of the Jade Way looked 90 years old by human standards, frail and bony where there had been luscious curves, wrinkled and thin where her skin had glowed with effervescent life. Skidding to a stop, Orion knelt down to help her. “Aurelia…”

  “Go, you fool,” she spat, her eyes like pits in rotten fruit. “We’re no good to you like this.”

  Orion stood and backed away, his mind reeling as he looked at Kangor. “I…”

  “Go, little friend,” Kangor roared as his claws raked the stone floor, dragging his torso toward his legs. “Go, finish it!”

  Orion turned his unblinking eyes toward Dalaxa as she caught up with him. “Should I even bother telling you to stay here?”

  “Do you think this is your fight?” she scoffed. “Do you think this story’s about you?”

  Orion took her hand. They turned and ran together toward the polished glass where Vargas had emerged. His spellblade tingled as they neared the towering mirror, and Orion reached out with his manacite hand. The cold caress of living metal flowed over them, and they disappeared with a ripple.

  Chapter 31

  Passing through the mirror felt like diving through a wall of cold water and coming out dry on the other side. Orion and Dalaxa found themselves at the narrow end of a half-oval chamber nearly as big as the cathedral-like trophy room. Strangely antiquated machinery and heavy equipment occupied much of the dusty space, and a jagged obelisk of unrefined, dirty-gray manacite ore sat next to a glowing forge. Elegant silver glyphs covered the floor, walls and ceiling.

  Orion held out a hand to stop Dalaxa. “This is it,” he whispered to her out of the side of his mouth. “Take cover and let me finish this.”

  “What?” she said. “After all I’ve—”

  “You’ve done enough. This is my part, so let me do it.”

  “No, Orion, don’t try to protect me.” She grimaced, gripping her rifle hard. “I’m ready to spend whatever I’ve got left — including my life! — to take him down.”

  “That won’t do anything against him,” Orion said with a nod at her multi-fire assault rifle, its ammo depleted to a half-cartridge of pulse bolts. “Dalaxa… I can’t watch someone I care about die. Not again.”

  “Orion, you don’t understand…”

  “Please,” he whispered, pointing to the cover of the large machines.

  “Be careful,” she said reluctantly.

  Dalaxa ducked behind a crackling conductor array twice her size, and Orion slipped into Sliver of a Shadow. Conjuring a gladiator sword to his gauntlet, he stalked through the maze of equipment with soundless steps. He crept past water wheels, whirring gear assemblies, large anvils, glowing furnaces and the obelisk of manacite ore, headed for the far wall of the room. There, a glassy view-portal stretched hundreds of feet across, framed by the same golden sea foam as the mirror in the trophy room. The great lens displayed images from the battle raging above the Maker Rings, quickly shifting between flocks of small fighters, heavy cruisers and great battleships as a burning red ray annihilated them. In front of the strange view-portal, a blocky throne held a large figure with his furry neck exposed.

  Splitting his mind into two, Orion entered the White Room in concert with Sliver of a Shadow. Soon he could visualize a half-dozen different paths to plant his blade in Typhus’ neck, the movements as clear as if they had been sketched through the air in glowing ink. With his last few steps, Orion leaped, his blade twinkling above his head. Yet a hard impact and the sizzle of static stopped him mere feet from murderous victory. A laugh echoed through the huge command chamber as Orion thumped to the ground with a pained grunt.

  “So close,” Typhus said from behind the shimmering force field.

  Orion sprang to his feet, readied his sword and circled the throne with nimble steps, tapping at the force field to see where its crackling edge lay. Typhus was dressed in his full vycart military regalia, medals, ribbons, red cape and all. His huge body hung limp in the stone chair, his white-blue eyes wide and vacant. The throne itself boasted the smooth, straight lines of expert stonework, with two manacite-leafed, six-fingered palm prints in the armrests where Typhus laid his hands. The Mad Thinker had attached an ungainly headpiece to the back of the throne, and its glowing nodes rested atop Typhus’ manacite neural crown.

  Though his mouth did not move, Typhus spoke. “Really, human.” His voice came from all around Orion, emanating from the dusty stone of the ship itself. “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?”

  “Hoped it wouldn’t be,” Orion said with a scowl. “Why don’t you step out of there and face me?”

  “It’s too late for that now. I have melded with the ship. We are one, a perfect instrument.” Orion felt Typhus’ chuckle through the soles of his feet. “Why is our mutual friend hiding back there? Dr. Croy should witness all she’s made possible.”

  “Leave her out of it,” Orion said. “She’s been through enough, thanks to you.”

  “Is that how she tells it?” Typhus’ face remained still, but a mean smile crept into his voice. “I see you never figured it out for yourself. She was my willing accomplice for a year, glad to teach me all about her weapons of war.”

  “Sorry,” Orion said after weighing it for a second. “Not buying it.”

