Deep beneath the Underworld, below the layers of Formorian hordes and the countless thriving societies that had bloomed in the eternal neon twilight, down under even the lowest layers that sentient species called home, the cavern before Gastores’ eye seemed manifest from his strangest dreams. An impossible realm in an unreal place, miles beneath the lava, yet filled with thriving, surreal life.
When they had first descended the steep slopes down into the miles-wide valley floor he had taken the pinks and yellows for a carpet of glowing moss, faintly visible through the haze from steam-vents puffing out small clouds of vapor like a boiling stew-pot.
The lower they travelled the larger the plants grew, until their strider lumbered under the great eaves of towering trunks, spectral in the thick, billowing fog of colossal geysers that flooded the forest with steam.
Despite the poor visibility down in the valley the flora had proven a wonder, mineral lichen-trees of dozens of species all growing their own fruits with a luster like gemstones. Under their glow spawned the flutes and trumpets of titanic mushrooms and glassy, tinkling reeds that pulsed blue at the slightest touch.
Throughout the fruiting canopy floated burs of living crystal, hovering about as they fed on the rich harvest, while about the open spaces of the floor tiny hunters and grazers skittered through an endless variety of undergrowth in a riot of pastel tones.
The perfect ambush; that was what Patch had insisted upon, and that was what the cave provided, for at one end of the great chamber, where the vine-clad ceiling sloped down to meet the rising valley sides, there was a mouth, a well-worn opening trod by many mechanical feet before, through which their prey must surely pass. There were few ways to navigate around the great pockets of lava beneath.
Finding the spot had taken many hours of searching with the supernatural mechanisms of their walking golem and the magical senses of its controller, Sulis, aided by tactical advice from Berenike and the hunting experience of the beastfolk, but the one they settled on was the best of all the candidates.
Even so, Gastores was uneasy. A lot depended on their plan working, and it was quite impossible to rehearse it in advance – even if they had the time before the enemy arrived.
“Are you sure you can bring it down with just one shot?” he asked once again. “We could have Sulis wait up there in the water to help....”
“I told you it’ll be fine,” Berenike insisted. “We need her in the golem anyway.”
Perched above him in one of the taller trees near the opening, the captain likely thought he would miss the roll of her eyes through the branches, but with an ocular endowment as large as ogres possessed, he caught the gesture easily.
“Marshall Arawn instructed me in the bow personally you know, and my target is the entire ceiling. I’m more worried about those of us who aren’t warriors. They’re taking on a lot of risk.”
“Everyone agreed that we have to try,” Gastores reminded her. “We can do this.”
“Damn right,” Berenike said.
A moment later there came the echoing sound of Yadar’s spell, a subtle warning on the gentle air currents around the cave mouth. It was time.
“Good luck,” Gastores said, waving up to the Valkyrie.
“You too, kid. Don’t try to be a hero again; you’re no good at it.”
Nursing his first wound of the engagement, Gastores retreated to his own position to wait.
~~~
Glowing with accreted power, Berenike’s shot pierced the mists to momentarily bridge ground and vaulted stone sky.
The signal to commence the attack, it was also the springing of the trap.
The enemy golem had just lumbered into view, the lead compartments already striding forth from the tunnel. All around the snaking, many limbed vehicle were smaller machines, the three-legged golems which had attacked Grand Chasm, moving with it like a screen, or the spawn of some giant monster.
Such a defense was powerless against the might of stone and water.
Berenike’s arrow struck true, perfectly shattering the rock which Sulis and the others had so carefully weakened. All at once the buried river tore through the new opening, wreathed in the tumbling fragments of the fractured ceiling.
Colossal boulders hammered into the target below, but surprised as the occupants must be, their walker protected them, supernatural bubbles around each segment flashing into being everywhere the stones stuck, rippling against the impacts.
One by one the bubbles of magic burst against the building pressure and repeated shocks, and the debris hammered into the hull directly, penetrating armor plate and crushing weaponry.
Others missed the vehicle itself and pounded into the ground, where more work had been done to carefully weaken the terrain their target would tread.
Collapsing in multiple places, the legs of the golem scrambled as water washed over them and turned all to a crumbling slick. Several segments of its body dropped into the largest of the opened hollows, where a brilliant red light shone up like fire, while more the legs stuck fast as river and rockfall beat it down.
