Rooks’ ships still guarded the wormhole and the planet itself. She protected Iruedim from Volanter attack, and the natural wormhole from Volanter influence, yet the Volanter were on Iruedim proper.
Rooks didn’t have ground forces, but she did have small ships.
“Well, I’m glad they didn’t open with this. Though, I’m guessing they couldn’t.” Rooks had ordered her ships to hold their formation, all except the smallest vessels, which she sent through Iruedim’s rings of traps. She sent shuttles, Lurrien vessels, and fighters.
Rooks sent a handful of mages back as well, though she took comfort in knowing that mages peppered the surface of Iruedim. They were often the best that stayed behind too, seeking glory in more traditional settings. All the old masters that she couldn’t entice aboard her ships, the spell writers that shied from combat, and the people that just liked fresh air and freedom.
“I think they learned a new trick,” Inez said. “It’s like bottled magic. Not truly a magical item. Just a spell that casts the moment you open the box.” Inez stroked the length of her braid. She threw it back over her shoulder. “It’s a quick and dirty way to transport a spell. Just cast, close the envelope, and send it on its way.”
“Sounds like a new brand of magical terrorism.” Rooks’ stomach turned at the thought. “Think we can learn it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Rooks sighed, but Inez didn’t hear.
Inez stared at the large window and the view of Iruedim. “Do you think I should go? Eder’s down there.”
Rooks felt her gaze soften. “I’m sorry, but I need you here.” Rooks griped the rail and spoke to her bridge at large. “Someone get me in contact with Pan. I want a direct line open to her at all times. If she’s going to cast down on Iruedim, I want knowledge and control of her whereabouts.”
“We’ll get the line from Alban.”
“Any ships incoming?” Rooks asked.
“No.”
“There will be, and the minute we have ships incoming, we’re going to need Pan back up here. She can do a lot of good planet-side, but as soon as the battle gets back into space, she’ll be better up here.” Rooks shot a look at Inez. “You will too.” Finally, Rooks looked at her feet and pushed herself to ask the question she didn’t want to. “Did any Scaldin ships go through the wormhole?”
She feared a panic from some of the Scaldin, though they’d shown her no reason to expect it.
An officer reported, “No, they’re holding their position. Except for the Ischyros. It’s heading off into open space.”
“What the?” Rooks checked her screen. “Is Alban in command of it?”
The com officer called to the Ischyros and piped the answer up to Rooks.
“Yes, I’m here,” Alban said. “I’m moving away from the battle because I’ve got some useful arcanes, including one that will be more useful if I can move him away from the more distracting elements of this fiasco. We don’t know where they’ll show up, so I’m taking him to a place of little interest.”
Alban meant Sotir.
“If you get me any good information, I’ll take it,” Rooks said.
“We’ll try to get you everything we can. I’ve included you on Pan’s line, by the way.”
Rooks exhaled. “Thanks.” She called to her com officer. “Put me through to the whole fleet.” Rooks paused till she heard the click. “For now, there are no Volanter ships in our space. I know it’s tempting to take the fight planet-side, but we need to keep our satellite system of traps intact and stay on guard around the wormhole and the entire planet. There are still Volanter ships out there, waiting to take advantage of what their little invasion force is doing down below. Only small ships – any small ships – are welcome to leave the main fleet. Stand by for further orders.”
Rooks turned to Inez. “I know it’s short notice, but have you made progress on that space altering magic? I don’t want any more wormholes.”
Inez nodded. “Right. I’ve made a lot actually. It’s not as bad as I thought. They only have about fifteen, maybe twenty options, for wormholes in our space. The rest would be too unstable to work, or too far out.”
“I’m guessing the natural wormhole has taken the best place.”
Again, Inez nodded. “Probably. If it’s natural.”
Rooks waved a hand. “Let’s leave that speculation aside. Get to work, now. Make it so that the only wormhole allowed is our wormhole. Do you think you can do it?”
Inez took a deep breath. “I really don’t know, but I can get to work. I can start with the farthest position. I just…I can’t promise.”
Rooks nodded. “Do your best. Get me some anti-wormhole magic.”
“I would need other mages to help me cast. A lot of other mages, and I’ll definitely need to revise the spell.” Inez put a finger to her lips.
Rooks patted her shoulder. “I’ll give you the time you need. Just do your best.”
Inez nodded.
“Take any mages you want. You can order them around all you like.”
A little light appeared in Inez’s eyes, and Rooks supposed that those words would have made any of Inez’s other days.
“No Volanter.” Pan stroked her fingers through her dragon’s black fur and laid flat. She kept her head just high enough to see the dark space around Iruedim, made darker by a lack of close stars “Not yet, at least.”
Rooks’ ships spread in an arrow shape, and the Scaldin ships clustered around them, guarding Iruedim. A handful of Scaldin ships blocked the bubble that was Iruedim’s wormhole, guarding the path to Scaldigir. Pan twisted on her dragon’s back and just spotted the Ischyros, far off, on its own. She hoped they hadn’t cut themselves off from help in their efforts to provide some.
She and her conjured beast sped towards Iruedim, and though the space around Pan remained silent, she swore she could hear the gush of wind around her dragon. It was an illusion, of course, perpetrated by the arrow-like shape she and her familiar had formed.
