Orson stood on the beach between the wreckage of two aircraft. The SawW-carrier burned to his left, cockpit shattered, lit with a dancing yellow and red. It made a strange counterpoint to the pulsing crimson that swallowed half the sky.
The islanders’ airliner lay far to his right. He saw no motion from that crashed shape, no smoke. Its wing that had burned was now extinguished. Seen from the corner of his eye, it could be a decades-fallen derelict, years-broken.
But Orson didn’t look too closely. He didn’t take his attention away from the Shapers who faced him, down the beach. Four swordsmen held empty hilts that began to glow and smoke as Sir Ramon’s had. Three others transmuted thick, barbed swords, the metal steaming and bursting into the air between their hands.
Only a single landing craft shared the beach with the combatants. It was a sleek, narrow vessel on heavy treads that looked to double as paddle wheels. Orson could see the pilot inside, staring at him.
With cracks like thunder, Ramon’s students finished gathering their energy blades. They took up two-handed stances.
“You know.” Orson spun his own sword in a one-handed flourish. He danced the hilt around his wrist with practiced ease. “I’ve seen a lot of energy swords – light swords, laser swords, beam swords, fire swords, the whole deal. But I gotta say, I think your kind has to be the absolute dumbest.”
Another of the Dactyls exploded in the air. The Aesir flew tight over the top of the risen ice. Orson wanted to hail them. What was the point of flying that close?
Then one of the drones returned fire, fishtailing back and forth and spitting glowing orbs from its saucer. The carrier fallen wasn’t the source of the control code! Damn!
The drone’s projectiles fizzled away to nothing against the Aesir’s shield. The rad shield glowed briefly, showing its shape, wrapped around his ship. Then the Aesir was gone again, twisting around beyond the line of the new ice.
The ice rose thirty or forty feet at the shore’s edge. The sky above it pulsed with red. Orson wished for his goggles and HUD. It would be good to read the energy at the horizon, and in the sky, and to look for the ships that were now hidden by the ice.
But the eyes of a Hierarchia automaton were too easy for the baron to touch. So the sword, the lantern, and the gear he carried on his person would have to be enough. He reached up to his comm’s earpiece. It had been almost six years since he needed it to be more than a transmission receiver.
Ramon’s students took their chance. Two ran in close. The others looped wide to flank him. Orson took his own two-handed stance and met the first of the energy blades when it swung for his neck. The weapons flashed white.
“What’s the point of your sword hilts?” Orson called. “I’ve seen a lot of Shapers who can touch their light projections. Why can’t you?” None spoke in answer. “Your boss was really talkative, but you only want to chat back and forth in your little helmets where I can’t hear you.”
A second Shaper struck. It was a fast attack, point out, right at his exposed eyes – typical Twelfth Form. Orson batted the edge aside.
“Is your energy too hot for you – you need tongs to grab your own weapon?” Orson asked. “Maybe you don't really need the hilts. You just think they look cool.”
The two flanking Shapers ran in from the sides toward him, all four closing in. A faint beeping sounded in his ears as the custom earpieces warned him – danger from both sides!
But the attackers from the sides stopped short. The stumbled away, swords sizzling against blue fields that suddenly appeared in the air. The new projections floated to Orson’s either side, and they moved with him, keeping the flanking Shapers from advancing. The other two swordsmen also backed away.
Orson found Kol walking toward him, arms raised and brow furrowed. He was still wearing his drenched clothing. Only the backpack was gone.
"You didn’t change,” Orson said. He used the pause to dial up the volume on his earpieces.
“You didn’t give me time to change,” Kol said, teeth clenched. “You skewered Sir Ramon and the left the rest of us playing catchup.”
“It’s not my fault he was predictable.” Orson eyed the wary Shapers, but the enemy’s attention wandered when a line of students also left the breach and sprinted toward the crashed plane.
The iron Shapers charged after them. And the lander’s pilot watched the kids too. An energy blast flew from beneath the lander’s cockpit and was swallowed by green fire. Harper was running outside the line of other students, her glowing dagger above her head.
