Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  “Right, you lot are going to transport prisoners and the wounded off this little hill.”

  Again the unsettling synchronised nod.

  “Help the security team as they come.” As an afterthought I added, “You won’t be needing these to do that.”

  I yanked the weapons from their limp grasps, staggering a few as the straps tugged free of their slack shoulders. A tangled ball of firearms drifted towards me as I turned back to the thoroughly befuddled Hadlynne.

  “Daria’s put them under some sort of spell.” I jerked my head toward the assembled thralls. “At least they are out of the way.”

  “Could they fight?”

  “Probably. But I don’t know how long Daria’s hold lasts or how strong it is. I’d rather have them unarmed and out of the way than armed and possibly turning in the middle of the fight.”

  “Fair ’nuff,” He nodded then cast an eye to the floating pile of guns. “Best pick yer cream o’ that lot, then let’s move. Still got to addle our brass in this fight.”

  I shook my head at the Yorkshireman, a smile spreading across my face.

  “I’m getting the cream right now.”

  Streams of liquid metal flowed toward me, crawling up my body to form armour and wings.

  ---

  Hadlynne and I worked our way inwards, passing several of the security team securing knots of Inconquo-blooded. They looked around as though struggling to shake off a dream. Their hands were bound and they were frog-marched toward the ziggurat stairs. I searched for Uncle Iry among their number, but a scream of men in pain forced me to rush on ahead.

  Two of the security team were frantically prying at the barrels of their combat rifles, now wrapped around their throats. Their faces were beginning to purple as a slight teenager wearing only a pair of athletic shorts stood over them, a cruel grin spread over his deeply tanned face.

  I sent two blades of thought to part the barrels and gather the metal to me as Hadlynne fired his taser. The paired darts were millimetres from the youth’s skin when the Inconquo snared them in midair.

  That was impressive, as even I struggled with fast-moving projectiles. The teen’s glee turned to rage at our interruption of his fun. My metal-shod body shot forward as two of my wings arced overhead like twin scorpion tails.

  The young Inconquo’s eyes widened, and he threw himself backward, at the same time his power lashed out to drive the wings away. He may have been quick, but even without the rings, I had more raw power. With the rings, he could no more stop me than if he kicked a football to stop a speeding car. The wings thumped into his chest, knocking him flat.

  I landed with a clang of bronze encased heels hitting stone. As I wrapped steel wreathed fingers around his throat something ugly and hateful twisted behind his eyes, and I felt a will behind his push against me.

  The youth squirmed in my metal-hardened grip as I looked into his eyes and felt Ninurta, or at least part of him, staring back at me.

  “I’m coming for you, old man,” I snarled.

  I felt Ninurta’s will rush into this unfortunate vessel, but my armoured head snapped forward into the Inconquo’s face, and the lad fell from my hand poleaxed.

  Hadlynne secured the unconscious boy’s bonds while the two security team members got to their feet massaging their throats. They motioned us onward. I spared a glance at the young bloodied face, but I didn’t have time to wonder how much had been Ninurta and how much had been the boy.

  Hadlynne let me take lead as we continued toward the centre of the ziggurat. Ten-foot tall statues of gods and monsters, worked from various metals, were like shrines ringing the broad stone walkway that encircled a bowl-shaped depression.

  Screams continued to echo around us and I felt the ripples and psychic pressures of wills at work. I tried to pinpoint them and gauge their strength, but there was too much movement by foreign minds. Then my metallic sense drew my attention to something else: a will that had to be Ninurta’s. A level of power and control I could never dream of was knitting the exploded seams of copper together again. The thorough devastation of Kezserak’s fury made the work slow, but soon it would be repaired enough for Ninurta to resume channelling power toward the Earth’s core.

  Time was slipping through our fingers.

  A group of Inconquo-blooded staggered up from the centre of the ziggurat, looking as confused as those we’d seen earlier.