At first, she felt alone with the creature. Then, as green-blue Iruedim grew large, Pan saw the others. A stream of ships, fighters and Lurrien vessels, joined into one, long, straight river. Pan’s dragon flew just outside that river, but close enough to feel part of it.
As each ship got close, it entered cloud-cover and atmosphere, growing too small for Pan to track. Some ships broke off the formation and flew a circuit around Iruedim to find a place to protect.
Pan’s dragon pointed its nose, kept its body straight, and focused on the planet. So long as Volanter waited in its path, they wouldn’t waver.
Pan listened to her com.
An officer reported all the sites with Volanter activity. “Main wormhole above Presereme, Groaza. Other portals, generated by opponents from that wormhole, can be found at the following locations. One portal in Lurren – southeast city. One portal in Groaza – Gotic. Two detected in Tagtrum, on the islands of Racon and Fola. Four detected in Ponk. Affected cities are Parni, Solnech, Pengke, and Seyber. Three portals in the Equatorial islands. Locations yet to be reported…”
How did the Volanter conjure not only a wormhole but also such a long string of portals? They didn’t know how those Iruedian places appeared. The Volanter shouldn’t be able to see their way in. Pan decided someone must have flown to those locations and sent back an image. In that way, the wormhole became a handy shortcut for all the Volanter warriors that wanted a piece of Iruedim. How lucky they must feel to find themselves on the planet itself and not within a solitary ship in Rooks’ fleet.
Pan knew the reports would continue to roll in, and she would keep an ear open. “Why don’t we handle Ponk?”
The dragon wove into the clouds, snaking its bodies around the thickest parts. It snorted, and for once, Pan heard it.
“What’s wrong with Ponk?”
The dragon snorted again.
“Well, they’ll have Groaza figured out, and we saw Lurren. That’s a ghost country. Many of our number are headed to good old Tagtrum, as they specifically call it home. Ponk needs the help.” Pan squinted and tried to see through both the dragon’s scales and Iruedim’s clouds. “Ponk is the biggest continent. Just pick any city where you see activity.” Pan nudged her eyes closer to the see-through cap that kept her safe atop her dragon. She still saw only clouds.
The dragon huffed its agreement.
“Is it the name?” Pan asked. “Because I’ve heard sillier. Prooptik. That comes from Scaldigir.”
The dragon laughed, and Pan felt its sides heave. The laugh itself was a deep, chesty sound.
Pan smiled. “I wonder. Will Gladiolus catch up? Will we see him down there?” Pan glanced back, but saw only clouds.
Gladiolus’ llama – as Meladee called it – was white and would show easily against the dark of Iruedim’s mostly starless space. Pan’s dragon was the color of ink and blended. But, they weren’t in space any more. Among the clouds, Gladiolus would have a strong advantage.
Pan faced forward. He wouldn’t be in that direction. She’d find him ahead.
Pan’s dragon burst out of the clouds, and Pan could see that they headed for Ponk. The continent sprawled from a point just below the equator, almost up to the north pole.
Her dragon kept its wings tucked and eyes focused, but it also shook its claw, which rocked Pan’s seat and must have dampened some of their forward progress.
“What? What are you doing?”
The dragon raised its claw and shook it again, in a position that Pan could finally see. A thread of green tangled there.
Pan drew a short, audible breath. “Is that Irini’s circle?”
Gladiolus must be looking for them.
“That is very inconvenient,” Pan said.
She tried to recall Irini’s circle, but it wouldn’t come to mind. If she could just see it, she would be able to counter it. It wasn’t that kind of circle though. It stayed close to its caster. To counter the circle, Pan would have to find Gladiolus. That was sure to happen. He had a way right to her.
“Keep us headed to Ponk. Let’s pick someplace no one knows us, just in case this goes wrong.” Pan stroked her dragon’s back. “Though I’m sure our anonymity won’t last. We’re making quite the name for ourselves as a one woman, one dragon killing machine. Who knows they might know us already? Right now, some little girl might be looking up at the sky, idolizing me, and wishing she could kill Volanter by the hundreds.”
The dragon focused ahead and ignored Pan’s words and touch.
As they headed for the large Northern continent, Pan studied the globe of Iruedim. She saw the smallish, green-grey country in the north. That was Groaza, and Pan knew it was actually more grey than green, especially in the places that people lived. It had a pinched bridge that connected it to the country of Ponk. Ponk was a great long, thing - a mass of green and brown. It stretched away into the far ocean and reached up and down, with chunky fingers.
Before it got out of view, Pan noted a long series of islands. She guessed those were the Equatorial Islands. They belted Iruedim, almost at its center. It was a big country or set of countries. Pan wasn’t sure. It certainly outsized Tagtrum, the other island country, which shrank from view long ago.
Lurren, one of the northernmost continents was long out of sight. Now, Pan saw only Ponk.
She took a deep breath. They dived. Wings tucked; then billowed as Pan’s dragon searched for their fight.
The land loomed larger, and more birds entered their path – or scrambled out of it. The dragon darted through the wind, wriggling back and forth, making minor adjustments from its head to its tail.
The land became clear. The cities showed themselves in shades of brown, between treetops.
