by Frank Morin
Connor managed to lift his head and look around, but he couldn’t see far through the intense storm. He was freezing, his body already shaking with chills, and he was so exhausted he’d never escape the storm. He’d destroyed the queen, but her final act of vengeance might kill him too.
Verena was safe.
That thought warmed him, and he tried to reach her again with chert. He felt a tingle of connection, then something struck him from behind, knocking him sprawling and breaking the connection. He groaned and rolled over, holding up his arms to ward against a flurry of huge debris whipping past through the storm.
“This is a stupid way to die,” he muttered.
Then something huge and black swept down upon him, and this time the impact knocked him into darkness.
66
Best Friends Risk Everything for Each Other. Maybe Just Not Dessert
Verena frowned, concentrating. She could have sworn she’d just felt Connor, that tickle in the mind that usually meant he was reaching out to her through chert, but that soft touch had faded. She tried not to read too much into it, but couldn’t suppress a shiver of fear.
“Verena, are you okay?” Nicklaus asked, crouching beside her.
She sat on the ground south of the ruins of Lossit. Aifric had left her there to heal as she joined the fight against the great earthbound elfonnel. The torrent of healing power from Sucker Punch was quickly refreshing her, but she needed to turn it off soon so the blanket effect didn’t rob all the healing power from the other healers.
Most of the troops had retreated from the fight, fleeing north and south, led by Shona and Wolfram, leaving the Spitters and the most insane of the Boulders to fight the earthbound. The great monster had shed all their initial attacks, but had abruptly started to falter.
She hoped that meant Connor was winning. She loved that he’d connected with her, but she’d sensed his weariness and fear, and through that chert link, she’d caught glimpses of the terrible lightning elfonnel. How could he fight such a being? The fact that he was left alone to try terrified her. She couldn’t lose him, not now.
His last words warmed her, but her joy was tinged with sadness. Connor had not been able to hide his worry that he might not survive.
Suddenly the western horizon lit up like ten thousand Solas max-tapped limestone together. Verena gasped, shielding her eyes from the searing light. A booming thunderclap shook the valley a second later, and a gale howled past, screaming in a way no wind had ever screamed before. The sound shivered down Verena’s spine, and she felt a terrible sense of foreboding. Something important had just happened.
“Look!” Nicklaus shouted, pointing. The great earthbound elfonnel was swaying drunkenly, its legs buckling beneath it, heads hanging low. It looked badly wounded.
Kilian and the other Spitters struck immediately, encasing the drooping heads with ice, filling every joint of every leg with more ice, and sealing the beast in place. Rory, Anika, Erich, and the Boulders swarmed over it, smashing at those joints with all their strength.
The joints burst. All of them.
As the enormous body fell, it shattered into bits, transforming into an avalanche of stone.
Verena could barely believe it. That wasn’t how elfonnel were supposed to die. Nicklaus raised his fists in victory, shouting, and raised into the air in his tiny battle suit. All around, soldiers were cheering.
High above, the airbound elfonnel shrieked like a million tea kettles and its body disintegrated, releasing hurricane force winds in every direction. The nine remaining Battalions still flying triggered bursts of fireworks to celebrate.
Verena felt a rush of relief. That bright light and the dying monsters suggested that maybe Connor had won after all. Why had his connection to her failed?
She pulled a large piece of sculpted obsidian out of her satchel and used it to cast her Builder senses west, pushing herself farther than she ever had. For a long moment, she felt nothing, but then sensed a glimmer at the outermost edges of her range. Was it Connor? He was wearing a couple defensive mechanicals that she doubted he’d triggered.
Yes, it felt like the foam defense she’d worked into his belt. She sensed nothing else, but reached through the obsidian and activated that defensive mechanical. It might help.
She also redirected Sucker Punch back at Connor. She wasn’t a hundred percent healed yet, but she felt remarkably good. She feared he needed the healing more than she did.
