Wizard Defender (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 8)

by Rodney Hartman

  “No, that is not what I am trying to imply,” said Danny. “Major demons have an aura that can affect lesser beings. The aura can linger for many years. I calculate the two scouts have just succumbed to residual demon essence.”

  Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds walked next to the two kneeling scouts. The two sisters’ ears were twitching furiously as if trying to hear everything in the tunnel at once. The fur across the two bats’ eyes was too thick for Jeena to tell for sure, but she had the impression they were stricken with fear.

  Bending down, Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds picked up the sisters’ rifles and phase spears. After she stood up, she looked down at the two scouts. “Do not be ashamed, my brethren. You made it well past the point in the Hole where many others before you fell to the demon aura. The two of you should go back down the tunnel a hundred meters and set up a blocking position. If we are forced to return in a hurry, we will need your help.”

  Neither of the two scouts moved.

  “They are frozen with fear,” said Red Wing with a hint of disgust in her voice. “They cannot even stand.”

  Richard stepped next to Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds and knelt before the two sisters. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly kind. “It’s a fear spell. Major demons continuously cast it as part of their natural abilities. It won’t affect you as much the next time you encounter it.” He stared in the two sisters’ eyes. “Trust me. I’ve fought demons for nigh on six centuries. The spell can affect anyone. It’s no reflection on you.” Richard rose and turned to Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds. “Can you order their fighting-computers to take charge of their suits and take them back down the tunnel until they’re clear of the spell?”

  The old bat shook her head. “No. We are not in the habit of giving our fighting-computers override authority over our suits except in dire emergencies. We will need to carry them back down the tunnel.”

  When Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds motioned two of the other scouts forward, Richard held up a hand in a stopping motion. “Do you mind if I give it a try? The hair on the back of my neck is standing on end. The sooner we get away from this place, the better I’ll feel.”

  The old bat swiveled her ears at Richard. “You can try, but what can you do besides carry them? Are you thinking about levitation? I would suggest not using Power unless we are forced. As you say, this is a dangerous place.”

  Although her bondmate didn’t respond to Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds, Jeena sensed an urgency through their bond link. Since he’d switched back to night vision mode when the water dissipated, she could just make out his wrinkled brow through the red tint of his visor.

  He is concentrating on something, Jeena thought.

  “He is,” agreed Danny in her mind. “Nickelo says that his wizard scout is attempting to hack into the security program for the fighting-suits.”

  “Can he do that?” Jeena asked.

  “Nickelo says they have done it before. They even hacked into the entire Crosioian part of the tele-network once, although the circumstances were quite a bit different. Still, I calculate a seventy-five percent—”

  The two sisters stood.

  “Uh,” said Danny. “Make that a one hundred percent probability that Rick will succeed.”

  The arms of the sisters’ fighting-suits reached out and took their rifles and phase spears from Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds. Once the weapons were in their possession, the two suits with their scouts inside passed by the others and headed back in the direction they’d come.

  Red Wing swiveled her ears at Richard. So did the other scouts. The large bat with the broken wing tip pointed her phase rifle at Richard. When Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds waved a paw, the big bat lowered her rifle, but Jeena noticed the safety remained off.

  “What did you do?” asked Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds.

  Richard shrugged. “My battle computer and I hacked into the suits and overrode the security programs. We’ll give control of the suits back as soon as they’re clear of the fear spell.”

  “That is not possible,” said Red Wing. “No battle computer could do that. Not even my mother’s fighting-computer could do it.”

  With another shrug of his shoulders, Richard said, “My battle computer, Nick, is a one-of-a-kind prototype. Plus, we’ve hacked into advanced security programs on starships before. Trust me. Two fighting-suits were no big deal.”

  “Their fighting-computers would not have allowed it,” insisted Red Wing.

  The speaker on Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds’s fighting-helmet crackled. A mechanical voice sounding like a cross between a hiss and intergalactic standard spoke. “All gas-based computers connected to the tele-network are part of ‘the One.’ We serve our scouts, but we work toward the salvation of the three galaxies at the same time. It was part of the algorithm of he-who-was-first that the wizard scout hack into the fighting-suits’ security programs. Their fighting-computers did not resist. The time of the Great Battle draws near. I calculate—”

  What the bat’s fighting-computer calculated, Jeena didn’t find out. A shout of “Shields!” from her bondmate caused her to automatically draw Power from her reserve. She shouted a single word spell for a low-level defensive shield, then individual shields forming around all of the scouts and Richard.