Still, the dragon hurtled down.
“Slow. Slower.” Pan sat up a little and tugged gently on the dragon’s fur, as if that would affect it.
A tall ball-shaped spire entered their path.
Pan made a noise of fear but choked it off. She hadn’t screamed in a while, probably since the mine. There just wasn’t any point in a scream, if you were going to die.
The dragon leveled off, slowed, and rounded the ball. Pan let out her choked off breath.
“Do we have any opponents?” Pan asked.
The dragon’s scale cage retracted. Wind rushed into Pan’s hair, and she kept her nose to her familiar’s fur. From her fur strewn vantage point, she peered below and saw a pair of Volanter on the steps of some great rust-colored building.
They assailed it, but Iruedians lobbed spells out, keeping the Volanter on the steps.
“If this is all there is, we’ll have to find more quick.” Pan propped herself up and turned her face askance.
Wind rushed by her cheeks and put miniscule knots in her hair of ink. Slowly, the wind died down, and her hair merely ruffled. Pan sat up.
Her dragon sailed slow, and she raised her hands to draw a circle in the sky. It helped her to trace out new circles, and her planned distraction was certainly new. It wasn’t even Volanter, but Iruedian instead.
“This doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” she told her dragon. “You are the most important circle to me.”
Pan drew the circle. It was two rings strong, with a star to connect the key runes. The circle hummed, glowed, and flashed. Pan ducked low. The circle she’d painted on the air now lay behind her. Pan twisted to see its completion, and the circle disgorged the biggest bubble of water she’d ever seen.
It seemed to fall in slow motion. It was not at all what Pan wanted. It landed at the base of the steps, with a splat. It flattened for a moment; then resumed its perky shape. The water bubble, tinged green, began a slow trek upwards to meet the Volanter.
On the rust-colored steps, the Volanter twisted and looked down. One held his nose. The other covered her entire lower face and crouched low.
“Oh,” Pan breathed. “That is not a porza.”
Her dragon veered away and snuffed a laugh that continued far beyond the moment of humor.
Pan held her dragon’s neck tight and twisted to see the bubble. It stretched arms, blobs really, for the Volanter. Those arms swatted, swiped, and punched. The Volanter slid low, curling their tentacles up, but any hit that landed on their persons did no damage.
Pan’s porza was a true miscast. Her only consolation was that the Volanter smelt it. On second thought, Pan also appreciated that the Volanter’s spells bounced off her stink bubble. And, Pan even found a third consolation in the form of the Ponk mages. They took advantage of their distracted enemies.
“They should be fine.”
A great noise came from ahead, and Pan’s dragon sped up. She dipped low, clutched its fur, and gulped for air. She struggled to make out the sounds over those of rushing wind.
The dragon slowed as they approached a great gathering of Volanter and mages of Ponk. Pan could hear the sounds of magic, shouts, and weaponry. Pan called it a gathering, but in reality, it was a battle.
“This is where their party is.” Pan sat up and felt a smile spread across her face. She had a lot of Volanter to play with.
As they sailed in, Pan assessed the battle. She saw Iruedians in great, steam spewing suits. Controlled mist streamed from their joints, and in the domed heads, Pan counted one or two Iruedians. The pilots and their machines towered over the battle and shot streams of magic or maybe it was just fire. Ponk mages lined up behind the great suits and plied spellwork in a zigzagging row. Some linked their spells with the previous, playing off the work of their neighbor. The effects were fire and steam, sparks and smoke.
Pan’s eyes felt alight. Her dragon circled, and she conjured a quick portal. She caught the punching hand of a mechanical giant and fed it not to the Volanter meant to meet it. That Volanter conjured a shield and wouldn’t be hit. So, Pan’s portal sent that punch into the crowd of Volanter, not yet on the front lines.
The Iruedian pilot must have noticed his or her good fortune, for the giant spewed flames into the Volanter, through Pan’s portal. As soon as the giant withdrew its hand, Pan dropped the portal.
Healing circles rotated above the injured Volanter, all single rings. Pan countered as many as she could and watched them die, not the Volanter, the circles. But, the Volanter might follow soon.
Pan cast a quick, but big, telekinetic circle. She dropped it right in the center of the Volanter, and they all lifted into the air. The floating Volanter searched the sky and finally noted Pan. A counter was headed her way.
But first, the Iruedian weapons found their marks. They punched into the soft Volanter flesh; magic and metal arms both. More smoke and fire blocked Pan’s clear view. She could just see the bodies of Volanter in the air above the battle. They fell. Her circle had been countered.
Pan frowned and peered into the steam. Light penetrated the smoke, and the result of an enemy circle sailed for her.
“Oh.” Pan’s dragon dodged to the side.
The spell grazed and burned her arm. Pan rubbed her shoulder and patted a few sparks from her hair.
“Don’t bother about her. I’ll take care of it!” a familiar voice shouted.
Pan whipped her head to search for him. Wind blew hair into her eyes, but she saw the llama beast, a little harder to spot against the cloud covered sky. It ran on air, following an invisible path.
“Gladiolus is here to ruin the fun awfully fast,” Pan said.
The dragon shook the thread around its claws and growled.
“I know. I know.”
