“The cannon has stopped loosing, my Erus.” Piotr peered out over the city. “Excuse me, my Erus. All of the point defenses have ceased shooting.”

“Call it in, Piotr.”

“Attention, Gens Nethress skywhales. This is Jormungandr Actual. City defenses are down. I repeat, city defenses are down. Recommence assault.”

Piotr looked out over the horizon, where the fleets waited just out of range of the central cannon. He could not see it from here— his eyes were not enhanced— but the thought that they were even now spinning up their rotors again brought a smile to his face.

His Dux behind him had eyes only for his rapidly deteriorating wife. Just as well. He did not need to concern himself with Piotr’s defensive maneuvers, with the fleet moving back into position, with the sudden change in the balance of power now that the Nethress lungboats no longer had to contend with ground countershot.

“Piotr.”

So perhaps he was paying attention after all. “Yes, my Erus?”

“Call for aerial cavalry support over the ground of the Archives. The cannon.”

“As you say, Erus. Will you have me take us there?”

“Yes, Piotr.”

The lungboat zoomed out over the city. Others formed up behind it as they heaved toward the massive cannon. Drawing nearer, Piotr could see that his eyes had not been playing tricks on him regarding its color; it was indeed a shining gray.

Metal. The entire thing— the support structure, I-beams and circular load distributors both, and the barrel itself— was made of steel. 

But even more impressive than the cannon was what it had done to the ground around it. All that was left of the old Archives was the Welcome Frieze at the edge of the parking area; the building itself was gone, vanished into dust or perhaps eaten away by the noxious purple ooze from the weapon. So was the ground beneath the support structure. Instead, a massive hole gaped in the earth beneath the weapon. Smaller crevices radiated out for miles around it. Down those cracks Piotr could see only darkness, but the enormous breach underneath the cannon revealed golden floors and many, many people far below.

***

“You’d better let me drive, Daddy,” Aoife said as they headed for the artillery biomobile.

“If you think I’m letting you leave your room dressed like that, young lady, you’re loonier than a wolf-man under the full moons. Hey!” Ferghall stumbled as Aoife’s support for him vanished.

She caught him before he could fall. “Sorry, Daddy. I thought I’d go back to my room and change into something more modest. Then I remembered: they blew up my room.”

“City living’s corrupted you, girl. Help me up to the driver’s seat.”

“Fine.” Aoife did as she was told, then circled the biomobile and climbed in the passenger door. “So. Where’re we going?”

“Where’s this Last Era Libraratory everybody’s talking about?”

Aoife pointed toward the gigantic cannon towering over the skyline.

“Figures.” Ferghall woke the motor and the biomobile clambered to its feet.

***

Moyolehuani, Head of Inquiry, stared up at the fractal star pattern of cracks in the ceiling. All around him, soldiers and syntheticians alike rushed, the soldiers toward the entrances to the Libraratory, the civilians away from them. Fools! he thought. We’re open to the sky now!

Now anybody could drop in. But the soldiers, idiots that they were, were watching the elevator and barring the crystal doorway. The body was vulnerable to bleeding from every orifice, and they were trying to bandage tiny finger wounds.

But Moyolehuani was not a fighter. No, he was a thinker, and thinkers were always subordinated to warriors when the bullets were flying. So be it, then. He drew his knife. It would taste Nethress blood this day.

There was a mighty pain in his chest. He dropped the dagger and fell to his knees, gazing up once again at the crevices radiating throughout the ceiling. Small flashes of light ringed the edges where blue sky met dark dirt. An ear-shattering explosion shook the room; men blasted into the air from the ramp leading to the crystal door and tumbled down, crashing into the Libraratory floor. One of the bodies took Moyolehuani to the ground.

The ceiling. It had been so beautiful, golden and crystal, inscribed with unknown stories of the Last Era. Now it was gold and dark in equal measure, stretching and tearing, and beyond those cracks the blue of the sky taunted him.

Two bringers of death, a boy and a girl, flew across his vision, traversing the gold—dark-blue expanse with gliding wings unfurled.

