by Cara Violet
“You want to win the election, right?”
What was Darayan playing at, toying with the Aquamorphs? And why was Archibel glued to the spot?
“And I will.”
“You’ve got no support,” Darayan said to him, viciously, “how can you?”
“Oh, things are in the works, my little cross-breeding Gorgon Sarinese,” Adrian narrowed his eyes at the flames of Darayan’s aura. “And you have nothing I need nor want.”
“Wait!” Archibel exclaimed, finally moving her foot a step forward and bringing colour back to her faded cheeks.
Adrian ignored her and swung his hand about, “Kill them.”
“What type of plan was this?” Bodel said chiding. Several Aquamorph Ledgers blew up in shimmering blue light.
“Let’s be honest: it really wasn’t,” Materid said matter-of-factly.
“Just run!” Darayan screamed.
Archibel watched the three running comrades slide behind an ice sculpture to their left. Aura beams came soaring as more Aquamorphs stalked them like animals in a hunt. Now was the moment she had to do something. Had to show these blue tyrants who she was and what she was trained to do; her aura burst from her, locking her fiery second skin around her and sent her flare-red locks sky-high.
Hand raised toward her; Adrian opened his mouth to speak then stopped.
Archibel’s attention followed his. Her ears pricked at the noise first, she recognised the swishing sound of an opening Vector, the doorway of ice opening and closing right above them. But how? Was this one controlled by the Defeated King? Or were there some ships with the ability to Vector still?
Gaining momentum of her own, Archibel studied the huge Felrin cruiser that came into view from the closing Vector; she instinctively glanced down to Darayan, his head out from behind the ice rock.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, and she could see the movement of his lips, understand what he was saying to her, “I know who that is.”
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Return of the Camaraderie
Owen hadn’t taken any chances: Adrian practically admitting his plan to desolate the Harpies didn’t sit well with the Kinsmen Ranger. Neither did the fact Adrian was searching for any means to gain support to win this election. The Felrin cruiser slid through the doorway of ice and met the frozen water planet. They entered the atmosphere and felt the chill press through the windshield; Owen scanned the Ice City as they moved closer.
“Looks suspicious,” Everett said glancing at the many dots moving about below.
On closer inspection, Owen noticed crusade-like formations of Aquamorph Ledgers.
“What’s that?”
Alarms were already broadcasting from the planet. Aquamorph Ledgers jostled back and forth along the ice-gated bridges. Something was happening.
“I think we’ve crashed the party?” Owen mused.
“Cold?” a voice below him said. Restraining a boiling temper, Owen scrutinised Cuki below him.
“I thought I told you to stay in Felrin?” he chastised.
“Can’t be much of a party, sir,” Lafael said “there’s no music.”
“Oh, but if I can see correctly,” Nash smirked, “someone has poked the fish.”
“They’re not fish, Nash.” Everett replied.
Nash waved his hand about. “Same same, but different.”
Taelen snorted. “Get a grip, would you?”
“I’m just prepping myself.” Nash’s hands darted for his weapon. “What’s the plan, anyway?”
“Well,” Owen began, swiping his hand into Cuki’s face and shoving him away, “If we must make a grand entrance—”
“That I can muster,” Lafael said alongside copilot Taelen, “but I think we’ve already been spotted, so that grand entrance has already been sprung.”
“Hmm,” Owen frowned, “who is that down there?” His eyes strained; two blistering dusty orange auras ready to defend themselves from the Ledgers. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Owen shook his head in disbelief, “Taelen, lower the ship.”
“Where—?”
The rickety movement under his feet and the loud crash happened simultaneously.
“Ah, sir,” Lafael said upbeat, “I think they’ve opened fire.”
“Damn, Adrian!” Owen scolded. “What the Holom are they firing at us? Ledger beams can’t reach this far, can they?”
“It seems there is a weapon concealed in the city.”
“Then move around it.”
“Can’t; seems to be locked on to us.”