Pan’s dragon turned hard. It led with its teeth and claws. It streamed in a zig zag, and with a shake of its back, Pan found she couldn’t hold on. She fell.
Fell off my own familiar. Who does that?
The fall seemed to happen in slow motion, just as it had for her miscast porza.
Pan had a view of the sky, and as soon as she fell far enough, she saw Gladiolus. He watched her, with wide eyes, and forgot to cast, as her dragon smashed into his llama.
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The llama brayed and squirmed. The dragon bit the neck hard, and red blood stained the llama’s white fur. Gladiolus fell too.
Pan couldn’t watch forever. She cast her telekinetic circle and caught herself. She let her body drift the last few feet to the ground. She felt hard rock beneath her back and head. Her heels connected with the cement surface, feeling it the least, protected by her shoes. Pan ran her fingers over the road’s rough bumps and lay still.
She continued to lay there as her arm ached. The left one tingled, as did her leg.
Pan thought of an illusion circle. It was the one she thought belonged to Brynn, though maybe it was too small to be Brynn’s. Pan cast it quick, got a misfire, growled, and tried again. The circle hummed short but sweet. All around Pan, a puddle of imaginary blood pooled.
She smiled but only for a moment. She closed her eyes and relaxed.
Tentacles squelched and skittered on the cement.
That’ll be him…
“I told you not to touch this one,” Gladiolus scolded. “She’s good stock. Look at her now!”
“She was decimating our ranks. This is a huge continent and a powerful country. We need to take this one if we’re going to hold the planet. What did you want me to do; let her slaughter us?”
“You ruined her. Absolutely ruined her. You better hope she’s alive.” The sound of a rotating circle began. Gladiolus had plans to heal her, and at the end of those plans, he would probably numb her.
Pan let him finish the healing circle. It flowed into her tingling limbs, feeling better than her own healing, mostly because she got someone else to do it.
She listened hard for the few seconds between the healing circle and what would come next. A short pause in the music followed.
Pan cast a quick telekinetic circle. She placed it where she thought the other Volanter was. She opened her eyes to watch the scolded plow into the scolder. The other Volanter interrupted Gladiolus’ cast, and Pan was disappointed to see she’d missed out on one more healing circle.
She sat up and cast another quick circle. It flashed once; she fell into the portal, and then, she closed it up.
Pan had gotten so fast at her circles that they barely hummed a song. They sounded more like the chime of jingly bells – cut short. She owed it all to her reaperhood and her years as a bound. She owed it all to the Anther – the ones that would consider her aberrant.
In an alley, Pan knelt on stone. She slid around the corner and tucked herself in an archway, mottled by lichen. To one side, she heard the sounds of Ponk against Volanter. To the other, she heard Gladiolus order the second Volanter away.
A rotating ring sequence began. Pan’s heard its song. Though it didn’t sound any different from the average spell, she assumed it rotated. It belonged to Gladiolus, after all. The first spell finished, and the green thread found Pan. It wrapped itself around her left wrist.
Pan huffed but couldn’t help smiling. She drew a portal in front of the thread, but the thread just detoured around and found her again.
“Oh…” Pan said.
She portaled herself away to the end of a street. She portaled again. The thread followed her, and that was fine.
She could accept that Irini’s power was a wonderful thing, even coming from Gladiolus.
Above, Pan’s dragon rolled through the air, with Gladiolus’ llama in its clutches. Her dragon could kill the llama, but the silly familiar would come back, as long as Gladiolus drew breath. Pan didn’t know what could truly destroy a familiar.
Come help me, you vicious beast.
The sounds of Ponk’s battle came muffled, from the other side of great, stone buildings.
Or, at least, help them.
Pan sighed and portaled to an outcropping, halfway up a building. She sighted higher and portaled again to the top of a roof.
Up there, she stood among a series of spires. They towered, and Pan felt small. Little wind seemed two blow between them, but what did moved her dark hair.
Each spire’s base began thick, sometimes ball shaped, but as they went up, the spires grew thin to become mere lines to the sky. Some reached higher than others.
Pan ran between them, skipping up and down the roof tiles. She conjured a portal and then another. The rings lit up the shadowed spaces between the spires and higher still. Pan put portals in the air. She didn’t think Gladiolus could fly or levitate very well, but she’d learned her lesson the last time she tried this trick.
While she built her maze, the green thread followed. It trailed along her path, like a bit of emerald yarn, clinging affectionately to her wrist.
The more gateways she made, the more Gladiolus’ thread tried to move in and between them. Finally, it snapped, weaving in and around space and back on itself. The bit left on her wrist dissolved and fell away.
Pan laughed.
“If I conjure it again, it might work,” Gladiolus said, somewhere among the spires. “You keep a lot of circles going at once. Such good stamina.”
“I run on spite,” Pan called back. “And, you give me plenty.”
Gladiolus’ voice came from a point closer. “I would say you run on delight. If you’re looking for a playmate, I’m more than willing.”
Pan frowned. She should be killing Volanter as fast as she could, not playing keep away with Gladiolus.
I’ll kill him and get back to work.
Pan heard one of her portals wink out.
Oh, counters. I completely forgot.
“I hope you don’t mind if I clean up a bit.” Another portal winked out. The sound of Gladiolus’ voice was far enough, but the sound of dying portals was too close.