***

“Bring us down, Piotr.”

“As you wish, Erus.” Piotr brought the lungship to the ground next to the Welcome Frieze. “Shall I take my Era?”

“No. I have her.” Dorsin stepped out of the lungboat, still bearing Oralie in his arms. He looked for a long moment over at the edge of the hole beneath the cannon. Hundreds of Nethress troops had lined the crevice and were even now firing down into the Libraratory. They paused there for a moment, taking in the sight. Then Dorsin nodded. “Bring her forward.”

“Tvorh will help me!” Hrega shouted as the men muscled her up to the welcome frieze.

“Of course he will, child. Tvorh is helping all of us.”

“If anything happens to me—”

“Nothing will happen to you, girl. I only need your help with this.” Dorsin motioned toward the lift of the elevator. “My genes cannot activate it, but yours can. Reach out your hand.”

“No!”

“Do you want Tvorh to survive, girl? Yes? Then help us help him!”

Hrega set her mouth but reached out. Her hand brushed the crystal frieze, and it slid open, revealing a black shaft.

“Good girl.” The soldiers lifted Hrega into the dark. “Feel around on the wall. You may find—” A whirring noise emerged from the lift. “A call button,” Dorsin said. “Thank you.” They waited long, agonizing minutes as the elevator rose. When it finally arrived, Dorsin stepped on. “Come on. All of you.” He stared at Hrega. “You, too.”

“Let the girl go,” Oralie murmured.

“My love, that girl may be the only thing standing between us and death. She comes.”

“No!” Hrega screamed.

But little Hrega was no match for the soldiers. As they rode down into the flickering darkness, Piotr considered his master. When had the Dux become so dark?

Of course. When he realized that darkness was the only thing that would save his family.

The sounds of battle drifted up from below. The irregulars within the city must have breached the upper entrance to the Libraratory. Good. They would distract the Nxtlu dogs from the elevator.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The door slid open to reveal a scene of chaos. Sunlight poured in from the hole up above; Nethress, citizen, and irregular traded shots and blows in a grand melee up and down the main hall of the Libraratory. Piotr caught a glimpse of Senrii spinning through the crowd, her blade tasting neck after neck, and Piotr felt a sudden yearning to go to her. His first duty was to his liege, however.

He withdrew his telescoping halberd from its sheath, shook the rod into its full form, and waded out into the fray in front of his Dux.

***

Tvorh passed like an eel through the crowd, slicing tendons here, impaling guts there, and never looking back to see whether his victims had lived or died. He had a higher priority.

He had family to take care of.

A massive Blooddrinker charged him, but a forgebone spike through his chest stopped him dead. Tvorh leapt over the body, slid between the legs of another of the brutes, and rolled up to his feet, leaping over the swordblow of a third. He found his footing on the man’s face and leapt again, tumbling into the crowd and pushing through into the opening of a secondary hallway.

He remembered it. Neurocomputational Pangeologic Presence; he couldn’t see the words, but he remembered its position, its feel. He sprinted down the hallway to the door that he knew was marked Cell 102-145: Auxiliary Computational Capacity, thumbed the controls, and slipped inside.

His mother floated in the pustule in front of him. She looked awful; her indigo hair was falling out in clumps; her skin was not merely the alabaster that he remembered, the white of his sisters’ skin, but sickly pale, with a horrific rash of pustules creeping across it.

What had happened to her? What had they done to her?

“Mother!” Tvorh screamed. “Mother! Wake up!” She blinked, shook her head gently, and moaned in pain, a sound that echoed through the chordal units even out in the hallway. “I know you’re in there, Mother! Wake up! You’re dying!”

She groaned again but managed to bring her eyes to focus on him. A pained smile crept across her face. “My darling boy.”

Then she was gone again.

***

“We have to get out,” Eztli said as they forced their way through the crowd. If this hallway was bad, the main concourse looked even worse; packed with people, gunshots ringing through the air, tracks of blood visible on the floor.

