Enoa followed the Liberty Corps ramming ship in her mind, as it pulled away from the beach. She felt the ship rise higher from the sea. She knew it from the way it displaced air and water. The very hull of the ship seemed to constrict, clench until it was as taught as a coiled spring. Enoa tried to track the forces on the ship’s deck, landers full of troops or Shapers anchored in place by their power.
She lost track of everything when she noticed the screaming. There were shouts from the Liberty Corps invaders and the island’s defenders, painful wails and battle cries. And every sound was an interruption. Every noise was a demand to focus on the here and now and nothing more. But it was the close-by screaming that could not be ignored.
“I will not nap!” Jim yelled. He held his mask in both hands. “No! I will not nap! I will help with the fighting of the noisy neighbors!”
“Jim.” Jaleel approached him with outstretched hands. “Jim, we want you to be safe. We’re not sightseeing right now. We’re flying the ship, and you don’t fly the ship, Jim.”
“I will go out and talk to the noisy neighbors.” Jim held his mask to his chest. “I will give them a piece of my mind for ruining our trip.”
“See what I mean?” Orson asked. Enoa found him at the door, Kol with him. She hadn’t heard them arrive or heard the door open. She’d been mentally out over the water, watching everything her eyes couldn’t see.
“Is he why you haven’t taken off again?” Kol followed Orson back inside the ship. He gave a stiff wave to Jim when the android looked toward them.
“A little bit,” Jaleel said. “It seems like those drones were leaving us alone while we were parked with their people all around us. Anyway, can you help?”
“What do you want me to do?” Kol asked. Jim had stopped speaking and watched them all with unblinking suspicion. “The only thing I have is my Shaping. I don’t see what help that could be.”
“I think your Shaping is exactly what they want,” Max said. Dr. Stan stood beside him at the dashboard.
“Hear me out, one second,” Jaleel said. “If we could just...” He motioned with both hands, slowly moving them together as if to catch something in the air.
Enoa sensed the ramming destroyer move again. The still ocean suddenly churned around it, and the danger of it all drowned out anything more her companions said.
The oncoming ship built up speed and momentum, its spiked rams aimed dead-center toward the ice pillars. The ice seemed to brace itself in return, like Taric and the other students hardened the pillars against attack.
“They’re coming again!” Enoa interrupted. “We have to do something about that boat! I’m tired of being our early warning system.”
But it was too late. It would ram the pillars again. Even if they had a Manifest Destiny to rain hellfire down onto the oncoming destroyer, just the sheer momentum would force the hulk of metal into the ice.
“Damn!” Orson rushed to the door. “I need some way of keeping in touch with our welcoming hosts.”
The door opened again to find all defenders running for the breach. The black sand was full of shield-bearing guards backing away. A line of students with stretchers between them raced beside Harper and her raised dagger.
“If I had my HUD, I could find Doug to get a message out.” Orson glanced back at the controls. “Maybe I could risk it. You’d pull it off me before Helmont crushed my head, right? Wait!” He jumped out the door, rose his hand to his shoulder and suddenly his sword burned above his closed first. Enoa had seen him draw the blade a hundred times, but this was reflex. This time, she didn’t even see him move.
It still wasn’t fast enough. Shadows dropped from the sky outside the ship. There was a flash of dull gray and blazing blue. Orson flew back inside and slid across the cabin floor on his butt. Kol caught him roughly by the shoulders before he could crash into the couch. Orson held the sword outward and away from everything.
Enoa ignored the new yells all around her. She sensed and saw the figures in the doorway, Shapers in white. One carried thick blades and wore thicker gauntlets. The other sported the trunked helmet of one of Sir Rowan’s students.
The first Shaper gripped the opening with a heavy gauntlet, blocking the door from sealing. A blue projection appeared at the doorway, halting both figures. The first Shaper struck the shield. Kol made a gagging noise in the back of his throat.
His shield was struck again just as a tremor raced through the earth. There was the noise of crunching and breaking ice and everyone yelled. Wesley added his own cries to the din.
The ground shook all around as the ramming ship breached the line of ice columns, but even that was overwhelmed by the sudden noise of countless rounds of energy fire. All the doors and windows reflected the neon glow from many projectiles. The shield flashed white in warning as it absorbed the energy sent their way.
“Put the bow down, Jaleel!” Max shouted over the noise, but his voice was steady. “We need you behind the wheel! Someone clear that door so we can take off! Our guns are useless until we can move.”
