by Will Wight
“Gone, they’re gone, they’re…I don’t know!” The Iron man’s eyes were wild. “They’re dead or crippled. He was going to kill us all!”
“I was not!” Eithan shouted. “I told you that!”
Lindon released the Heaven’s Glory member to stand on his own. “I am Wei Shi Lindon, and I claim Heaven’s Glory School in the absence of its Jades. If you find an elder, bring them to me. Otherwise, you’re to help everyone leave the valley.”
The man glanced down at Lindon’s badge, but Lindon caught his eyes again. “Spread the word.”
The man ran, leaving Lindon to repeat himself to all the other members of Heaven’s Glory on the ground. He’d left them only lightly injured, and as a result he’d taken the cut that Dross had promised. A tiny slice across his left forearm.
It was already healing.
Lindon marched back to Eithan, but he started speaking early. Eithan would be able to hear him. “I can’t imagine that would have been much threat to you.”
“It’s not the first twenty ambushes that get you,” Eithan called.
When Lindon returned to Eithan, the crowd of Kazan members were huddled together, looking to him with awe and fear, as though he might decide to execute them at any second.
Lindon bowed to them. “Gratitude,” he said. “My thanks for protecting my master in my absence.”
At the word “master,” their eyes widened.
“If you don’t mind, you should leave as soon as possible. I can’t be sure that Heaven’s Glory will leave you alone, even now. We don’t have much—”
[Oh no,] Dross whispered.
“What?” Eithan asked. “What is it? I can’t see anything! I hate this place.”
Lindon hopped on his Thousand-Mile Cloud without finishing his sentence, zooming up above the surrounding trees.
He looked over to the west. Something had changed with the Wandering Titan, but he couldn’t identify exactly what.
Then he opened his aura sight.
It was like watching the opposite of an earthquake. Starting from Mount Venture to the west, the ground—which had been steadily shaking all day—stopped moving. Earth aura froze.
The wave of silence reached them, and the rumbling of the ground ceased. Only a few boulders tumbled down the nearby slopes.
There came one, loud crash. Then another. Footsteps.
A dark stone head appeared over the western peak, and the Wandering Titan let out a roar that shook the golden sky.
“Run!” Lindon shouted down. Eithan was already on his feet, shakily ushering the Kazan clansmen forward, but they would only slam into the wall of people trying to choke themselves through the narrow exit from Sacred Valley.
They were beginning to stampede, even trampling each other in their desperation to get away. A massive golden light shone behind Eithan, resolving into his cloudship: The Bounding Gazelle.
It would barely fly in aura this thin, if indeed it would fly at all, but Eithan was clearly willing to try. He ushered the Kazan sacred artists onboard, physically hurling one and carrying two children under his arms before leaping up to the control console.
Lindon began flying away, toward the exit. The Akura cloudships should be gone by now, but he was seeing Fallen Leaf uniforms, and he could feel Orthos around. At least they had made it.
Eithan’s golden cloudship lurched along like a stone skipping across the surface of a lake, barely able to lift up before it had to sit back down, but it was still faster than dragging all the Kazan by hand.
Lindon left them behind, soaring over the line of people screaming and pushing to make it through the Heaven’s Glory exit.
To his relief, he could see a ship on a purple cloud flying off with its deck packed with people. Not all the Akura cloudships had taken off after all. Another, resting on the ground, was steadily filling with people.
But as he looked back west, over Sacred Valley, despair choked him again. There were still uncountably many people left. He couldn’t begin to see the end of the human line stretching off into the distant clan buildings and beyond.
Not everyone would make it.
But his family still could.
The skies were relatively clear, most ordinary citizens of Sacred Valley not having access to a flying vehicle, so Lindon soared easily over to where Orthos and Little Blue waited for him.
Kelsa paced next to the turtle, Jaran crouched on a stool and impatiently juggled his cane, while Seisha adjusted settings on her drudge. The hovering brown fish bristled with sensors and detectors; Lindon’s mother was clearly trying to figure out more information about what was happening.
All four of them stood on Windfall’s blue cloud base, and Lindon immediately recognized why. They had been directed to the right place, but they couldn’t open the door.
Lindon tried to reach out with his madra, but failed. Though he had left the suppression field, his spirit hadn’t fully recovered yet, and his pure madra dissipated only a few feet from his body.
Orthos had been watching Lindon fly up, and at his words, Lindon’s mother and sister looked up.
Lindon landed in front of them, his left hand resting on the door to his fortress. At the touch of his madra, the door slid soundlessly open.
The ramps to the nearby Akura ships were clogged, blocked by crowds of people trying to fight their way on, though the Akura Golds easily prevented any unwanted stowaways. A few of those waiting to board noticed Lindon’s fortress opening, and some groups began to run for his wide blue cloud.
“Where were you?” Lindon’s father demanded.
From her seat atop Orthos’ head, Little Blue whistled concern for the others.
“Get inside,” Lindon said, his voice low. He tried to give them a reassuring glance, but his eyes were locked on the golden horizon to the west. “Eithan will be joining us soon. Yerin got away on her own. Mercy and Ziel, I…I don’t know.”
