by Frank Morin
Melding those sounds into the mix reinforced it, and added a thin layer of protection around the exterior that prevented her from stripping the other elements away.
Queen Dreokt actually paused, hands raised, long whips of elements coiling up into the air above her. She looked surprised, and maybe a little impressed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Connor wasn’t about to waste the precious second of advantage.
He struck back. Using the sound of Verena’s beloved voice, he drove it at her mind, striking simultaneously with chert. Her mental shielding proved effective against chert, but she wasn’t ready for the secondary strike with serpentinite. Connor increased the frequency of the sound into ranges impossible to achieve by simple vocal chords, right up to the supercharged point he’d discovered could immobilize muscles.
The soundwave struck like an invisible club, washing over the queen and freezing her. She stiffened, and her elemental assault wavered.
Down on the ground, Evander-giant bellowed a victorious cry that shook the air under Connor’s feet. It flipped the pedra elfonnel onto its back and slammed all four of his fists into the monster’s head. The beast desperately raked at Evander-giant, tearing out enormous gashes of earthen flesh with every strike, but the gashes healed instantly. He crouched over the monster, pinning the head down with his knees and pummeling that head over and over with all four arms in an ever-increasing tempo.
Queen Dreokt wrenched at Connor’s serpentinite, but he held on with all his strength, keeping her temporarily immobile. He struck her with both stilling and sensory deprivation again, while driving at her mind with chert. The multi-pronged attack finally pushed her onto the defensive.
He could sense her annoyance. That was super frustrating! What would it take to make her feel at least worried? She seemed more like a parent irritated at an unruly child than someone engaged in a death battle. He sensed she was also annoyed that her pedra elfonnel was struggling. She’d been convinced it could destroy Evander as easily as she expected to beat Connor.
She might be convinced of victory, but couldn’t she at least respect him a little?
So he cast at her mind every single bit of Sentry speak he could ever remember hearing. He added all of the lines he had ever invented, culminating in one of his favorites. “The sweetbread that falls off the tray and gets kicked under the oven is eaten only after the rest are consumed.”
That one had even annoyed Evander. He’d been affronted that Connor hadn’t imbued it with seventeen deeper levels of meaning.
As her mental shielding wavered under the barrage of cryptic Sentry speak he clearly sensed her thought. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Exactly what Evander had said. Connor considered that a great victory.
Down on the plain, the pedra elfonnel’s head finally imploded under the brutal rain of blows, and its enormous body twitched and seemed to dissolve into the ground. Evander-giant raised his four fists in triumph and bellowed again. Connor exulted. He’d done it. Fleshcrafting was about to disappear.
Although she was immobilized from serpentinite, stilling, and sensory deprivation, the queen must have still sensed the death of her elfonnel. Either that or she picked up on it from Connor’s thoughts.
“You stupid boy!” she shrieked into his mind, attacking in a convulsive heave of every affinity.
Connor prided himself on melding multiple affinities, but not even he had ever mixed so many at the same time. The onslaught swept aside the bonds he was holding around her and unleashed an explosion of elements the blasted apart his shielding. The sheer intensity of it nearly knocked him out. It clobbered him like a tree trunk swung by both Erich and Anika at the same time, blasting the air from his lungs and tumbling him away through the air.
As the view spun wildly around him and he tried desperately to regain presence of mind, she struck right through his distracted thoughts, her mind voice shrieking like a million tea kettle’s bubbling over. “I will not allow you to destroy my life’s work!”
The words seemed to bounce around in his head, immobilizing him as completely as he had recently immobilized her. The air around him became a giant, grasping hand that caught him and hurled him back at her. She waited for him, her expression like a thundercloud.
In fact, thunderclouds were gathering above her, and Connor sensed the wild turbulence of her connection to the elements. They had drawn so deep from so many elements, the entire area was destabilizing, and a huge storm was building. If they didn’t stop soon, it might unleash terrible destruction across the land.
Connor shook himself free of the debilitating effects of her mental strike just in time to raise his hands to meet her. If only he’d managed to supercharge granite again for another super punch. He’d see if she could survive his fist bursting right through the back of her skull like it had her chest.
Despite lacking much preparation, he was still moving really fast, so he tapped granite and swung with all his strength.
She caught his fist.
His entire body jerked like a fish yanked on a stout line as she completely stopped his forward momentum. He groaned from the abuse. If he hadn’t been max-tapping granite, that jolt might have ripped joints. Her skin seemed to burn with an inner fire, and her grip was like iron shackles around his wrist. He was strong enough that he should be able to wrestle her to a standstill, but she had tapped some deeper well of strength, as if she also knew how to supercharge granite.
So Connor punched with his other hand.
She caught that one too.
Then she head-butted him again, not quite as strong as last time, but strong enough to still rattle his brain and crack his skull again. She should try new tricks.
Then she ripped his arms off.
Connor gaped, his mind blank, simply unable to process the unexpected horror of what she’d just done to him.
Blood gushed out of his shoulders, although it slowed remarkably fast. He couldn’t believe she’d just done that. He’d been injured on many occasions, but he’d never imagined such a horrific, fundamental injury. She’d just broken him, torn him apart.