Hamish swooped over the battlefield, exulting. The elfonnel were down! Too many Battalions had been ripped apart, too many soldiers killed on the ground, but the battle was over! He was wearing one of his replacement suits, fully armed, stocked with every mechanical he could need.
The sky was full of Jean’s Mender and Render flights as they deployed to tend the many wounded, reinforced by a huge hive swarm of tiny mechanicals delivering healing, sharing water, and identifying injured who needed more attention. Jean led them, flying Hamish’s spare suit, her quartzite-magnified voice echoing over the quiet valley.
Her gentle voice carried to every ear, gently urging. “Please rest. Let us help you.”
Hamish grinned. Lady Jean was about to win another battle all by herself.
He spotted Kilian standing atop the rubble pile that had been the earthbound, and banked in that direction. Ivor stood beside Kilian, along with General Rosslyn. They eyed each other warily, but neither attacked. Aifric sped up to the group on fracked legs and stopped beside Kilian, who draped an arm over her shoulder.
That was a new development, and Hamish approved. Battle sometimes helped people see what was most important.
Hamish landed near Kilian just as Rory and Anika trooped up to join them. They were both battered, covered in mud, but grinning widely. Rory slapped Hamish on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble and declared, “That was a bash fight to remember!”
“The fighting is over, but the danger is not past,” Kilian said, his expression concerned. He pointed west.
They all turned, and Hamish blinked a couple of times. Everyone had seen that incredible flash of light, but could storm clouds really grow so fast. “Is that another assault from the queen?”
“No. She created the storm, but I do not sense her commanding it now,” Kilian said. “She doesn’t need to. That storm is stronger than any I’ve ever felt. It’s not natural, and it’s coming fast. It’s got the energy to finish off both of our armies. It’ll hit soon. We need to get everyone under cover.”
“Is Connor okay?” Hamish asked.
Kilian hesitated, then said, “I don’t know.”
“But the elfonnel are gone. That means he defeated them, defeated the queen,” Rosslyn said, her tone awed.
“Let’s hope so. Now move! Aifric, contact those Battalions and get them to land, or that storm will finish them off. Ivor, Rosslyn, we have troops both north and south of here that need protecting.”
The two generals shared a look and nodded in unison. Rosslyn said, “My teams will take the south.”
“I’ve got the north,” Ivor said, and they split apart, calling orders.
Kilian turned to Hamish, but Hamish held up a hand and said, “I’m going to find Connor.”
“I can move faster,” Kilian said.
“But the people need you. They’ll all listen to you, not to me. He’s my best friend, and I will find him.” Hamish activated thrusters and turned west.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Kilian called after him.
As if he would.
Hamish activated every thruster and shot toward the storm. The wind met him head on, rapidly intensifying as the storm rushed toward them faster than a fracked Strider, its front face a wall of black clouds, sheeting rain, and endless lightning. Hamish hated the idea of plunging into that maelstrom, but Connor was in there, maybe wounded. Maybe worse.
He had to know.
“You’re going to owe me one for this,” Hamish muttered as he tensed against the expected impact and shot into
the leading edge of the storm.
All light winked out as he was consumed by pitch black clouds. Winds ripped at him from every side, spinning and tumbling him wildly, despite firing every directional thruster. Rain and snow and ice pelted him so hard he cried out from flashes of pain right through his armor. He distinctly felt several hardened granite leaves of his suit crack under brutal impacts. His facemask iced over, and the temperature plummeted.
Within seconds, he had no idea where he was, or which was up as he tumbled helplessly, shouting with fear and exhilaration.
It was incredible.
Hamish had never felt anything like it, never been so completely helpless in the face of nature’s raw fury. He wished he could dedicate the time to fully enjoy the intense experience, maybe rise to a few thousand feet, shut off his thrusters for a moment, and see what the storm could do.
