Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10

by McCaffrey-Winner

  “Mannevy was right, by the gods!” Nevins said, dancing with delight as his guns fired once more. “There’s no way they can stand against us, not even with our six-pounders!”

  #

  Dimly, in the cavern they heard the heavy percussion of cannon roaring well above them.

  “That’s our signal!” Rabel said, gesturing for the other two to rise from the comforters they had lain in just a few minutes before. He glanced over to Ellen. “Are you up for this, little one?”

  “Of course,” Ellen replied stiffly, pushing herself to her feet and moving toward her position.

  “As am I,” Jarin said, pushing his comforter off him.

  “Don’t do anything until I say,” Rabel warned. “We all need to be in place and we can’t be late with our spells.”

  “Or what?” Jarin asked.

  “Or the fort will wobble and maybe fall on one side,” Rabel said.

  “With us underneath?” Jarin asked, eyes wide.

  “Your majesty, perhaps you and your people should leave us, just in case,” Rabel said, glancing toward queen Diam.

  “No,” the diminutive queen said after a quick glance toward her children and her guards, “we prefer to watch this glorious moment.” Beside her, Granno let out a resigned sigh.

  #

  “Cease fire!” Captain Berold called loudly. “Gunners, cease fire!”

  “Sir?”

  “Stand to, though,” Captain Ellas warned. “When I give the word, you’re to give the nearest ship a full broadship.”

  “They’re too high, sir!” a gunner called back.

  “Not for long,” Ibb said. He turned to the captain. “Tell them to aim flat, straight and level.”

  #

  “We beat them!” Lieutenant Garrett cried in awe when the guns of the fort fell silent.

  Captain Nevins eyed the silent fort critically before snapping, “Get me a glass!”

  A seaman — Nevins didn’t have airmen on his ship — handed him a telescope and he brought it up to his good eye, scanning the fort hurriedly even as another broadside from Vengeance roared out, brightening the night sky.

  “They’ve raised no white flag,” Nevins said after a moment. He turned to Garrett. “Keep firing.”

  “Sir,” Garrett said, turning to the gun crews. “Continue the action!”

  #

  Rabel, Ellen, and Jarin fanned out in a circle midway in the large chamber. The queen and the others were safely in the center.

  “Are you ready?” Rabel said, lifting his hands up to his waist and glancing to see that Jarin and Ellen had done the same.

  “Ready,” Jarin said.

  “Ready,” Ellen added.

  “On three,” Rabel said, closing his eyes and imagining his fingers tingling with power, each pointed toward a different steel slab. “One… two… three!”

  He opened his eyes as power arced from him into the inert cold steel of six stones. He heaved a great sigh as the power drained from him. To his left, he heard Jarin grunt at the effort as he also magically magnetized six stones. From Ellen, who only had four, he heard nothing. Nervously her turned toward her. “Ellen?”

  “This is fun!” the little girl cried as the air around her glowed with her magic and her hair flew up and out from her body, each strand standing straight and away from the others.

  “Is it working?” Granno asked from inside the circle.

  Around them, the ground shuddered and groaned.

  #

  “What’s happening?” Captain Ellas cried as the stones of the wall shuddered and jerked.

  “Magic,” Ibb said.

  “I can feel it,” Hamo Beck confirmed. He glanced over the parapet to the ground below.

  A huge rumbling sound came from below them and the fort shook more and more.

  #

  “Listen!” Lieutenant Garrett called. The guns stopped and everyone strained their ears in the night sky.

  “What’s that rumbling?” Nevins said, coming to the railings at the side of the ship, his telescope clutched tightly in one hand.

  “The fort’s shaking!” the lookout cried from above.

  “We must have shaken it from its foundations!” Lieutenant Garrett cried in awe.

  #

  “Mount up!” Colonel Walpish cried as the huge rumble of groaning earth came to his ears. “We ride the pass and no stopping!”

  Behind him, his squadron of cavalry leaped to their saddles and formed up in two columns.