“Hey, we’re gonna huddle up for a second. We don’t have helmets like you.” Orson leaned toward Kol and angled the sword away from them.
“What are you doing?” Kol asked without turning aside, but their enemies seemed too nervous to attack.
“Raise the right a foot,” Orson whispered. “Then go help the kids with the plane.”
Orson dropped to the ground. Kol had understood. The shield projection to Orson’s right rose a foot from the ground, leaving a gap where the sand steamed. Orson brought his sword around, all wrist, in a low sweep. The fire met the right Shaper’s calves, one and then the other. The man fell, howling, and his sword vanished in a burst like a camera flash. Then Kol’s shields vanished too, and Orson heard his booted feet follow the islanders down the beach and toward the downed plane.
Only one of the light swordsmen rounded on Kol. Orson twisted the lantern’s handle. A jet of fire shot across the beach and stopped his pursuit. It burned brighter than the rising glow from the Eye.
“No, no,” Orson said. “You have to finish dancing with me before you go after him.”
“Hey Boss!” Jaleel shouted in his ears. Orson winced and jerked away from the sound. All three swordsmen advanced. One imitated Orson’s low attack. The sword flashed at his feet. Orson swung his own sword low and parried the strike.
“You realize I just did that, right?” Orson asked him. “It’d be pretty pathetic if that took me by surprise.” Then he ducked under a gleaming blade from another of the swordsmen. He retreated, far enough to reach his earpieces and the volume controls.
“Are you trying to make me go deaf?” Orson asked. “And how did you manage to get the comms working?”
“Sorry!” Jaleel answered at a softer volume. “I don’t want to distract you, but the drones didn’t Phantom Menace. Why didn’t they Phantom Menace?”
“What does that mean?” Orson blocked two of the Shaper’s blades with one parry. All three weapons flashed white. “It’s wild how every energy weapon responds a little differently to mine.” He swung the sword close to their outstretched blades as they retreated again, maintaining the white glow.
“In the Phantom Menace.” Dr. Stan now spoke in his ear. “The droid army is defeated by destroying a single commanding ship. Once that ship is gone, every attacking android shuts down. Jaleel found this situation –”
Orson missed the rest. Another blast flew from the lander. This one exploded against a blue Kol projection. Orson saw more motion there, sword-wielding students and more flashes from the green blade.
“It might be like that, yeah,” Orson said. “Or we might be fighting the drones one at a time. The whole control thing is only a safeguard to stop another Thunderworks theft. And a way to make up for the best satellites being gone. Hey, can you do me a favor? I’m busy, but we need somebody to take care of this guy in the no parking zone.”
Orson could not use the time to switch between speaking into his comm and speaking to his opponents. But his mouth and his brain had only a small part of his focus. All the rest went to his arms as they moved the sword, always the deliberate motion.
The Shapers came in again. Orson didn’t hear Jaleel when he answered. The swordsmen moved with inhuman speed. They attacked in complex flourishes. One again attacked low at his feet. Another aimed at his hands. The third launched himself into the air, as high as the aided jumps the repulsor had granted Orson. A shrill beeping began in his ears.
Orson retreated toward the breach. He aimed the lantern at the swordsmen on the ground, to keep them away and raised his own sword to the airborne attacker. The jumping Shaper twisted in the air and landed beside him on the sand.
“You almost got behind me.” Orson brought the sword in an arc that nearly cut the swordsman from head to chest, but the Shaper stumbled away with a black burned streak down his armor.
“You know what the problem is with your old twelve forms.” Orson took his sword inside the guard of the nearest Shaper and sliced its fire through the armor and jumpsuit and into the flesh of the man. The swordsman swatted at the wound. It smoked.
“A lot of the fancy moves aren’t necessary.” Orson took the sword through another flourish, almost inviting the others to close in, to attack recklessly. “You’re used to fighting other magic assholes. Or cutting through the untrained. Well, I am trained. And I’m not impressed with all the flippy-doo moves. You've got a choice ahead of you, all of you do, all of your Shaper swordsmen who’ll take their shot at me today. Learn your own fighting fast or die using the same old flashy tricks.”