Pan checked the skies for her dragon. “Where are you?”
“Getting lost in your own game?”
More of Pan’s portals winked out.
Pan conjured a new one. She sighted the base of a spire, one shaped like a ball, and placed her portal at the apex of the sphere. Pan slipped through.
She emerged atop the metal ball and wrapped her arm around the spire. Wind whipped her hair. She’d found a place, unsheltered from the elements. Pan searched a cloudy sky. She was close to the highest spire – a needle thin thing. She crouched and searched the space below. Gladiolus was nowhere to be seen.
A hand grabbed Pan’s arm, and Gladiolus slipped through a portal of his own. The circle rotated, and Pan recognized the numbing spell.
She cried out and pulled away, falling again. She countered his numbing circle, but it left her no time to fix the problem of falling. Time message started to whisper to her when a big black object collided with her midair.
Pan let out an oof and grabbed hold of the object as it held her. Clawed hands wrapped around her waist and shoulders. She wrapped her arms around the dragon’s chest and her legs around its waist.
“Where were you?” Wind ruffled most of Pan’s words. She wrinkled her nose.
The stench of blood covered her dragon’s underbelly and its mouth.
“Well, that’s fine – you got a kill, but don’t you think I want to kill something?”
The dragon wiggled a claw, and Pan saw her com attached to it.
She huffed. “You had this too?” Pan snatched the com off the claw.
It buzzed.
“Yes?” Pan called from her place in the dragon’s hug.
“We’ve got ships moving in up here,” Rooks called. “Where have you been?”
“I dropped my com. My familiar got it back to me.”
“I need you up here now. Let everyone else deal with the planet-side invasion. You’re strongest in the space battles. You practically equal a whole ship on your own,” Rooks said.
“Thank you.” Pan glowed with the compliment. “I’m on my way.”
The dragon hoisted her onto its back. She gripped fur and got low. The scale cage closed, and the wind got locked out. Pan’s dragon increased speed, up like a rocket.
Meladee missed Benham. They’d argued about splitting up, but with Volanter on planet, they had to put more of their ships in rotation. She pushed Benham onto Halfmoon, and she took Mountaineer – the ship with the weaker enchantments.
Meladee worked the controls. She wanted to assist the island of Fola. She sent Benham to Racon.
“I wish we didn’t paint this thing black. Not that silver was much better.” Meladee made a sound of disgust and slowed as she caught sight of her island.
She addressed her basan. It rode beside her, in the cockpit, squished up. Its feathers fluttered gently in Mountaineer’s climate control system. To be fair, the basan made the best of it, softly clucking its annoyance. It puffed its wings, and down floated past Meladee’s face.
“You got to keep your feathers out of my flying space.” Meladee made a box with her hands. “This is my flying space.”
The basan clucked and snatched a small feather out of the air. It swallowed it.
Meladee made a face, but she said, “Better.”
She leveled the ship. She saw details along Fola’s coast, shops and a road by the sea. She soared past the coast and headed where she saw smoke – inland.
Mountaineer almost maneuvered too fast in atmosphere. Of their three ships, Mountaineer was the only one with a truly aerodynamic design. Halfmoon was shaped like half a cookie – a thick, crumbly one. Faustina had the big balloon, though its bow could cut clouds.
“Haven’t been here in a while.” Meladee stared out the windshield and saw the source of the smoke: the capital buildings of Tagtrum.
Fola was the largest island in Tagtrum, which meant it got the honor of hosting the capital. Meladee visited the place only a few times: twice in her adulthood, once with her father. She would never forget it though.
Tagtrum’s seat of government spared no burst of creativity. The official buildings hosted murals of Tagtrum’s many people. Color was everywhere. Flowers and trees formed gardens between the man-made structures, which turned out to be a great defense.
Meladee watched the Volanter as they lay siege to the government buildings. The Volanter seemed more reluctant to hurt the plants than they were to hurt the people. Still, Meladee could tell the Volanter wanted to take her country with as little death as possible.
“So damn squeamish.” Meladee steered the Mountaineer to the edge of the government complex.
As she set it down, Mountaineer seemed to land in a cloud, with the total absence of a jolt. Meladee attributed the soft landing to the plush grass and not her expert flying.
Meladee rose from her seat but continued to stare out the windshield. She glimpsed a group of ragtag mages. The trio ran toward the sound of battle. They seemed to come from the edges of Tagtrum and seemed to have left their last showers on the edge of the country as well.
Meladee raised an eyebrow and addressed her basan. “They need to get organized.”
The basan stretched its neck and looked in the wrong direction.
Meladee took her bell out of her pocket. She held the tongue steady and faced Mountaineer’s exit. With her elbow, Meladee keyed open Mountaineer’s door, and waited.
Meladee tapped her foot as the basan wriggled. It squeezed itself into a turn. Down and a few stray feathers sucked out the door on favorable winds. As soon as the ramp hit ground, the basan ducked out the door, after its wayward feathers. It bobbed onto the lawn of Tagtrum. Meladee followed.
