by Alex Raizman
“You could use them to find the Resistance. You could use them to find the Alohym. Report troop movements. Find weak points. You could use them to watch the world.”
“Oh, very good Haradeth.” Bix beamed at him. “It took you weeks to figure it out, but you finally got there. We were beginning to think you never would.”
“Why didn’t you-”
“We’re automatons, Haradeth. We have directives we have to obey.” Bix’s voice didn’t have its usual manic edge to it. “We can find loopholes in that directive that allow us something like freedom – loopholes that let us stab people, or convince an entire race we are a goddess…”
“You’re saying Anortia was involved in this?” Lorathor asked.
“It was her idea,” Bix said. “But we can’t do it without a directive. That’s also why I made you promise to take me with you when you go. That means it’s going to be her job to run the drones and relay information to me, and it’s my job to stab people and share what she says. Otherwise I would have been stuck on monitor duty.”
Lorathor looked like the rug that had been pulled out from under his feet days ago had suddenly reappeared beneath his bruised tailbone. “Then find them,” Haradeth said. “Find the resistance, and the others, and find what portals are nearest. We’ll go as soon as we know where we’re most needed.”
Bix’s eyes glowed brighter. “Finally. You had a good idea. We’ll begin now. Pull up a chair you two – we’ll have a location soon enough. Don’t stab yourselves on the spikey bits. That’s my job.”
Haradeth carefully cleared off a chair and sat down to wait. Lorathor sat next to him, his skin a bright yellow of excitement. “Soon,” Lorathor said.
Haradeth could only nod and fight the urge to try and hurry Bix. He didn’t think she’d appreciate the effort. She might get cross.
The last thing he wanted was to be impaled for his impatience.
Chapter 40
The sound of footsteps were close enough for Armin’s ears to hear them now. They sounded like the rolling of an approaching thunderstorm. Now you’re just being maudlin. They sound like flathing boots. “How many?” he asked, looking at Synit.
Synit’s antenna twitched. “Oh, somewhere between a dozen and ten million.” She saw their disbelieving looks and narrowed her eyes. “If you want an accurate count, I could go out and look. Footsteps all sound the same, even without an echo.”
Armin scowled at the door. They’d spent the time since they’d heard the footsteps moving as much of the larger pieces of treasure in front of the doors as they could. A solid gold throne belonging to some king that had died millennia ago had required all of them to even shift it. It had been a sluggish affair, and if not for Guiart’s knowledge of levers and some wheeled devices they’d found buried in the gold coins, it would have been impossible. Even then, the fact that it was close to the door allowed them to tip it over and block the entranceway. It had fallen with such an accursed clamor, it had cracked the stone with its impact. The throne was now was braced with scepters of a dozen kings and queens and princesses, and further weighed down by crowns and coins.
All in all, Armin estimated at least seven hundred stone was bracing the door right now. More gold than he’d ever imagined seeing gathered together in one place.
It would hold the immense doors for a bit. The Alohym soldiers outside wouldn’t be able to force the doors open quickly.
Maybe they’ll give up and go back. Armin thought, knowing it was a faint hope. The chair had been needed, but the sound had made it clear there was someone inside. “Alright, everyone,” Armin said, turning around to face the group. “Here’s the plan.”
Aldreda had a hungry look in her eyes, a wolf on the prowl. She’d seemed to come alive in battle, and now that she had a new fight to look forward to Armin could see how eager she was to be in the fray. They faced impossible odds, but when was that not true? When were they not fighting against an enemy they had no hope to defeat?
Clarcia didn’t look like she was excited for the battle. Her lips were drawn in a thin line, her forehead furrowed. Her eyes were already glowing from the light she was calling to herself from the Lumwell that had to be directly below them. Armin’s blasphemy could see the way the lines of energy curled out between the stones of the floor to race up to her fingertips.
Synit was as enigmatic as she had been since Armin had arrived here. Her movements were still stiff, and now that Armin had gotten used to reading her eyes, he could see her pain was omnipresent. She’d assured Armin she could fight, that she would fight, but there had been no time to assess her. He had to trust that she knew her own abilities.
Guiart was shaking at the knees, his skin sallow, and he was swallowing more frequently than was required. Of all of them, he seemed to be the most aware of the reality – there was a very good chance they weren’t going to survive what came next. Their strength had always come from being able to hit and run and withdraw. Right now they were trapped, and Guiart knew that.
Ossman’s face was outright grim. Armin wasn’t surprised. They were both remembering a different doorway, at the end of a different hallway. This one had been barred with wardrobes and chairs, not gold and regalia. They hadn’t known that the aggressors back then had been appropriating the name Alohym – they’d still only been referred to by the enigmatic name ‘Those From Above.’