All fighters jumped aside when the Aesir blasted straight down out of the sky. Three Dactyls dove behind it, firing. The Aesir fired too, but not at its pursuers. The Incursion Cannons and Tri-cannon both blasted straight down.
The lander exploded in a fireball that reached the top of the ice and sent shrapnel raining all across the beach. The Liberty Corps Shapers dove away, and there were shouts from the line of students. Orson risked a glance at them. Harper with Kol and five other students surrounded the iron Shapers. One was on the ground. The others had transmuted shields and were shrinking away from attacks on all sides. Another group of the students had the plane’s side door open, and a bright blue evacuation slide extended to the beach.
“Was that amphibious lander the thing you wanted us to destroy?” Jaleel asked. The ship rocketed around the ice columns, the drones still in pursuit. “We didn’t see another no parking zone, and it’s not like we don’t want to get rid of all their stuff.”
“Yeah,” Orson answered. “That was the one. Good—” Orson stopped when he heard a deep tone from his right earpiece and saw a flash of gold to that same side.
“LIBERTY CORPS FOREVER!” A scratchy voice screamed.
Orson raised his sword, blade positioned to guard his face. Something hit the blade. He turned his face away as the strike exploded against the sword. The hit almost wrenched the weapon from his fingers and he staggered down the beach. He slipped across the sand and fell to his knees.
Orson looked toward the attack. He saw the swordsman he’d cut to give Kol an opening to join the students. The man had risen from the sand and held his empty hilt like a rifle. It still glowed gold.
“You’re tougher than I thought,” Orson said. “You’re doing a whole lot better than the late Sir Ramon.”
One of the swordsmen ran at Orson before he could stand, sword in a neutral position. It was caution, the attacker ready to defend or to attack if Orson could not recover. Orson reacted. He didn’t take the time to stand. He lifted the lantern again and twisted its handle. A gout of fire shot out from it and propelled the swordsman back down the beach as if he’d been struck in the chest by a rocket.
“Now you’re starting to get inventive.” Orson stood again. “It was a bit of a cheat to use the fire blast. But you outnumber me, and I don’t have a lot of time.” The man he’d blasted did not rise again.
Orson heard the deep tone in his right ear. The wounded Shaper held his empty hilt a second time. Orson saw a glow at the weapon. The man howled in pain and fury, but he fell back to the sand. The light faded when the hilt rolled from his fingers.
“Either he’s real tricky or that was a one-and-done.” Orson adjusted his grip on the sword and faced his two remaining attackers.
A new cry sounded from the far side of the beach. Orson looked toward the noise, to see what was happening at the plane and to give a cheap opening to his opponents. Two of the students stood on either side of the plane’s open door. Each held the arm of a woman drenched in blood, visible even from that distance.
One of the swordsmen took Orson’s opening and ran. The other circled wide.
“Come on!” Orson answered. “I don’t have all day. There are more of you to fight!”
Neither Shaper reached Orson. Footsteps raced from behind him, from the breach. Three figures with tall shields and long rifles blocked one of the swordsmen.
Something shot past Orson’s shoulder and took the other attacker all across his armored chest. Orson watched the projectile – no, it was many projectiles, a squirming mass that reflected the light. The attack engulfed the armored man in miniature explosions, like he’d hugged a sparkler firework to his chest.
“You’re getting good at that.” Orson turned back to the breach where Enoa stood with staff raised. “I thought you went with the Aesir.”
“I’m trying to figure out what the Liberty Corps is doing,” she said. “I can follow all of their ships.” She stopped her Bullet Rain when the swordsman fell to the sand, his armor chewed away and smoking.
The last of the swordsmen fought, surrounded. His glowing weapon sizzled against the shields of the islander guards, but apparently could not cut through them. The guards advanced. None fired. They fought with their bayonets raised. Orson heard a gargled sound from the Shaper, and then the last of Sir Ramon’s students fell.