  A massive blow smashed me to the ground, knocking the breath from my body. My metal-encased frame was driven down hard enough to crack stone; only instinctive reinforcements and the power of the rings kept me from becoming paste.

  A stout woman in workman’s coveralls appeared, holding a crudely fashioned club of bronze sized right for an ogre. Her power thrummed through the metal weapon raised for a blow meant to drive me into the basement of the ziggurat.

  There was a sharp snap and the two wired barbs of a taser landed in her side. The club fell from her grip, landing heavily enough that I felt the impact through the stones. A second later the woman herself folded over, her body curling up like paper before a flame.

  “Thanks,” I said as my wings propelled me to my feet.

  Hadlynne nodded in recognition, beginning to smile, but the expression died on his face as his eyes bulged at the sight of something behind me.

  I whirled, wings raised. An enormous grey foot stomped down on me. My wings interlocked to form a hedge of protection, even as the towering body behind the foot bore down. Sparks flew off my metal appendages as they were ground down, forcing me into a crouch.

  The pressure redoubled, but I drove two of my wings down into the stone and the braced shield held. Metallic senses reported that I was under attack by one of the immense statues, composed mostly of tin and being driven by an Inconquo who’d hollowed out a space inside.

  The percussive chatter of a rifle firing reached my ears over the screech of metal on metal.

  “Oi, eyes up ye ketty bast’rd!” Hadlynne roared before another blast from his weapon. “T’ink yer ’ard do yeh? I’m Sammy Hadlynne, ’ardest baller ever was! Learn me name! Sammy! Hadlynne!”

  The rifle barked again, shots plinking off of the statue.

  He had to know he couldn’t hurt the statue, but as the pressure slackened I understood. More shots rebounded off the statue, and the huge mass of metal turned toward Hadlynne, cocking the foot to one side.

  All six wings flared outward as I seized the opportunity and propelled myself out from under the foot. Taking to the air, I swept around to smash feet-first into the statue’s chest. The metal figure gave a groan and I rode it down to the stones as it toppled backward. A spiderweb of cracks bloomed out from under the fallen colossus.

  Channelling burning streams of willpower into two wings, I excited the molecules until they glowed with forge-heat. They swept downward, carving through the tin arms rising to bat me away, leaving smoking stumps. I felt the Inconquo within the statue losing focus and seized upon the weakness, plunging both wings into the dented chest. Molten tin bubbled and spat as I ripped the statue’s chest open. As my prying wings reached the cavity where the Inconquo hid, I felt their hold on the metal sever like a cord being snapped. With a final roar of exertion, I split the statue open and watched a small grey-haired woman in a stained business suit tumble out. Her body was limp, but her narrow chest rose and fell gently as she lay on the splintered stonework.

  Hadlynne’s cheer was cut short by an awful crunching sound.

  Spinning, I saw the stout woman tottering, hands wrapped around the cudgel that was atop Hadlynne’s broken body.

  A defiant, vengeful scream tore from my throat and my power reached out to yank the bludgeon from the woman. I didn’t care if her hands came with it, so hot was my wrath.

  But the club didn’t fly into my hands like it should have.

  It lurched up into the air then hung there, still in her hands but suspended between her power and mine. Grinding my teeth I pulled harder, and the club bearer staggered
a few steps toward me, but then a fresh push of will stopped her advance. Blood began to seep from her eyes and nose from the strain, and past her crimson tears I again saw Ninurta, sneering at me.

  “Monster,” I spat and slammed my will down with all the force the rings could muster.

  The club twisted and then came apart with the screech of shearing metal. The Inconquo crumpled, blood flowing freely as her eyes rolled up into her skull.

  I raced over to Hadlynne, but before I knelt at his side I could see that he was gone. He stared vacantly toward the centre of the ziggurat. I forced myself to follow his gaze. My heart ached, and my soul was sick, but I had a job to do. I whispered my thanks as I rose and swore that his death would mean something.

  My wings opened and I took to the air to sail down into the ziggurat’s heart, an angel descending into the devil’s domain.