He had to do something, but all he could do was stare in mute horror from one side to the other, trying to accept the truth of what had happened. As if from a great distance, he heard Verena scream, and that sound reinforced his own stunned shock. His entire body trembled, and his veins felt like they were filled with ice. He couldn’t speak, started to hyperventilate, and his legs buckled.
Queen Dreokt seized him with another invisible fist of air, holding him upright before her. He should be able to fight that restraint, but his mind wasn’t working. His affinities felt fractured and ethereal.
She tossed his limbs aside with a negligent flip, seized him by the front of his battle jacket, and hissed into his face. “Your doom is confirmed. I will shackle your mind and you personally will torture to death everyone you’ve ever loved.”
This couldn’t be happening.
Connor needed to retreat, to think of a way to fight, but he just couldn’t. It was too much.
Queen Dreokt struck his mind, a brutal blow that rattled his mental defenses. He wanted to scream at her to stop, to give him a minute. She’d just ripped off his arms, for Tallan’s sake! Beating him more was nothing short of evil.
She struck again, then again, battering at his mental shields so hard and so fast that he couldn’t rally his defenses. He needed time to process what had happened, but he wasn’t going to get it.
She breached his mental shields and plunged a dagger of thought into his mind.
Excruciating pain exploded through his thoughts, far more intense than the physical agony of getting his arms ripped off. He was insulated from the full intensity of physical pain through fleshcrafting, but that mental pain exploded through his mind with undiminished power. He screamed, his thoughts scattered, and the pain blinded him.
Her voice smashed through his thoughts like ten thousand thunderclaps, filled with fury and disgust. �
��Now you finally understand the truth. I tried so hard, but you wanted this. Now cower in there, you unworthy child, and enjoy the fruits of your rebellion.”
Then she tossed him aside like a rag doll. He fell, and air did not form under him as it had done moments before. Simple wind rushed past his ears as he plummeted helplessly toward the ground several hundred feet below.
He needed to think, to react, but pain seared every thought, turning his vision white, hurting so bad he couldn’t even scream. His connection with the elements wavered as he huddled in terror in his own mind as she continued torturing his thoughts from afar. It was like she had unleashed an evil rampager into his mind to rend and tear and keep him beaten down.
He sensed himself falling, but couldn’t seem to muster the strength to catch himself. As the ground rushed up to meet him, Connor wailed with fear in the dark recesses of his broken mind.
He’d been a fool to think he could defeat the queen. He was going to die.
Verena would die next, and it was his fault.
41
The Second Skin
Hamish loved the unrivaled freedom of flight, and exulted in the chance to pit himself against the queen’s summoned nightmares. He still felt guilty that he’d flown away from Merkland, leaving Verena and the others to face the first swarm. Too many people had died, and the entire city would have been overrun if they hadn’t returned.
This time he would not retreat.
The cool air rushed past his helmet, calm and perfect for aggressive maneuvers. Behind and below him, scores of defensive mechanicals were already launching waves of destruction at the onrushing monsters. Flights of small attack flyers were spreading out above the Battalions in defensive formations, ready for close combat. Those flyers were untested against aerial monsters, and Hamish positioned himself closer to the threat than the others. He was eager to test their mettle with his Second Skin.
His regular battle suit was fantastic, but lacked the brute strength needed to go toe to toe with summoned monsters. The Second Skin was his answer to that need, and as the dark swarm of nightmares winged toward him, sporting deadly fangs and claws, he was glad he’d designed it.
It looked like a steel spider with a long, narrow body with a Hamish-sized recess in the bottom that he strapped into. The eight slightly curved limbs were made from reinforced steel struts from Juggernaut spheres. A spare Juggernaut engine in the Second Skin main body provided plenty of power to pivot the legs, allowing him to open them wide, or close them individually to whatever angle he needed.
At the moment, those legs were set half-closed like a protective cage around him. Also nestled under the main body with Hamish were twelve slender diorite missiles and as many mechanicals as he could cram in there, including two speedslings. It was a tight fit, but promised to pack an amazing punch.
“All flights, prepare to engage,” Hamish said through the common speakstone channel. His stone connected to a bank of speakstones in Battalion One that linked back to all the others, allowing all the flights to communicate together.
The swarm was a dark mass, half a mile out, coming fast. Even though Hamish had a lot of experience fighting crazy Petralists, he was impressed. Some of the monsters looked fairly traditional, like pedras or giant hawks, but some made him shiver with dread.
One undulated through the sky like a giant serpent, held aloft by wings far too tiny to move such a vast bulk. Its dozen short limbs were capped in vicious claws, and fire was curling around its teeth. Others galloped through the sky like flying horses but without wings. How they did that he could not imagine.
Others were just weird, more like leathery blobs with a whole bunch of little, grasping hands, or huge mouths that made up most of their body. He wouldn’t underestimate those, not after that weird beast attacked Shona. Those leathery hides would hopefully get shredded by speedslings easier, but he shuddered to think of one of those monsters sealing its huge, suction jaws over his face and filling him with incinerating fire.
