NovaSiege

by Scott Toney

  His feet thundered on the earth. He leapt over the tree roots, his mind set on his destination. Then, out of the corner of his sight, he saw a flickering light, a light brighter than even sunlight when it shone. Dune? the thought crashed into his mind. No, his light would not flicker… but it does look like the light he put off. Ivanus dug his legs into the ground hard, spitting a fog of sand into the air as he peeled toward the light. As he approached it he could make out the form of a man’s body curled against a tree trunk. Its body was a combination of brilliant white light and patches of black. Ivanus looked behind him, checking to make sure the approaching army was not visible. He then ran again toward the man and stopped, crouching over his body. The man’s chest rose and fell, though with shallow breath. “Dune, it’s Ivanus.” He placed a clawed hand on Dune’s chest. Perhaps if Dune cannot hear me then Orpheus can.

  Shaun Dune opened his eyes only enough to see. “Ivanus, is that truly you? My body…” He coughed, spitting up something black onto the ground. “I am so weak. I cannot walk. I’ve been like this for days. Julieth was…” He pointed to the sky beyond the tree veranda, and then let his arm fall to the sand.

  “Do not speak. I assume you cannot transform. You need help. Perhaps if I can get you to Kaskal they could help there.”

  Dune’s eyelids crept open.

  “I fear I am already dead.”

  “No.”

  Ivanus wedged his arms beneath Dune’s body. He put his full strength into his back as he lifted the man. It was harder to move on two legs than four in beast form, but he knew he also had more strength in this form as well. Hours passed before Ivanus reached the end of the tree line. There, in the distance, Kaskal’s broken hull rose up from the desert. Men and women picked fruit from trees that now grew near its gates. Ivanus saw none of this though. There, above the city, he saw a beautiful winged form circling in the wind. It stopped when it faced him and then dove rapidly in his direction. “Julieth.” All strength seemed to flood from Ivanus’s body. He almost dropped Dune in his relief. “I am finally by your side.”

  Chapter 22

  The wind was full in Julieth’s wings as she circled above Kaskal. She turned sharply again and again, riding the wind in her frustration. Most of Kaskal’s people had agreed to take in the beast blood, but Raid and the beasts had yet to arrive. Ineal had been completely silent since their arrival and Dune had disappeared in the desert in recent days. No matter how frequently she searched for him she was unable to locate her only current ally. At least Bayne’s army has also not come. It was little consolation. She was also at a complete loss about what to do about what the essence within her had told her. How can I focus on something so vast as Solaris’s soul’s wellbeing when Kaskal stands to lose everything? Surely the planet can defend itself. But if what the essence said was true then this has happened over and over again before. Julieth dove quickly in the wind, curving her wings and rising in upward thrust before making a wide circle above Kaskal once more. She almost missed seeing the specks in front of the distant line of trees. What? That light… There were two figures there, what appeared to be a beast holding Dune. If Dune has returned to us and the beasts have come then this could greatly lift the day. Thank goodness he is alive.

  Julieth dove, allowing the wind current to carry her in the direction of the two. The ground blurred below and her face stung as rust flecks peeled across it. Her skin had become much coarser since she gained the ability of flight. When she touched her face sometimes at night it felt more like a hide than human flesh. Soon she neared the duo and landed, her feet hitting the earth hard as she sprinted the rest of the way to their side. The beast still stood in the shadow of the trees. It eyed her with what looked like awe. “You found him!” Her heart beat rapidly as she stopped and caught her breath, holding a hand to Dune’s chest and looking at his face for signs of movement. His chest still lifted and fell. “Where did you find him? I have been searching…” With that she looked to the beast’s moist eyes. She did not remember this one. He looked familiar but… “Who are you?” she asked between breaths. “Where are the others? I thought you would not arrive in time.”

  The beast took a step forward, and then another until he emerged in the sunlight and his flesh contorted back to human form.

  Julieth’s heart missed a beat and her breath caught in her lungs. “Ivanus…” it came out barely audible. “Ivanus! I feared you dead!” She ran to the man as he laid Dune on the desert sand and embraced her. He pulled her tight to his chest and she didn’t want him to let her go.