“Where?” Rosabella asked. She still sounded woozy.

“We must tell my great-uncle. The Princeps has to know what’s going on here.” 

“No other way?”

“There is no other exit, Rosabella.” Eztli wrenched her forward into the throng in the main concourse.

A deep voice boomed behind them. “Not so fast, dear sister.” A rallying cry went up around them.

“The Dux! The Dux fights!”

Eztli pushed grimly through the slaves. She would not stop. She could not. She did not want to die. The crowd parted before her as far as it could, easing her passage, and for a moment she was thankful; then she was flying backward as a blazing force immolated the throng in front of her.

Her ears rang, the world swam. She stumbled to her feet and grabbed for Rosabella, but Rosabella was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for this?” Ilhicamina held up the sunset-haired woman in two of four hands and shook her like a rag-doll, grinning as he did so. The fighting had stopped; men were picking themselves up from the ground, holding their shot, staring at the Dux who had entered the fray so violently.

“You could have killed us.” Eztli’s voice didn’t sound right in her ears.

Ilhicamina laughed richly. “Kill you? My darling sister, why would I burn you to a crisp?” He took a step forward. “That would be a death far too quick for you.” 

Eztli flicked her wrist-blade into her hand and thrust. Ilhicamina grabbed her wrist and wrenched it to the side. “Far, far too quick. And it would mar too greatly your delicate body.”

“Brother, please,” Eztli said as Ilhicamina forced her to her knees.

“Begging does not become you, my dear sister.” He gazed at Rosabella. “Your lover, however…”

***

Dorsin watched as Magus Dux Ilhicamina Generosus Ortus Nethress stepped through the crowd, gripping his own sister in one pair of skeletal arms and Rosabella in the other. Her eyes drifted through the crowd, finding nothing and nobody, until they fell on Dorsin. He could see sorrow in them; when they fell to Oralie, whom he was still bearing in his arms, something else took its place.

Apology?

Oralie hitched a breath. Her respiration was quick, short, and wet. She did not have long. Dorsin looked back at Rosabella.

Her eyes pleaded with him.

Had Dorsin come all this way for this? Had he fought so hard, only to watch both women he loved die?

Both women.

A farmer cannot tend two fields.

But Dorsin did love them both. As much as he despised himself for his weakness, as much as he detested his departure from the General Principles, he could no longer lie to himself. He owed nothing less to Rosabella than he owed to Oralie; if his life would buy hers, he would lay it down.

And if his life would buy the lives of Oralie and Rosabella both, then he would lay it down gladly, singing the praises of his ancestors as he did so.

Before he could move a muscle, however, Piotr hefted his polearm and stepped out into the empty circle of cinders. Ilhicamina held the women up before him. Honorless scum. Ilhicamina smirked, then tossed the women aside into a crew of Nxtlu soldiers.

“Today is the last day you touch any woman,” Piotr rumbled.

“I shall touch, and more, many more, lapdog.”

The whole throng paused in anticipation as Ilhicamina drew two enormous macuahuitls, one with each pair of arms. He brought the weapons to his forehead in a mock salute. “Come, hound.”

Piotr charged and slashed. Ilhicamina easily parried with one weapon and swiped at Piotr with the other. As large as his weapons were, Piotr’s halberd had the benefit of range; the sword-club caught only air.

Ilhicamina, however, had speed, strength, and agility, and Piotr was a mere Stigmatized warrior, not even a Magus. With blow after blow, feinting to one side while sweeping with the other, he drove Piotr back. The ebony-skinned Stigmatized was now parrying with the head of his halberd, now the shaft, as he gave ground; now Ilhicamina’s furious blows rained down, and sweat poured down Piotr’s forehead.

Ilhicamina shifted low, and his weapon cracked forgebone in Piotr’s legs. The great man bellowed in pain and fell to one knee. The next blow struck the polearm from Piotr’s hands. Ilhicamina grinned and raised the swords above his head for a killing blow.

