Exhaustion made his weapon heavy, but Gastores clutched the broken spear in his three good hands as if it were his lifeline.
He didn’t remember where he got it, or even how long it had been since the attack started. Sitting with Encheiro in the guard room drinking erdroot soup felt like a lifetime ago now.
The young ogre was dimly aware it had been hours since he’d been able to feel his upper left shoulder or the burns down his right side, but he was past worrying about either. Soon his wounds wouldn’t matter at all. They were coming again.
A fresh pillar of stone was already rising up from the fire-lit ruins of the town below, inexorably advancing on the floating island where they were sheltering. They’d only just knocked down the last one. It had been a desperate fight that saw the invaders mere paces from his cowering brother and the other civilians.
He’d gotten his brother out, pulling the panicked boy from behind his bed, but Gastores had no idea where their mother and father were.
More honestly, he knew just where they had been. Underground, in the erdroot farms. The same network of tunnels the attackers came up through. He shook the thought off. His brother was still there, still with him.
The pillar was growing up towards the edge of the shard, where flagstones gave way to a rocky cliffside. Mechanical footsoldiers clung to the sides of the spiraling stairway that was sprouting like leaves along the trunk, and two of the double-tripods were riding on the top, more holding on below.
Each of the inscrutable troops were a match for Gastores, even alone. When it came to the bizarre tripods, only a harpy could beat them alone. He’d learnt that back in the barracks, when Encheiro had….
The Valkyrie leading their group called forward the ogres still able to fight. He felt a dull surprise that she was still there. She could have just flown away. Instead when her axe was burnt through she’d grabbed up a fallen stone pillar and kept fighting.
When she fell, he knew the rest of them would follow soon after. Then it would be his brother’s turn.
Mustering to her call, the others came, emerging wearily from the half-crushed chapel where they’d taken shelter. There weren’t as many as last time. Not all of the bodies they had to step over were those of the mechanical invaders.
He didn’t even know the Valkyrie’s name, but judging by her size she wasn’t low-born. She wasn’t of high birth enough to be in the keep though, where Lady Feme was holed up. She was also their only harpy – there were too few warriors for too many shards.
The rest of their patchwork band of defenders was made up of half a dozen ogres, a handful of diminutive beastfolk, and a solitary naga who had spent most of the night praying.
He saw a familiar face returning once more. Somehow Kimon was one of the surviving ogres to make it onto the same shard as Gastores. The two of them lined up side by side without a word on the Valkyrie’s right.
Even the simple-minded Kimon had to know they were going to die there. There was nowhere left to fall back to and no-one was coming to save them. The Harpies had cut the rope-bridges linking the Shards to the valley below when the invaders started to swarm up. Not everyone had made it in time. Most hadn’t.
A boom announced the mating of the pillar with the floating island that was their last retreat. The shard shuddered. The first tripod was already advancing into what had once been a courtyard looking out over the picturesque town, stepping over the fallen mechanical bodies from the last wave to attack there.
The harpy met it valiantly, chanting an incantation even as her greatshield turned aside the spear that emerged with a hiss from one of its three limbs! Her improvised stone club snapped the arm at the wrist to release a splatter of acid green.
Her tail whipped around another limb as it tried to take aim, wrenching the appendage back and holding the target in place. From beneath a spear of stone stabbed up at the rounded body of the immobilized machine, even as her club came down, sandwiching the body of the tripod between her two strikes!
The crushed, impaled weapon sparked and twitched as it bled out its bizarre green blood. There was no time for her to celebrate – a metallic bolt shot past, the Valkyrie narrowly evading the shot from the second tripod! The projectile exploded against the stonework of the chapel behind them, spraying anyone near with razor sharp fragments.
The scream of a flamethrower from the third tripod made Gastores’ blood run cold, fire rushing out at him and Kimon! The Valkyrie was ready for it – her greatshield thrust forward, supernatural cold rolling off the surface. The supercooled metal caught the glittering sapphire jet and sent it billowing skywards with a spray of dazzling sparks!
The other tripod attempted the same attack with its own flame arm, but her kick sent it staggering back. She followed it up, bashing it’s flamethrower to bits with her club even as her greatshield was deflecting the lance-thrust of the third tripod!
It only took her a moment, but that time was enough for her kicked opponent to bring its third arm to bear, the barrel-like opening already lining up with the harpy’s undefended side. With its signature whine a thick metal bolt launched forward even as she completed an incantation! The projectile exploded against a barrier of ice that formed midair!
The sheet stopped the initial blast but the shrapnel broke through in places, piercing her side and peppering one of her wings! Blood welled up through the down around her hip. Behind her one of the beastfolk fell, screaming. No-one had time to help him – the masses were on them, crawling and climbing up over the edge of the shard.
Kimon grunted as he swung his mace with bestial ferocity, the smaller mechanical man he fought creaking, armor plates groaning under the blows. Another ogre was handling defense, parrying and blocking each return attack.
Gastores stabbed their opponent in the knee; his spear’s long-since blunted point was still sharp enough to jam the articulation there. The soldier wobbled but steadied itself with the butt of its spear.
Kimon laughed in triumph as his mace took the other leg out from under it, the machine toppling. Someone gave it a shove and the thing fell, tumbling end over end into the bottomless abyss beyond the edge.
There was no time to celebrate; two more were already taking the machine’s place. On the left side of the harpy and tripods a quartet of footsoldiers were pushing the defenders back with their tireless sword and axe strikes.
If they let them take the courtyard they’d never dislodge the pillar.
They just had to hold on, Gastores told himself. The Valkyrie would push back the enemies once she’d defeated the tripods.
It was a pattern that had played out many times already that night. But for some reason she wasn’t moving to help them, she was still trading blows with her three-armed opponents. Her movements were growing sluggish.
It was the first rays of sun breaking over the top of the mountains that showed him the blood drenching her left side.
It was still flowing out where the shrapnel had pierced her.
A moment later he noticed more tripods lumbering up the pillar.
They ignored the bleeding harpy and advanced on the ogres.
Encheiro’s burn-scarred face flashed before his eyes. If he’d lived he probably would have looked a lot like her after the hits he’d taken from flames that night.
Kimon roared as he charged the lead machine.
The roar became a scream, then a gurgle.
He fell, the tripod withdrawing its lance from his chest. Another arm leveled at Gastores, the opening glowing blue.