  “I feared we would never meet again.” Ivanus’s chest heaved and tears flowed from his eyes.

  She kissed his cheek as they embraced and then pulled away enough that she could see his eyes. “I love you.” She didn’t know where the words came from. How could she love a man she hadn’t seen for so long and had only known for a short time? “I love you.”

  “I…” Ivanus stuttered. “I love you.”

  Ivanus held a hand to her cheek and then pulled her in, kissing her deeply as she felt his hand move beneath her wings to the bare of her back.

  Time seemed to stop in their embrace.

  Then harsh wind beat against their bodies and Julieth remembered Dune. She pulled back from Ivanus, watching his beautiful eyes and wanting to keep their embrace. “We need to get Dune to Kaskal.” She brought herself back to reality. “Do you know what’s wrong with him?”

  “No. I found him just a short while ago as I came towards Kaskal. I trekked across the desert to Gest where Elias transformed me and told me everything you experienced there. I knew I had to come to Kaskal to be with you, to do what I can to assist you.” Ivanus kneeled beside Dune and began to lift him.

  “No.” Julieth kneeled beside the glowing man as well, directing Ivanus to let her take him, and hefted Dune into her arms. “I can move faster than you. Meet us in Kaskal.” She extended her wings behind her and was about to lift to the sky when a thought struck her. “Where is your essence? Is it still bonded with you?”

  Ivanus grinned. “It is gone. I can try to do the same thing for you. I felt it a risk worth taking. I could not stand being bonded with that thing any longer.”

  “I cannot give up my abilities, not yet. I am not even sure I would be able to. We need them to combat Bayne. One of the essences is protecting me from the others.”

  “What are you…” Ivanus’s eyes darkened and then the creases in his brow soothed. “I trust you not to be controlled by them. You mention Bayne. He approaches along the lava river with a massive army. Some of them seem to have abilities. I saw them from a distance. We may have a day. That is all.”

  Dune moaned in Julieth’s arms. His head rolled and she saw dark boiled skin covering his neck. It was too much to process at one time. “Meet me in Kaskal.” With a thrust of her wings she was skyward, soaring quickly toward the city. She looked back toward the river but could not see the army yet. When she was above the city she spied the medical block and dove fast, beating her wings as she neared so that she could land gently in a run.

  “Julieth!” a girl called to her from close by. She couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Julieth remembered her vaguely from the past month’s time. “Elise, this is Dune. Do you remember him? He has abilities like me. I need a bed to set him down on and a medic who might be able to assist me, though I’m not sure anything can be done.”

  “Over there!” Elise pointed to a nearby structure. “I’ll find a medic and send them!”

  Julieth ran to the stone structure and ducked as she entered. In the center of the room was a stone bed much like her own. She laid Dune flat and was relieved to see his chest still rising and falling. “Dune, can you hear me?”

  Dune coughed, black drool pooling from his mouth as he turned his head towards her. His light illuminated the room around them. The muscles beneath his skin tensed and appeared to deflate.

  What is happening to you? Shouldn’t the essence protect you from whatever this i
s? Julieth saw a stack of cloths close by and picked one up, dabbing sweat from Dune’s brow. His eyes stared like black voids towards her own. What if the essences are taking him like they did that man in Gest? She remembered the globule like form of the man before the essence fled his body and tried to bond with her or Ivanus. But this is happening too quickly.

  Dune lifted his hand and grabbed Julieth’s arm as she braced it to his chest. “I… I am blind.”

  “I wish I knew what I could do for you. Are the essences speaking to you?”

  Dune’s body jolted violently, his hand clasping to Julieth’s arm hard before releasing it and thrashing beside the bed. “Ugh,” he let out a loud moan.

  His hand then liquefied beneath the flesh, going completely limp as if the hand were just a sack.

  “No!” Julieth screamed. “I need a medic now!” She lunged back to the building’s door and shouted again for help.