  20

  Ninurta sat on his throne frantically fusing seams of copper together.

  The depression formed a kind of amphitheatre around him. Knots of Inconquo-blooded milled about, still under Ninurta’s stupefying compulsion. They looked up at me with faces torn between bewilderment and terror. When Ninurta and I came to blows, his spell would not hold and they would flee.

  I could not afford distraction, so I fought the urge to look for Uncle Iry.

  Now I had to trust that Daria and Sark were near enough for this to work. I kept two wings folded protectively in front while the other four beat the air with thrumming strokes.

  “Ninurta!”

  The demigod looked up, resplendent in his ancient finery of robes and decadent jewellery. His cruel mouth twisted into a hungry smile as he reclined in his throne and leered up at me.

  “Pretty birds belong in pretty cages.” He cocked one arm up on the arm of his throne and rested his head upon gilded knuckles. “I wondered where you’d flown off to, little one, but I am glad to see that you’ve come back to me.”

  I settled in the air a handful of metres above him, glaring down at his attempt at nonchalance. I could feel his mind withdrawing the foundations. He could croon and chuckle all he wanted, but he knew he was in for a fight.

  “This ends now,” I declared, raising my voice to fill the amphitheatre. “The madness, the death, the domination. All of it stops today.”

  Ninurta threw back his head and laughed. “Really? You act as though I am an evil tyrant to be toppled, but your modern world is infested with a thousand petty despots. Small men and women with small ambitions. I am not here to oppress humanity, but to save it. If you could humble yourself and open your eyes, you would see the truth.”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. “A megalomaniac talking about humility. Now there’s an informed opinion.”

  Ninurta shook his head and slowly rose from his throne, linen robes flowing around his powerful frame like an ivory waterfall. “I am not a proud man, just an honest one.”

  He gestured at the huddling groups around the amphitheatre. “Humanity has lost its way. It fell from the path of ascension that began with me. One of evolution’s million failures. For all its marvels and toys, humanity is merely a collection of apes beating their chests at what they can bully and cowering from what they cannot.”

  He looked up, his face pleading. His voice was soft, rich and pained, as if his heart was breaking. “I deserve better, you deserve better, and indeed all of humanity deserves better. So I will set things right, even if I must bear the burden, the crushing weight that such choices require. If there is to be any hope for our species, someone must dare to reach for a brighter future no matter the consequences.”

  This was a monster’s justification, the sort of lie a fanatic told himself to escape responsibility for his actions. I wanted to rebut, but I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’d even listened his ramblings.

  “You talk too much.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Why don’t you get to dropping meteors already.”

  Ninurta shook his head at the taunt, sparing me a condescending smile. “I don’t think anything as dramatic as that is called for,” he replied. “And you should listen with more than just your ears, Inconquo.”

  There was an eruption of broken stone, and four kraken worthy tentacles of copper burst from the floor around his throne to reach for me.

  I hadn’t sensed him drawing some of the seams up from the ziggurat’s bowels, but the fact that he was desperate enough to use them to attack me, despite their importance to his plan, put a smile on my face as I dodged the flailing metal.

  I darted around one, slipped by a second, and managed to deflect a third with my wings before the fourth tendril sent me spinning toward the floor. I tried to right myself, but the other tendrils rallied to buffet me over and over until I crashed down before the throne.

  Ninurta sprang down the last few steps, landing in front of me, light and agile as a cat, and then kicked me squarely in my armoured face. Even protected, my head snapped back with the force of the blow, and I went tumbling over my wings. I skidded to a stop, my wings biting into the stone floor and forcing me upright.

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” I straightened my wings with a flex of mental power and faced him squarely.

  The four tendrils slithered back into their holes.

  “Oh. I think you know I can.”

  A flash of metallic awareness saved me and I sprang into the air a fraction of a second before the tendrils erupted again, opening a yawning hole in the floor where I had been standing. I accelerated upward as they flailed after me before turning sharply and diving down into their midst.