The half-spear dropped from his hands as he closed his eyes.
He could hear screaming again… maybe it was him?
~~~
Berenike and her squadrons of Valkyries had pushed themselves hard, flying through the night to reach Grand Chasm. Even so, the sun was already rising by the time the besieged town came into view.
Grand Chasm was breathtaking.
If Skycrown was impossibly tall then Grand Chasm was impossibly deep. Halfway down the Spine lay a gargantuan tear in the mountains, where the valley between two towering peaks gave way to a chasm that put Earth’s Grand Canyon to shame.
The town itself clung to the valley sides above the great gouge in the land, but I was told that there were inhabited areas all the way down to the edges of the cliffs, which were heavily mined for a variety of valuable materials.
Over the vast gulf around which the town was built there hung the Shards, levitating rocky islands with jagged shapes. They were hollowed out is places, built onto in others, creating the floating fortress that was the heart of the settlement.
We had thought, hope against hope, that we might arrive to find the town recovering from a hard fought victory. Our hopes were dashed as we drew near.
Smoke was rising up over the devastated town and flashes of blue and green were visible around the Shards.
Berenike ordered her women readied their weapons for battle as we made the final approach. I hadn’t brought anything with me so in my case all I could do was try to focus. My heart was in my throat, but I kept reminding myself that I could do this. I wasn’t the helpless child Ael saw me as.
The others had long since steeled themselves, professional warriors that they were, but the exertion of the flight had taken a toll on them all. I took the chance to try something I’d been working on. With an incantation inspired by the one I’d shown Shukra I evoked a gentle glowing wind that encircled our group.
I could feel the resistance as I cast it, the final few words fighting me as I forced them out. I was aware I was pushing what could be done with incantations alone to the limit, but the magic still worked.
Rather than a cutting gale as would have been created by the wind spell Shukra taught me, instead the result was a nurturing breath that reinvigorated those who inhaled it. The Valkyries exchanged confused looks at my original magic, but there was no time for them to question it. Grand Chasm was looming ahead!
From that distance I could see that the valley sides were swarming with enemies. Most were human size and of similar shape, but some larger ones were very different. There were three-legged, three-armed metal creatures that reminded me of a conjoined pair of geopods – hexapods?
Around the edges of the canyon below the Shards I saw surreal mechanical objects shaped like golden starfish the size of houses. Each of their five ‘legs’ was segmented and covered in what at first sight appeared to be a layer of moving bristles.
Closer inspection revealed a grotesque nest of branching articulated arms, sprouting in clusters from stubby round protrusions that each had their own head, creating the effect of a forest of spiders growing from each leg, all interwoven with glowing green tubes.
They seemed to somehow eat into the rock where they trod, maws at the end of spider-body crushing and consuming it, those of another limb disgorging it, countless finger-like digits on the many arms somehow weaving stone and mana together like silk into new shapes. It reminded me of a 3-D printer from Earth – one crossed with a monster straight out of nightmare!
Around those shards nearest the edges of the chasm there were circles of four or five such rock-weavers, working together to extrude crude yet huge pillars of stone that rose up like siege towers in real time to attack the islands overhead.
We couldn’t easily target them however - strange metallic bolts shot up towards us as the invaders sighted the Valkyries! The harpies evaded the attacks and made for the cover of the Shards, where the fighting was still raging.
Up ahead one of the islands was about to be overrun – I saw a solitary harpy fighting two of the hexapods, while a small band of ogres and other species were desperately holding off the advance of a horde of armored humanoids. More hexapods scuttled up the pillar to join the attack as I watched and one of the ogres was run through!
“Berenike!” I called over my shoulder hurriedly. “Pass over that island there!”
We flew high over the floating shard, out of range of the attacking from the ground, the Valkyries unleashing a volley of arrows that felled those mechanical soldiers that had climbed up. Several penetrated the bodies of the tripods still climbing up, knocking them loose, but two more had already made it up.
“I’ll take this spot, you go on to the next one!”
There was no time to do anything else. The captain tried to object, but I’d already slipped from her grip. A quick incantation had formed a small boulder under my feet – which were above me at that moment. Kicking off the mass sent me hurtling downwards like a meteor!
I fell with a war-cry that… definitely wasn’t a scream, as the shard below leapt up to meet me awfully fast.
The boom of the impact caused a shock that knocked several terrified animal-like people over, even the ogres and the machine-men reeling!
The hexapod beneath me burst like a watermelon, my heel shattering its armored shell and smashing the grotesquely liquid innards, fragments of tubing and what looked like hydraulics scattering everywhere!
That got their attention.
The remaining three broke off their attacks on the wounded harpy and the ogres to level the barrel-like openings in their circular palms at me. I dodged to the side as two metal bolts fired out with an electric whine, but the third barrel tracked me. With a horrid scream blinding blue flames burst out!
I ducked my head, raising a forearm to guard myself as I hooked one of the twisted legs from the wreck below me with my foot and whipped it at the attacker! At the same time the harpy used magic to freeze over the green liquid that soaked the stone under the thing’s legs.
The blaze rolled over me, the glittering blue flames crackling painfully against my skin, but dispersing.
The hurled wreckage collided with the aggressor and sent it staggering and slipping backwards, flamethrower sputtering out. The harpy slammed into the machine with her shoulder, grunting in pain and collapsing from the exertion – but toppling the enemy over to fall from the island!
The other two were still focused on me, but while their stabbing thrusts and crossbow-like shots were fast and accurate, they had nothing on Karlya – let alone Arawn. Once I had the rhythm of their moves it was easy to close in.
As they powered up their flamethrowers I leapt over lance-thrusts and caught the offending appendages as they tried to retract. I punched their armored forearms into each other’s chassis like spears. When they fired the hexapods roasted each other’s innards, gouts of fire bursting from the ruptures!
That only left the smaller androids – if magical golems could be termed as such.
The other defenders were still battling those already on the shard, but more of the humanoid soldiers were climbing up, spears and swords stabbing and swinging at me as the crested the pillar.
I weaved around their languid strikes with ease. After training with Valkyries it was as if these enemies moved in slow motion! They had obvious and exaggerated movements that were easy to react to.
