“We all joined Rin on the Aspern,” Suri said, her voice cutting past the sounds of Rin’s unintelligible joy. “Stern is clear for landing. Get down here before Karalti falls out of the damn sky.”
Karalti, trailing blood and ichor, wobbled on approach to the Aspern. She backwinged and flapped, stumbling as she touched down, and sunk to her keel with a wheeze. I hopped down, trying to scrape off sand, blood, and gods-knew-what-else as my friends ran across the deck toward us.
“Hector! Karalti!” Suri ran to me and caught me into a hug, then turned to squeeze Karalti around the neck. Rin was about to glomp, before she noticed the dripping ropes of goo and cringed back. Gar took one look at me, planted his hands on his hips, and began to laugh.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.” I pointed at him with a dripping hand. “This will be what your bed looks like in about two weeks’ time.”
“Hey, fuck you.” He grinned, clapping Rin on the shoulder. “You bet your skinny ass you’re paying me rent for every day that raging puta of a dinosaur is camped in my room.”
Soma emerged from the ship’s bridge, striding urgently toward us. “By Khors’ fiery red balls, we actually did it! Those Symphonic Arrays saved the day! Imagine the favors we’ll receive from His Majesty once we demonstrate these to the court!”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m thinking about right now. His Majesty.” I pulled my helmet off, which kind of felt like pouring a tub of glue over my own head. “Do we have any option to like… hose us down?”
“CAPTAIN!” The starboard watchstander cried. “SHIPS INCOMING!”
Chapter 59
“Ships?” We all turned to face the railing, running over as a group. I spotted them first: six ornate airships with billowing golden silk sails, gold filigree on the hulls, and long trailing cerulean flags were headed straight for us. They were large galleon-type ships, the size of the destroyers. Rather than the sleek discreet engines I was used to seeing on Vlachian ships, these ships had giant fan-like peacock tails, with each ‘eye’ lit by a glowing disk of mana.
“That’s Dakhdir’s Royal Fleet.” Soma gripped the railings, leaning out. “They must be here to see what all the fuss is about.”
My gut tensed. “No, I don’t think they are. We need the ships to form a defensive position.”
Soma shot me a sharp look. “Dakhdir is an ally of Vlachia, and under the White Sail Alliance pact, we are allowed free access to their airspace. We are flying the correct flags on all our vessels-”
“Trust me, dude. This is not good.” I glared at him. “Signal the other fucking ships. We need the destroyers ready to blast these fuckers out of the sky.”
Soma looked like he was about to argue, but his moustache bristled, and he stalked off, yelling at the signalers to warn the other ships and steer them into a fighting position.
“Don’t tell me.” Suri’s face was hard with disbelief. “Violetta?”
“I don’t know.” I regarded the approaching ships, pressing my lips together in a grim line.
Our armada turned to face the newcomers in formation. The lead ship was not the largest: a smaller cruiser with an open deck. Dakhari soldiers were gathering on the decks, armed with powerful bows and muskets. As the cruiser pulled up broadside to our bow, I noticed that all the below-deck cannon ports were angled straight in toward us.
“Stand down, in the name of His Divine Eminence, Sultir Yazid Khememmu!” An imperious little man in court silks called to us with an old-fashioned megaphone, his voice piercing the still desert air. “You are committing theft against the nation of Dakhdir! Surrender your ships, or face destruction!”
The ship’s bosun ran to me with a megaphone of our own. I stood up from the railing and put it to my mouth. “Vlachia has a treaty with Dakhdir. This Warsinger is not your property – and even if it was, we aren’t going to surrender shit!”
“Yoo-hoo, over here.” Gar’s voice crackled through our group PM. “Symphonic Array armed and ready. Say the word, and we’ll blast this ponce out of the air.”
“Hold fire until they start getting mad.” I used the thought-to-speech to reply, focusing on the official.
“Treaty?” The man flashed a gap-toothed grin. “We do not have a treaty with regicides. Kill the Vlachian usurpers!”
“NOW!” I shouted.
The Symphonic Array let out a whining pulse, then a piercing scream of sound that was still only a fraction of the power that struck the Dakhari ship. The sonic ray smashed into the gold-decorated wood and blew through to the other side, and everyone aboard began to shout and holler as, all of a sudden, they were capsizing.
“All cannons, all artillery, now!” I turned from the railing and yelled at Soma. “Take ‘em down or run them off! Their choice!”