  I heated two of my wings with that searing power again, thankful that the tempered steel from the firearms could withstand the incredible temperatures. I hacked and hewed as I spun and bounced amongst the writhing tendrils. The copper did not succumb like the tin, but with each stroke it warped and began to run. I shunted a thrust of mental power through the rings to drive the tendrils into one another; within seconds they became a knotted clinging mass, twisting violently against itself.

  A hiss of frustration rose from Ninurta as he reached out to disentangle the tendrils. Knowing I had scant seconds, I burst out from the morass and made a beeline for the distracted demigod.

  Two blazing wings in front, two ready to shield me, and two churning the air, I piled into him with all I could muster. The blazing wings cut smouldering gashes in his robes before lodging in his shoulders, pinning his arms back, as my armoured fists drove into his chest. I savoured his look of surprise as I drove him back toward his throne. His foot struck against the steps and he fell, landing hard on his back with a clang.

  Digging the sharp tips of my wings deeper in to his metal-infused flesh, I prepared to pile-drive a fist into his face.

  With a wet, bestial snarling sound he twisted underneath me, wrenching free at the same time kicking upward. Committed to my heavy swing, the kick between my legs sent me crashing into the steps fist first as he slid out from under me. The impact would have snapped bones had it not been for my protective shell, but pain radiated up my arm and into my shoulder, making me grit my teeth.

  Before I could rise, Ninurta sprang on my exposed back, gathering my wings like flower stems in huge hands. I tried to twist away, to swivel my wings, to break free or at least stab at him but his grip, both physical and mental, was inescapable. Metal squealed and tines snapped with sharp plinks as his grip tightened. I kicked while scrambling for purchase on the stone, but he laughed at my feeble efforts before raising me up by my wings to smash me against the steps.

  The first impact struck like a gong. My armour held. But he slammed me down again, and again, until I felt like battered jelly inside my dented armour and the stone of the steps caked me in a fine powder.

  “I don’t think you will need these anymore,” he growled next to my ear in that awful leonine voice. I tried to form thoughts to fight back, but all I could do was keep the metal around me by sheer instinct. He planted a foot on my back, bearing do
wn as he pulled upward.

  I held onto the twisted metal that had been my wings as hard as I could, but felt my hold coming apart millimetre by millimetre. I heard metal tearing a second before my will gave way. My mind staggered, reeling as an aching numbness washed over me and I blacked out.

  I came to as I crashed down next to the wound in the floor where the mangled copper tendrils still writhed. Skidding across the stones, my metal skin kicked up sparks.

  “You could have been a queen!”

  I looked up with bleary eyes to see Ninurta stalking forward, muscles rolling with predatory elegance. “I offered you the world, and you rejected it.”

  Despite the rings channelling inward, I was recovering more quickly than I had any right to. Control over my armour was awkward, the metal shell stiffened in places, making my motions jerky.

  He loomed over me, a colossus of muscle and bone, every fibre having the strength of steel. Swelling behind his incredible physical presence was the shadow of his titanic power. I was hopelessly, absurdly, outmatched.

  “Ungrateful insect.” His voice was as flat and cold as a razor blade.

  He reached out, pushing past my defence, rings or not. His fingers sank into the gunmetal skin as though it were cloth, twisting the brass frame beneath so it bit into my skin. I lashed out with sharp kicks that rang off his shins and knees with dull clangs.

  He drilled down into the fabric of the armour and severed my connection with a single savage twist of power. I looked into his chilling stare and saw nothing but contempt as he tore the metal skin from my body in one sharp pull. The metal parted like rotten lace, small spurs raking my arms and face.

  I reeled backward and realised with horror that I was at the edge of the tunnel where the tendrils writhed. My heels scuffed the jagged edge.

  Before I could right myself, Ninurta’s hand shot out and closed around my throat. He drew me from the edge and off my feet to look him in the eye. My fingers dug at his crushing fingers as my legs kicked feebly, but I might as well have been clawing at an iron vice.