“Well then, return fire. And get us on the ground now. What the Holom is Darayan doing?”
Nash stretched his arms out. “Question is, how the Holom did they get here?”
“Suradika knows,” Everett replied. “I mean the boy admitted he was from Layos.”
“Odd,” Nash bit his bottom lip.
“I know.”
Owen fumed as another attack struck the Cruiser. “Get us to the ground now!”
Reloading their scabbards and fastening their tunics, the Kinsmen Rangers readied themselves for landing.
“Park the ship further out, Lafael,” Owen directed, closing his leather belt tight around his waist. “and stay there.”
“But I’ll miss all the fun.”
“Just get the ship out of this weapon’s sight and we will meet up with you soon.”
“Yes, sir,” Lafael nodded reluctantly.
“You,” Owen glared at Cuki, “stay on the cruiser.”
The Daem-Raal shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
Nash, Everett, Taelen and Owen disembarked the cruiser when it was lowered to the icy rock. Another attack had Lafael quickly pulling up and powering away. Owen saluted him as he left.
“This way,” Owen pointed, and they headed for the commotion.
“Darayan!” A voice called.
Almost immediately recognising the figure hurrying over, Darayan pivoted from anger to confidence. It tripled when the four Kinsmen Rangers, bent knees and running for cover, fired up in the rich jade aura native to their home.
“Owen—”
A dozen Ledger beams flew between them, throwing Darayan back against Materid and Bodel.
“Quickly,” Owen said hastening toward them and yanking Darayan to his feet, “this way.”
“Not without Archibel.”
Nash snorted, sending his own aura beam out to strike a Ledger running towards the illuminating Sarinese girl. “What, that damsel up there?”
“I need her,” Darayan said quickly, shaking off Owen’s hold and firing another two beams toward three Ledgers leaping along an ice bridge.
“What for?” Owen said after shooting his own aura.
“Because she is the Princess of Sari.”
Nash chortled between attacks. “Is that supposed to mean something to us—?”
Everett gleaned. “Wait, what’s she doing?”
Defending herself against three Aquamorph Ledgers, Archibel put her Topazi skills on show and Darayan couldn’t have been prouder. Archibel, her dress splitting as she fought, spun fiercely, kicking two Ledgers over the edge of the ice balcony, and blazed dusty orange beams into their remaining compadre, who ended up immobile below her.
Owen raised his brows. “It seems, my friend, your girl can take care of herself.”
Darayan smirked. “Never doubted it for a second.”
A huge chuck of ice above Darayan was knocked off by a stronger force than an aura beam, sending fragments tumbling down atop them.
“We can’t win this,” Owen locked eyes with Darayan. “Not with that weapon. Nash, Everett,” he said firmly.
Nash hid back behind what remained of the rock as it took heavy aura beam fire. “Yes, sir?”
“Go west,” his Valendean leader ordered. “Create a distraction, Adrian obviously isn’t in the mood for a chat, nor have we got any surprise or advantage here.”
“So much for scoping out the scene,” Everett said unenthused.
“Plans change,�
� Nash said understandingly.
“His ain’t changing.”
“Just get out of here!” Owen grumbled.
The two Kinsmen Rangers moved swiftly; Aquamorphs redirecting their attack on them as they ran.
“Time to get your girl,” Owen said.
“Right,” Darayan said swiftly glancing to Bodel and Materid. They had begun working their way towards the castle; they wound their way under a bridge, and back to back, were taking on two Ledgers.
“Kinsmen will head northwest,” Owen said as his remaining comrade Taelen departed. “Well off you go,” he said to Darayan.
The violent dusty flames pouring out of him sent his body into overdrive: his attention on Archibel running south and two Aquamorph Ledgers chasing her; he ran, full speed, towards them.
She must have glanced his way because when he called “Drop!” she immediately did so, sending an aura beam into the ice balcony above her, breaking her pursuers’ path.