But Connor was in there, and he didn’t have a suit. So Hamish activated blind coal for a moment and slipped into a pocket of absolute calm, sliding through the wind and storm and clouds and lightning. He realized he had twisted head down and was blindly accelerating toward a fatal impact with the ground.
He straightened out and cast his Builder senses out into the storm, but felt nothing. So he dropped blind coal and tried pushing ahead.
Again the storm seized him and threw him wildly about. Within seconds he lost all sense of direction again, and once more had to tap blind coal. This time he was pointed north instead of west. Annoyed, he had to admit he couldn’t fly through that storm, so dropped to the ground. He didn’t have enough blind coal to simply use it non-stop, but crashing into the ground wouldn’t help.
Even braced with feet on the ground, Hamish had to trigger a thruster on his back to stay upright. The storm tore at him, trying to knock him off his feet. Debris flashed past, including uprooted trees and boulders that threatened to smash him flat. The storm was by far the most powerful tempest he’d ever heard of.
Hamish pressed ahead anyway. He tried jumping, using thrusters to move forward faster, but as soon as he left the ground, he was flung about so wildly, he usually lost more ground than he gained.
In frustration, he dropped to the ground, lying prone, and activated a quartzite shield just above his back. That blocked most of the storm, and he managed to accelerate by activating thrusters and flying inches above the ground. He collided with rocks and trees a lot, but added quickened basalt along his chest, which helped him slide over obstacles better. Then he gritted his teeth against the bumpy ride and half flew, had slid over the ground, heading ever west through the raging storm.
After what seemed an eternity, he finally sensed a bit of obsidian in the distance, slightly to his right. Banking in that direction, he found it a moment later.
Connor.
He lay in a hollow in the rough ground, entirely encased in shock-foam. Hamish leaned over him, cracking open the blue foam over Connor’s face to check if he was breathing.
He was.
Hamish sagged with relief. He wasn’t sure how he would have handled it if he’d found Connor dead. His best friend was alive, if battered. The shock foam had saved his life.
It was a newer defensive mechanical, built using Althin chemicals similar to Pedra’s spittle, but less sticky. It tasted better too. When activated, foam expanded all around the person, padding them and protecting from falls or other blunt trauma. They hadn’t figured out easy ways to extract soldiers from it, so it wasn’t yet widely distributed, but Verena had added it to Connor’s armor since he could usually use his multiple affinities to rip or burn it off.
Hamish figured he could when he awakened, but he wasn’t sure when that might be. It looked like Connor had passed out, and the winds had tumbled him until he wedged into that hollow. The storm was still raging, but in that protected space, it wasn’t so bad.
Hamish had planned to carry Connor back to Lossit so Aifric or Jean could tend to him, but he doubted they’d make it back through the storm, not with Connor unconscious. They’d have to ride it out in the hollow.
So he sealed the top of the hollow with another quartzite shield, making a little cave. If only he could still activate marble to generate some heat. There was plenty of wood debris caught in the hollow along with Connor, so he used some soapstone to pull the water out of it, then made a cheery fire the old fashioned way, with diorite.
The fire quickly warmed up the freezing air, and he added a couple pieces of activated limestone for extra light, transforming the barren hollow into an almost homey-feeling space. Only then did he set about peeling Connor out of that protective foam.
Connor didn’t look so good. He was pale, his face drawn with exhaustion, but he didn’t look wounded. Hamish saw no blood, but Connor’s skin was cold and his breathing seemed shallow. Most of his clothing was gone, and what was left was so tattered, Hamish felt less ashamed of ending up in only his smallclothes for his duel against Aonghus.
Eating something would help, so Hamish used the fire to cook a few omelets. Connor always liked those, and the savory aroma filled their little protected cave, easing some of Hamish’s concern. He settled back beside Connor, content to wait for his friend to wake up. In the meantime, he managed to eat all of the omelets, along with a dozen smashpacked desserts. Fighting was hard work, and worry took a lot out of a guy.