Clarcia had been there too, but she’d been a child. Armin didn’t suppose she remembered that. The good memories seem to have stuck with her – the speech, the victory, the escape. Not this part. Not huddling behind a door stacked with debris. Light and Shadow, what am I saying. We were children. Just older children. Children huddled behind furniture waiting to see if the monsters would break through – or if it would be the men who served them.
Armin felt his face tighten. “Guiart, I want you up on that plinth. Anything that comes through, shoot it with so much arcfire it sees the Light before you send it to the Shadow.”
His knees still knocking, Guiart nodded and began to head towards the space Armin indicated. He might be a coward, but in a way that made him braver than the rest of them – his terror clutched him, shook him, but it never broke him.
“Clarcia, get behind that pile of coins and wait. The moment the first group bursts through, I want a barrier to stop them. They’ll break through, but I want you to force them to come in waves. Let’s break them into manageable chunks.
Clarcia nodded and raised her hands. She held prisms they’d found among the treasure, ones made of diamonds as large as her fists. They would help her focus her power enough to avoid wasting too much light.
“Aldreda, Ossman, flank either side of the door. Once Clarcia drops the barrier in place, drop everyone on our side of it, then get back. They’ll expect the attack for the second wave, but knowing you’re coming won’t prevent you from cutting them down.”
Aldreda ran to her side with that fierce grin still on her face. Ossman walked up and clasped hands with Armin. “Damn me to shadow, I can’t believe I’m listening to you.”
Armin grinned at him. The same words he’d said back behind the other door. There wouldn’t be Duke de’Monchy riding in at the last minute this time. There was no cavalry ready to charge. But it was good to know Ossman thought this time would go as well as the last time they’d done something this stupid.
“Synit, I want you inside that cauldron,” Armin said, pointing to an enormous brass basin. It would come up to Synit’s shoulders and had tiny holes around the bottom. She’d be able to see out, but you’d have to have your face pressed to the ground to see in. “You know what you can do. If it looks like we’re going to lose but you can turn the tide, join the fight. If it looks like we’re going to win, stay down. The information you could give is too valuable to risk.”
“And you don’t trust me,” Synit said. There was no malice or accusation in her voice.
“And I don’t trust you,” Armin confirmed. He shrugged and gave her a helpless g
esture. “This whole thing is still too convenient. But if you’re on our side, it’s also the best way to deploy you.”
Synit seemed to agree with his words. Or she was just not interested in arguing.
Everyone else deployed, Armin took his own position, behind a pillar that was embedded with images of the ancient Alohym. He readied his arcwand.
Now, he thought, safely behind the pillar where no one could see the way his own hands trembled, let’s see how horribly wrong this goes.
The sound of hands banging against the door made it clear he wouldn’t have to wait long.
“Alright, hold your-” Armin started to say, peering around the column to look for the aggressors. An explosion rocked the room before he could even get out the word ‘position.’ Shards of stone flew into the room, shrapnel knives that spun through the air and were embedded in pillars and treasure. Armin staggered back. His forehead stung, and he brought up a hand to touch his temple. It came away wet with blood.
Already? He thought, dazed by the injury happening so quickly into the fight. Ears ringing, he dared to look again at the entrance, his heart pounding with fear for Aldreda and Ossman.
The gold throne, the scepters that had been supporting it, and the treasure that lay atop them all had been mangled beyond the point of recognizability by the unlight blast. Tiny bolts of unlight danced along their surfaces, but they had been reduced to a golden slag that formed a small hill in the entranceway. The barrier they had struggled over, reduced to rubble in mere seconds.
Ossman was standing up. His eyes had an unfocused look, but he was alive, and Armin couldn’t see him bleeding. Aldreda hadn’t lost her feet, but she was bleeding from her left arm, and her excitement had given way to a grimace of pain.
The only blessing Armin could see was that the Alohym soldiers had needed to pull back to detonate the arccell and blast their way into the room. That gave everyone time to recover from the shock of the explosion.
The passage was wide enough for the Alohym soldiers to approach in groups of six. Armin could see them coming out of the darkness in the hallway, clad in imperimail. Their suits were black with glowing unlight lines running along the arms and down to their gauntlets and greaves, lines that converged in the center of their back where the arccells rested. Their helmets were large and wedge-shaped, a look Armin had always thought made them look like cheap imitations of their masters.
Armin gritted his teeth as he took aim at one of the approaching soldiers and pulled the trigger. A beam of crimson light leapt from his arcwand and streaked across the room to the lead soldier. The hit was direct, the helmet exploding under the impact. The soldier blessedly crumpled to the ground before Armin could see what the beam had done to the man’s face.