A moment later the waters hit the lava beneath with a howling explosion, sending up plumes taller than they geysers and flooding the surroundings with steam.
That was when Sulis opened fire, their own golem shooting through any of the tripods unlucky enough to still be visible through the clouds, mowing them down with lightning.
Within the thicker pockets of steam were flashes of light and mana, as those skilled in combat launched their tandem assault, striking at the enemies unseen and falling back into the trees. Their artificial foes were forced to pursue them fruitlessly, wandering into more traps and falling into geysers, all the while denuding the true target of the attack of its vital defense.
But stricken and damaged though it was, the enemy vehicle wasn’t out of the fight yet. Attacking from within the fog its operators targeted Sulis and her golem, attacks clashing with her own barriers.
That was ideal. Too far apart for either vehicle to deal great damage to the other, they would exert their strength without striking down a single member of the rescue party.
Inspired by the accident which had previously immobilized their own conveyance and engineered by the combined expertise of the naga, beastfolk, ogres and harpies, the trap was working better than Gastores dared hope.
Once the stray machines had been sufficiently scattered and the enemy walker was entirely engaged in trading shots with Sulis it was time for their quartet of Valkyries to strike, led by Berenike herself. Their goal was to break into the damaged vehicle and liberate Safkhet – along with any other captives. From there they could retreat into the mists, or even subdue the remaining foes, depending on the course of the battle.
The plan was perfect and their advantage overwhelming – without dozens more tripods or the strange war-suits the enemy generals used at Chasm there was nothing which could stand up to a flight of Valkyries.
~~~
Had I been feeling for mana outside I might well have noticed that something was happening. Distracted by my own biology as I was, the first I knew of the attack was the when the vehicle around me shook. There had been impacts before, and fighting outside against what felt like Formorians, but the sirens this time were different, anxious and piercing tones like screams. The strikes kept coming too, the glowing gemstone lights dimming as the machinery all around hummed louder, power being drained into other systems, hydraulics humming.
Then with a flash something overloaded, and the shaking became a jolt that ran through even the tons of metal encasing me, followed by the groaning of tearing, bursting bulkheads and twisting metal. Straining my neck I saw the metal beams and supports above me bending and creasing, essence sparking throughout the chamber along with spurts of hydraulic fluids which rained down like green blood from the wounded machine.
A beat later more sounds came through the hull, like shattering and grinding rock, and the whole vehicle dropped around me, just as the gemstones overhead winked out in a shower of sparking, dancing mana.
I heard something else too, a rushing sound above. My eyes picked out movement even in the near total darkness; water flooding into the cargo bay, gushing in through gashes in the ceiling and bursting open hatches to gout from the walls.
My first, absurd thought was that this was a painful reminder of how badly I needed to use the rest room.
As I saw the water level rising slowly towards my face such ideas were forgotten. Panic tightened the metal at my throat, the terror of awaking blind and half-drowning in the pitch black returning to me, as did the horror of the mushroom forest.
But this was no time to cower in the dark; I had readied myself for a chance to escape, and now it was upon me, the best chance I’d ever get.
The alternative, suffocation at the bottom of some boiling volcanic lake, would have to be plan B.
But first I had to know what was happening, fast.
I focused my attention outside, shutting out the panic of my helplessness and straining my senses to try to feel the mana around the vehicle and understand the situation. There was certainly ample essence in the air for me to detect.
Not Formorian, or even the simplistic raw power of most Underworld monsters… no, the power outside was different, but familiar. As another attack burned a hot line of energy through my thoughts I knew at once who it was.
Berenike!
There were other harpies with her too, and more surfacers besides, all around. I couldn’t be sure of their identities or species, but I could feel their essence colliding with that of the Pharyes and their golems.
Even after they couldn’t find me in the chasm itself, they kept searching, until at last my stunt with the Sepulchre must have been the signal they needed. After so long they had finally come to rescue me! Perhaps Aellope was with them too, somewhere in the rear… she must have seen through the manipulations of Thessaly and Ventora, and defeated the traitorous faction at court, and now she was bringing the war to the Pharyes and saving her best friend….
If… if we were still friends that was. It was hard to imagine why Aellope would want to be after how I’d acted.