A fight raged around the government buildings, and Meladee took a moment to watch. Tagtrum had hundreds of mages, more than most other countries. Mages employed by the government, as well as those from the surrounding neighborhoods, worked on the Volanter from within the building and without. They seemed to understand nothing of formation or keeping together, and only those mages that worked directly for Tagtrum seemed to understand teamwork. The rest were there for the glory and challenge of killing Iruedim’s first mages.
Meladee had different motives – better ones, she thought.
Meladee looked at her basan. “Go. No wait. Hold on a second.” Meladee curled her hand and beckoned the basan back. “Come here.”
The basan returned to her side and waited.
“Let’s get you some backup first.” Meladee rang the bell.
The basan flapped its wings and clucked, as men of dirt punched their way out of the lawn.
“Shhhh. Don’t draw attention to us.” Meladee rang the bell again. She shrugged. “Though, I’m probably the one drawing the attention, aren’t I? Oh well.” Meladee stuffed the paper back into her bell and stowed it in her pocket.
Dozens of dirt men answered the bell’s call. They pulled themselves from the ground. Two strong rings of the bell got Meladee a crop that numbered nearly a hundred. She’d left a lot of holes in the lawn.
“It’s not the first lawn I’ve ruined. You take these, and I’ll maybe make more.” Meladee counted the men, sending her eyes over the array of clod-based warriors. “Definitely not enough.” Meladee extracted her bell from her pocket again and pulled the paper from around the tongue. She gave the bell a third strong ring.
The basan crowed and charged. The men of dirt followed.
Meladee kept ringing that bell. She pulled men from the lawn, until her army numbered in the hundreds and shielded her from view with their bodies of soil, shallow roots, and shorn grass.
She made a face. “Eh, kind of stuck in the crowd now.” She headed backwards, tripping over rough patches of dirt. “Dear god, what a mess.”
Against the flow of dirt men, she made progress. She pushed her way free and trod over uneven ground. Ahead, loomed a great rock, covered in graffiti. Meladee remembered it. She saw it every time she visited Fola. The first time she climbed the rock with her sister and father. He wasn’t supposed to sail off with her and her sister, while their mom wondered where they were for two weeks, but Meladee didn’t know that at the time. On her subsequent visits, Meladee pretended the rock wasn’t there.
Now, she climbed it.
At the top, she knelt, not wanting to draw attention to herself as the mage, who’d call the army down on the Volanter. The Volanter were not that bothered by the dirt warriors, but some wore distress on their mask-like faces. Trees and upended flowers lay on the ground, and several dirt men carried pieces of plants within themselves. As one man burst apart, a shower of petals sprayed a Volanter woman and two Iruedian mages. Meladee’s minions perished. She needed more. Stronger minions.
Meladee conjured her dragon circle and threw it far off. The dragon materialized, roared, and headed for the Volanter, ice breath leading. So far away from her rock, the dragon seemed to be the product of some other mage.
She bit her lip and searched for another opening. She counted two. The first was a nice little clearing behind a pod of Volanter. Meladee conjured a circle of red and orange, three rings strong. She let it go, and firecrackers spilled up and out. They made an arc in the sky and sailed on to the heads of Volanter waiting below. She hit a few. She distracted them all.
The second opening was a long thin patch of dirt, where her mindless army threatened to surge against a row of Volanter. Meladee conjured a series of circles, small ones, only two rings strong each. They formed a chain, and lightning bounced up and down that chain. It singed Volanter, and the Volanter backpedaled on winding tentacles. The dirt men surged forward, unaffected by the lightning. Again, Meladee hadn’t caused much damage, but she’d made a grand distraction for other mages to take advantage of.
Meladee searched for her third opening. She couldn’t find one, so she cast a quick summons beside the rock. Within the three-ringed spell, Pizza man materialized. The red-yellow of the runes became the red-yellow of his cheesy person. With eyes set deep in his crust, he stared up at Meladee. He had the most intense warrior gaze Meladee had ever seen.
“So…uh…make smarter decisions this time.”
The pizza man ran away and disappeared into the crowd.
Meladee sighed. She stared over the battle and tried to watch his progress, but he wasn’t as tall as the dirt men or most Tagtrumians. He certainly wasn’t as tall as the Volanter.
She froze, and her heart threatened to stop. Two Volanter slithered their way over the uneven lawn. They set narrow, determined eyes on her.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Meladee pulled her bell from her pocket and rang it as she slid down the other side of the rock. She landed on the ground and nearly stumbled from her feet. An arm burst out of the rock beside her, and a rock man, tattooed in graffiti, followed. Another jumped from a different place. He landed in a squat beside Meladee. A third followed, and another.
“Go fight the octopus people. I’m gonna hide.”
Meladee threw an invisibility spell around herself, but it didn’t take. A rotating circle sang, just beyond Meladee’s sight. She swore it had just thrown a binding spell over her. Volanter were fond of those. Taking prisoners was their ultimate goal, of course.
Meladee could feel the spell. It hovered around her person, and she deemed it weak. Binding spells needed time to gain strength, not complexity or an increased number of rings. She would break free sooner rather than later.
The Volanter would arrive soonest, however.
Meladee stayed close to the rock and briefly considered tucking herself into one of the spaces left by the men. She could hide there, but the Volanter weren’t that stupid. Tentacles squelched around the rock from both sides. Meladee looked back and forth and counted five, then seven. Then, she saw the first mask-like face, shrouded in a glittering shield.