Orson rose back to his feet when the third strike fell across Kol’s shield. The projection shrank and could no longer cover the entire doorway. Orson ran for the entryway. Kol groaned and formed a second shield at his left hand. Enoa opened her mind and extended her staff. It was easy now to fight with body and mind, to sense the power of other Shapers without losing her readiness to move, to fight.
No one acted as fast as Jim. There was blurred motion at Kol’s side and then the android charged at the door too, a blaster raised. Five neon green flashes burned from the weapon. The projectiles filled the doorway. The gauntleted Shaper shot backwardy, but one of the blasts took him dead center in his helmeted face. Sir Rowan’s pupil launched himself backward too, his body suddenly ringed in rust-colored gas.
White, nail-less fingers curled around the man’s ankle and stopped him in the air.
Enoa had almost forgotten how Jim’s fellows could stretch. It was easy to disassociate their own confused sightseer with the androids that had almost killed them.
Jim stretched an arm backward and set the blaster inside the ship. The Shaper squirmed and kicked his free foot at Jim. The android seized the man’s other ankle and flipped him upside down in the air. Three orbs on the Shaper’s pack were glowing. Both Jim and the Shaper were obscured by gas.
“Ruby,” Orson called. “Is our decontamination system’s fan working?”
“All elements of the ship’s decontamination system are in appropriate working order,” Ruby said. “Would you like to hear the full results of the recent—”
“Thanks,” Orson said. “But we really just need the fan right now.” An electric hum began at the doorway and the gas billowed away from the door and the combatants
Jim still held the Shaper upside down, helmet toward the sand outside the ship. He drove the man head-first into the ground. And he did it again and again and again. The Shaper screamed. More colors of gas poured out from him, blue and gray and a noxious green. Everyone was silent until the Shaper stopped screaming and moving. Jim let him fall to the ground.
Then Jim turned back to them, chest and head concealed with the last of the Shaper’s emissions. His eyes glowed yellow through the poison.
“I have protected my crew.” Jim jumped back inside. “We did not invite those people inside our recreational vehicle.”
“You saved us, Jim!” Jaleel cheered.
“Very good, Jim,” Dr. Stan said.
“Thank you, Jim,” Enoa added.
“Yeah, good one.” Orson crouched low until he could slide his sword back into the sheath. Then he finally shut the door.
“The enemy neighbor was smoking,” Jim said. “I could smell that it was poison that would hurt my crew. I smell the poison on me now. I do not want to expose my crew to the thirdhand smoke.”
“That’s a really good call.” Orson took a step away from Jim. “How about I grab you a change of clothes. Can you get yourself cleaned up in the bathroom? We’ll be moving around.”
“I am a veteran roadtripper,” Jim said. “I can hit up the john on the go! Although I wish I could have seen the gift shop for a T-shirt before I change.”
The proximity alarm began, a sudden, sustained cry. Enoa looked to the world outside and sensed a power gathering in the air that stole her attention.
“Everyone, get buckled in!” Orson ushered Jim away. “Get us moving!”
Enoa just sat where she was, watching power gathering in the air like a fist clenched to strike from above. She was dimly aware of the Aesir thrumming to life, of the kick at her feet that meant the repulsors were active. But she didn’t really look out again with her eyes until the lightning blasted from the sky.
The lander-destroyer had broken clean through the ice pillars. It vomited Rifle Troopers and Blades Troopers onto the sand. Some rode on the backs of red or black bipedal machines, mechs with tall, barbed legs that buried themselves deep in the sand.
The lightning had stopped, just above it all, grappling with that ship’s own energy shield. Enoa saw nothing of the islanders on the beach. She looked for the students and defenders and survivors. She looked with all her senses, but she saw and sensed only the power of Liberty Corps Shapers and the living light of the Eye that hungrily stretched over all.
The new lightning bolt intensified. It did not rise all the way to the sky, heights unseen. It stayed suspended, forming below the Eye’s darkening power. More lightning joined it, three more bolts grew between shield and sky.
The destroyer’s energy field shattered with a flash that darkened the Aesir’s windshield. When it cleared, the lightning trees struck into the heart of the lander-destroyer. They thrust their roots deep, wrapping them all around the destroyer’s hull and burying thirsty tendrils to spark in the ocean.
Something exploded in the ship and the lightning shattered with it, broke apart and sizzled to the smoking ground. Now there were even more bodies on the sand, splayed and motionless. The other invading forces scattered.