There was certainly no sign of the resplendent essence of the beautiful and magnificent empress among my rescuers. Ael was too smart to throw herself into danger like I had.
The sources of mana I could feel weren’t numerous either, but perhaps they were just one of many search parties.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
As much as I longed to, I was still far too frustrated to be ready to see Ael anyway; frustrated at her coddling and domineering attitude, and frustrated still more that she had been totally right, and that I’d been too stupid and stubborn to heed her words. Worst of all, I’d let myself be manipulated by Ventora, tricked like a stupid child into abandoning Aellope and the others to rush off and try to save the day, without even speaking a single word to anyone.
But even if I’d ruined everything, I was still uplifted – here were my allies, come to rescue me, to save me from the nightmares of the Underworld. Besides, it couldn’t be too late to fix things if Ael was sending a rescue party after me.
Even if she was angry and hurt, she must still care.
Thrilled and relieved as I was by the friendly, familiar sensation of Berenike and the others, it didn’t occur to me for a moment that they might not have set out for my sake at all, simply because it seemed so unlikely for a detachment of Valkyries to be this deep beneath the ground.
Of course, intentional or not, any rescue depended on their ability to overcome my captors.
As I was probing my surroundings I heard the sound of machinery in the next compartment, and then felt the flare of essence as multiple combat suits exited. Elsewhere outside I could feel similar patterns of magic coming off others, presumably emerging from further up the vessel.
That made eight, possibly nine of the mechanized knights joining the battle. Already I could feel their lighting and flames, like beacons amid the dark and indistinct milieu of clashing supernatural energies outside. There were many more of what I could only guess to be tripods, and I got the sense that there were smaller golems deploying too, from the sides of the long, highly energized shape of the mothership.
Berenike was no fool, no Safkhet – she wouldn’t have launched the attack if she didn’t think she could win – however it seemed this vehicle had an abnormal concentration of military force aboard, probably the entire group I’d encountered at Vitrgraf. Could Berenike and her allies really handle so many powerful foes appearing unexpectedly?
Even I was forced to flee on meeting them in such numbers. Not that I’d been able to escape them.
My limbs strained against the infuriating embrace of shaped metal as I felt each flare of energy outside, and sensed the Valkyries clashing with the greater numbers of the enemy. I could feel them being driven back, forced to retreat from arching discharges of electricity and searing tongues of flame.
What in Myr’s hell had happened to Ivaldi, I wondered angrily.
If he really wanted peace between the Pharyes and the surface he should have been doing something by now. Had all his sincerity and courage melted away in the face of taking action? Or had it all been an act? Or… had he tried and failed?
Unless he was fighting alongside the other Pharyes in his war machine it seemed clear he wasn’t coming to help either side.
Nor could I detect any sign of reinforcements on the Harpy side. Their diffuse tingles of energy were scattered and fading as they expended their essence in spells and supernatural attacks one after another.
They were out there getting hurt for my sake all over again, risking their lives to fix my mistakes.
Several of the enemy had fallen to the Valkyrie force, but a mere four beacons of essence shone for them at the middle of the chaos, while all around were the machines of the Pharyes, golems and battlesuits.
The harpies were still fighting, but they would soon be dying.
I had to help them. I had to save them. Together we could win, I knew it.
With just a little luck the remaining guards wouldn’t even realize what I was doing until it was too late.
Rising water lapped at my nose as I readied myself. There was no time for any fancy magic, even if they weren’t listening in, but if I could twist apart steel barehanded and shatter obsidian dragons with my fists then what was I doing being defeated by a mere metal weight?!
Straining against the gigantic mass I felt the impossibility of the task anew, the block resolutely immovable, my pose the worst imaginable, but this time I was determined. If staying put and protecting Echo meant Berenike would die, then I’d rather risk my life to save them both.
Strength filled my chest, flowing into my splayed arms and legs. My fingers and toes clenched, clawing into the material, adding just the slightest leverage as I tried to push my chest and shoulders up.
The water was up to my face, kissing my lips and cheeks as it churned, flooded in under the raised metal to soak my bare skin.
The block was lifting, almost an inch off the base now.
I felt my muscles tremble and tightened them further, past the point of pain.