  “The airships did it, sir!” Lieutenant Markless swore in delight.

  “We’ll be in the village by daybreak!” Ensign Berry crowed.

  “Sound the trot!” Colonel Walpish ordered, spurring his horse forward.

  #

  “Steady men, steady!” Captain Ellas Berold cried as the fort wobbled once more.

  “About now, I believe,” Ibb said with some satisfaction.

  “Sir, sir!” the guard in the tower cried. “We’re rising!”

  #

  “Look up!” Ellen cried as the rumbling grew quieter. Everyone in the cavern looked up. A giant circle of earth tore, with dirt falling to the ground as the magnets above strained to free themselves of the forces of the magnets below.

  “I can see night!” Granno shouted. “There’s a gap between the top above us.”

  “It’s working,” Queen Diam said in a voice filled with awe.

  “I had hoped so,” Geros said from beside her. She looked at him in surprise. “This is quite something, you know. I wouldn’t miss it for jewels.”

  “Ellen, Jarin,” Rabel called, “how are you?”

  “Tired,” Jarin admitted. He glanced upwards as the dirt and the fort above it rose slowly into the night sky. He turned to Geros, the god of the earth. “Has this ever happened before, earth god?”

  Geros shook his head. “No, never in all the life of the world.”

  “Ellen?” Rabel repeated, worried that the girl hadn’t spoken.

  “It’s beautiful,” she swore in awe. She giggled. “This is so amazing!”

  “We must be prepared, in case the magnets slip or move from alignment,” Rabel warned.

  “What do we do then?” Jarin asked.

  “If we can, we use our magic to increase or lower the power of the magnets to level things up,” Rabel replied.

  “And if we can’t?” Jarin asked.

  “Run,” Rabel said grimly. He turned to queen Diam. “It might be best if you retired now, your majesty.”

  “You can see this safely from one of our burrows,” Granno added in a tone of repressed anxiety.

  “Your children will be safer,” Jarin said, gesturing to Imay and Missy.

  “What about you?” Diam said.

  “I’m a dragon,” Jarin said with a shrug. “I’ll burn my way through.”

  “That’s an awful lot of rock to melt,” Granno said dubiously.

  “It will be easier to concentrate if we don’t talk,” Rabel warned.

  “We shall leave you, then,” queen Diam said, waving for the rest of her retinue to follow her down the newly-dug cavern which led back to her kingdom — and a nearby burrow to the surface.

  #

  “Steady men, steady!” Captain Berold called as the East Pass Fort slowly rose in the night sky. “Wait for my order!”

  #

  “What’s happening?” Captain Nevins said, glancing northward in the growing darkness. “Why aren’t they firing?”

  Lieutenant Garrett shrugged and shook his head.

  “Mage Tortin!” Captain Nevins shouted. “I need you here, now!”

  A rush of footsteps heralded the arrival of the nervous mage. Nevins thrust his telescope into the mage’s hands and gestured to the fort in the distance. “What’s happeni
ng? Is it some magic?”

  #

  “Mage Tirpin, what is it?” Captain Jacques Martel of the royal airship Vengeance said to the royal mage, gesturing toward the fort in the night’s gloom. “Are they doing something to float their torches because I swear they’ve gotten higher.”

  Tirpin looked out into the distance and stared at the flames from the fort. After a moment he shrugged. “Probably just some trick to throw off your aim, captain. I wouldn’t let it —”

  #

  “Fire!” Captain Berold roared. Six heavy cannon all belched fire and smoke into the night sky, their twenty-four pound cannon balls racing through the air like a wall of iron.

  “Reload!” the captain cried. “Fire at will!”

  #

  “By the gods!” Captain Martel shouted as the night flamed in front of him. “They’re on our level!”

  Three balls struck the airship’s hull, smashing it to pieces. Two balls missed completely. But the sixth — the sixth hit the airship’s balloon in the middle and torn it into tiny shreds in the blink of an eye.