“Why did they leave us alone?” Jaleel took the ship higher, angled the Aesir toward the wreckage and the Liberty Corps troops still gathered on the beach.
“They’d shoot at us if they could bring us down and not damage the keys,” Orson said. “They were terrified I’d destroy mine or lose it at Crystal Dune. That could give us an advantage. So let’s take our chance. I might have to risk using my HUD. But we need to find out who’s still alive down there.”
“Someone is alive,” Dr. Stan said. “I think they’re trying to reach us on the radio.” She raised her hand toward the dash. “I believe motion seen on this display means we’re receiving a signal.”
“That’s exactly what that means,” Orson said. “Jaleel, you can lower us back toward the ice again. Then open the radio please. Let's check it out.”
The radio came to life with a puff of static. Words could be heard immediately.
“...shelter as long as we can.” The speaking voice was low. It quavered, but kept its message to a steady pace. “Provide cover fire for escape from aircraft. Survived the explosion. Hope to reach you before reinforcements arrive.”
“Put me through,” Orson said.
“Ready,” Jaleel said.
“Hello, this is Wayfarer One,” Orson began. “Are you defenders of Knightschurch?”
“Wayfarer One.” A new voice answered – Harper spoke. “This is Ascendant Fire. We hoped to reach you this way again. A few of us escaped into the plane.”
“We were almost boarded,” Orson explained. “I’m sorry we missed the landing.”
“Can you give us cover with their troops so we can escape for the breach?” Harper asked. “If all of us escape inside, we have ways to stop them from following us. We need to act quickly. It could be their baron is listening.”
“Will do,” Orson said. “Actually, I for one hope Grover is listening. Unless he comes here himself, there’s not a damn thing he can to stop us. And I want to finish the conversation we started the other day.”
* * *
Baron Helmont watched his map of the future become real. He saw the black sand beach, littered with the bodies of fallen islanders, many dressed in simple tunics. The defenders lay dead with their hands still clutching vintage swords of common steel.
They’d had their tricks. The old power left behind by House Dommik rivaled many of the crafts of the modern world or the newborn future the Liberty Corps was building. The same could not be said for the islanders themselves, the common residents. Even some who seemed to be Shapers died in the barrage of blaster fire from the Rifle Corps.
If that was real, Helmont knew he would see the greatsword of the Fourth House. He would hold the chain of Sir Merrill’s key. Those images would also become truth.
“The map I began for this day wasn’t entirely complete.” Helmont did not address Greenley, but the ledgerman was the only other person standing in the private observation room. They stood together in the long chamber, all lined with screens displaying feeds of his battle group and the enemy forces. The others had yet to arrive. The others were preparing to confront their oncoming destinies.
“My lord?” Greenley asked.
“I didn’t see or didn’t notice the Muruch damaged when I observed these events in my meditations,” Helmont explained. “My attention was all on the beach and the defenders falling to us. Look at it. That ship will never leave the shore. Until I destroy the power that winds through everything on that island, none of us will be safe. We could kill every living thing to leave the protection of the ice, but while that power remains, we cannot take the island. That I didn’t forsee.”
No more power came from the sky to strike the troops gathered between the outer and inner ice. Watching the wall brought the Aesir into view, flying just above the clustered pillars. His troops and Cannon-mount mechs didn’t fire at the ship. They accepted their orders, but the ship was another thing outside his map.
Helmont had not seen the Aesir when he’d looked ahead. He’d seen no Orson Gregory, no Enoa Cloud, no Kol Maros, none of them were predicted by his map, there to complicate his business with the Fourth House. Just then, the ship flew out of sight behind the ice columns. Helmont sensed a wave of surprise from his forces, but they held firm in their positions. They did not fire on the Aesir and were not fired upon.
“My lord,” Greenley said. “A group of islanders has exited the plane. It appears Gregory’s ship is escorting them back to the egress point. The beach will soon be abandoned.”
“Move in all mechanized units,” Helmont said. “And make sure the Morgawr and the Morag are prepared to coordinate the Dactyls. I want as much confusion as possible for our arrival. I need all my attention on their lightning defense.”
“Do you believe your shuttle can withstand such an attack?” Greenley looked up from his datapad.
“It can with me.” Helmont sensed the knights and Shapers gathering outside before any had the time to make their presence known. There were twenty gathered there with more arriving all the time. He opened the door for them. “Come in. We have little time.”
“State yourselves for the recording of swords.” Greenley read the words from his datapad. It was a new procedure for the man, the first full roll-call statement since his elevation to ledgerman.