“How are we going to carry everyone?” Kelsa asked. She had a huge backpack strapped on, but she was shifting from foot to foot, as though she longed to toss it aside and go find some people to save.
That first group of people had almost reached Lindon’s fortress, running desperately as though they thought he might take off at any moment.
“I don’t know,” Lindon said again. “We need more time. Get inside.”
His mother looked uneasily at the people clamoring to reach the fortress. “How much room do we have?”
“Enough for these, at least,” Lindon said, and Kelsa let out a sigh of relief. Had she expected him to turn away people for no reason? “We don’t have to carry them far.”
A crash deafened the world, and screams rose from the nearby crowds. Rocks and ice tumbled down from Samara’s peak. Lindon wondered if Mount Venture was still intact.
With a spiritual effort, Lindon commanded the fortress’ cloud to lower, forming a ramp to allow the fleeing Sacred Valley citizens access. The closest batch was from the Li clan, he noted, with their fancy badges and elaborate jewelry.
Not that clan distinctions mattered now, but that made him hopeful that Mercy was here somewhere.
Orthos led Lindon’s family inside, with Little Blue giving directions. When the first family reached the top of the ramp, Lindon held out a hand to stop them.
They tried to barrel past him, but the gray-haired Iron Enforcer at the front crashed into Lindon’s extended arm as though into a steel bar.
“No fighting while you’re in my home,” Lindon said quietly.
The Ruler behind the Enforcer bobbed her head while holding a green-wrapped infant girl on one hip. “Yes, yes, whatever you say.”
She was echoed by all the fifteen or so members of the Li clan, who all cried either agreement or begged him to hurry.
[Eighteen,] Dross corrected. [You didn’t count the baby ones.]
Lindon moved his arm and stood aside, letting them rush onboard, while he conversed with Dross. How many can we hold?
[Well, the aura is still
thin here. It depends on how many belongings they have, and how much space they take up on average…]
More and more people had noticed that his fortress was wide and relatively open, so they had begun rushing for him.
[…at least two hundred, easily. No, a hundred and eighty. Say one seventy-five, to be safe.]
A roar sounded out, causing the Irons and Coppers and Jades to scream and clap hands to their ears. Lindon thought some of them might be deafened.
[I, uh, hate to waste calculations, but I don’t think storage space will be our limiting factor.]
Time. They would have to take off before they were full. He looked at the mass of humanity pouring out of the Heaven’s Glory passageway, knowing there were hundreds of thousands of people still inside.
Was the Titan in there already? Had he crushed the Wei clan to rubble?
“Prepare to leave,” Lindon ordered, and Dross materialized, drifting off into the network of scripts and constructs that formed the organs of the cloud fortress.
Eithan’s hopping golden cloudship came to a rest by Lindon, and a number of shelter-seeking families ran over to him as a ramp extended.
Lindon looked up to Mount Samara, where a white ring was forming. He didn’t want to see the truth on the other side, but he had to know.
He called his Thousand-Mile Cloud again and launched himself into the air as fast as he could.
Mount Samara, seething with people desperately seeking safety, fell away beneath his feet. He shot up and up, past thin clouds, above the circle of light ringing the peak. Up close, Samara’s ring was thicker than he had ever realized.
Finally, Lindon looked down upon Sacred Valley.
Mount Venture was gone.
Reddish rocks were scattered all over the center of the valley, crushing trees and buildings as far away as the Wei and Li territories. The Kazan clan was…buried.
A monster crouched on their former home. The Wandering Titan was hunched over once again, feeding, but this time it wasn’t wrist-deep in the ground.
Mount Venture had been cracked open like a shell, revealing a golden treasure within.
A beacon of yellow light shone in a pillar up to the sky. Even suppressed by Sacred Valley’s formation, it gave off a sense of power that felt completely out of place here.
The source of that light was covered in the Wandering Titan’s hands, and it fed deeply, drawing with hunger madra. As he watched, Lindon was struck with how similar the two felt. It was like the Titan had been reunited with a piece of itself.
But second by second, the light began to flicker. Almost imperceptible at first, but it wouldn’t be too long until the Titan was done feeding.
[It’s not…it’s not getting stronger, is it?] Dross asked nervously. He was still inside the fortress, but he could share Lindon’s thoughts anyway.
Hard to tell. The Dreadgod gave off the impression of overwhelming power, but inside the suppression field, the Titan was certainly weaker than it was outside. Though Lindon thought perhaps it did feel a little stronger than before. Then again, he was having an easier time sensing everything in Sacred Valley. It must be an effect of leaving the formation behind himself, and having his former power slowly restored.
Dross’ mental voice was high-pitched. [Ready, ah, ready to leave!]
Go! Now!
Under Dross’ control, Windfall lifted off even as Lindon streaked down to meet them. One Li family was halfway on, and two members tumbled off the side.
He swooped down and caught them by the backs of their collars, hauling them up to the rest of their family.
He could do nothing for the others.
The ones left behind screamed and begged for him to return, but he had already landed on the house. There was a hatch on the roof, and he used his power as a key to prove his identity and slip inside.