  Vengeance fell from the sky, crashing onto the plains below, a shattered, lifeless hulk.

  #

  “Tortin!” Nevins cried as he saw Vengeance plummet to its death. “Get us out of here!”

  The apprentice mage looked at his captain in complete surprise. “Captain?”

  “Take us up!” Nevins bellowed, pumping a hand upwards in emphasis. “Get us above those bastards!”

  “But —”

  “They can’t get much higher,” Nevins shouted. “Do it!”

  #

  The gunners on the fort yelled in excitement as the first airship fell from the sky. Captain Berold shouted with them.

  “They still have one,” Ibb warned. “We should take care of it.”

  “In a moment,” Ellas said, waving to the cheering soldiers. “Let them cheer!”

  “Sir!” the guard in the lookout tower cried.

  “What?” Ellas shouted back.

  “The second ship is rising, sir!”

  “If it gets above you —”

  “All guns, fire on the second ship!” Ellas roared, gesticulating wildly toward the ship in the distance.

  #

  “Sir, sir, look!” Ensign Berry cried, pointing to the battle in the distance. “They got one of the ships, sir!”

  Colonel Walpish jerked his head to the right just in time to see one of the flying ships plummet from the sky and shatter on the ground below.

  “What do we do?” Lieutenant Marless asked in anguish.

  “Sound the charge,” Walpish replied. “The pickets will be too distracted by the fighting and the fort’s guns can’t range on us. We’ll be through before they can react.”

  “Bugler!” Lieutenant Marless called. “Sound the charge!”

  #

  The earth shook from some impact in the distance. Rabel looked above him, his brows furrowed.

  “It’s wobbling!” Jarin called, confirming his fears.

  “Steady it!” Rabel said, raising his hands and seeking the proper spot to expel his magic.

  “Don’t push too hard!” Ellen cried in warning.

  “It’s like a top trying to teeter to one side,” Jarin cried.

  “Let’s just steady it up,” Rabel said, forcing himself to sound calm.

  “It’s rising higher,” Geros commented. “If the top gets too far from the bottom, it may become even more unstable.” The earth god sounded rather pleased with the thought.

  #

  “It’s rising more!” Lieutenant Garrett cried, pointing to the fort.

  “It’s wobbling,” Captain Nevins said as he watched the fort rising in the night sky. He turned to the apprentice mage who was sweating with the effort of making Warrior rise higher in the cold night sky. “Mage Borkis, what happens if the fort wobbles too much?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Borkis replied, shaking his head. “But if it was a top that wobbled, it’d fall on its side.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” Nevins said to himself. He turned to his lieutenant. “Garrett, have the gunners aim for the spire.”

  “The spire, sir?” Garrett repeated in surprise.

  “We’re going to see if we can topple the fort over,” Nevins said with a calm he didn’t feel. If this plan didn’t work, he was certain that the fort’s twenty-four pound cannon balls would make short work of his poor ship — just as they had done with Martel’s Vengeance.

  “Aye, sir,” Garrett replied nervously.

  “A guinea to the first to hit the spire,” Nevins called out loudly.

  #

  “Another hundred feet and they’ll be too high for us to hit,” Captain Berold swore bitterly as the second airship continued to fire on the fort.

  “He’s aiming for the spire,” Ibb said, seeming surprised.

  “Maybe he can’t see too well,” Hamo Beck suggested.

  Captain Ellas said, “Then he shouldn’t be —”

  A ball hit the spire and the whole fort tipped in the air, wobbling back and forth.

  #

  “What happened?” Jarin cried as the earth above them suddenly teetered to one side.

  “It’s wobbling!” Ellen cried, screwing her eyes tight and shooting spells out of her fingers.

  “Ellen, no!” Rabel shouted. “That’s too much!”

  The earth above them rolled back away and further over.

  “We can’t hold it!” Rabel said. He turned to Jarin. “Jarin —”

  But above them the night sky suddenly grew larger on one side as the floating fort tipped on its side.