“I am Sir Vergil.” He entered first, the first among the knights, the nearest to Helmont’s own knowledge. “I study the sigaldry that raises common steel and makes it worthy of combat against the ancient fire. I followed the writing of ascension like the old houses knew and learned from it maps like our own lord and master found first. I have seven apprentices who have started down this path after me.”
“I am Sir Zarag.” All of his blades were sheathed and clanged together as he walked inside. “I study the bindings within us, where the third mystery meets the fourth. I can make a mountain from a feather and a feather of a man. Five still follow my path.”
“I am Sir Mordecai.” His armor hung loose, as if he expected to work his abilities at any moment. “I study myself.” There were chuckles from the gathering in the hallway, and Helmont smiled with them. “I study how much one body can change and be itself, how strong it can get and be itself, how strong we all could get if our minds were opened to the Dreamside Road. Two learned some of what I know, and they will join us.”
“I am Sir Geber.” The knight held his helmet under his arm, but both antennae twitched. It was like they danced in rhythm to his thoughts. “Many among us studied iron – iron to rebuild and to make a new war machine worthy of our legacy. I study the iron in all of us. I and my students have a will over the body, such as the one discovered and mastered by our lord baron.” He bowed to Helmont. “Four pupils joined my way and share some of my knowledge.”
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“I am Sir Tolem.” His segmented armor caught the light and shimmered, a hundred interlocking mirrors. “I also study iron, the micro, the smallest like my colleague Hiram studied the largest. Only one followed my knowledge, and he was maimed by our enemies.”
“You may have your chance at revenge,” Helmont said. “Our first priority is and will be Sir Merrill himself. I would prefer the Eye or the full force of our air support ends the Gregory problem for us, but he is crafty. If your paths cross, you have first privilege to kill him.” He gestured to the hallway outside. “Several of our circle have fallen to our enemies and the chaos that they have wrought among us. A beast who I inherited against my better judgment killed two of our number, but Sir Lezander and Sir Valdemar’s combined eleven pupils will join us in battle – as will the remaining six of Sir Ramon’s swordsman who stayed on this ship.” Cheers rose outside. “Most of Hiram’s class fell at the Pinnacle, but the fruits of their hard work even now fight on the beach. The same cannot be said of Sir Rowan, whose last pupil died less than an hour ago. Sir Adrian was with us too short a time to build a following of that kind.
“But together, united, we represent the culmination of a half-century dream. We have founded an enigmatic school built in the new world, mastering the knowledge of the Americas, not rooted in an obscure folk tradition. We made it real, by our sweat and blood and perseverance. Yes, we have been tested. Yes, some of us have fallen to chance and to the realities of conflict. We have others who might join our number. Operative Larks, Operative Divenoll, Operative Vril – all of you and more may rise to knighthood in this fight with the past. And all of us now chart a new path forward, a path to hold half of the keys to the Dreamside Road.
“This is our moment. This is what will decide whether we are the successors or simply a failed footnote in this ancient saga. Do not be distracted by Orson Gregory or his band of traitors and misfit vagabonds. Do not be distracted by the technology that we wield or that they may have stolen from the Hierarchia. The real conflict here is between only us and only Sir Merrill and his pupils. This is the struggle that the histories will care about. So lift your swords with me and we will etch our names into the sagas of myth in this modern time.”
Helmont raised his fist and his knights joined him. “LIBERTY CORPS FOREVER!” There were cries from the hall. During the cheering, two more entered the observation room’s open door.
The first was Sir Jarod, long cloak billowing all around him. “My own class is prepared and strong,” he said. “I am Sir Jarod. I study the flow and patterns of the world. I and my students hold the sea in our grip. No one will escape this island by the water. And we will command the Eye of Balor in our master’s absence. We understand its power now. We know it, and we’ll use it to swallow this entire island if we must.”
“The command is yours, Sir Jarod,” Helmont said. “All commands and leads will take your orders as if they were my own. The sea and the sky are seized already. The lands of Knightschurch will soon follow. The Dactyls and SawW-squadrons are prepared. The invasion force is landing, despite the loss of the amphibious destroyers. All moving into position.”
“Yes,” Sir Jarod said. “We’ve just received word from the research team. The Cobalt Nine test is complete. Even prolonged exposure did not de-energize our sample. The Eye will not destroy the Dreamside Road keys.”