One of the guards broke off from the trio. “We’re mobilizing everyone we can,” he said. Orson didn’t recognize him until he pushed his sweat-drenched hair from his face. It was their guide, Jendring, now wearing a guard uniform with armor at the chest. “With the Arcanum students, we may have two hundred.”
“We’ll have to be smart,” Orson said. “But that’s actually a lot more than I expected.”
Jendring motioned to the breach. Orson looked at the jagged edges. Beyond it, all he could see was darkness, an unlit cave. But more guards began appearing at the opening, running into view, holding rifles or short swords. Some had tall shields like Jendring’s, but most carried small, round bucklers.
"First thing,” Orson said. “Let’s get everybody off that plane. Then we’ll figure out what else the Liberty Corps is going to do.”
“They’re bringing tanks on the shore,” Enoa said. “And they’re going to ram the ice with a big ship, the same kind that the island destroyed with the water spout.”
“Can we get a call to Taric and make a new spout?” Orson asked. “Where’s Doug?” He watched the students begin a line of passengers from the plane. The shore was clear for them. Some walked, but others stayed beside the craft. Many were bloodied.
“They need to move faster!” Enoa said. “The ramming ship is almost here!”
“Jendring, can you talk to them?” Orson asked. He didn’t start down the shore himself. With a roar, the Aesir circled the island again and flew in tight on the inside of the new barrier. It landed in the sand.
“You’re about to get hit!” Jaleel called through the comm. “I have an idea. I can...” He stopped short when Orson arrived beside the ship’s door. It opened. “I want to talk to the guy who’s doing the island's magic stuff. I have some ideas, and we don’t have a lot of time.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“I don’t know how you’ll talk to them if you can only scream at me.” Orson heard distant chattering from Wesley. “What happened with the Dactyls?”
“We ran away mostly,” Jaleel said. “Now they left. But they’re doing something. The Saw-wings aren’t coming over here, but they’re getting closer. And I really want a plan before they get here. I’m still figuring this thing out.”
“Do you need me to fly?” Orson asked. “We have fighters here now.”
“They’re here!” Enoa pressed her staff to the ground like it was a scientific instrument. “Their ship is going to ram into the other side of the column! Right here! I think it might be able to break through the ice.”
Orson looked around, for Jendring and Doug. But the only familiar faces he found were Kol and Harper, who gathered with the wounded at the plane.
Then he heard it too, a low rumbling engine. And he heard the ocean around it. Orson realized he’d been missing the sounds of the water when everything had been entirely still.
“It is too late.” Orson wheeled back to the shore. He thought about shouting a warning to everyone, but would that help? Would that just panic the survivors?
Jaleel offered his hand to Enoa and helped her up into the Aesir, but the ram hit before the door was shut.
A tremor like an earthquake raced through the ground. There were screams and the sounds of ice breaking ahead, cracking and splintering.
Orson followed none of it. He braced himself as the ground shook beneath him. He was watching the ice pillars when four shattered and fell in sparkling shards to the sand and sea.
Liberty Corps troops poured inside.
* * *
Operative Divenoll forced his way through the crowd of apprentices. Some stepped aside for him when they saw him, but the youngest stood in clusters, paying as much attention to each other as to the baron.
They were the extras. The baron had wanted more than the seventy odd Shapers with real power and skill. So he’d added that same number of novices with potential to counter whatever power hid at the island.
Helmont spoke to the knights around him, Vergil and Tolem and the rest. Divenoll forced himself ahead, past more students and the baron’s new ledgerman. Greely or Greebly, or whatever his name was, stood pressed with his back to the wall, datapad inches from his face.
“We cannot know what else waits for us, hidden by the ancient ice.” Baron Helmont stood at the eye of the storm. “Continue overwhelming the effort on the beach, but be careful with Cloud and Gregory. Use no artillery that could destory their keys with them.”
“And what about the Aesir?” Sir Mordecai asked. “Could their keys remain aboard their transport?”