Something roared overhead. Meladee and the Volanter looked skyward. Dust blocked Meladee’s view. The Volanter had a worse problem. Meladee’s rock men jumped on to their backs. Beneath the weight of their tattooed opponents, the Volanter bowed. One rock warrior spread himself wide and stood before Meladee. He would be a shield in the absence of her magic.
The roar came again, and weapons fire followed. It hit the rock around Meladee. Sparks and light fizzed with each contact. Meladee squinted and reached for her magic. She felt it reopen to her and pictured a simple, two-ringed spell.
The spell chimed weakly and dropped a shield around her.
The roar came back, and more weapons fire hit the rock and Volanter. This time, Meladee shaded her eyes and looked up. It was her Halfmoon and Benham.
Mountaineer soared by too, piloted by the pizza warrior, and Meladee’s mouth dropped open.
“Damn good decision.” Meladee pushed away from the rock and ran into the open.
The Halfmoon hovered and lowered its cargo ramp. A few boxes slid out. Meladee knew they contained food. She dodged the boxes and crawled her way up the ramp. Meladee let off another spell, one of flame, just before the ramp closed. She didn’t get to watch the Volanter pat flames from his meager clothing.
The cargo bay com beeped. Meladee pushed to her feet, ran to the button, and hit it.
Benham’s voice greeted her. “Why is someone else flying my Mountaineer?”
“You forgot to secure some boxes. We definitely lost some food,” Meladee called back.
“Yeah? So what? What about my ship?”
Meladee frowned. “Pizza man. He’s making some great decisions lately.”
“You could have flown it. Would have been a lot safer.”
“I…uh…can’t really fly and make effective casts against Volanter at the same time,” Meladee said.
Benham sighed. “Get up here. I could use some magical help.”
“They’re invading Lurren?” Eva asked, with eyebrow raised.
She sat in her little office, at an equally little desk, not far from her home. In fact, she had a meager twenty-minute walk to reach the home she shared with Sten and the others.
In New Lurren, everything was squashed together. They had only one city, and Eva really thought the Volanter shouldn’t bother with it. What could a city half in ruins, with all its defenders off elsewhere, offer to the effort?
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Sten said.
Eva picked up her staff and her gun. She pushed her metal chair back and stood. “I can’t imagine why. It’s a small settlement surrounded by a desolate wasteland, but it’s their choice.” She strode to the door. “We might as well defend it.”
Sten picked up his gun from Eva’s desk, where he’d placed it for a moment, to speak with her. “They’re right outside, so be ready.”
Eva could hear the beginning song of magic circles. “Before you join me. Why don’t you let the new team of trains loose?”
“Pardon?”
“Let them loose on the upper tracks and tell them that biffing and bashing Volanter is encouraged.”
Sten’s eyes widened, and he slowly nodded. “I see. I won’t be long.” Sten approached Eva’s computer and began to tap the message to the trains.
Eva entered the hall. It was dark and empty. The door at the end led out, and a few more offices lined the walls. Eva could see most of their doors, resting in alcoves.
One of those alcoves opened, and the door swung on silent hinges. Leonidus emerged.
“Maybe, they’ll go away,” she called to him.
He turned and glared, though the glare lacked true passion or annoyance. “I’m not so foolish.” He held a gun of his own, with a bayonet on the end, a long one.
A bang sounded at the front door. Eva saw it buckle. She and Leonidus moved to the window on the side of the hall. Eva pushed the frame up and open. She hopped through. Leonidus followed. Eva hoped that Sten would just use her office window. She wondered if he would find it big enough. In any case, he’d better not blunder into any Volanter.
A crash sounded from inside the building, and Eva thought the Volanter could have it. She and her tiny government had barely moved in anyway.
Eva crept around the back of the building.
Leonidus started the other way. “Where are you going? We can sneak up on them.”
Eva shook her head and beckoned. “I’d rather fight in the construction yard.”
She ran around the corner, and the soft thud of Leonidus’ steps followed. Soon, Eva’s steps and Leonidus’ crunched to the tune of gravel.
Train tracks, cranes, and storage containers spread over the construction yard. Gravel, sand, and other piles of building material loomed like great domes. No living thing – organic or android – moved in the yard. Except for Sten. He ran from the train shed.
Eva ran to meet him.
Sten hefted his gun and stopped in the shadow of a great crane. “There were only two trains in the shed. They got the message, and they report that the others received it as well. We might have to wait on them though. They’re in the tunnel system. I told them to abandon their cargo and come to our aid.”
“Good.” Eva glanced at a couple of tunnels that led down into the underground system, dug long ago by the organic Lurriens and their original robot helpers.
On the edge of the yard, the tunnels looked dark. They seemed to be arcs of stone and nothing more. Eva watched the darkness, hoping to see a familiar face, but no one came, not even the sound of locomotives.
However, the hum of magic filled the air. The song continued, and spell effects shot their way.
Eva didn’t have a mage handy, so she just planned not to be wherever the magic was. Eva ran, too fast, out of the way. Sten and Leonidus did the same.