We couldn’t coordinate as easily without one Starborn on every command ship, but the crews of the Myszno fleet were combat veterans with the Demon’s War behind them – and we had the Arrays. The Salamander and Gae Bolg circled around, rising to avoid fire, and unleashed their sonic weapons on the largest of the Sultir’s vessels. They didn’t just sink it – they broke it apart, sending the two halves careening out of the sky.
“Watch out for dragons! Violetta’s behind this, I know she is!” I ran back to Karalti. My dragon was peeling herself off the deck. Her wings were sagging – her last potion had put her back to 28% stamina, and by looking at her, I knew it wasn’t enough. Cursing, I ransacked my Inventory for anything that could help, and was pitched down as cannon fire smashed into the keel of the ship. Then something zipped past over the sails: quazi riders.
Karalti used her wings to push herself up to her feet. “Get on! We have to help! I still have ten breath weapon charges – and my Queensong.”
I clenched my teeth and vaulted up onto her back. Karalti spun, snatching a quazi by the wing from the air as it wheeled over the deck of the ship, and slung it around as she launched herself into the sky with a bellow of challenge. I crouched down, bracing the Spear as we gained altitude, and got a picture of the battle from above: the four Dakhari ships at the rear were pulling away, but six of them now locked in combat with ours. The Salamander had been boarded. I tracked the path of the retreating ships – they were headed for the defenseless dredgers and cargo ships massed over Withering Rose.
Karalti roared, striving after the galleons. She could fly twice as fast as the ships, limited only by her Stamina. She closed in on the engines of the straggling ship, weaving out of range of the cannons and blasting their engine array with fire. The crystal cracked, melted and exploded under the assault: first one, then another. The ship lurched, an alarm pealing up from under decks. Quazi riders lifted into the sky – then fell as Karalti opened her mouth and sang them the song of her people. The desert amplified her Queensong to an extraordinary degree. Riders retched, quazi panicked, and the other ships swung south, desperately fleeing our assault.
“Get out of here!” Karalti scolded them, belching another gout of flames along the engines. “And tell Violetta to go screw herself while you’re at it!”
The ships let off covering fire, but the bigger the ship was, the more difficulty it had aiming and firing at something as nimble as Karalti. The fleet pulled away from here as the one ship went down, crashing into the fallen corpse of the Voidwyrm, where it exploded in a blue-tinged fireball.
I looked back to see the rest of the ships were following their lead. The Dakhari hadn’t been expecting us to be as well armed as we were, and they were paying for it. The Salamander was listing, but the Dakhari had lost five ships. They were now running as fast they could, chugging back toward the west.
“Yeah! We did it! Again!” Karalti eased into a glide, saving her remaining stamina.
“Wait.” As we flew back toward our armada, a dark thought slid into my mind, hooked up with what we were seeing here, and connected. “If Violetta… no, this doesn’t make sense. These are probably some of Dakhdir’s weakest ships, and she’s not here with her dragon. Which means… FUCK!!”
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“What!?” Karalti bellowed in alarm at the force of my anxiety.
“Dakhdir was supposed to provide reinforcements for Ignas!” I drew a deep, startled breath, clutching the saddle grips. “And if they’ve betrayed the treaty, then… fuck, fuck, FUCK! Teleport to Taltos, now! We have to warn him!”
Karalti tensed, preparing to follow my order, when the World Notifications I had dreaded suddenly flashed up on my HUD.
World Alert: Revala
After a decisive battle, the Kingdom of Revala has been conquered by the Ilian Empire. This is a server alert to announce the new Regent of Revala, General Lucien Hart, Knight-Commander of the Eyrie of St. Grigori.
“Suri! Karalti and I are teleporting to Taltos now!” I snarled over the PM.
“Go! We’ll handle things here!” Suri’s voice was flat, cold, and angry.
Karalti drew a deep breath, steeled herself, and warped into the void. We hung there for half a minute, and burst out in the Vulkan Keep courtyard into a scene of pure chaos. Soldiers were swarming the castle like ants, and Karalti roared to clear them out of the garden so she could land. I slid down, stunned, to see a trio of people headed for us: Simeon wheeling Rutha in her chair, Masterhealer Masha by her side. All of them looked shocked and pale, and before Rutha even opened her mouth, I knew what I was going to hear.
“Hector, Dakhdir betrayed Vlachia,” she gasped, her lilac eyes huge in her face. “And Mercurions attacked Jeun from the north, preventing reinforcements from arriving. The Second Fleet… Ignas…”
Simeon drew himself up, graven, his hands shaking. “Voivode Dragozin, I’m afraid to report that Lucien Hart has taken our king.”