  “She gave me this glorious ship, too.” Typhus paused, as if to let it sink in. “She was the only one able to decipher the secrets of the E-tech, and she gladly passed on that knowledge to me.”

  Orion ground his teeth. “You’re a liar.”

  “The best part?” More laughter rippled through the command center. “She gained entry to Thegra’s Sword by crafting an interface from the spellblade you cut off some assassin over a year ago. The irony is almost poetic, don’t you think?”

  Orion opened his mouth to curse him but hesitated. This had the twang of truth to it. If the Union had found LaVal LaVoy’s spellblade, they very well might have tried to use it to access Thegra’s Sword. “If all of that is true, why did I find her mind-wiped on a backwater planet?”

  “Alas, the good doctor and I had d
ifferent… visions for the future.” His sigh was like a groaning breeze through the cavernous space. “I knew she would have turned against me eventually, and I’ve had many lieutenants executed for slighter suspicions. Still, I felt she deserved a fresh start in my new empire. After all, I couldn’t have done it without her.”

  “Stop talking and face me,” Orion snarled. “Stand up and fight.” He searched his memory for the vycart curses Kangor had taught him. “Your family bows. Your clan rapes its own. Your honor is gray!”

  “That won’t work on me, I’m afraid,” Typhus said through the stone. “Perhaps on a foot soldier like your pet Kangor Kash, but not on me.”

  “Face me,” Orion screamed as he brandished his sword. “Your honor as a vycart demands it!”

  “My honor as a vycart?” The old warlord’s words dripped with venom. “I crush the Union now to honor the murdered vycart people. Do you understand that I’ve waited, planned for centuries for this day to come? For justice? I had the luck to be in an environment suit when the plague struck, and I wore that blood-cursed suit for hundreds of days until I made it to a hermetically sealed vault.”

  “I said, stand up and—”

  “Then my long years of solitude began,” Typhus’ voice thundered. “I waited — for over a century! — for the Union’s plague to die. And while I waited, I planned, planned and watched. When the time came to—”

  “Everyone’s got a sob story,” Orion muttered as Typhus ranted on. Shrinking away his sword, Orion knelt and laid his spellblade gauntlet on the nearest manacite glyph. Typhus cut his rant short, and for the first time, there was a note of concern in the voice from the stone.

  “What are you doing, human? I can assure you, the ship and I are one invincible meld now.”

  “I’m counting on it.” Orion concentrated and felt the buzz of Vargas’ life force in the glowing veins of his spellblade. “Virus.”

  The manacite glyph pulsed purple-black as something thick and foul flowed out of Orion’s armored hand. The deep violet glow spread slowly to nearby glyphs at first, then raced across the floor and walls at an exponential speed. Soon the view-portal rippled like water, the gears in the floor ground to a halt, the conductor array sparked and the furnaces choked out gouts of black smoke. After a few seconds more, the magical virus reached Typhus’ throne. The nodes of his headpiece burst with spark-showering pops, and white-hot wires fused the Mad Thinker’s delicate neural crown to his head. Typhus screamed as he lurched out of the throne, clawing at the molten metal matting his black fur.

  Orion took a step to attack, but a sudden blast rocked the Engineer ship. The bucking floor threw him onto his backside and sent him sliding as it tilted one way and another before leveling out. Bombs thundered against the stone hull of Thegra’s Sword along with the drum-fire of pulse cannons, and Orion realized he had shut down the energy armor of the vessel when he had severed Typhus’ connection to it.

  “What have you done?” Typhus cried with his true voice as he clawed at his head.

  Orion rose panting, the spellblade armor that ran to his shoulder drained colorless. “Pretty sure I just foiled your plans.”

  “You’ll crash this ship into the Hub,” Typhus raged. “You’ll break the Maker Rings forever, you fool!”

  “That would be my luck,” Orion said as he stalked toward him, his assassin’s blade growing into a bastard sword he could wield with one hand or two. “But if you haven’t noticed, this is kind of personal at this point. Ready to die?”

  “A vycart is always ready to die,” Typhus growled as he tore off his dark-blue gloves. “Just as he is always ready to kill.” Liquid metal coursed out of silver tattoos on his wrists and flowed back toward his elbows.

  “Spellblades,” Orion spat as the living manacite solidified into a pair of spiked gauntlets on Typhus’ huge hands.

  Orion threw his mind into the White Room, dropped into his Furious Wind attack form and charged swinging, but Typhus seemed to take to his new weapons quickly. The vycart conjured a pair of large, razor-edged silver hooks, extending his already formidable advantage in reach. Typhus swung the hooks with fluid precision as they clashed, fending off Orion’s attacks until another unexpected blast tilted the floor and put the vycart on his heels. Seizing the moment, Orion thrust his blade forward, but Typhus’ crossed sickles caught it and held it inches from his furry throat.

  “Where’d you get those?” Orion hissed, his whole body straining to force the blade forward.