Numbers were still a problem however. One foe I’d missed behind me struck a glancing blow off my cheek as I dodged late. Its sword bent against my skin, giving me no more than a scratch, but that was distraction enough that another hit me in the shoulder.
The spear thrust broke skin but could drive no deeper - instead the spearhead snapped off. These things weren’t just slow, they were weak!
I grabbed the weapon that had pricked me. The golem held on tightly to it, so I hurled weapon and wielder alike at two of its fellows, the trio sent flying down into the chasm below!
They might not be able to do me much damage, but with numbers they could still catch and overwhelm me. My solution was speed. I lowered my stance, feeling my body weight shift, and leapt at the approaching line of troops.
My knee punched through the chest of a golem and sent fragments and limbs cart-wheeling through the air. Extending my leg I kicked the head clean off a second, landing on a third whose chest I caved in with a palm strike. As fluids spurted from the cracks I hurled the body end over end at two more clambering up.
Sparkling mana and magically charged green fluids were splattering everywhere as I ripped the arm off another footsoldier and hurled the axe still in its hand to cleave into the another hexapod lumbering up the pillar, head piercing through to some sort of core that gushed with a flood of their glowing ‘blood’.
With a moment to breathe I chanted a quick spell – and blasted it and the remaining humanoid golems off the cliffside with a gust of storm-speed wind!
“Hah! Guess you’re no good at anchoring either, are you?!” I grinned as they tumbled like leaves, my spell more successful than I dared hope.
The hexapod wreck was too heavy to be hurled off the ground entirely, but that only worked to my advantage as it fell back the way it came, rolling and flipping down the pillar, knocking more golems off as they were climbing up the stone stairway!
The defenders seemed to have realized that they weren’t dead just yet, the wounded harpy already back on her feet, leading them to push back the surviving foes I’d left behind me while I was handling the main bulk. With how badly she was bleeding her determination was amazing.
There were more already climbing the pillar of course, but they would have to wait – several of the defenders, the harpy included, looked dead on their feet. More were already down, bleeding out. With no time for finesse I simply drenched the entire battlefield with healing water, flooding it over those on the ground.
Shukra had warned me that healing spells were a double-edged sword; without precise application and understanding by the healer they might close a surface wound but leave the subject bleeding internally, or cover over the stump from a lost limb and leave reattaching the severed body part almost impossible.
It might not be as powerful as true healing magic, but my ‘water of life’ was a safer option for a beginner like me, as I didn’t have to do anything to direct it. It didn’t heal in the true sense; it just revitalized and accelerated the natural growth and recovery processes of anyone exposed. It wouldn’t re-grow lost limbs or repair destroyed organs, but it would help keep the injured from bleeding to death.
Once they were treated the pillar had to go. I took the time to form a boulder as I had earlier, but for this one I repeated the spell several times, adding to the structure with each casting.
If I could have used my mana properly I could have done that all in one go of course. I could feel the defenders staring at me. They were probably wondering what the hell was wrong with this strange human girl who couldn’t even exercise basic mana control.
Once the boulder was ready there was no need for anything fancy. With all my strength I hurled it down at the spiraling column of stone below.
The rock cracked on impact but so too did the pillar, debris showering the gathered enemies below in welcome collateral damage as the shaft turned slowly and fell into the gulf below.
The crash I was waiting to hear never came. The titular chasm was deep.
With the immediate danger thwarted I waved over the walking wounded to help them. They seemed oddly unwilling to approach so in the end I went over to them. The harpy stepped forward, a huge broken pillar in her hand like a club, a greatshield the size of a car in the other.
She was pale as a corpse and blood was still running down her side where she’d taken some sort of puncture wounds so I asked her to kneel. The water of life would probably end up sealing in any debris stuck in the wounds, but that would have to be seen to by a better healer than I. For the moment I just wanted to keep her alive. It was amazing she’d kept fighting in that condition.
She gave a groan as the water poured over her wounds. “Th-thank you…,” she managed in Cycloan.
“It’s my pleasure. Well done holding out this long.”
She looked surprised when I replied in her own tongue.
“Are you… Lady Safkhet?”
“Uh, yeah, I am. I’m not actually a noble though. Do you know me?”
She bowed her head in dismay. “I apologize for my rudeness – I never thought that the royal consort would come in person!”
I really had to straighten that out when I got back to the Eyrie… if Aellope was still talking to me by that point.
“I’m not her consort. The Queen didn’t even want me to come here. I’m just a friendly human who wanted to help.”
She didn’t look very convinced but she nodded all the same. “Thank you, Lady Safkhet, we all owe you or lives.”
The others soon lined up for their own turn in the healing shower, a burned ogre staring at me in a daze as if he thought he must be dreaming. I patted his good shoulder as a deep wound was closing up on the other.
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“Everything’s going to be okay now. The Queen sent two squadrons of Valkyries to help and there are more on the way soon. Just make sure you all get seen to by a real healer, this magic is only a short term solution.”
“My parents,” he mumbled quietly.
“Your parents? Are they hurt too?”
He pointed down at the valley below. “They were in the mines… the captain’s still down there too…. They got her, but I ran… I left her….”
He slumped forwards, his unconscious bulk thudding down atop me. It was no wonder if he’d been fighting non-stop since the attack began.
A few of the others helped me with the unwieldy figure more than double my height.
“It sounds like there are still people down there in the valley, is that right?” I asked the harpy.
She didn’t meet my eye. “There were… but we had no choice. We had to cut the bridges.”
“You did the right thing. You saved everyone here. But could anyone still be alive down there?”
“Maybe… most of the enemies are targeting the Shards right now. All the Valkyries are up here. There could be ogres or other survivors still holding out in some of the tunnels, the ones the enemy didn’t burrow through.”
I turned towards the edge of the island and the drop beyond. She raised a hand to stop me.
“Wait! Going down there is suicide! We should stay here and force them to come to us!”
“You should definitely do that. With the reinforcements you can probably hold out now. As for me….”
I grinned, recalling how the golems weapons had been no more than cat scratches. My skin was already healed from the hits I’d taken.
“I’m a little bit special. I won’t die – but anyone else left behind will. If you see captain Berenike let her know I’m down below.”
~~~
Nefret breathed a sigh of exhausted, bewildered relief as the terrifying humanoid creature departed, reciting a strange incantation and leaping off the floating shard as abruptly as she’d arrived.