“Then when the knowledge of Knightschurch is secure,” Helmont said. “When their two great powers, the living knight and the living legacy, are destroyed and our crews are returning - you may give the order. The Eye of Balor can destroy the rest, the islanders, the Aesir crew, and all.”
“Everything is ready for you to launch, my lord,” Sir Jarod added. “The Dactyls are prepared for the insertion. Anchors and tethers have gone unnoticed thus far.”
“How many have you placed?” Helmont asked.
“Four per hemisphere,” Sir Jarod said. “With more launching as the islanders present openings.”
“Add yet more according to the presented schematics,” Helmont ordered. “We need sufficient control to direct the Dactyls within the island’s protections. My shuttle and the crew carrier have no means to present the command.”
“I will not fail you.” Sir Jarod bowed.
“And what brings you here, Communications Tech?” Helmont looked to the second newcomer, a tech wearing black, a comm in his hands.
“My lord, we’ve received another transmission from the stolen comm of Sir Ramon.” The man stammered. “It is our enemy.”
“Gregory?” Helmont asked.
“Yes, my lord.” The tech held the comm away from himself as if it could infect him. Helmont reached out and took it from the man’s hand without touching it. The comm floated through the air and landed in his palm.
Helmont answered. “Mr. Gregory, coming here was a fatal mistake.”
“Is that really you, Grover?” Gregory asked. “I’m having a thought and I wanted to share it. I figured out why your Nine-flails was such a problem, but a lot of your other knights and Shapers haven’t been all that impressive.”
“He dishonors our brothers.” Sir Tolem clenched his fists, making his armor’s barbed segments clack together. “Another crime to die for.”
“Am I interrupting something?” Gregory asked. “I can call back in ten, fifteen minutes.”
“You fight with simple surprise.” Helmont ignored the joke. “You have a fool’s pride. You have no concept of your true place in things.”
“Nah,” Gregory answered with his usual smug humor. “I’ve known that for a long time. “The problem with your knights is they’re trained to fight groups of people even older than you are, ancient knights and magic warriors. I bet they’re actually pretty good at that. Except, that’s not who I am. I’ve got a new way of thinking and fighting and your boys with their memorized tricks just can’t keep up. They’re fighting me and mine, not some guy who died a hundred years ago. That’s just a last warning from me to you, Grover.”
“Do you believe you can use my father’s name as a weapon against me?” Helmont asked. All knights watched him. Everyone else listened from the hall, but Helmont did not switch on the comm’s speaker. He let the conversation stay mostly between the two of them. “I wasn’t thrown away by my father. My father would have been too smart to be a dupe for a simpleton pawn like Damien Cyprus.”
“Man, you don’t get this at all, do you?” Orson Gregory asked. “I don’t care about your old man, sounds like he was a pawn too though. From what we read about him in the files we stole from you, the poor guy fell into an old European lordship and all he got to be was the Hierarchia’s puppet. He was stuck out in the ocean with just his mad scientists and freaky henchmen, a rubber stamp for Hierarchia pricks who actually got to see their families. And then his only son turns into the same kind of man who used him. It’s kinda heartbreaking, but that’s just my read on it.”
Helmont thought of his father, the baron in a lordless land. He pictured the man as he’d last seen him, still years older than Helmont’s own present age. The old baron had gone from skinny to skeletal, but he traveled the atoll’s shores with cane in hand. He’d watched his domain. He’d held the line and minded his charges during all the long years of Helmont’s training. Baron Grover Melledge, Sr had lived to see his only son win the rapier, to win a power from the universe, old world magic with new world training. He’d persevered, a steadfast duty that a lifelong wanderer could never understand.
“You have no knowledge of purpose,” Helmont said. “The magpie would see the sentinel mastiff and think him trapped. But which is worth remembering?”
“That’s not totally what I was trying to get at either, Grover,” Orson Gregory continued. “I’m not here to have a poetry competition. My point is, everything you’ve got is because of your old man. You got into your fancy drug study during the actual successful test because your dad would only let you be a guinea pig when it was kinda safe. You got the sword because it’d raise you into the illegal noble shit. You got the holdfast for the same reason. You got the chance to study all your wild sword tricks and magic because you had the holdfast and the sword and were in the test that worked. You’re just Grover Junior. That’s it.
“But IN THIS CORNER – is me. Just the weapons I won and everything I learned on the Wayfarers Highway. You wanted to get at Sir Merrill, but the fight is between you and me. The man who’s only an heir vs the man who’s heir to nothing, but who earned everything. Everything I have I earned, and most of it you never touched. I have nothing on me you can grab with your Tactum.”