“You raise a good point,” Helmont said. “Disable the ship. Send it beneath the waves, if you must. We can detect the Cobalt Nine. We want that ship out of our way. They’ve been difficult for too long.”
“They’ve been our main competitor,” Sir Zarag said.
“Too much credit,” Helmont corrected. “Though they are relentless.”
“My lord,” Communications Lead called. “We have placed the siege mechs.”
“Good,” Helmont said. “They may begin. But first, retrieve for me a piece of the ice. I want to map it. I want to know what other surprises wait inside.”
The baron watched his knights again. His eyes settled on Divenoll, and Divenoll bowed.
“The Aesir is here,” Helmont said. “Knightschurch was already harboring our enemies. We will waste no more time on old traditions. Once I know the truth of their power, we will enter this island together.”
* * *
Kol raised a new shield as the broken ice was still falling to the sand. It was reflex now, protection before thought. He stood between the gathered islanders and the place where they’d fought the iron Shapers. At least one was still moving, restrained with thin, gray rope.
Through the blue of his projection, Kol saw squads of Liberty Corps troops clambering across the broken ice from the destroyed pillars. Six could stand on the jagged ledge, and they’d perched two black ladders from ice to ground. It was still a strange thing, to see the Rifle Trooper helmets and know the minds behind them would try to kill him. How many people had he lived with who’d worn that armor, traveled with or...
“Aesir crewmember!” Harper waved to Kol. “Aesir crewmember!” She stood beside the plane. The other students formed a line of the crash survivors beside her. They escorted some, guided others. Some were being loaded onto stretchers.
“I’m not really on the crew,” Kol answered.
“Aesir butler then,” she said. “Please help me. Our armory shields can take only so much of their bombardment. Yours and mine can stop them. We’ll escort the survivors in groups.”
Kol snuck another glance at the broken ice. Troopers in blue and white scrambled down the ladders and gathered on the beach. The Aesir’s roof cannon spun toward the new opening and fired. The ladders fell, twisted and melted.
Kol took his chance and ran to Harper, where she waited beside the line of survivors. There was a group of about thirty gathered, all ages. A line of elderly residents joined hands with teens and children.
“I’m Kol,” he said.
“Take up the rear, Kol,” Harper said. She raised her dagger and formed the mass of swirling emerald in the air. She nodded and the chain of islanders hurried for the breach. Kol waited until near the end and formed his own shield.
There were other explosions at the ice. Kol found iron walls had appeared on the broken columns. They stood ten feet tall and still grew. Kol heard them stretching in his mind, knew they were Shaping. They moved across the ice, shifting to protect the Rifle Troopers behind them. Bolts of neon blue energy flew between the shields. With a scream, an islander guards toppled to the sand, his buckler melted.
An older man beside Kol yelled at the sound. He stumbled, distracted, but Kol caught him under the arm. Then he could not watch the new battle.
“Thank you.” The man righted his glasses. Kol released him when he found his footing.
Kol expanded his shield, curved it behind the line as they turned through the breach. Kol’s ears popped when he passed between the ice.
It was not silent inside. There were more shouts on the stone rampart and creaking sounds like rusted gears. There were tall, wooden shapes moving on the wall.
Harper ran back to him. She followed his attention. “We still have our siege weapons,” she said. “It’s the ammunition we need. Come on.” She ran back outside, through the distorted light at the breach. Kol let his shield shrink and held it at his arm. He followed back to the shore in time to see the ice columns grow again and fling the massive Liberty Corps shields into the air, their wielders still attached. Their voices were distorted as they were tossed back into the sea. Then the ice grew taller. A new row of columns grew outside the near wall, leaving feet of solid ice between the carrier and the shore.
“You can’t.” Harper raised a Talking Stone to her face. “No, no, Taric. Listen to me. You have your instructions. You would be defying Master and putting yourself... No!”
Kol started toward the line of survivors on his own. The next group had some wounded. Guards and survivors both carried stretchers. Kol tried to ignore the sounds of their voices, moaning, crying.