Most Petralists couldn’t access fire anymore, but the queen could, so that meant maybe her monsters could too. The fires from the Battalions’ explosive rounds down among the enemy were wreaking far more havoc than they might have otherwise since there were no Firetongues to sweep the flames away or draw the heat from those caught in the inferno.
Hamish estimated several hundred monsters in the swarm. That was a lot, but not nearly as much as the swarm that attacked Merkland. The withering barrages from the Battalions smashed into the leading ranks a quarter mile out, and the first ranks disintegrated, ripped apart by long-range speedsling rounds, shredded by shrapnel rounds, or blasted to pieces by explosive rounds. Some of them erupted with fantastic fiery explosions.
“Some are filled with fire,” Hamish pointed out, and his flight leaders responded in the affirmative. They were starting to sound nervous. Good. That would motivate them not to do anything stupid.
He switched channels. “Albatross, are you in position?”
Lady Briet responded almost immediately. “We’re here, Hamish. Preparing to engage.”
“Very good. Don’t get too close,” he advised, but wasn’t too worried about that. The albatross could launch weapons farther than any other flyer other than the Battalions themselves.
The air to the west of the swarm suddenly lit up with bright lights, like reflected lightning over the horizon. Dark clouds were forming in that direction, the area over the spot where Connor and the queen were fighting. Hamish hoped he was seeing lightning that Connor was using to hit the queen, and not the other way around. He silently wished his friend luck. He wanted to rush over and help, but the best way to help would be to destroy that swarm fast and assist in routing her armies. Then he and the others could go help Connor.
After the initial barrage, the swarm scattered. Monsters dove and banked to avoid the Battalion fire, but so many rounds were getting fired at them that many were still struck. “Defender flights one through four, ascend and track the monsters that broke higher. They’ll probably try dive-bombing the Battalions.”
“Sculpted scone,” the flight leaders responded, and eight small craft broke formation and rose higher. Most of the attack craft were shaped like a combination of Verena’s Swift and the Hawk. None of the non-Builder pilots could match Verena’s grace and instincts in the air, so they couldn’t handle the nimble Swift, but the slightly larger craft still performed extremely well, and they held more weapons.
Hamish ordered more flyers to bank lower and said, “Watch positioning. Don’t drift under the Battalions, or you could get caught by the ongoing bombardment.”
He linked to Jean and reported, “Battalion defenses are doing damage, but not enough. Airborne squadrons are in position and ready to engage.”
“Sculpted scone.”
Hamish laughed and she added in a serious tone, “Be careful, Hamish. Don’t do anything dumb.”
He almost said, “When would I ever?” Then he tapped obsidian, relishing the sense of confidence that flooded him as his mind accelerated and flying suddenly felt effortless.
The swarm split farther as it neared, monsters banking away in groups toward the other Battalions, but the majority of the swarm continued on toward Battalion One, as if they sensed it was the command ship. Others dove more steeply, not looking like they were heading for the Battalion at all. Hamish frowned as he looked down, trying to figure out what they might be targeting.
Thunder towers.
His obsidian-enhanced thoughts quickly calculated vectors and timing, confirming his fears. The Battalions didn’t need to land to deploy mechanicals and troops. Hamish had devised a clever plan for getting them all to the ground.
Led by huge Thunder Towers, the ground forces were already plunging toward the ground to join the battle. Many of the individual troops just free-fell the three thousand feet, equipped with personal descent mechanicals to slow their fall and deposit them safely on the ground.
Instead of trusting the heavy
Thunder Towers to quartzite thrusters, Hamish had decided to tap the flexibility of the hive. He grinned as he spotted the first Thunder Towers descending in gentle spirals, sliding down the invisible ramps of air shielding that scores of hive flying mechanicals were projecting. All together, they formed the spiral, allowing the heavy battle mechanicals to descend quickly and easily and intact, even if some of the pilots might get a little sick.
Hamish had been tempted to add a gentle flow of water to help with the sliding and reduce friction, but Verena had pointed out that might give enemy Spitters a better target to interrupt the plan, so he had reluctantly dropped the idea. If they survived the battle, he still wanted to set up that hive slide tube again sometime and add the water feature just to test it out for himself. He bet it would be amazing.
He hadn’t counted on flying monsters targeting the hive. Each individual mechanical was fragile, and those monsters could wreck the entire deployment plan. Maybe individual thrusters would have been wiser, after all.
Too late to worry about that.
“Brezel flights five through ten, on me. We need to intercept those monsters targeting the slide,” he ordered. He knew Jean’s Defender flight pilots better than Admiral Forfar’s Brezels, so wanted Jean’s flights engaged in the main battle. With the brezel flights supporting him, he could deal with the outliers. Admiral Forfar had only assigned them boring numbers, so Hamish had added the Brezel identifier. He convinced the admiral it was a good idea by pointing out if the pilots could turn as tight as those desserts, they’d easily win the day.
Time to fight.
Hamish grinned as he accelerated to intercept three monsters diving down on the port side of Battalion One. Two continued toward the spiral and the Thunder Towers sliding down them, while the last one, that huge snakelike creature, headed for the scores of soldiers free-falling toward the battlefield below.