Dross was launching the fortress now, but his madra wouldn’t be enough to fuel it for long, with the aura here as thin as it was. Lindon took over as soon as he entered the control room, letting pure madra flood out to the scripts.
To his surprise, the control room was crowded. Orthos and his family sat off to the side, but so did many of the refugees from the Li, Kazan, and Wei clans, each keeping to their third of the room.
He had expected them to spread out across the fortress. He supposed they were seeking comfort in company.
The cloudship shot further into the air, but he activated another script, showing him Eithan’s cloudship. It was still grounded.
Did Eithan even have the madra to take off?
He was about to go back and help when Eithan’s ramp smoothly folded up, the ship lifting effortlessly from the ground. That was one problem solved.
Now he just had to pretend they weren’t leaving thousands upon thousands of people to die.
The Akura cloudships had stopped taking passengers as well, though some were still empty. They rushed away ahead of him, moving away from the Dreadgod as fast as possible. He didn’t blame them. They had stayed longer than he expected.
He tried to keep his thoughts focused, but somehow he had already activated a viewing construct to show him the scene behind him. The crowd of desperate people dashing down the slopes of Mount Samara was projected into the air. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.
Maybe some of them would make it.
“You saved these lives,” Orthos said gravely. “Focus on that.”
Lindon tried.
“Needed more time,” his father said. “With only another week, we could have gotten everyone.”
Lindon had faced enough trouble trying to get people to listen to him even with the imminent threat of a Dreadgod looming over them. Would they have listened to him at all if the danger weren’t at their heels?
Maybe. He could have tried.
[East!] Dross shouted suddenly. [East, east, east!]
The spirit’s emotions were hard to untangle, but they were definitely urgent. Lindon activated the viewing construct directed to the east, but he saw only the Desolate Wilds and the purple Akura cloudships dashing away.
But he thought he felt something. And he saw a speck…
No sooner had he noticed than the speck rushed over their heads. It was a long shaft of Forged crystalline madra the size of a tower, and it sped overhead at impossible speeds, kicking up a snowstorm as it passed by Samara’s peak.
The arrow struck with a deafening explosion, followed shortly by the roar of the Wandering Titan.
Then the golden sky darkened. Not with clouds, but with shadow madra.
With his delicate Sage senses, Lindon felt the fabric of the world ripple. A woman stepped from a tall column of darkness, a woman clad head-to-toe in armor of purple crystal and carrying a shimmering blue bow.
Akura Malice didn’t stand as tall as when she’d faced the Bleeding Phoenix, but she still towered over his airborne cloudship. She nodded once to his fortress—to him—and then rose into the air.
She took aim with her bow again, and Lindon’s heart lifted. They were saved.
But why had she stopped to see him?
A knock came from the door, and the feeling of a familiar presence soothed him. He released a heavy breath.
The hatch in the ceiling opened and Yerin dropped down. She landed easily, stretching her arms as though exhausted. “I’d contend I’ve done my part. How many Monarchs have you recruited today?”
Lindon commanded the cloudship to land.
15
If Lindon had thought the ground was trembling before, it was nothing compared to what the battle between Monarch and Dreadgod did to the earth.
The Desolate Wilds quaked around him, black trees losing leaves by the bushel. The Purelake, the glistening pool of crystalline water that nourished most of the wilds, shook as though in a high storm.
Families rushed off of Lindon’s fortress. They hadn’t wanted to leave so relatively close to Sacred Valley, but there wasn’t much choice.
He was going to fly back.
The factions of the Desolate Wilds might not be welcoming to refugees, so Lindon left each family with a weapon, a handful of Underlord scales, and a wax seal stamped with the Arelius family crest.
That should be enough to get them started here, but if it failed…well, at least fellow sacred artists had more mercy than a Dreadgod.
Worse, The Bounding Gazelle had given up, and Eithan had withdrawn it.
“It’s made for high performance,” he’d said, “so it needs either richer aura or more madra. I’d prefer both.”
There had been discussion of Lindon possibly taking over the faster cloudship and Yerin flying Windfall, but the discussion threatened to eat more time than it saved. Eithan was now asleep in his house on the island, and Lindon had to hope that he would recover enough madra by the time they arrived that he could power The Bounding Gazelle again.
While they flew, they all watched the battle.
Malice’s massive form was visible in the sky, even hundreds of miles away, standing like a violet statue on a platform of air. She hovered just outside the boundary of Sacred Valley’s suppression field, firing arrows into her enemy.
At first, Lindon had wondered why the Monarchs had never taken this opportunity to kill the Dreadgods here before. Just trap them inside the field and then bombard them with attacks from outside.
But each arrow dimmed and shrunk the second it crossed the border into Sacred Valley. The Monarch techniques lost their power in seconds, though they still contained a depth of complexity and reality-warping weight that he couldn’t fully understand.
He knew they were making an impact because the Titan roared in response to each one. As Lindon turned the fortress to drift back to Sacred Valley, he felt the golden power of the Dreadgod flare…and then retreat.
Not far. The Titan was only lumbering back the other way. But as Malice flew around the edges of the circular suppression field, keeping up her barrage of attacks, Lindon’s heart climbed.