“Stop!” The voice didn’t shout from the survivors or defenders. This was a modulated command. “Stop in the name of the Liberty Corps!”
Kol spread his shield again. He gave cover to the injured on their stretchers. A full team of Rifle Troopers and a figure in very familiar white armor were rounding the shore toward them.
“Traitor Kolben Maros!” The Liberty Corps captain wore the same armor Kol had worn every day for years, cared for and maintained. It was his identity screaming back at him.
There were cries from the line of wounded and the people who carried them. Near to Kol, a teenager held small children behind him, sheltering them with his own body. He could’ve been no older than sixteen, no older than Kol himself had been during Thunderworks.
The figures advancing were more than the memory of what’d he’d seen in a mirror. The Rifle Troopers raised their blasters to fire on the shield and kill the injured islanders and their protectors. The fear and pain tore Kol from his distraction.
“Stay here,” Kol said to the nearest guard. Then he walked to meet the Liberty Corps captain. “Liberty Corps Code of Conduct, Chapter Fifteen, Section Twelve – always protect the defenseless. You’re breaking that—”
“Open fire!” The captain screamed. Kol’s shield took all four blasts, but he saw stars as if they’d struck him across the face. He could not maintain against many volleys. If the shield failed, everyone behind him would die. He did not see Harper. He did not see anyone who could help.
Kol swept his shield across the ground, the same way he had when he’d bowled down Sir Geber and the experimentation team at the Pinnacle. But he’d gained strength through further torment. He knew how to make his shield denser, heavier, stronger.
The wall bowled down the fire team, driving them all the way back down to the beach. Kol didn’t stop and the sand smoked as it went. He rammed all four Rifle Troopers into the raised ice columns with force enough to break their armor like an insect underfoot.
Then Kol let that shield fade. He made a smaller one for himself and walked to meet the captain where the other man was transmuting a serrated blade from iron at his belt.
Kol paused again, looking at the Captain’s helmet, like the one that had covered his own face. The man shouted. “I’ll take your corpse back to Helmont!” The captain charged. When the serrated sword met the projection, Kol reached around his shield for the other man’s face. The captain’s helmet broke under Kol’s prosthetic fist. He destroyed that reflection of his past.
Kol punched the captain’s face again. The other man fell back to the sand.
Kol knelt beside him long enough to take the gunbelt from the armor. It held a holstered blaster pistol, a medpack, and two standard concussion grenades. He left the armor and all the rest behind.
He found the line of survivors making for the breach. Harper stood near them with her dagger fire, but she watched the fighting back toward the Aesir, where the ship’s cannons fired at a line of the tall iron shields. She found Kol looking.
“Traitor?” she asked.
“It’s the only reason Orson Gregory agreed to bring me here,” Kol said. “I... I was a captain in the Liberty Corps. I was an enemy of the Aesir, until I turned against a Liberty Corps governor who tried to massacre a small town to get at Gregory. I was the baron’s prisoner for weeks, until the Aesir crew rescued me. Now they’re letting me... I don’t know what to call it. Make amends? Do penance?”
Harper stared as if looking through him. “Your captain is a strange man. He has a unique read of people. Are you sure he’s a full mundane?”
Kol remembered Orson in battle with Tucker and Nine-flails and Helmont. “Yes. It’s encouraging to think he is.”
“I’m not,” Harper said. “He’s too quick by half. It doesn’t matter how well he knows the sword, a mundane swordfighter should not be able to match an arcanist who is strengthening their own bodies or increasing their reaction time. Even with superior tactics and a strong will, it is strange.”
“I thought my ears were ringing from the explosions!” Orson walked free of the group of guards beside the Aesir. “You’re just gossiping about me. My girlfriend doesn’t think I’m mundane.” Kol laughed at Orson’s exaggerated confidence.
“And why would it matter what your girlfriend thinks?” Harper asked in annoyed confusion.