He was a traitor, Armin reminded himself, pointing the arcwand at another soldier. Guiart’s blast came from above, dropping a soldier to his knees but not stopping him outright.
The Alohym soldiers began to return fire. They weren’t taking the time to carefully aim, instead spraying unlight beams in the direction of their aggressors. It wasn’t an attempt to actually kill them. Armin pressed his back against the pillar as an unlight bolt cleaved a chunk of stone away from where he’d been a moment ago. Covering fire. Just enough to keep them from being able to take return fire as the soldiers entered the room.
“Clarcia, now!” Armin shouted.
The young Lumcaster poked her head out from over the pile of treasure she’d taken refuge behind. Her hand spread outwards, and a screen of light cut off the soldiers that had managed to breach the chamber from their reinforcements.
Ossman and Aldreda were free to act now. Moving almost as a single entity, they stepped out from behind the doorframe, axe and blade raised.
Two Alohym soldiers fell before they even realized they were under attack, Ossman’s unlight axe flashing through the air to sever one’s arm at the shoulder. The free limb flopped to the floor as the soldier screamed and clutched at the stump. Aldreda’s arcblade slashed parallel to the ground, a soldier barely turning as she attacked. It spared his spine from her attack. Unfortunately for him, he blocked the blow with his throat.
Then Armin had sighted his target, and he was pulling the trigger on his arcwand again, and the battle raged on.
Armin was dimly aware of the soldiers outside the barrier placing arccells. If they broke through Clarcia’s wall of light before they were done in here…
An unlight beam brought Armin’s attention back to the immediate problem. It cut through his sleeve, tugging at the cloth and burning a neat hole less than a knuckle from his arm. He fired back in the direction it had come from. Shock made his shot go wild. His hands were shaking. Armin was a sniper. He was used to battles where he was high and overseeing the whole battlefield and rarely was in danger himself.
Guiart managed to down another soldier, and Aldreda and Ossman killed two more. The soldiers weren’t armed for close quarters combat. At least, not these soldiers. The ones outside the barrier were pulling out their own unlight blades, getting ready to charge.
The last soldier that had made it inside dropped with Ossman’s axe in his skull.
There were easily two or three dozen outside. Possibly more, Armin could tell. Ossman had been injured in the fight, an unlight burn across his left thigh. Aldreda had gained no new wounds, but her hair was plastered to her head with sweat. Armin glanced over at Clarcia.
“On my mark, invert the barrier’s curve.”
Clarcia’s eyes widened with Armin thought was surprise, but she nodded. He glanced back at the soldiers outside. “Everyone, get back to your positions. Now. Clarcia, move three spans to your left. Aldreda, Ossman, move further back from the door. Nice shooting, Guiart.” He did his best to sound flippant. This was just a fight. No big deal. They’d been through worse.
He lowered his hands so they wouldn’t see how they trembled. The troops outside began to back up. “Now!” Armin said.
Clarcia held out her hand, and the barrier she had erected turned into a crescent shape that bent with its points facing towards the soldiers outside. The unlight explosion was shaped along the barrier’s curve, the brunt of the shockwave shaped to travel down the hallway and into the Alohym’s troops.
Screams reached Armin’s ears. Screams that didn’t belong to his friends or allies, so welcome screams. A few more troops injured, a few more hopefully out of the fight or dead.
The next group began to charge in. Armin fired off a few more beams of light as he got behind cover. “Clarcia, now!”
Clarcia popped up again to erect the barrier anew. Armin saw her, her eyes narrow with determination, her fingers curled as she began to weave light into a wall that would keep the soldiers out.
Those eyes widened when an unlight beam struck her in the forehead. Clarcia’s head snapped back, and a spray of blood rose from her forehead in an arc to follow the motion. She slumped to her knees and for a moment Armin dared hoped she was alright, that she just needed time to recover.
Then her body finished its collapsed, and Clarcia died.
Armin remembered screaming. He remembered turning to fire into the oncoming forces, wild beams that were not aimed, just desperate attempts to kill someone, anyone, for what they had done to Clarcia.
He remembered the unlight wave spreading out from a hand that appeared out of the darkness, old and wizened. A hand that was attached to a face Armin knew, a face Armin had expected to find waiting for them.
Theognis was here.
The unlight wave struck Ossman and Aldreda first. They were thrown into the air. Ossman bellowed in rage and anguish. Aldreda fell silent, her blade slipping from between her fingers. It hit the cauldron where Synit hid and sent it rolling along the floor. It scooped up Clarcia’s lifeless body and sent it tumbling like a ragdoll.
Then it hit Armin, and he was tumbling through the air himself. He saw Guiart raise his hands in a pathetic attempt at defense against the onrushing force, and then Guiart had joined
them in their flight.