When the diminutive figure had crashed down in their midst the highborn Valkyrie had thought it was the end for all of them – one of the tripods she had been struggling with all night had been smashed to bits in an instant by the pure strength of the tiny figure in the green dress!
And yet for the terrifying strength and speed of the interloper, what really gave Nefret a chill was her mana. She wasn’t even preparing a spell, yet it flowed off the blonde girl in thick waves, roiling with dense, suffocating power that had no end in sight! With her exhaustion and blood-loss the harpy had thought she must be hallucinating. That mana couldn’t possibly be coming from a young human dressed more for the beach than for battle!
And yet that same human had made the golems that had driven Nefret to the brink of death look like toys, casually dodging their attacks and hurling them about, smashing them bare-handed. Even when they hit her they barely scratched her soft-looking skin.
When the girl had started chanting a spell Nefret had wondered if she was really a human at all, or some fearful monstrosity in disguise. Even the most basic incantations produced huge results – wasn’t this human as good at magic as any harpy?!
She had thanked the Goddess that the newcomer was on their side.
Even so it had been surprising when she actually spoke Cycloan!
It was after Safkhet had spoken to her that Nefret had realized who their savior was. The monstrous human that the nobles whispered had ‘bewitched’ their queen and shocked the Cyclopean Bones when she unleashed a huge wave of mana at the Eyrie.
It was obvious in retrospect. The girl had been using Harpy magic, yet she cast spells that Nefret had never heard before. One flooded the battlefield with strange healing water without the human even needing to touch her targets or direct the magic – no Harpy could do that! It was thanks that magic everyone had survived; even those Nefret had feared were beyond help.
Everyone was saved. The rag-tag group of ogres, beastfolk and other survivors had endured the night and salvation had come at the last possible moment, in the most unlikely form she could imagine.
~~~
The ground below the Shards was a seething mass of automatons, but as I fell towards them I was already weaving the words of an incantation, piling in all the power I could within each word of the simple supposedly defensive spell.
It wasn’t as flashy as Lyanna’s thunderbolts or Ael’s Garuda, but I’d customized this particular chant to be something I could loop, ‘charging’ the spell with more mana before it completed. Best of all, after the first iteration I could recite the words in my mind without the need to speak them each time.
Directly beneath me was one of the starfish-like mechs. The air around me was crackling, my body glowing with accumulating mana halted at the very moment of transmutation. The spider-star spotted me and raised a forest of jagged limbs. I struck!
Lightning outshone the morning sun as my fist punched a molten hole through the machine!
Ancillary tongues of electricity peeled off my body in staccato lashes to rip into anything that came near! The discharge rendered the intricate hydraulics and array of gems at the core of the weapon into mere slag and the elephantine weapon crashed down under me!
I was already charging a second punch as the pawns started clambering up the sides of the fallen siege weapon. Bolts fired out from hexapods on sides, but I was already mid-leap, the weapons struggling to track me.
I landed atop the nearest of the tripods, catching the lance it extended to spear me and snapping it off against my knee. It made an excellent weapon to drive into the heart of the machine.
Three more engulfed the thing in dazzling fire as it was collapsing, but I’d already moved on. The next of the spider-stars was my real target, another discharge building for the hapless foe.
I weaved between tripods and footsoldiers with ease, the formulaic movements of the machines appropriately robotic, easy to read once you adapted to the lack of muscle and eye signals. They weren’t just slow or weak; they were ridiculously predictable in timing and moves. There were no feints or tricks, no last-moment shifting of stance to add a few crucial inches to a thrust or chain a stab into a kick.
A raised weapon would swing down with the same speed every time, a trust would come with the same practiced stance, a leg sweep would aim at exactly ankle height. After fighting the harpies these foes were like punching bags. As long as I didn’t let them swamp me they couldn’t even slow me down.
That too was getting easier, as the more I fought them the more I could read the flow of the whole force. Even their numbers were becoming meaningless.
As I charged down the next siege-engine through the ineffectual defenders it raised two arms to intercept me. Hundreds of needle-like fingers and crushing maws groped towards me.
I absolutely didn’t want to find out what that could do to me, so I grabbed the extended arm of the nearest hexapod as it tried to spear me and pivoted on both heels, mana cementing my position, spinning to swing thing like a flail into the siege-starfish!
The squirming tripod slammed into the nest of limbs with a crunch and a whine of twisting metal. Its body was the perfect shield for my own attack. Planting my feet I pulled back, then punched up with all my might!
Unleashing my gathered charge as I struck, the lightning-blow blasted right through the tripod and starfish alike, bolts flashing out the far side to mow down more foes!
A moment later I heard detonations inside my primary target. A cascading waterfall of green saw the squirming appendages of the siege-star losing strength and wilting. I was already on my way to the next siege machine.
As I ducked under a pair of tripod-lances I sensed a huge surge of mana, just in time to yank one into the path of the glowing blade that slashed down from twice my height!
The tripod-arm split with a burst of sparks and the axe-blade tore through my skin and clothing both, cleaving gashes in my forehead and bosom!
My concentration on recharging my spell was shattered as I felt the burning pain, the blow sending me skidding backwards! If my body were less durable the blow could have split me in half!
The greataxe was huge; a menacing double-sided weapon of black metal etched with red. The head was shaped like a pair of elegantly curved demonic wings, edges illuminated a sanguine red. No earthly human could have even moved it, but it was sized to match the ten-foot wielder, a mechanical knight with sleek ebony armor plates that were ingrained with a red flow like blood.
The metal armor swept back at the head and shoulders into flared wings that echoed the form of the black knight’s axe, but the decorations weren’t the intimidating aspect. I could sense mana surging throughout the figure as if the whole thing were constantly activating layer upon layer of spells!
It raised a hand, pointing at me. “Can’t win! Surrender! You, not harm!”
Despite the magical amplification that distorted it, the voice was clearly that of a real person. Assuming that Arcadia hadn’t invented remote controlled combat drones she had to be wearing the armor before me like some manner of battlesuit.
She sounded surprisingly childish, even setting aside the broken Cycloan she seemed to be speaking.
The footsoldiers were pulling back, but the larger three-legged golems were encircling me once more. The hexapods were joined by scores more knight-like figures, smaller and less grandiose than the one that attacked me, but each still standing a good seven foot tall. Judging by the lack of decorations and lower mana outputs I could guess that they were less expensive models, easier to produce in large numbers.