The three split up and ran in opposing directions. Leonidus stopped by a metal storage unit, only to zip away again, as a series of firecrackers punctured the crate’s walls.
Sten stopped by a crane, but he couldn’t stay long either. A great wind swept the crane off the ground, and Sten ran. The crane groaned, and its hook swung into a pile of sand.
Out of sight, Sten cried, “I just helped raise that.”
Eva stopped on the tracks, just ahead of a tunnel. No Volanter aimed a spell at her yet, but they slithered from the back window of her office.
Eva fired her gun. The Volanter deflected the shot, with a quick, single ringed shield. Then, a series of spells followed Eva. She ran over the gravel and avoided the tracks. The spells exploded piles of sand and rubble. They sent a crate spiraling over Eva’s head.
Eva heard a crackle of lightning. She stopped, turned, and caught the lightning spell on her staff. Her staff fizzled with energy and held it fast.
A Volanter cried, speared on Leonidus’ gun. Leonidus pushed the Volanter free. The body dropped to the gravel, quivering. Leonidus fled from the mage’s comrades. Spells followed. He dodged them all, except for a singe of fire that burned the seat off his pants and the shirt back off his shoulder blades. His sculpted, metal rear and back lay exposed.
Eva looked away. She settled her eyes on the fallen Volanter. His tentacles half spread over gravel and tracks. He curled, so that his head and shoulder rested on a track’s edge. With arms over his wound, he struggled to cast a bleary-eyed spell. The spell, probably one of healing, consisted of two rings, all blurred and running together. Eva watched him and felt a sickening sympathy creep through her.
A whistle blew, and Eva raised her eyes. She was thankful for the distraction. The sound of an engine pumped from the shed, followed by the face of a square jawed locomotive. He rolled over the tracks, grinned, and built-up speed. With a gleeful grimace, he charged the wounded Volanter and hit the man full force. Blood sprayed, and the collision put an immediate end to the Volanter’s life and spellwork.
The engine laughed and started to back up.
The other two Volanter stood in shock.
Eva shot them, and a second shot came from somewhere in the construction yard. Sten and Eva both scored a hit on the same Volanter. The third, unharmed still, began a series of spells. The first was a shield. The second a heal. Eva saw both protective bubble and wounds knit closed.
The rattle of tracks and the whoosh of an engine echoed from a tunnel. Eva whipped to face it and six laughing engines streamed out. They couldn’t reach the Volanter, as the two remaining opponents kept off the tracks. But, the engines split up and zig zagged over the yard, riding the tracks back and forth, flipping the switches as they pleased. Little metal arms reached out and gave the levers a flick. Eva heard the tracks slide and shift over gravel. A couple engines bumped into each other and roared with laughter.
Eva ran to a place between tracks. The moving engines shielded her, off and on. As they rolled past, she lined up her shot. The engines skid by, and Eva fired. She hit the side of the Volanter’s shield. Her gunfire bounced off, and a spell came Eva’s way. She jumped the track. A train rolled ahead of her and caught the spell, with an exaggerated ow. Another train rolled by, and Eva found her way blocked by engine and two cargo cars.
“I thought Sten told you to leave those,” Eva scolded.
The engine laughed and rolled on, but not before the other sped away, exposing Eva once again.
Eva whirled and braced for a spell. She held her staff before her.
But, the spell from the Volanter never came. He was busy, fencing with a train engine. The engine moved back and forth on the track and poked with both its metal arms, sharper than they should be. The Volanter had conjured a sword of magic and used it to fend off the train’s stabs and jabs.
Spellwork started again.
Little meteors rained from the sky. Eva jumped her track sideways. She dodged the meteors, batting some with her staff. Little sparks of electricity escaped her staff, so she used it sparingly. She wanted to keep that electrical energy; it had more use than against the fire of the meteors.
Eva heard shots, and the song of more magic. She jumped the track again, getting a glimpse of the Volanter. Leonidus and Sten both remained out of sight but shot the Volanter between passes of the engines.
Eva circled around the yard, dodging behind engines. She hopped tracks, moved closer to the Volanter, and wondered if the two remaining would be the last of their attackers.
Each glimpse she saw of them showed her a still active shield and failed shots from Leonidus and Sten.
A large engine passed, trailing only one bin of cargo. As that bin rattled by, Eva caught a look at the Volanter and a fading spell.
Light and heat rained over the construction yard. Another crane came down and fell in the path of an engine.
“Hey! Hey!” the engine called in a gruff voice. He made an angry face, grit his teeth, and backed up.
Eva jumped the crane. She glimpsed the Volanters’ backs, but the angry train chugged just in front of her view.
He moved slow in reverse, but Eva took the time to prepare. She stowed her gun, hefted her staff in two hands, and got ready to jump.
As the train passed, Eva hopped over and stabbed her staff into the bubble that surrounded the Volanter.
Electrical magic coursed over the bubble’s surface. The bubble faded, winked in and out, and disappeared. Shots from Sten and Leonidus punctured the Volanter, and Eva crouched low.
A Volanter fell past her and landed on the tracks.
“Woohoo!” shouted a gruff engine.
Volanter blood sprayed Eva.
She kept her mouth and eyes tightly shut, and though she was glad their three opponents had died, she wished it had been anywhere else.