“My maps show me more than what I’ve touched.” Helmont found real cause to smile. He could feel the knights relax around him at the sight of his gleeful certainty. “My maps show me things that are yet to come.”
“Good for you,” Orson said. “I don’t think you’ll survive the death of the Liberty Corps and everything you’ve built in your whole life. But if you do, you can spend your golden years as a strip mall fortune teller.”
Sir Tolem gasped. The others stayed quiet, but the room filled with heat. It was hotter every moment, anger-born entropy from a room of Shaped meditations. Somewhat careless of them, Helmont had to note, but bloodlust remained useful.
“When I saw events to come,” Helmont continued. “I saw all things of consequence. I saw this island. I saw it fall. I saw Sir Merrill’s power. I saw myself – the victor holding his key. I didn’t see you. The road through the times to come had no place for Orson Gregory. If the bindings of all things see no role for you, how long can you survive? Purposeless. The man without destiny holding Thousand Destiny.
“I and my knights do hope to see you. My former offer of clemency is gone, like all my offers of mercy. I will plummet your crew, the children you brought into this conflict, the traitor Maroses, the fleeing rat Stanislakova, and then you. If the maps of coming times see no place for you, Orson Gregory, I will set the universe back in its true order when I finally kill you.”
Helmont reached into the mechanism of the comms, the unseen web that tied all of them together. He found the one that Gregory held, just inside the breach into Knightschurch. With a twist of his mind, wires crossed inside it. It sparked and smoked. The comm Gregory held was gone.
Helmont laughed then and not a controlled, polite gesture. He let himself free of his decorum and enjoyed real celebration. He’d almost forgotten the sound of his own full laughter. His knights joined in nervously.
He let them take their moments too. All had earned it, and they would earn it tenfold in the battle to come.
When their laughter faded, Helmont said. “I believe our ride should be waiting for us.”
* * *
“Don’t be mad, but I have to litter.” Orson held the smoking remains of the comm. It was hot even through his glove. He tossed it through the breach and to the sand outside.
“What are you doing?” Harper still held her dagger above her head, even as the final survivors and defenders passed between the ice and returned inside.
“I have the baron right where I want him,” Orson said. The sound of the wheeled ballistas and trebuchets moved along the stone rampart, as they were placed into position. “I pissed off Helmont enough that he destroyed the comm I stole.” The last survivors carried a man between them on a stretcher. His face was so massed with blood that Orson could not see where he was wounded. A final row of guards followed after them. They backed through the breach, shields held together.
“The baron can attack you in here and this makes you happy?” Harper walked through the breach. Orson followed her.
Orson’s ears popped. The sounds of battle suddenly blasted all around them. The Aesir floated close above the opening, sending metal and fire into the sand beneath the columns. The Liberty Corps had raised more of their massive iron shields. The shaped barriers grew and curved up and around the troopers. The shields were bulbous and barbed now like overgrown crustaceans’ shells. All Liberty Corps forces took cover behind them, even the gangly stilt-mechs.
Neon blasts shot from between the iron barriers, but most flew wide or glanced away from the Aesir’s rad shield. None of the blasts came as far as Orson or Harper.
“I figured Helmont could get at it,” Orson said. The power from the Eye of Balor had all but swallowed the darkened sky. Beyond, the sun had set. Orson saw no starlight or moonlight. Only the pulsing red lit the sky.
“Helmont would’ve touched a Liberty Corps comm. That’s his whole deal, he calls it Tactum from the Latin or whatever, but now I have him on edge. He's using his powers just to try and intimidate me. Once these sorcerer lords start using their powers just to be scary, I’ve got my fingers in their armor.”
“Lunacy,” she said. She raised her hand toward the breach, palm outward. Eight figures ran outside. They carried what looked like ceramic picture frames, tall and broad enough to fit fine paintings in an art gallery. Each carried many, looped around their arms.
“I’m a loon, but you want to keep out heavy artillery by making a sandcastle?” Orson snorted.
“The sand will be compacted as stone,” Harper said. “It’s the next best thing to properly mending our frozen rampart, which would require spellcraft that none of us alive know how to replicate. But this will add earth to those defenses.”
“Add earth and trap us in there,” Orson said.
“There will be openings enough for vessels,” Harper answered, “like your ship and the parcel carriers, once they’re running. Or for the explosives from our artillery. There will be no moving the last skyliner while the Eye of Balor’s power blocks us.” She motioned again to the guards with their picture frames. They set the frames end to end, so they filled all the gap between the broken ice.