  “I forged them here,” Typhus growled back. “The first new spellblades in thousands of years!”

  Typhus flung Orion’s sword to the side with a grunt and delivered a quick, violent head-butt to Orion’s face. Orion staggered back, blood streaming from his broken nose, and Typhus gazed down at the thin, glimmering veins in his spellblades. One glowed red-orange, the other blue-white like Typhus’ eyes.

  “I see now,” Typhus sighed as he tasted a drop or two of Orion’s life force, “why these parasites drag their users into madness.”

  Orion snorted blood out of his nose and fell into his Bull Thrust form. “You don’t have the slightest clue what you’re playing with, Typhus.”

  “Oh, but I do.” Typhus brought his sickles to his own breast. “This ship contains wonders, human.” He ripped open his military-style vest and sliced long, crossing cuts in his own flesh. “It’s a pity you’ll not live to see a spellblade born,” he added as the veins in his weapons grew brighter.

  In the slow-time of the White Room, Orion considered drawing power from his own blood. Then he heard his old mentor’s voice like a shiver from his spellblade. You would make the same mistake as your enemy? Crag Dur Rokis Crag said, shaking his head. Didn’t I train you better than that?

  “Taste the elements, human,” Typhus roared as he pointed the sickles at Orion.

  The long tongue of a flamethrower unfurled from the spellblade on Typhus’ right hand, while a thick ribbon of frost hissed forth from the weapon on his left. Orion vanished his sword, leaped in the air and twisted away like a high jumper, his smartcloak saving him from a lick of fire that would have melted his bodysuit to his flesh. He hit the ground and rolled, mere feet in front of the onslaught, then exploded to his feet and charged out ahead of the twin blasts. He slid to cover behind the obelisk of unrefined manacite an instant before Typhus’ fury caught up with his mad dash. When the elemental streams relented, Orion peeked around the other side of the ore to get a quick look.

  “Hiding from me?” Typhus spat as he gouged the tips of his sickles into his thighs and drew more blood magic from his own veins. “I thought you were a true warmonger, a worthy opponent!” He unleashed another twin blast at the dirty-silver obelisk, the fire licking past Orion’s left side and the frost hissing past his right.

  “Is that the best you can do with two spellblades?” Orion called back as he conjured a long, thin lever from his own living metal. “Amateur!” Slipping the crooked end of the lever beneath the dirty-gray rock, Orion got his weight atop his lever and toppled the obelisk forward with a grunt. Now Orion had his back against the wide base, increasing his cover substantially. “You’re a chump, Typhus,” he goaded. “You’re a child with a sword too big for you to lift!”

  Typhus roared and Orion hazarded a glance over the top of the unrefined ore. The vycart warlord cut more long, bloody streaks in his arms and flung forward his icy blade. As Orion ducked back down, the ore cooled against his back. A rime of frost crept over the dirty silver jags, and then the sounds of subtle cracks spread through the unrefined manacite. When the heat-subtraction ray ceased, Orion peeked around and saw Typhus charging toward his barrier with a flaming sledgehammer in his right hand.

  The hammer hit the super-cooled ore with a deafening clang. Orion leaped back as a wave of fire coursed over the unrefined manacite, and the toppled obelisk shattered like five tons of glass. As the floor tilted this way
and that, Orion leaped at Typhus over the steaming shards, drawing a simple silver staff in mid-air. Deep in the thoughtless state of the White Room, Orion engaged Typhus’ wild hammer-and-sickle combos with fluid movements that fended off the vycart’s blows as if they moved through water.

  Yet Orion didn’t fight to win, not right away. He simply swatted away the smoldering hammer blows and danced back beyond the icy touch of the hook. He let Typhus work himself into a frenzy, blood dripping from the vycart’s self-inflicted wounds as his undifferentiated cells rushed in a dozen different directions to heal him. Eventually Typhus took a careless swing with his burning hammer, and Orion transformed his staff to a broadsword mid-spin. A long stroke hummed through the air, severed the Mad Thinker’s right arm at the elbow and carved a splinter from the white stone floor. The burning hammer shrunk away as the spellblade gauntlet clanked to the ground, and Typhus staggered back with an animal howl. As the Mad Thinker fell to his knees, exhausted by drawing magic from his own blood, Orion took a moment to let the rich vycart life force flow into him.

  “Too bad I’m better with one spellblade than you are with two.” Orion hefted his broadsword to take Typhus’ wolfish head, but the old warlord merely smiled.

  “Not after all I have endured,” snarled Typhus, drawing on his own blood yet again to fire a stream of purest winter up at Orion. “Not until I have justice!”

  Orion tried to dodge, but the icy blast caught him and coated him, immobilizing him mid-swing in a cocoon of clear, thick ice. Typhus fell forward, his life force drained to its dregs by his powerful blizzard spell. For a moment it seemed as if the two of them might die together a matter of feet apart. Then a voice cried out behind them.