To be Continued…
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Author’s Note
Well, what can I say about 2020 that hasn’t already been said? It was crazy, it was insane, it was stressful. When I started Archemi in 2016, I had no idea that pretty soon, we would be facing a global pandemic. A lot of these story elements – HEX, the role of viruses – organic and digital – were things I planned to write about from the series’ conception.
Spear of Destiny is probably the darkest book in series so far, but I hope I was able to communicate the main message of the Archemi Online series: that no matter how scary things get, there are always people who rise to the challenge. Sometimes those people are like Hector (and Gar, though we don’t know him very well yet), bold, courageous, unwilling to give up. Sometimes they’re like Suri, Vash and Istvan: tough, resilient, emotionally capable of handling and processing even the worst life has to throw at us. And sometimes, they’re like Karalti and Rin: optimistic, bright, smart people with visions of the future and a love of life.
When we rise up to challenges, we can overcome them.
I got covid while writing this book, on Christmas Day.
The point of infection was a restaurant. I went to pick up Chinese food for my wife and I, and a man came into the restaurant, maskless and ranting about various conspiracies when he was asked to either put on a mask or leave. Me and a woman waiting in line stepped up to remove him when he began coughing in people’s faces. We bounced the dude out to the curb, but two weeks later, I got sick. My lungs hurt, my everything hurt, and I was eerily reminded of the symptoms I described Hector having in those blissfully mask-free days of February 2016.
About 50k words of this book was written while I was sick. I found myself doing the cocktail of pills thing I wrote about in Dragon Seed, though I didn’t ride a motorcycle through anyone’s fence despite the fever. All things considered, I had a mild case, and have recovered everything except my sense of smell.
My friends and family were invaluable through the course of writing this book. I couldn’t have done it without them. Almost all of us have stepped up for someone else this year. We supported gamer friends and bought each other groceries. We consoled family and struggled to motivate one another. We played Among Us and hung out on Discord. So take a moment to celebrate you, and all you have done to make this strangest of years a better place to be. I believe we will overcome the challenges ahead with boldness and intelligence. There are better days ahead.
You may notice that there is no pre-order for Book 6 yet. There are a few reasons for that: Firstly, Archemi is getting a makeover. I am going through all of the books with a new editor, cleaning up all the math and straightening out kinks and conflicts in the game system that have naturally arisen as we approach 1 million words in the series (!), and also will be getting new covers for every single book. Secondly, I desperately need a rest. Post-covid, I need to take some time to nurture my body, lose some weight, and find ways to regain all the fitness I lost this year.
And thirdly, I am taking some time to work on a second series. Join the Discord or Facebook group (or both!) to learn more about this and stay in touch while I plan and write it.
Thank you so much for taking this journey with me. I owe a huge amount to my Discord crew - Zohatu, Wanderer, Murdimus, Keebler, Parker, Noah, G.M.M.A Hamish, FS3D Pete and others. I am also incredibly grateful to my patient, understanding wife, Canth, and to my editors, Mimi and Kirri. Thank you so much, guys.
- James.
List of James’ Books
Hound of Eden Series
Dark, gritty urban fantasy with a cosmic horror twist, join Russian mafia hitmage Alexi Sokolsky as he confronts the mad demons of the abyss, finds redemption, and saves the world. Hound of Eden is an LGBTI series.
•Hound of Eden Omnibus (Books 1 – 3)
•0 - Burn Artist (Prequel)
•1 - Blood Hound
•2 - Stained Glass
•3 - Zero Sum
Archemi Online
A LitRPG saga about a young dragonrider’s ascension to greatness inside the virtual world of Archemi.
Archemi Online Box Set 1-3
•1 – Dragon Seed
•2 – Trial by Fire
•3 – Kingdom Come
•4 – Warsinger
•5 – Spear of Destiny
•6 – Blaze of Glory (Coming in 2021)
Other Titles
•Fix Your Damn Book!: A Self-Editing Guide for Authors
•The Expanding Universe #1 (Paperback)
•The Expanding Universe #2 (Paperback)
Copyright
Archemi Online and all associated intellectual property is Copyright © 2021 James Osiris Baldwin and Tamtu Publishing LLC.
Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For permission requests, please contact James Osiris Baldwin: [email protected]
Layout and design by James Osiris Baldwin.
of Destiny
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