He kept running; Darayan twirled his body up in the Siliou, spinning onto the platform she had landed on, situating himself behind her. The remaining Aquamorphs stalked slowly, baring their teeth and growling.
“There’s more behind us,” he heard Archibel say.
“We are jumping off the rock to the left,” he told her, eyes still on the Aquamorphs pacing back and forth, preparing a run up to leap over to their platform, all the while snarling and hissing. “Now.”
“But where?”
“Just now,” he pulled her against him.
“You don’t know where the river flows, the delta—”
“It’s all an adventure right now,” and with that, just before the pacing Aquamorphs landed and seconds before another seized them from behind, Darayan stepped off the ledge. After a short freefall and stomach-turning landing on their bottoms, the two of them tumbled into one of the fast-moving streams of the Ice City. “Lean back,” he said hugging her closer to him. She did so; only to yank herself back up again—
A blast went off next to them, one of the ice pillars: particles of ice flew skyward.
“They’ve got some turret weapon,” Darayan said the flowing water getting rougher and louder, “lean back and stay down.”
While the river carried them, they passed through tunnels and were briefly hidden, but once through, again they were exposed to the city centre and to another round of aura beam or turret fire.
A shot came so close that Archibel slipped from Darayan’s grasp and turned about: her limbs facing the wrong way and her neck jammed backward, going down headfirst as she trailed him down the current.
“Use your momentum in the Siliou!” he called. Her body lit up like a rod and with one quick movement, she straightened.
“Don’t harm the girl!”
Darayan could hear Adrian’s voice, but it didn’t matter. A small grate was at the end of their course: the water could flow down it but they couldn’t.
“I think we are going to be crushed.”
A blast began. Darayan looked over his shoulder to see Archibel sending aura beams into the ice around the grate.
“It will break,” she said answering his confusion. “It’s only water.”
Darayan wasn’t sure about their timing; not sure if it would be movable by the time the river swept them to it, but he joined her anyway—sending off numerous beams. And as they neared, the turret weapon fired at him, grazing his right side and disintegrating the ice wall.
“Use your feet,” she reminded him.
With the force of their velocity and the instability of the ice wall, the grate fell away for their entry as soon as they pushed against it.
“Downnnnn we goooooo …”
Darayan felt he had jumped out of his own skin. The drop was higher than he had thought and his body hit the near-freezing water with a splash. Skin colder than the ice itself and breath like frost, as soon as Darayan resurfaced to catch his breath, the violent chill of temperature began attacking his body. Hypothermia crossed his mind, and the lack of heat they’d need to warm up when they got out of this mess.
“Archibel?” he said automatically, lips shaking; perpetual darkness the only thing greeting him.
“Quickly,” she barely got out, swimming hard for him. To his relief, as her panicky splashes subsided, she was in one piece, but the noise above them still reached his ears—Aquamorphs discussing how to get them out of the body of water the Ice City sat on. “They use this to turn the city, they keep the boiling pools for this reason,” her lips purple and her face turning blue as she spoke.
Darayan yanked her closer to him, not before hearing something—someone.
“This way,” a voice echoed.
“Who’s there?” Darayan said instinctively. Light streaming into his line of sight.
“It’s Nash, you fool.”
“I’m coming,” Darayan said willing Archibel to swim alongside him.
They swam hard to reach the Kinsmen Ranger. Perched at a small opening to the north, he had used his double-bladed weapons to hack the ice away.
“Hands out,” Nash said as he lowered his hand to them.
In urgency, Darayan immediately lifted Archibel toward him.
“There! Down the north side!” a voice yelled.
“It’s okay,” Nash said as he heaved Archibel up and out through the opening, “Everett has our backs.”
Darayan nodded. “Got the long-range skills, does he?”
Nash laughed, “No that’s Lafael, Everett’s got the chain sticks.”
“Chain sticks?” Darayan said in surprise as Nash reached for him.
An aura beam singed past Nash’s lowered body. “Best we go,” he said. One last pull and Darayan squeezed through the exit hole right behind the Kinsmen Ranger.