  #

  “We got it!” Nevins shouted, pounding the deck with his feet and pumping the air with his fists in triumph. “We got the damned thing!”

  The fort lurched away from the shots, lurched further and further until it seemed certain to fall over and then —

  It swung back again. Upright. More than upright. It started tipping toward them. Faster and faster.

  “It’s going to hit us!” Garrett cried in alarm.

  “Throw the guns overboard!” Nevins cried. “Throw everything over! Make us lighter!”

  “Slash the rigging and fire the guns!” Garrett roared. “Stand clear and let the recoil take them overboard!”

  The confused gunners looked at him in amazement until he and Nevins both pulled their swords and started slashing with all their might. The moment the first gun was unleashed, Nevins took the match and lit it off, standing back as the recoil shot the gun across the deck, through the railing on the other side and down into the dark night.

  “Get them all!” Garrett roared. One gunner was unlucky and got hit by a flying gun, screaming as it smashed into him and took him through the railing and into the darkness beyond but the rest of the guns soon followed it into the night.

  “We’re rising!” Nevins cried in delight.

  “The fort’s falling!” Borkis shouted, pointing as the fort tipped toward them.

  #

  “By the gods!” Lieutenant Marless swore as the night was filled with the sounds of crashing rocks in the distance. Colonel Walpish jerked his head around and spied the fort as it fell into the night, its spire tearing a huge gash into the hull of the remaining airship as it scrambled upwards in the night sky.

  “Bugler!” Colonel Walpish called. “Sound the trot!”

  “Sir?” Marless turned to him in shock.

  “We’re through their pickets,” Walpish replied. “We’ll go to the walk and rest the horses.” He gestured ahead of them. “We’ll be in the village by sunrise.”

  “Yes sir,” Marless said in a different tone.

  “Bugler,” Walpish called, “sound walk.”

  The slower tones of the walk trumpeted in
the night and the heavy hooves of the cavalry squadron slowed and grew more quiet, drowned out by the huge booming crashes in the distance behind them.

  #

  “Are you all right, your majesty?” Granno asked as the last of the horrendous noise died away around them.

  “Yes,” Queen Diam said, rising to her feet and dusting herself off. She glanced around to find her daughters and reached for their hands. “And you?”

  “That was rather louder than I’d anticipated,” Geros, the god of the earth, said as he stood beside them. “Does anyone know what happened?”

  “The fort fell over,” Missy said, pointing to the edge of the hill. “I think it hit the airship, too.”

  “But the airship is still there,” Diam said, glancing up into the night and picking out the dim white of its balloon high above them.

  “The pass is unguarded, the enemy can take the village,” Granno said solemnly.

  Diam accepted this with a nod. She glanced toward the large hole that had just moments before been the cavern of magnets. She could see some glinting of the steel that girded the bottom of the cavern still.

  “Where is Ellen?” Diam asked, her voice going chill.

  “And the others,” Geros said with academic interest. He looked at the mess of the cavern and muttered, “They’re human and rather delicate.”

  Missy turned to her mother and buried her head against her thigh, bawling.

  “Are —” Imay began slowly, looking up to her mother “— are they dead?”

  “They knew the risks,” Geros said, nodding to the ruins.

  “But — but —” Imay couldn’t say any more.

  “We will mourn them,” Granno said, moving toward his queen. “Their deeds will be sung by the bards forever.”

  “They were sworn to Ophidian,” Geros said idly, “I’m quite surprised that he —”

  “Look!” Diam cried, pointing to up to the sky just as a flame burst from under the airship.

  “Ophidian’s flame!” Geros swore.

  “It’s Jarin!” Diam cried in joy. “Look, children, it’s Jarin!”

  “It’s not just Jarin,” Granno said as two more bolts of flame joined the first.

  #

  “Fire! Fire!” a seaman shouted as Warrior rose in the night sky. Nevins turned to look toward the man, ready to berate him but —