I couldn’t even feel the water as it passed my ears. Every ounce of my strength and energy was focused into the herculean effort, and bit by bit the colossal prison of metal moved.
Two inches, then three and four, starting to rise faster.
My head was back above the surface. I was almost high enough to try to get my arms in under my chest.
Agony wracked my head and neck, searing white lightning raking my exposed face and neck.
The block slammed down upon me once again, forcing me under once more.
It was a small mercy that my eyes had been closed, but could feel the welts in my skin from the point-blank attack, my whole head aching.
The water seemed to be receding, and steam was rising where the attack had boiled away water around me.
Through the gloom and vapor I could see my attackers in the open doorway, standing against the flood as it passed them, lit from behind by a faint neon glow. The two remaining combat suits, giant machines of metal and magic, they towered over me despite the miniature stature of the pilots within. One had a gemstone lowered towards my face, ready to fire again.
“Stop!” the other commanded in Pharynx. “Or you both die!”
The voice was transmitted from within the hidden cockpit as he raised a blade to clink against the surface of… Echo’s core.
They looked so small in that giant metal hand, so fragile that they might break from just the pressure of those bulky hydraulic fingers as they adjusted their grip.
Frozen in place whether I liked it or not, a second ticked over, and then another, the three of us staring one another down as my face and shoulders throbbed with stinging pain and I listened to the distant chaos outside.
The sounds of the battle were audible through the side doors of the second cargo bay, in which the guards had been waiting. They seemed to have been left open after the others sortied to join the fighting, and now the water was pouring out through them, joining falls that seemed to arc down off the top of the vehicle to plunge into what must be more magma, given the dense clouds rising back up.
My mind was racing for some solution, even as outside I could sense the strength of my allies waning. It didn’t seem like we were winning there either. I had to find some way out of the mess I was in without getting Echo killed – and perhaps joining them myself.
At the far end of the second cargo bay a hatch opened, and another pharyes emerged. He gasped as the flowing water grabbed at him, almost knocking him off his feet and drenching his elegant silk and leather clothes up to the shoulders. Clinging to the hatch’s handle he next stared in shock at the sight of the standoff across the chamber from him, lit from outside by the gaping cargo bay door at his side.
“Stand down!” he demanded.
His voice had a deeper tone, and a familiar, dictatorial condescension. The ‘Lord Uldmar’ who had threatened me over the intercom.
“I told you, stand down at once!” he reiterated angrily.
Before I could retort that I could hardly stand down any further than I already was, shot in the face and pancaked under countless tons of metal, there was a cyclopean surge of power outside.
Berenike’s essence shone out like a beacon, the amazing flare of baleful and tempestuous energy felt through the walls of the vehicle as she gave everything she had left to her attack, aiming not at her foes, but right at me, within the walker.
The Pharyes warriors converged upon the falling stroke, their presences bursting apart with shocks of erupting mana, just barely deflecting the terrible blow.
It hammered into the cave floor, sending a shock though the legs of the vehicle as stone burst apart and gave under pressure.
I was falling.
I strained against the great weight once more, reflexively but uselessly trying to catch myself.
The drop was arrested quickly as the damaged striding vessel caught itself, and the block pressed against the floor once again, weight returning. All around the rushing water turned to blood as deep crimson light poured into the compartment.
The drop had sent the two guards toppling, but my attention was on the tumbling form of Echo, heart in my throat as they turned end over end.
With a splash they struck the water.
They had survived the impact.
Echo’s body was sinking towards the floor, drifting slightly with the current as the flood rushed out the cargo bay doors.
Uldmar was shouting something, and the two guards were still recovering.
For a few seconds there was no-one holding a gun to my face.
My friends were here to save me, and they were counting on my help. Berenike had given everything she had left to try to free me.
With every last ounce of power in my small frame I pushed, forcing my digits down into the metal once more. My muscles were on fire and the air was forced from my lungs into a mindless and desperate scream, mana flooding from my every pore.
The block rose.
Forcing my splayed limbs together against the pressure I cut deep grooves into the soft metal, fighting to make space enough just to bend my arms and bring my knees in.
It had been only a few heartbeats, yet each had felt like an age of the world passing. But at long last I felt it – the space to bend my arm.
In a flash I had a hand beneath me, elbow bent, arm locked in place. Next came the other.