The ground moved under Orson’s feet. He missed his repulsor and the power to fly away from anything that could catch him on the ground.
Stone rose from the frames. New pillars erupted into the sky with a rush of heat. Orson braced himself again, until the stone towered over them and filled all the breach. It pressed to both sides of jagged ice.
Orson hit his own comm. “We’re set. You can stop harassing them.”
“Aye-aye!” Jaleel answered. The Aesir turned away from the pinned Liberty Corps troops and their shields. It swerved back toward them.
An explosion burst against the ship’s shield strong enough to jar the Aesir in the air. The explosion’s fire flowered and wrapped around the shield. Orson winced at sudden shouts through his comm.
He pressed himself back to the ice and looked toward the attack. A massive stilt mech approached along the wall. It was mottled white to blend into the ice beside it. Orson had to see it in profile to watch it, but he heard it. The mech let out sounds like ice breaking and a whoosh that could hide with the sea wind. But it was fast.
The mech maneuvered the verticle terrain at a bizarre, bowlegged run, appearing from around a curve of the ice. Its two long legs ended in barbed spikes that punctured the wall and held it firm for the next step. The mech’s cockpit let out the whoosh as it spun on a gyroscope that turned as the legs moved. Its pilot and any few passengers it held would always be sitting upright.
“Grab the wall-builders, Aesir.” Orson drew his sword. “I have this guy.” He ran toward the machine, skirting the ice. He wished again for his repulsor boot. The mech ran along the wall, thirty feet up.
Orson’s sensors beeped shrill in his ears. He sprinted, just as the mech opened fire. He couldn’t see where the thing’s guns were, but the sand all around him popped and burst into clouds of dust.
Still running, Orson took out his sword’s new disruptor. He fit it to the place where hilt met fire. The fire grew and burned until it was ragged at the edges. He held the blade away from himself and it blazed far out over the sand. He swung the sword in an arc to take the mech between cockpit and legs.
The bullets finally caught him.
Two struck him in the armor through the coat. The fat slugs came so fast that Orson actually felt the rapid wave of displaced force race from the impact and all across the hidden armor plates. He staggered away, blade still outstretched.
The stream of projectiles turned away from him and spun back along the wall. Orson followed it and found a shape moving even with the mech, running across the vertical ice. Orson recognized Harper when she moved higher, still running sideways. She dodged the bullet stream. With a green flash, the dagger flew from her hand.
The mech’s cockpit spewed smoke when the dagger took it. Then it made a new sound, a strained whine. Orson hurried away, expecting the entire mech to topple to the sand.
Only the gyroscope cockpit fell, separate from the legs. There was a scream as it dropped, but then it shattered on the ground and all fell silent.
The cockpit hull changed color, turning black to match the sand. Even the broken metal had some chameleon quality. The machine’s still-white legs remained buried in the wall. They hung limp, but the spikes did not let go.
Harper ran straight down the ice face. She took long leaping steps, propelling herself by the balls of her booted feet. She arrived on the sand beside Orson.
“Nice move,” he said.
“You really do this all the time, don’t you?” She asked. “You were prepared to be shot, and apparently you have protections that can genuinely guard against serious armament. And you can manipulate one of the rarest weapons in the world to do something it was never meant to do.”
“The disruptor was a gift.” He laughed to himself. “You didn’t do bad dodging that thing either.”
She looked about to respond, but then the ice near them warped and twisted open. It made the unzipping noise, but it was slight. And the new doorway wasn’t quite large enough to stand upright. A figure hunched in the doorway, one of the Knightschurch guards.
“This way!” he shouted. “More mechs are approaching! Come inside so we can attack!” They ran to him.
This path through the ice seemed longer. Orson felt pressure through his sinuses and both ears popped again when he returned into the island’s interior. In that short time outside, everything had taken on a reddish tinge. All the walls and ceiling seemed to reflect the Eye’s glow.
He arrived at a break in the stone rampart beside one of the canals. Ramps rose on his either side toward the inner wall. He counted eight artillery weapons, and he recognized two tall trebuchets, but didn’t know the rest.
The Aesir met them as they rounded the side of the stone line. It flew from a space above the sealed breach and set down on the grass.
“How many explosives do you carry with you on your little ship?” Harper stopped beside the door.
Orson jumped inside. “Honey, I’m home!” He called, sarcastically.