More threatening were the other two other unique models, each giving off a potent magical aura.
One had armor like interwoven vines, spikes emerging around the green and brown tendrils of metal. The other was sleek and silvery, without flourishes or bulk – clearly designed for speed.
They and the rest of the knights and golems seemed to be waiting for the black knight’s order.
Overhead flashes of light showed where the fighting raged on.
The air was polluted by smoke and a metallic ozone scent. Underfoot metal and stone debris crunched unpleasantly between my toes.
A trickle of blood soaked the left of my vision red as I looked past their ranks to the ruined town, still burning.
My head and chest burnt too, where she’d cut me. After doing all this, after almost killing me, now they wanted me to give up?!
“Why should I surrender?! You’re the ones attacking the town! You surrender!”
I charged faster than she could react, but as I jumped inside the arc of her greataxe hatches on either side of her chest snapped open to expose a quartet of glowing red gemstones! The light intensified, sending tingles running through my body as an unseen force shoved me back, my punch reduced to a grazing strike that knocked her battlesuit back a step but did little more than ding the armor!
From her stiff reactions as I followed up with a jumping kick I guessed she was as surprised as I – but for different reasons. The gems seemed to need recharging. Off-balance, she blocked the strike with the head of her axe, her suit whirring and outgassing red mist as hydraulics dissipated the impact.
That axe wasn’t just ordinary metal – had it been I was confident that I’d at least have left a good imprint of my fist in its head. But even disregarding the axe I was off-kilter. My movements were too slow, my attacks too weak.
Karlya would have laughed if I’d fought her like that.
Unlike the golems, this opponent’s reactions and strength were on the level of a Valkyrie. I couldn’t afford to lose focus. Around us the golems and other knights were moving too. This wasn’t a one-on-one.
From the corner of my eye I caught a quicksilver flash through the haze of blood and realized the silver knight was almost upon me already, with alarming alacrity.
Were all the knights people? Was I fighting living, breathing beings, underneath magical armor?
It was certainly possible.
There was no time to check. I reminded myself the answer didn’t matter.
I jumped over the silver knight’s lightning-quick dagger-thrust and kicked off the black knight’s axe as it was mid-swing, stealing extra momentum and slamming her back to the earth with the force as I sent myself flying over the encircling forces.
I landed higher on the valley side, atop a low cliff that marked the edge of a cluster of stone houses.
The high ground gave me a clear view of the slopes below, trailing down to the arresting black pit that was the chasm itself. Of course that meant the forces arrayed below had a perfect view of me too.
I began with a shield of wind; a simple gust spell modified to spin around a fixed spot like a hurricane, deflecting aside the projectiles and spells the knights and hexapods fired. Without the ability to adjust or refuel the magic it was crude and inefficient to say the least, good only for buying a few seconds, but I had mana to burn and a few seconds were all I needed.
As the enemies closed in I met them with a flood of water, maintaining the spell as the torrent took the fallen wreckage littering the hillside with it and even started to churn up the earth into mud. In moments a mudslide was sweeping up my attackers!
The humanoid golems were carried away helplessly by the flood and even the hexapods struggled to find footing or anchor themselves, but it seemed the knights were more skilled – none of them were sent more than a handful of paces back.
They were still half submerged in the waters and mud though.
The air grew painfully cold as I froze it all!
Magic leeched the heat from the whole mass of water. It had been a challenge to reverse the mechanics of Chione’s bath-heating spell, but the effects were worthwhile, the battlefield transformed in seconds into a shining glacier!
I couldn’t catch them all in the battlefield-altering however. Those to either side of the flood were already reaching the top of the cliff, the knights assailing me with green fireballs and dazzling white lightning from the gemstones set into the palms of their gauntlets.
The black knight was with them too, a swing of her greataxe cleaving a horizontal red arc that spread out towards me like a flying blade! It splashed against my winds, deforming, but momentum kept it coming with surprising force!
Ducking under the attack it splattered against the wall behind me like blood, sizzling with scalding heat! I readied another spell, infusing wind and water into the earthen path they were climbing up.
It was a relatively simple incantation, but combining the effects was pushing what the words alone could accomplish, making the magic less accurate. The results were a total surprise to my foes however. I doubted anyone in Arcadia had studied quicksand or liquefaction!
The land gave way, a shelf of solid ground transforming into a soft and fluid mass in seconds. The landslide that resulted was small, but it had my armored foes rolling back down to the ice field below, some buried, others skidding past their still-trapped frozen friends!
I thought I’d won myself a breather, but the silver knight sprang up over the edge of the crater I’d made to catch me with a kick.
One on one that silver knight would have been no more than a warm-up for me, yet I had no choice but to retreat; the support fire from the knights and hexapods below were overwhelming my time-limited wind magic, forcing me to abandon the cliff-head.
The silver knight tried to stop me of course, but their rapid, flowing movements were still slower than Arawn. As they lashed out with daggers and kicks from a low and flexible stance I kept my own moves sharp and precise, dodging each hit with minimal movement and falling back up the slope.
Dodging the silver knight was made harder by the hail of projectiles and magic from the other foes below. Between my training, vision and reflexes, I could see where the hexapods were aiming and evade before they fired, but their sheer numbers were making it hard to find a safe path through the hail of fire – especially while paying attention to my opponent!
Worse, the knights were significantly harder to read or dodge, fighting with none of the mechanical predictability of the golems!
Relief came in the form of the stone structures approaching at my back, cutting off the lines of sight of the majority of my foes. With the rest of the enemy force below the cliff no longer able to see us and the walls providing shelter against those ascending around either side, it was just Silver and me for the moment.
The minimalist yet gorgeously detailed silver figure halted just a few paces from me as I stopped in the middle of the street and took up a stance. Stylized patterns evocative of swimming fish and rushing waters adorned the chrome surface, broken only by joints and seams in the armor.
“That armor’s beautiful you know. If you just stop this I won’t have to break it.”
The figure raised its dagger.
“You… surrender.”
His voice was like that of a human boy, perhaps a young teen. I wanted to believe that it was a quirk of his species and that I wasn’t facing an army of child soldiers.
“Why are you doing this? Why attack the Harpies?”
The figure tilted his head. I didn’t even know if he could understand me.