Finally I had my knees under me.
Lightning carved into my skin once more as the prone guards panic-fired on me. I forced my muscles to move through the pain.
Bringing in my elbows I coiled myself up, taking the full weight with my shoulders.
With a roar of pure triumph I rose, hurling the mass away, lightning briefly connecting it to me as it flew.
Incalculable weight slammed into the floor with a deafening boom, water propelled out in all directions with the force of a bomb.
The flooring gave under the impact, rupturing as the metal drove itself down into the machinery below, and the whole vehicle too seemed to fall again, as unseen legs gave way and the machine slipped. The permeating red deepened as the view shifted, the chamber tilting downwards at the far end. I could see magma outside and below us.
The flood became a river, gushing all at once out of the vessel, explosions sounding as it cascaded down into the molten rock perilously near below and sent up fresh plumes of steam.
It was carrying Echo with it!
Kneeling atop a gouged and torn base of drenched and electrified metal, my foot slipped as I tried to rise, my convulsing muscles losing coordination.
The beautiful gemstone mind sped through the twin cargo bays, passing out through the open side of the vessel into the abyss.
Uldmar’s fingertips snatched the gemstone back from the edge.
Clinging desperately to the side of the bay door the pharyes was halfway out of the vehicle himself, just barely holding on against the flood.
“I told you!” he screamed, voice fighting with the chaotic din of warfare and clashing elements.
“Stand down! Both of you!”
Still on their knees, the guard-mechs froze, their lightning gems falling silent.
Relief and fear and abject bewilderment competed in my mind.
Could Ivaldi have convinced him after all?
But Lord Uldmar didn’t move away from the door.
“You too, girl!” he shouted, as I rose to my feet. “Move and I drop the cube!”
With Echo precariously gripped by one corner in his entirely too small hand, he held them still suspended over the abyss below, even as boiling steam buffeted his leatherbound arm.
“What are you doing?!” I asked, voice pleading as I watched his face contort in pain. “You’ll be swept out!”
“Then your ‘friend’, ‘Echo’ shall die with me!”
Even as he spoke, I was clenching my toes, digging my feet into the gouged metal to give me something to kick off against. Without electricity ravaging my body there could be a chance for me to catch Echo as they fell, if only I could leap the length of the cargo bays faster than they could fall the remaining inches that would drop them below the lip of the floor and out of reach.
It wasn’t a good chance, but I had to do something. I couldn’t let it end like this. Not when we were so close. If they subdued me again now it would doom us all.
But it wasn’t surrender Uldmar demanded.
“I will have the truth from you, monster! Why should you risk your life for this mere simulation? It’s nothing like you or I! It isn’t a person, it isn’t even flesh! No blood runs within this gemstone! It’s no more than runes inscribed into bone, a mere machine; a malfunctioning golem creating the illusion of a person!”
Enraged at the absurd interrogation now of all times, I took a moment to find the words to retort.
“What?! Why should Echo have to be made of flesh to matter?! Of course they’re nothing like we are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a mind! No illusion could suffer like they have, or feel like they do! Who cares if their body is flesh or minerals, or if their mind is made of mana patterns instead of chemical reactions?!”
I spat my answer furiously at him, but my eyes were locked on my glowing friend atop his hand.
“Echo’s unique and amazing and their mind, their thoughts and hopes and emotions are just as real and important and anyone’s! That’s all that matters – the rest, their body, their history, who or what made them, all of its irrelevant! People are their minds, and Echo is a person!”
My heart was pounding in my chest as I readied myself to leap after them.
The pharyes stared at me, mouth hanging loose even as a huge billow of steam struck him, scalding the bare skin of his face, pink burns welling up on his cheek and forehead.
“You would go this far for a creature so alien to you, for nothing but empathy? How can I believe that?!”
“For empathy, and for a friend I owe my life! Now give them to me, or I’ll take them back even if it kills us both!”
But I didn’t get the chance.
With a scream of pain and effort, Lord Uldmar hauled himself back into the vessel.
His men rushed over to help him, steadying him against the current.
“Take Echo,” he insisted. “Protect them.”
He hand was trembling as he passed their form over to one of the war-suits.
When he spoke again his voice was lower, haggard with the exertions and the unseen injuries under his leathers, yet still commanding.