  A moment later a stalky man with dark eyes ran to her from a nearby building. “Julieth, I came as quick as I could!”

  “Inside,” she directed him, half pulling him as he entered. She saw him fight back bile.

  “I cannot do anything for him,” the man protested. “He has abilities. He is completely different.”

  “Do something,” Julieth pled.

  “Something for the pain then.” The man hurried to a corner of the room and kicked a portion of the stone wall. It crumbled with the force. He reached through the hole that formed where the wall portion had been and pulled out a small sack. “This is medicine from long ago. There is little left but I keep some hidden in a few of our healing rooms.” He took a pill from the sack and held it to Dune’s trembling lips. “Take this. It should help.”

  Dune opened his mouth slightly and swallowed down the pill. “Ugh,” he moaned. “Th… thank… My arm… Gone?”

  “Yes,” Julieth breathed out, still horrified. “You are dying, I think. The essence is taking you.”

  “T… take my life.” Dune pled. The words were weak and raspy.

  “I do not know how to.” Julieth clasped his remaining hand and wrapped an arm around him, holding him close. Dune’s body slowly liquefied in Julieth’s embrace. His brilliant light diffused to dark, brown skin. It revolted her to her core, but she refused to break the embrace until she looked where Dune’s eyes had been and saw only a hollow mass. She watched the vibrant hue of the essence moving beneath Dune’s skin, looking for a port to release itself. Julieth released her embrace and stepped away. She looked at the medic, who stood watching in frozen silence. “Go. You cannot do anything. He’s gone.” The man didn’t move. “Go.” He finally left through the room’s doorway, looking behind him as he went.

  The light of the essence moved as a vibrant orb beneath the mass of skin. It searched for an opening, and then when it found the mouth its light bled away into the air above.

  Julieth ducked as it circled the ceiling and then fled through a crack into the roof. She expected what remained of Shaun Dune’s body to melt away then as she had seen the man’s body do in Gest, but instead something hard and creviced took shape beneath the flesh.

  “They dare harm us,” a horrible voice exuded from the mouth.

  “Orpheus?” Julieth questioned.

  “They will all pay!” The hard form beneath the flesh grew, rupturing the flesh and sending fluid flowing down the bed and across the ground. It clawed its way out as the entirety of the flesh melted away, growing larger and larger as its black scales tensed and its eyes searched Julieth’s. “Dune has died, but my life flame cannot be extinguished so easily!”

  Julieth fled to the doorway. “Orpheus, you have to help us! Defend us against Bayne and I will work with you to find a way to destroy the essences!”

  “I am a dragon! I do not need you! That was Dune’s will!” The dragon’s body expanded rapidly, crowding the room’s walls.

  Julieth ran away from the place. “Run! The building will collapse!” she shouted at people near the structure before beating her wings and taking to the sky. “Orpheus, we need your strength and flame! Don’t you want to avenge Dune’s death?”

  The structure below exploded, sending rock and shards of rusted metal slicing around her and damaging other structures close by. One man below her was struck in the chest and forced down. He writhed beneath the boulder sitting on him and rolled it off.

  The dragon emerged from the smoke with wild, crimson eyes. He was one muscle moving in fluid motion. “Ivanus said Dune approaches by the river with others with powers and essences. I will go and destroy all that I see. The essences do not know what they have awoken.”

  Orpheus’s breath was hot as it ribbed over Julieth. “Wait! Give us time!”

  “Time does not exist.” Crimson light rippled through the crevices of Orpheus’s scales. “Only heart and blood.”

  The dragon thrust away from her, out over Kaskal’s structures toward the river and the trees. Its black form was a hollow mark in the sunlight. So many things raced through Julieth’s mind.

  “Julieth!” a voice called below her.

  She looked to see Ivanus waving his arms frantically. She curved her wings, swiftly dropping until she landed beside him. “How much did you see?” she asked quickly.

  “Enough to know we don’t have the option of waiting to meet Bayne in battle. What happened to Dune?”