“No... fight. No want kill.”
“If you don’t want to kill me then why come here?! Why fight at all?!”
He wasn’t talking any more, but I didn’t have time to waste on him. My forehead and boob were still throbbing painfully, but the blood flow had stopped as the wounds started to close up. My vision was clear.
We both acted at the same time, but he read my movement.
He was faster.
Circular disks at the hips and knees of the knight whirred, glowing with mana, and he flashed forwards as if inertia were but a joke to him!
With a surge of mana his dagger-blade flowed out like water to form a shortsword mid-swing. Had I not seen and sensed the change I’d have been slashed right across the eyes as I was stepping in towards him!
I was the one cursed with misfortune, but in that instant it was he who was unlucky.
I might have been stronger and tougher, but the experience gap between us was huge. Against most opponents I’d encountered his overwhelming speed and precise technique would have been unbeatable. But after the hell-world Myr had subjected me to, and my spars with Arawn and Karlya, it wasn’t enough.
I titled my head back, the blade nicking straggling strands of my hair, and caught the knight’s wrist at the end of his swing! My hand clamped shut and dragged the figure down into the path of my knee, crushing the armored figure’s chest!
Silver fluids splattered from the broken chest piece amid the fragmentary remains of shattered gemstones and hydraulic chambers.
The figure collapsed, strength leaving its limbs, until it flopped back like a puppet, strings cut.
I stepped back, suddenly acutely aware there was a wet sensation underfoot. I was walking in something red and sticky. For a second I thought he’d gotten me, killed me somehow with a strike I never even saw.
Yet I felt no pain anywhere, and my enemy was kneeling in a pool of crimson.
But the knight had bled silver, hadn’t he? Surely I hadn’t killed him, just broken his suit – if indeed there was even anyone inside it.
Right?
My fears evaporated with a laugh that was half a cry as I looked past the broken figure to see a leaking barrel.
The sticky mess I was stepping in was no more than spilt wine. The abandoned streets were filled with barrels of alcohol belonging to a warehouse on my right.
They must have been unloading when the attack came – there were wagons lined up under an overhang where ropes and a pulley dropped down from the upper floors of the building.
I just hoped that the red scattered all about really was just alcohol, not mixed with anything worse.
As for the fallen knight, he was still motionless. Curiosity got the better of me.
I was about to pull open the broken chest piece and take a look inside the giant machine when some sort of hard edged weapon slammed into the back of my head with a searing pain!
The black knight was sprinting up a side street, having found her way around the obstruction I’d caused!
The scalding blood-like projectile attack she’d used earlier had found its mark this time. Good for me that I was little harmed by temperature extremes – but the focused edge of the strike had still broken the skin, my own blood mixing with hers, a handful of my lovely golden hair severed.
But there was no time to indulge my vanity. There were more knights coming behind the black leader and more ranged attacks were filling the street!
I ducked behind the nearest of the wagons lined up outside the brewery for a moment, letting the spells from the chasing knights blast it apart as I incanted. They were almost upon me.
Rising from cover I flipped the wooden cart end over end at the enemies, the vehicle and contents smashing to bits all over their armor – just in time for me to unleash a blinding spew of flames, engulfing the whole street and setting the pooled liquids aflame!
I doubted the fire would kill any of them, but it stopped them in their tracks – all save the black knight, who stepped from the conflagration covered in a swirling shield of red.
I deflected her axe with the back of my hand, the edge clanging into the stone street, and swung the pulley and hook that hung down next to me at her!
She stepped under the attack with practiced ease, swinging her axe back upwards at me – but I’d already closed the distance, too near for her long weapon to strike me!
Once more the gems in her chest flashed, but I was still gripping the ropes!
I yanked the flying coils and they snapped tight around her neck and shoulder! The strange repulsion she created between us was negated. I fixed myself in place and yanked her down into range of my fists!
“Wait!” She called, in a language I couldn’t place.
I hesitated.
A volley of fire from more pursuers rounding the corner ahead exploded against my back painfully!
Gritting my teeth I threw a right hook at the head of the black knight, but my delay gave her time to cross her arms in the path of the strike. Metal wailed as it bent and ripped, her left arm smashed in a spray of blood!
I felt sick at the sight, but a moment later hydraulics in the broken arm hissed and cut the pressure to the wrecked limb, stopping the flow.
It wasn’t her blood, just part of the battlesuit.
She didn’t miss my weakness however, her axe swinging up in her remaining hand to bite into my midsection! The blow threw me head over heels, to crash into the building on the far side of the street, the masonry smashed to bits, the already-damaged building caving in on my head!
I was so stupid!
I kept hesitating, kept screwing up!
If I’d hesitated like that in the training arena Karlya or Arawn would have despaired of me along ago! I was lucky I was still alive!
At this rate I might not be for long….
With a moment of shelter amid the rubble still collapsing atop me I checked my body.
Blood was pouring from a wound from my hip to my navel. She hadn’t been able to cut me too deeply, maybe half an inch, but the wound still had me panicked. It was a long cut and I was bleeding way too much.
I gritted my teeth as I get to my feet.
Ael had been right….
I’d gotten myself hurt through my own stupidity and inexperience.
I was scared, rattled, but the realization made me angrier than ever. If the enemies were trying to kill me I should be extending them the same treatment.
If they got killed chasing me they should blame themselves for starting the fight!
The room I was in appeared to have been a house. The knights were already approaching so I shouldered down a door into the next room, a deserted kitchen area.
The building shook as spells and bolts targeted the ruined structure. I dove out the window as green flamethrowers consumed the wooden table and chairs and superheated the pot of water still hanging in the hearth.
The knights outside seemed to think I’d keep running – they were slow to react when I instead charged.
The nearest had just barely raised a shield in time, but I pushed my muscles to the limit, extending my fingers and willing every ounce of strength and mana into their tips!
My hand cut metal like tissue, stabbing through the shield into the abdomen of the suit beneath! I ripped out a fist-full of magical machinery and roared in rage and triumph as the mechanical knight sputtered to a stop.
The others were frozen around me. That was fine.
The nearest fell before they even knew what was happening, a kick from my slender leg parting head from neck, decapitating one battlesuit, my fists caving in the chests of two more.
Another took a swing at me with a mace, but I smashed the weapon to shrapnel with my fist and stabbed the shaft up into his robotic guts!