Then a heavy Nxtlu artillery biomobile fell from the new chasm far above their heads and crashed into the ground of the Libraratory, sending dust and rubble flying.

***

A cloud of dust billowed up in the main chamber, swirling in the heat and flames, as Tvorh raced toward the main concourse. If there had been chaos in the battle before, now it was chaos of a different sort as men shouted and picked themselves up, groped blindly through the debris.

Tvorh didn’t need vision. He sounded out the room, searching for someone, anyone, who could help. His senses alighted on a familiar shape, the perfect embodiment of the female form. She was struggling on the ground against someone holding her leg. Tvorh ran and dodged through the crowd, leapt, and came down, foot-talons extended, on the face of the soldier holding her ankle.

“Tvorh?” Rosabella asked.

“Rosabella! Get up!” He grabbed for her and pulled her to her feet. “I need your help.”

“Tvorh.” She gathered the boy in her arms. “Thank you.”

“No time.” He pushed away. “Mother’s dying.”

“That,” a different voice said, “is because I poisoned her.” Eztli, Ilhicamina’s sister, the woman who had tortured Tvorh, climbed to her feet. 

Tvorh heard red. Without thinking, he crouched in order to lunge for his tormenter, but Rosabella’s hand held him back. No, not her hand; her grip wasn’t strong enough. But something else, something in her touch, kept him from leaping. “No,” she whispered.

“This woman burned my eyes out,” he said through gritted teeth.

“No. That was my brother, although I understand your confusion. You must have been half-dead by that point.”

“And poisoned my mother.”

“To save the fleet,” Eztli said, her voice hoarse. “The same one, I assume, on which you came. Your mother is the auxiliary pro —”

“Processing unit, I know,” Tvorh interjected, waving a hand.

“— because the Tool that controls this place cannot risk exposing itself to the endemic genophage. Your mother commands the Last Era weaponry — Tvorh, is it? Tvorh. I promise you, your people would not have survived had I not poisoned her.”

“How do I stop it?”

“The failsafe is a genophage, targeted to her alone.”

“The genophage has a cure! It’s down here!”

“How do you know that?”

“How do I use the cure?”

The woman shook her head. “You do not. The cure is unavailable. The Tool would have been able to access it, but without your mother’s help, I’m afraid there’s no way to release it.”

A sudden thought occurred to Tvorh. “What if I link with her?”

“What do you mean?”

“I share her genes, and she’s connected to the Tool because of her — our — genes. I think I could use my SOPHIOS to link with her.”

“You are a Magus, Tvorh?” Rosabella asked.

“If you share her genes, you would quickly be infected by the failsafe,” Eztli said.

“I’ll fight through it.”

“The pain will be excruciating.”

Tvorh tightened the bandanna. “I’ll live.”

***

“Senrii,” Dorsin said as his daughter rushed to his side, “take your mother.”

“But—”

“Now!”

Senrii did as she was told, and Dorsin strode into the swirling dust toward a four-armed shadow picking itself up off the ground. Her father became nothing more than a silhouette drawing a sword, sweeping it down toward the neck of the other.

Forgebone caught forgebone. Shadow-puppets danced back and forth, throwing and parrying blows. Senrii watched with awe as Dorsin’s outline caught every strike and riposted with perfect accuracy. She had never seen him fight an equal.

Light flickered off the walls of the hallway as the master swordsmen danced back and forth. Then something— perhaps a ball of flame from Ilhicamina’s mouth, perhaps a slick of ice on the ground— caught Dorsin unaware. His footing shifted, and Senrii could immediately tell it was over.

Four arms pounded down on two, smashing mightily against Dorsin’s single sword. The Nethress Dux fought valiantly, but he has lost his footing, and it was only a matter of moments before Ilhicamina overwhelmed him.

“No!” Senrii screamed.

A shadowy winged shape landed behind Ilhicamina. The dust billowed away, revealing Ferghall, gilder wings still open, and Aoife in his arms. The Warlock shoved the girl away.

Ferghall roared. Tentacles lashed at Ilhicamina.