“His girlfriend is the current Keeper of the Concealment Truce,” Kol said. “What are they calling you now? Consort?”
“That’s right!” Orson beamed.
“Regardless,” Harper contined. “Your hearing is too good, as well.” Then she followed after the line of survivors toward the breach. Kol did too, and Orson met them beside the ice.
“Not too good.” Orson tapped at earpieces in both ears. “Sound magnifiers and proximity alarms. I used these before the HUD I usually wear.” He grinned at Harper. “And like it or not, I’ve just got good equipment and good reflexes. Keeping the sword between my enemies and most of my squishy bits also helps.”
“I don’t believe it,” Harper said. “But I have no time to argue. One more batch of survivors remains outside and our artillery has no ammunition. Can you solve that with your reflexes?”
“No,” Orson shot a look back at the Aesir. “But I have a little grenade collection I don’t really get to use. That might do something for you.”
“Bring them,” Harper said. “Please.”
“Alright,” Orson said. “I will. Before things get worse again, I want to borrow Kol.”
“What’s wrong?” Kol asked.
“I’ll show you in a minute,” Orson said cryptically. “Then I’ll bring your grenades, Harper. Are you planning to blow up the tanks sneaking past your boyfriend’s ice defenses?”
“In a word, yes,” Harper said. “We can open the ice to launch projectiles, if our aim is precise. The Liberty Corps have tanks on the ground and types that float above the sand, as well as odd machines that walk on legs like stilts. These are the strangest. Two climbed on the wall, but didn’t attack. They drilled into the defenses for about thirty seconds, then retreated.”
“Is your ice too strong?” Kol asked. Harper only grimaced and shrugged.
“I don’t like that,” Orson said. “They got away after drilling? I think Helmont’s wants to use his Shaping on your wall. We’ll talk about that too. How are you holding up, Kol? I saw that move with your shield, pretty creative.”
“I had a good deal of practice at the Pinnacle,” Kol said. “I don’t think I would’ve been clever enough to learn it on the spot, but I already had the training I needed. Like Sirona told us, I did my preparation before the big recital.”
Orson laughed too, but any reply was cut short. A new cry went up from the remaining survivors. Kol looked to them. Wounded or waiting, their attention went to the sky above the far horizon.
The red pulsing mass from the Eye of Balor curve between them and the sun. He’d been ignoring the great, deep sound of it, but the Eye’s noise intensified. It pulsed harder, as if excited to take the sunlight from them. Everything took on a strange, muted red tone.
The Eye of Balor’s living light would soon swallow the entire sky.
As if waiting for that moment, Helmont spoke again. His voice boomed from all sides. It was projected from many places, the sounds repeating like echos.
“Nightfall approaches,” he said. “But I rescind my offer of a duel. You harbor our enemies, the murderous Aesir crew. If you surrender, without condition, and offer up all combatants for my judgment – some of you may be spared. Otherwise, we now have you surrounded, and I will not hesitate to use the relic I carry to destroy every life on your island.”
* * *
Helmont ended his transmission. He watched the battle on screen and in his mind. As always, his mind showed the clearer view, the totality of destruction. It was almost too much, whole squads flung into the sea at terminal velocity or individuals shot or stabbed – or crushed by the Shaping of Kolben Maros.
“Comm Lead, command the Muruch to perform another ram, full reactor, full hydraulics.” Helmont did not look at his knights, but knew they would hear him. “Young Mr. Maros learned a great deal in your captivity, Sir Geber. Your testing and torment were more instructional than one would prefer.”
“Yes, my lord,” Geber answered.
“You may have the opportunity to correct this error,” Helmont continued. “If the boy survives long enough, and the chance arises, kill him yourself. We must all correct our errors. We can’t allow them to fester, like Sir Rowan, can we? May his memory guide us.”