“Who is Honey?” Jim asked from an armchair. “I have not been introduced to someone named ‘Honey’.”
“It’s a joke, Jim,” Orson said.
“I want one of those walkers,” Jaleel said. “If I take one of the little ones, can we tie it to the roof like a Christmas tree?”
“Don’t count on it,” Orson said. He found most of his crew at the controls. Enoa was meditating on the couch. “I don’t think any of them are coming through in one piece.”
Orson walked to one of the back storage lockers, placed high on the wall where the kitchen area met the bunks. From inside, he drew out five cases. They were long and black, and they felt like plastic, but weren’t.
“Are we going through the explosives collection now?” Jaleel asked. “I missed out on looting the Liberty Corps, but this can make up for it.”
“Aren’t you needed here?” Max asked him. “There are only two of you who can really fly this ship.”
“You are needed there,” Orson set the cases at the edge of the cabin, beside the open door. “If we live you can help me get more bombs. How does that sound?” Jaleel grumbled something inaudible. “I thought I was all out of disruptors but here are a few more.” He opened a case to be sure, saw the circular marking on the inside and the perfect silver spheres it held. “They can knock out most machines. They mess with their electromagnetic fields. Your siege weapons should be able to launch them, if your timing is good. They’ll leave the Liberty Corps’s hovering tanks stuck in the sand.” He sealed the case.
“These are your standard impact detonators.” The next case held thin gray cylinders, with ridges running around the center. “I don’t know how they’ll do honestly. But they’ve sat up there for years so they’re yours.”
“If these explosives...” Harper approached the disruptor case cautiously. “If they’re different, how will the crews prepare for these specific types of explosions.”
“I’ll come along and help you get set up.” He tapped the final three cases. “These are the best of all.” The middle case opened to show black spheres, opaque like rock. They glowed red, almost volcanic. “Trapped fire. Made just for me.”
“Sigalder-trapped fire?” Harper asked. “Made for you? Who knows how to make these?”
“My girlfriend’s a fire elemental,” Orson said. “These things were a real bitch to make, as I understand it. She took some scrolls from the House Lockshaw when the crew we were in fought them and their guild. I'm only giving you about half of those. Make them count.” Harper stared at him for another moment, in puzzlement or concern. Then he handed her the disruptors and the impact grenades. “It’s only about twenty extra shots total, but it’s something at least.” He returned the fifth case to the locker, then picked up the other two as he jumped from the ship. “I’ll be back!”
Orson saw no sign of the plane’s rescued passengers. He saw no one, except for the forces on the stone rampart, preparing and moving their antique weapons. As Orson watched, the ice zipped open above one of the trebuchets, just as the weapon’s mechanisms began to work. A chunk of gray rock flew from the weapon and out the opening. There was a distant crash, but the sound was cut short by the ice zipping shut again.
“Not a bad system.” Orson followed Harper up to the rampart and past more of the artillery crews. He saw that the trebuchets only had a handful of stone pieces. The massive ballistas had only a few metal missiles stacked near them. “Maybe a few more shots can help you clear out some of your beach.”
“We can only hope.” Harper said. “You are a bizarre man, Captain, but we all thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he answered. “Hopefully...”
Another new sound cut him off. It was like thunder that didn’t stop, a sudden, tornadic rolling that went on and on, booming above them all. Orson looked up when the light started flashing. He thought one of the island’s lightning trees was forming to fight something. But the electric power blinked on and off like a strobe light, chasing an object that glowed bright enough to be seen through the ice.
Orson watched the object fly toward the clear space above the cathedral. Was it really a gap, open to the sky, visible only from below?
The gap flashed with lightning and with a pale red glow that matched the power of the Eye. Orson could see the space clearer with the new illumination. It was ice, but transparent like a window.
The glowing object sent a red flash at the clear space, hitting hard enough to shake the entire ceiling and send tiny crystals fluttering down, soft as snow. The ice let out a desperate shriek that Orson felt in his bones. It sounded like agony, the wounded ceiling fighting to hold itself together. A crack raced along the once clear space.
“Taric.” Harper held her Talking Stone. “Taric, what’s happening? What is this?”
The thing in the sky blasted the clear ice again. The ice broke with a roar and fell in chunks, tearing away with segments of the white ceiling. The falling ice shattered against the cathedral’s roof and in the courtyard far below.
Then Baron Helmont’s bell-shaped shuttle flew inside the ice of Knightschurch. It was pursued by lightning and followed by a horde of Dactyl drones.