  Julieth watched as people ran through the streets around them. “Dune is dead. I watched the life leave his body and the essence leave him. When Dune died, then the dragon emerged. Apparently they were not connected in death.” She waited a moment. All of their options for confronting Bayne moved through her mind in a storm. “You are safe from Bayne’s mind control because of the beast blood, and I am safe because of the good essence bonding with me, but we can’t ask anyone from Kaskal to assist us. Once Bayne is in range he will be able to possess them. I had hoped Riad and the beasts would return before we had to face Bayne again.”

  “A good essence?” Ivanus questioned.

  “We have no time to explain now. The question is whether to attack or not, just the two of us and the dragon. If we want his assistance then now is the time.”

  Ivanus nodded in agreement. “Then we need to go. Can you carry me?”

  “I should be able to until we near the enemy.” Julieth flexed her wings, looking toward the sky. “I’ll need to go to my home here as well. I have a bow and arrows there. I fear they are my only viable weapons now.”

  “I have nothing,” Ivanus remarked. “But in the shadows I have my body as a beast. We’ll have to lure the army to the tree line.”

  Julieth spread her wings fully, lifted into the air and reached down to clasp Ivanus’s hands. Just as she clasped his hands and was about to pull him up, the ground quaked violently and then stopped. “No… It can’t be.” Julieth’s heart raced in her chest as a swath of land nearby concaved and then disappeared, leaving a hole in the earth.

  Voices echoed up from the hole and a massive arm and hand emerged, using a shard of metal to grip to the ground. A boot then swung up, also lined with metal picks. The body of the man slowly emerged as other men and women climbed out of the ground around it, morphing from beast to humanoid form.

  The first man stood before them. “I’m sorry it took so long to reach you,” Riad spoke. The gears in his cybernetics clicked and spun as his cybernetic eye illuminated crimson. His cybernetic arm was missing, wires spitting electricity where it had been.

  “What happened?” Julieth asked, putting Ivanus down once more, landing and then walking to his side.

  “The essence that bonded with me via my cybernetics attempted to kill me, so I had the beasts rip off my arm and thrust it into a pit.”

  “Always subtle,” Ivanus quipped.

  “It’s good to see you, too.” Riad barely looked at him before returning his attention to Julieth. “The beasts have heard you speaking as we tunneled to you. Apparently they have excellent hearing. Unfortunately most cities we went to w
ere barren of life, but we did encounter a few remaining and convince some of their civilians to take in beast blood and join us.” The beast/human horde flooded up from the open chasm behind him continually as he spoke. “We are at your command.”

  Chapter 23

  Bayne stood at the edge of the lava river, letting its heat roll up and over him as the current sludged by.

  “We need to go,” the rock man, Jordanth, spoke to him close by. He placed a hand on Bayne’s shoulder. Its grip was tight, not so much comforting as it was a nudge. “The opportunity of surprise will only be ours for a while longer. Surely they will learn of our approach soon.”

  Bayne’s head pounded. He could feel the essences trying to mold his mind. “Why do we do this? Why do we do anything? Ortax is gone. The essences could take your life or mine at any moment they will to do so.”

  “Then it is to our advantage to please them.” Jordanth released Bayne’s shoulder and stepped in front of him. He placed a hand against Bayne’s chest and forced him back. “Come, it is time to go.”

  Bayne searched the man’s mind with his ability, about to take possession of the stone monstrosity when he felt something else coming, something large. The dragon, but there is something different about it. Where is the mortal mind? And there is no essence with it either.

  Jordanth gave Bayne a shove. “Move, boy, it is time to go.”

  Bayne’s mind was distant, searching the fibers of Orpheus’s consciousness for a place to enter. It was harder than it had been with humans. The dragon’s mind was so much vaster. Then he found what he searched for. He seized the beast’s mind and his own vision became red for an instant before reverting back to normal. Fire erupted above, writhing like a crimson ocean in the sky.

  “Look!” someone behind Bayne shouted as Jordanth knelt in confusion.

  The rock man looked at Bayne as he rose. “You see, because you stalled us they attack first.”