The fury was good, it drove away the fear.
Two more knights came at me from either side. I hurled the broken and impaled body and mace at one and sprung at the other, slamming it down atop two more trying to target me with magic and tearing into the plates of its chest!
Another knight tried to kick me off. I grabbed the extended leg and snapped it backwards, rising to ram the metal boot into the face of the machine man and crush his head against the wall behind him!
That one I’d knocked down was still moving, even as it leaked green from its punctured chest, but the black knight leapt down between us before I could do any more damage, her greataxe swinging with all her weight behind it.
My footing and momentum were all wrong to dodge; instead I clapped my palms together!
The edge came to a quivering stop inches from my face. She tried to pull the weapon from my grip back and I grinned as I fixed myself in place, imagining a look of panic on her face as she couldn’t pull it back.
Her solution was to release her weapon, a serrated blade extending from behind the wrist of her remaining arm with a hiss! As she swung down I twisted the axe-head in my hands, meeting the sword with its reverse-edge, the sword snapping against the heavy-duty axe.
The greataxe was far too unwieldy for a girl my size to swing around, but hurling it lengthways the sheer mass of the projectile sheared clear through the black knight with a spray of green to embed itself in a large building at the end of the street!
Anchoring myself for the shot had cost precious moments however; an inferno of flames and lightning enveloping me a moment later!
I covered my face in my arms as I leapt out of the conflagration, but with my vision obscured and my mind on escape I missed the arrival of another foe – the third special knight up on a rooftop! Their armor of entwining cables extended like vines, intercepting my flaming body with a metal whip!
Thorns bit into my skin as the weapon coiled around my leg, drawing blood and letting them swing me overhead, out from the relative cover of the buildings to crash helplessly into the open rocky ground of the cliff top, in the middle of all the knights!
~~~
The surface was a strange place, vast open expanses and blinding, burning light everywhere. When one emerged from the tunnels the roof pulled back on a chamber without end, stable, reassuring ground giving way to sky too distant to every touch.
For the Pharyes, accustomed to the safety and gloom of the depths, it was a hostile alien world. A world filled with powerful monsters that were their match. A world they were invading.
They had no choice of course. Not because their species’ very survival hung in the balance, although indeed it did, but because his highness had spoken. Distasteful and cruel though it might seem to some, the Varangians had no right to question the decision.
The Varangians were elites, noble-born warriors who forsook the inheritance of their family titles to swear themselves to the personal service of the king. Trained in the use of the towering Skidbladnir battlesuits and hardened in their endless battles against the Formorians, they were the greatest military force the Pharyes possessed.
It was commonly held that after facing the misshapen horrors in the dark places beneath the world nothing could shake a Varangian. Nothing on the complacent and prosperous surface world should have been fearsome to them.
That didn’t mean that Colonel Ilmr had to take to the front lines in every battle of course. Unlike the Skidbladnir, golems were replaceable and easy to repair, given a supply of gemstones. After commencing the assault on Grand Chasm the colonel had hung back with her unit in reserve to let the golems do most of the fighting.
The battle had gone well. The Valkyries present were at half strength and the surprise attack from multiple directions had split their forces further. Already the Pharyes had taken almost a thousand captives, despite the resistance most Ogres had to surrender.
The holdouts on the floating islands above the chasm would fall soon too, overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers. The Harpies were worthy foes, but they were only monsters after all. They were totally unprepared for the Pharyes superior strategy, tactics and aulogemscis.
The reports had abruptly turned dire however, just as the sun was rising on what should have been a victorious battlefield.
Harpy reinforcements had arrived – that they had predicted, they had enough Varangians in reserve to make the Harpy Queen regret her rashness – but they appeared to have brought something worse with them too. The creature was giving off such dense, heavy mana that Ilmr felt it all the way down in the forward command post under multiple feet of rock.
The new enemy had savaged their forces, easily driving back the foothold they had won on one of the islands. According to the reports the enemy was likely a human, an obscure species not known for their combat ability, yet it was toying with not just footsoldiers but even the larger tree-armed and three-legged Triskelions.
The Pharyes losses were mounting rapidly as the interloper even targeted the Gullinbursti, the huge five-limbed siege-golems that were vital for the offensive!
Ilmr and her unit arrived on the scene to find one of the Gullinbursti already in ruins and to watch in dismay as a second was annihilated by a huge lightning attack!
The culprit was already fighting its way towards the next, a horrendous volume of mana pouring out of the small green figure. The colonel felt a sickening chill as she realized that the being wasn’t even using the mana for aulogemscis or a ‘spell’. It was just flooding out endlessly.
But all the same she had to act. Whatever the identity or powers of the enemy, she had a job to do. She infused her mana into Dreyra, her Skidbladnir, the prized ancestral weapon of her house. Long lost was the art of carving the gemstone cores of such unique weapons, and the smaller standardized Skidbladnir models of most of the Varangians in her unit were a poor imitation. Dreyra was Ilmr’s pride manifest.
She closed in under cover of the massed Triskelions and footsoldiers to catch the alien enemy unaware. Dreyra’s greataxe swung down with supernatural sharpness and weight enough to crush ten Pharyes. Impossibly, the girl saw the swing after it had already begun, reacting in time to pull one of the Triskelions’ arms into its path as cover – but that would do nothing to stop Dreyra.
The corporal meant to rend the figure of her foe in twain, from brow to hip, yet the resistance from the blow felt as though she were cutting a block of solid iron! Her killing strike had contained every ounce of weight she and her Skidbladnir could apply, yet her enemy’s injuries were shallow flesh-wounds at most!
That shouldn’t have mattered; when Dreyra’s greataxe drank the blood of her foe it absorbed too their power. Indeed, Dreyra was charged with an overflowing surplus of mana unlike anything Ilmr had experienced before.
And yet their foe stood before the Pharyes like an abyssal gulf deeper than the Grand Chasm, a bottomless upwelling of mana beyond all comprehension. It appeared human, but that was surely some deception. It was a monster.
All the same they had it surrounded. The Varangians alone outnumbered it fifty to one and they had with them three precious ancestral Skidbladnir. Lining up all around that core of elites were the Triskelions, over a hundred strong. If they had to they would attack as one body, sacrificing as they must to slay their dread foe.