“No more hostage or threats, Safkhet. Ivaldi told me you want to stop this war and make peace between our peoples. Prove it to me. Help me stop the fighting outside.”
~~~
Berenike weaved between the narrowest gaps in the hail of bolts and tongues of flame from the golems below, barely noticing as more of her feathers were singed, and more bloody cuts torn in her skin. Any hit that didn’t kill or ground her wasn’t worth thinking about.
Her bow thrummed, a blazing arrow tracing a line from her weapon to the metal figure emerging from beneath a fallen tree.
With no chance to dodge, they caught the strike on their kite shield, metal sparking and fluids spurting as the shot pierced through and into the arm of the machine.
But the other arm was free, and retaliated with another burst of flames.
Berenike just barely dove under the crackling, superheated green fire – and into the path of more bolt-fire from the golems.
Once more they forced her back, away from their mother vessel, the stricken, bulbous striding machine in which her target was held.
The flight of four had scattered in the face of the massed firepower of enemy knights and golems, with Nefret and the others each taking on their share of foes, as had the ogres, beastfolk and all the rest. Everyone was risking their lives to distract and divert all the forces they could away from Safkhet, while Berenike alone continued the struggle to reach the walker’s cargo bay, and the source of the overwhelming mana that she’d felt earlier.
They couldn’t be sure of Safkhet’s situation, but knowing the human girl, Berenike was confident that all they had to do was break her free and the tide would turn in an instant.
But even her greatest attack had failed. Two of the giant knights had sacrificed their machines to stop her Starfall Arrow, deflecting the attack and still leaving two more of their ilk to lead the tripods in keeping her from her goal.
Had she the mana for another attempt it still would have been impossible; her miss had destroyed more of the floor, and almost dropped Safkhet’s compartment into the lava.
Berenike was out of options and out of ideas.
Fighting the four knights had been a challenge like nothing she had faced before. Captain Berenike had never felt such fatigue in all her years as a Valkyrie, nor in those with the Flight Corps before that, not only her mana, but her muscles too pushed to the limit. Her wings had long since gone numb and her fingers bloody from working her bow, shooting apart golem after golem. Her feathers dragged on the wing, soaked in blood from the cuts and burns of blades, fire and lighting.
And still half her foes remained.
There was nothing left for them to do. She had just enough mana left to signal their retreat.
Although still operational the enemy walker was pinned, badly damaged, its midsection suspended over lava, the unleashed river above still threatening to wash it down into the chasm, clouding everything in even thicker steam than that of the geysers all about the chamber.
It wasn’t a suicide mission. If they couldn’t rescue Safkhet they would at least escape safely. That was the plan they had all agreed on.
She was about to release the flame burst spell which would call on all among the rescue party to fall back, when Berenike realized something was wrong.
The air was clear of projectiles.
Looking back towards the walker, she saw the golems and soldiers were stopped in place, their attacks paused.
It had to be a trap.
The enemy knew they were winning, but they couldn’t give chase. They wanted to lure their attackers in to finish them off.
That was when Berenike felt the mana from the hold of the vessel change again. The surreal, endless well of energy was moving at last, rising up with the steam from the pit.
Just visible through the blur of neon-lit gases, something emerged over the side.
Berenike stared.
A fuzzy pink shape rose up, with a confused body of bare flesh that she couldn’t make out, convulsing at it moved, trailing steam.
The Valkyrie wondered if she had made a horrible mistake… until Safkhet raised her head and looked up at her.
“Berenikehhh!” she called out.
Totally naked, with her hair shaved, or more likely burned away at some point, Safkhet had big, fat tears streaming down her face as she sobbed.
“You really came for me!” the girl said, clumsily wiping uselessly at the rivers running down her usually elegant cheeks. “It’s okay! You don’t have to fight any more! They Pharyes want a cease-fire!”
The enemies were staring at her too, but none made any move to stop her.
Flying down, Berenike alighted before the smaller figure of the human.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so relieved…. I-I thought you were gonna die… or all of us would…. I… I’m so sorry that I… that all of this-”
Berenike pulled the babbling girl into her arms, wrapping her wings tight around her.
It would be their secret that not all of the tears soaking her plumage and washing out the blood were Safkhet’s.