After licking his fingers from a particularly tasty smashpacked cake, Hamish nudged Connor and said, “Don’t sleep too long or there won’t be anything left.”
67
The Price of Victory
Jean moved through the dim, cave-like shelter, packed with soldiers and wounded, all sheltering from the storm raging outside. The remaining nine Battalions had battled the leading edge of the storm to land in a tight-packed line, pointing lengthwise west to east, with their eastern edges propped up on thick banks of ice raised by Kilian and the companies of Spitters.
The resulting sloped roofs provided just enough shelter for all the soldiers remaining in the valley, including the hundreds of wounded that Jean’s flights and drone mechanicals had gathered up and rushed under cover. She still worried they must have missed some, and the thought of men and women dying in the brutal storm kept her glancing toward the softly glowing outer edge of the shelter, formed by Builder shieldstones.
It was a hard fact of life that all Healers had to accept, but she still hated that she could not save everyone. With her powerful sandstone affinity, coupled with her long experience, there were few injuries or sicknesses she could not successfully treat, but she felt driven to learn more, to do more.
There was a lot to do already. She still wore the borrowed battle suit, and she’d activated several small pieces of limestone to provide light. More than one wounded soldier had remarked that she looked like a beacon of hope moving among them, and she did everything in her power to provide that hope to the suffering.
Enough Healers worked among the wounded that the initial frenzy to stabilize everyone was over, and she had transitioned to coordinating efforts of her flight teams. Mender flight Healers were busy, supported by full staffs, and Rafford was doing a remarkable job with Render flight and their semi-autonomous summoned limbs, despite the loss of slate. Some of their summoned limbs failed or performed at much lower mobility, but they were working hard to reconfigure those. The slender Sapper wore his grief at the loss of Ilse openly, and Jean appreciated that.
She could not mourn yet, would not allow herself to weep for the dead until the living were cared for. She paused near a bonfire, one of a dozen that Rory had ordered built throughout the shelter, made with salvaged wood from the Battalions. The fires helped push back the frigid cold and cheered weary hearts.
Above her, the Battalion creaked and groaned as the insane storm ripped at it. Anything smaller would have been swept away by the hurricane winds. Erich had risked a peek outside earlier, and confirmed that one superstructure had collapsed under the onslaught. Thinking of the storm made her think of Hamish and Connor. They were st
ill out there, and her fear for them grew stronger and colder with each passing moment. How could they survive such a tempest? She had tried contacting Hamish via speakstone, but got no response.
It had to be interference from the storm.
Verena stopped beside her and pushed hair from her face. She still looked tired from her terrible injuries, but the flood of Sucker Punch healing had done wonders to restore her. She wore a spare uniform that was a bit too large for her, making her look younger and more vulnerable, but she’d insisted that she needed something to do to keep from worrying about Connor. Jean had assigned her to assist Render flight.
“Have you heard anything yet?” Verena asked softly, her eyes full of worry.
“Not yet.” Jean bet Verena was calling via speakstone every minute, and she had far better range than Jean.
Verena straightened her shoulders and said with forced conviction, “We will as soon as the storm passes.”
Jean gave her an encouraging hug, but was interrupted when Nicklaus landed beside them with a whoosh of thrusters. The boy pointed toward the raging storm beyond the outer shields. “I can go find them.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Verena said, holding Nicklaus with a firm gaze until he sighed and nodded. Then he jumped up, lifting his legs, and activating some secondary thrusters to catch him half reclined in the air, as if he was sitting on an invisible chair.
“How is everyone else doing?” Jean asked to take the boy’s mind off of the temptation to disobey again and rush out into the storm.
He started rolling back in a slow, controlled reverse somersault as he gave his report. “Everyone’s secure. Ivor and Aifric got everyone on the north road into the river and made a cave in the water. Not even this storm can get them down there. Lady Shona was making a speech, so I stopped listening.”
“I’m still amazed you could reach them,” Jean said. “The storm is blocking all my attempts.”