But that would be a senseless waste of lives, theirs and that of the girl, whatever she might be.
Ilmr’s orders were to take captives wherever possible. The Pharyes were not savages, killing for pleasure or convenience. This was a war of necessity.
She had learned a few simple words of the language of the surface monsters, and she put them to use there, in the tense moment of standoff.
Ilmr had expected the girl, seeing the huge force surrounding her, to be glad of the lifeline. It was a chance to save herself from certain death. She had never imagined the girl would charge.
Even with the aid of Captain Eyrir and the other Varangians the monster was overwhelming, both out-speeding and overpowering her Skidbladnir barehanded! If not for the clear gap in experience and the secret defenses built into Dreyra the enemy might have killed her then and there.
What should have been a one-sided slaughter became a second battle fiercer in a way than that for the town itself. The monster unleashed strange supernatural attacks with staggering power and little preparation, chanting only a few unintelligible words to create huge fields of ice or landslides!
The Pharyes’ aulogemscis required a Skidbladnir or golem to operate, but even with the finest of ancestral battlesuits a single Varangian couldn’t produce anything approaching the power or variety of magic the monster could command.
Eyrir had rushed on ahead, brazen as ever, but for all his speed and skill he’d been outmatched. That much was clear from the overwhelming force that had caved in his battlesuit’s chest. Confirming the state of the captain himself had to wait.
Either way the monster responsible would pay.
The corporal thought she finally had the girl when she used the cover of her blood-shield to close in through the flames that had filled the street. She just had to pin the enemy down long enough for the rest of her unit to surround it again and focus their attacks.
Yet even that proved impossible – the opponent didn’t just overpower her in the exchange, she outsmarted Ilmr! The trick with the ropes had cost her Dreyra’s arm, but she made herself keep going. For hew vows and for her subordinates.
She couldn’t leave them to face the savage monster without their commander. A Varangian died before they abandoned their duty. A Varangian knew no fear.
The atmosphere thickened, tension building as if a storm were brewing, intensifying until it weighed on Ilmr’s very bones.
The girl burst from the ruined structure Ilmr had knocked her into, but the figure emerging was unrecognizable.
The image of the monster smeared and distorted, the greens and pinks blurring as terrible pressure bore down on the souls of all present.
The air roiled, heavy with choking mana. None could move.
None could even breathe.
The Pharyes looked upon their foe and saw the specter of death.
But even if they were stopped, the monster was not. She tore into the Varangians with bestial savagery, pure power and rage utterly overwhelming all defense. In mere moments half a dozen of the finest Pharyes warriors were crushed!
The corporal could barely intercept the enemy into time to save another, yet… the creature caught her greataxe!
Her own weapon tore her Dreyra apart.
Ilmr herself was bloodied where her nose impacted one of the control sticks, and her cockpit was cracked open. Below her the Skidbladnir core was leaking everywhere. She prayed that it could be repaired – that the gemstones were still intact.
Outside the battle was still raging. Reckless though it was she activated the emergency release, gears turning to detach the armored panels and allow her to leave her destroyed vehicle.
She had to see what was happening.
She pulled down her goggles and tightened her mask, but even so the light blistered her skin where it fell on tears in her mushroom-leather bodysuit. She ignored the pain to look about for the monster responsible.
She sighed with relief when she saw that major Fjoturr had arrived. Though slow and cumbersome his Skidbladnir, Vidrband, was the perfect match for their foe. It’s supernatural defense made its whips unbreakable. Once a target was caught in Vidrband’s grip it was already over.
The monstrous girl was deeply entangled in countless metal vines, thorns anchoring each in her flesh, binding her down to the rocky ground in which they were anchored and making her a perfect target for the rest of the army!
A lethal volume of lighting, fire and projectiles consumed her, hundreds of Triskelions and Skidbladnir firing from all sides.
It had cost them dearly, but they would survive.
The girl would die.
~~~
Agony overwhelmed all other senses.
I couldn’t even feel the individual attacks making up the barrage.
I was on my knees, limbs and torso bound by countless metal ropes that tore at my flesh.
My arms wouldn’t move. My legs were trapped. My eyes saw only blinding light dyed red with blood.
What one, ten, or even a hundred attacks couldn’t accomplish would be done by a thousand, by ten thousand.
They were killing me.
Everything was going dark.
You were supposed to see your life flash before your eyes when you died, but nothing of Earth came to me. It was all a grey haze. My father, my life there, my connections to that world, they were nothing I missed.
What came to me was the Eyrie. The Harpies. Agytha and Chione, Shukra, Arawn and Karlya. Aellope.
Dimly I wondered if Ael would be upset.
Selfishly I hoped she would.
I was probably right. She was a kind person, kinder than I deserved. I’d fooled her, lied to her, made her care about me. Then I’d let her down.
I’d never been the girl she thought I was.
Could I even call myself a girl at all? Just having this body… did that give me the right?
Perhaps everything about me was just pretense.
It didn’t matter anymore, did it?
There was no more light. Only the pain told me I was still alive.
That would change soon.
The Harpies would be better off without someone like me around, so really, why not just accept it?
Why keep fighting?
I’d struggled so long through Myr’s hell, only to ruin everything at the first chance I got.
I could have been safe back at the Eyrie with her….
I doubted she’d take me back after humiliating her so publicly and running off.
I recalled the smile she gave me when she saw me in my dress.
I recalled the thrill I’d felt when I saw myself in the mirror. It had been like looking at a totally different person. Someone I barely knew. She looked so vibrant, so alive, so filled with possibility.
I’d thought that I could be her. That she could be me.
But they were killing her too. Killing the life I could have had.
That beautiful, bright young woman with a whole new story unfolding before her would never exist.
The thought was a knife in my very soul.
I couldn’t let that happen.
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Adrenaline and agony blended together as I forced myself to move. Torn and bleeding limbs strained against their bonds. Metal screamed and cables snapped as I forced my way to my feet.
I had to move. I had to get away!
Blindly I ran, my legs buckling, my body slick with blood.
I crashed through obstacles that grabbed or stabbed at me.
I had no idea where I was anymore. No idea where I was going.
I was stumbling on bodies.
I was tumbling down a rocky slope.
I was staggering to my feet, projectiles still striking my back.
I was running.
I was running.
I was falling….
I was falling….
I was falling….
….