Mistakes, errors, there were many failures alive and fighting on that island. If Sir Rowan had dealt with Enoa Cloud, she would not be standing on the beach like rapids in the current of a river, a power that could not be ignored. Helmont saw her clearly, even without mapping. Sucora Cloud’s Anemos had returned to the world, outside Arveig’s petty madness. Even as he watched, Enoa Cloud dealt an explosion to a Blades Trooper that sent the warrior flying fifteen feet backward. It was no wonder she’d drawn Sir Rowan’s attention.
The Aesir and Orson Gregory fought nearby, two more deadly mistakes, but whose? They’d outmaneuvered Maros and Governor Sloan. They’d escaped Helmont himself at Crystal Dune, in Outlaw Country, at his own Pinnacle. Perhaps his error was inaction. Should he have rallied all his might as soon as Gregory’s involvement reached his ears? Should he have risked conflict with the Pacific Alliance, descended on Littlefield with all dozen knights and the Manifest Destiny itself? Even earlier, should he have taken Gregory during his detour at the Solar Saver, when he’d seemed like little more than a common sellsword? It was too late to analyze those actions, such instances with no clear mistake. But inaction or error, all would end that day.
Helmont watched Thousand Destiny. He knew its fire, but felt it clearest when its blade found one of the mapped. When Gregory sent the blade through limbs or buried it in the bodies of the mapped, Helmont knew it, tested its heat from a safe distance, where he could not be burned. More than the keys needed to be collected.
“My lord!” A voice called over the noise of the bridge. “My lord!”
Helmont scanned his gathered force, until he found Lieutenant Greenley, nearly pinned to the far wall by the massing Shapers. Helmont gestured to him.
“Your ice sample has arrived!” Greenley called.
Helmont nodded to him. Then he turned back to the lift. The crowd parted. He gave no cause for his departure and listened to no questions. He wanted to learn alone or nearly so. Helmont took the lift back to the main deck. He sealed his helmet. Why risk uneeded exposure to the Eye’s power?
A Dactyl waited for him. It hovered only feet from the deck, manipulator arms extended from its saucer, gripping a chunk of what looked closer to blown glass than to ice. It was translucent, now separate from the rest of the whole, and the red light of the Eye glowed through it.
“Release and return.” He commanded. The drone set the ice on the deck and flew back toward the island.
Helmont removed his right gauntlet. He knelt and touched his bare skin to the surface.
He felt memory and life, a shadow, a reflection, a ghost. But these things could not steal his focus. He had no time for this study. He needed intelligence, usable strategy, not just trivia from the dead.
He ran his hand over the ice. It was broken and rough at the edges where it had joined with the rest. Touching it showed Helmont how it once fit into the larger structure. It let him see the gap left from the piece’s removal, an unfinished puzzle. And that piece fit in his mind and showed him the entire wall, its illusions and protections and history.
Then the veil of its knowledge rolled back. Helmont could see inside.
The island was almost empty. He could not be sure how many had fled on the planes, but only hundreds now remained. He did not take the time to count them, but an experienced guess told him fewer than four hundred remained, between beach and island interior.
There were only two sources of notable power, both at the island’s center. One was like a tree, spreading branches through the ice. It seemed more bound to the structure than to a living person, but unmapped shadows did gather near it.
The other power was Sir Merrill Lucas, last heir to the wealth and knowledge of House Dommik, last true knight of the Twelve House Covenant. It could only be him. Helmont sensed the familiar fire at hand. He knew the mental fortitude of the knights’ old training. And the power was substantial, a sudden torch in pitch darkness.
Helmont rose. He took a moment to hold everything in his mind, the living mistakes, his competitors, his enemies, his destiny. He activated his comm.
“All commands,” he said. “I have located the covenant knight. He is now our top priority. All landers to the beach. Occupy the other defenders. All my knights, all Shapers, gather your students, gather your weapons and your full attention. Gather your will and power. Join me. Stand with me, and today we begin our recovery of the Dreamside Road.”
Helmont watched the island. He could see the flashes of battle even from that distance. But only hundreds stood against him and his force of thousands. Then they might possess almost half the keys. After all the long saga, the race for the trove was nearly half-complete.
He issued a final command. “Bring my shuttle.”