“What took you so long?”
Coughing and trembling, Darayan and Archibel were greeted by a chain stick-twirling Everett, wedged against an ice rock several metres away as if in hiding.
“Ah,” Nash said pushing past Archibel and heading for Everett. “Give us the robe would ya?”
A turquoise blue robe emerged from under Everett and he threw the thick material at Nash.
“Got it from a lovely lady who was sipping on some ice tea at the back of the city,” he boasted.
While Nash caught the robe and headed for Archibel, Darayan scoped out their situation. To their remote left, the Ice City still loomed, buzzing with sparkling aura and movement. Although the large open span of ice terrain to the north was clear, it was a mystery how they were going to make the clearing without being completely exposed to the city’s weapon.
“Coast is clear for now,” Everett said.
“You need to take your clothes off—”
Twist! Crack!
Archibel had warped Nash’s nose between her fingers and dropped him to the ground as she snatched the robe from him and dressed, discarding her wet clothes from under it. “I will do no such thing.”
Darayan couldn’t help but snigger; Everett’s loud wailing laugh made it worse.
“Enough out of you two!” Nash said rubbing his nose and rising.
Removing only a few pieces, Darayan endured his wet clothes, and began heading towards Everett. His eyes scanned Archibel’s face, pinker now and washed clean of paint by the water. “Are you warm now?”
She nodded faintly, and after finishing the plait in her hair she followed him. “Are you?”
“I’ll manage,” he got out.
“Owen said their scapecrafts have been dismantled,” Everett said as Darayan reached the iceberg he waited at.
“What? Ours?”
“We are running east as soon as Owen returns: it’s where Lafael parked the cruiser.”
Darayan was perplexed, the scapecraft was hidden, wasn’t it?
He moved fast. Darting for a higher location out of the sight of the Ice City.
“Wait,” Archibel said hurrying after him. “You’ll be seen.”
Climbing up the iceberg as high as he
could, Darayan peered over the highest peak he could find: he witnessed several Ledgers destroying his scapecraft.
“Oh Holom,” he muttered. Where were Bodel and Materid? “Go back down now,” he ordered Archibel, feeling the wind pick up and his body shiver as it pressed against his freezing skin.
“Owen’s got your friends,” Everett said to Darayan’s worried face as they returned.
Darayan looked down and raised his eyebrows. “Nice sticks.”
“Ey, they can hurt, believe me.”
“Fall out!” Nash called, from just further down the iceberg. He’d had his eyes on the Ice City and was waving them on.
“Time to go,” Everett said.
“Run!” Nash exclaimed again.
Darayan latched onto Archibel and kept moving. They reached the clearing, icy wind caressing them with every stride and movement. All Darayan could think was that this would be the moment they were targeted. This was the weak point of the terrain, its openness and sparseness leaving them exposed. When he noticed Owen and the others sprinting in the distance—Bodel and Materid with them—he illuminated in his aura and sped up.
“Don’t look back, sir,” Nash eyed him as they all locked in second skins of aura.
Too late, Darayan glanced over his shoulder and to his dismay, flooding out of the Ice City, hundreds of Aquamorph Ledgers were sprinting hard. Somehow, he could just make out Adrian, pacing in an upper balcony of the city. Angry was an understatement for the man.
His crystal indigo aura flared. “I train you fools for what?” the Aquamorph Leader exclaimed, spit flying from his mouth. “Cease the chase!”
Darayan didn’t believe what he was hearing. Adrian was calling them off.
“You’ll never make the break of dawn!” the Aquamorph called after them, venomously. His associates smiled as they released their auras and returned home. “Get the Ice City ready for daybreak.”
Chapter Twenty-Five: Dawn Break
“Owen,” Darayan said after the Kinsmen and Sarinese had regrouped.
“You okay?” Owen said staring down at Darayan’s wet clothes.
The immediate thought that entered Darayan’s mind was hurriedly shoving his hand deep into his pocket.