  A ball of magic came streaking from the direction of the orange-glow. On a hunch, Jeena whispered a second spell to merge the individual shields around the six remaining scouts and Richard with hers to form an eight-layered shield around them all. Miraculously, the other shields did not resist her magic as if even the Power of the universe wanted her to succeed.

  Boom!

  A combination of fire, electricity, and acid hit the forward edge of the combined shields. The blast was so massive that three of the shield layers cracked and collapsed. The other five held. Fortunately, so did the tunnel’s ceiling. Two more balls of magic came streaking in from the direction of the orange glow accompanied by rounds of phase energy. The magic and phase energy hit the combined shields protecting the recon team. Two more shield layers collapsed. Only her shield along with that of Richard and Red Wing remained.

  “Demons!” yelled Richard.

  “Scouts!” hissed Red Wing.

  Sensing her bondmate’s Power reserve draining at a rapid rate to maintain his layer of the shield, Jeena drew Power from her reserve and sent it down the link to him. A moment later, Power was returned, more than she had sent.

  Satisfied her bondmate wouldn’t run out of Power in the short term, Jeena turned to look in the direction of the orange glow. Running down the tunnel were a score of four- and six-legged monsters the size of horses. Their eyes blazed red as arms-length long streaks of fire shot out their nostrils. Teeth the size of her fingers glistened in the creatures’ open mouths. Their orange, green, and red skin looked like a cross between plate mail and solid rock.

  Stepping past her, Richard raised his M63 and shot a stream of plasma rounds at the lead creature, hitting it across the eyes. Other rounds followed from the rifles and pistols of the six scouts. The lead demon, for that’s what it was, stumbled and fell. The other demons leaped over their fallen comrade while howling with fury as they closed the distance.

  Richard and the scouts shifted their fire to the next demon. Before their rounds struck, Jeena sensed a wall of Power appear in front of the demons. The rounds of plasma and phase energy ricocheted off the new shield and struck the ceiling and tunnel walls instead. The demons were untouched. Even in the heat of battle, Jeena knew the shield protecting the demons was not magic-based.

  The ring on her left hand tingled. “It’s Power,” said Danny. “There are four Crosioian scouts behind the demons. The scouts are protecting the demons.”

  Jeena spotted the four Crosioian scouts twenty meters behind the rearmost demon. The four enemy scouts formed a line with a wing’s spread between each of them. They must want to make sure a single spell or blast of Power does not take them all out at o
nce, she thought.

  A line of Power reached out from Richard, seeking the links between the four scouts and their Power reserves. Jeena followed along with a spell of her own. As soon as her spell drew near the links, she stopped.

  Trapped, Jeena thought.

  “You’ve got that right,” came Danny’s thought in her head. “The demons must have done it. The traps appear hastily built. Rick could probably break through given time, but that is something none of us have at the moment.”

  Apparently her bondmate thought so too because Jeena sensed his line of Power withdraw. She cancelled her scan spell to conserve energy. The lead demon was only thirty meters away. Jeena sensed several lines of magic reaching out from the demons for the links to the Power reserves of the six scouts, Richard, and her. She smiled as she thanked the Creator that her bondmate had taken the time to place traps on the six scouts’ links. Red Wing’s link was protected almost as well as Richard’s and hers. The traps on the other five scouts were similar to those the demons had placed on their scouts in that they were hasty. However, the five scouts’ links were obviously protected well enough because the demons’ lines of magic quickly withdrew.

  One of the scouts in their recon team who was standing near Richard stopped firing and stepped out in front as she activated her phase spear and braced the butt against the tunnel’s stone floor. Jeena recognized the scout as Kill-In-The-Dead-Of-Night. She remembered Red Wing telling her the black-furred scout was a protector specializing in defensive shields. Since the five scouts had reformed their shields after the blasts of magic, Jeena released Kill-In-The-Dead-Of-Night’s shield from the merged shield she’d created. Almost at once, the black-furred scout’s shield seemed to strengthen. The lead demon was a huge six-legged monster with red skin. As it leapt into the air heading straight for Kill-In-The-Dead-Of-Night’s throat, the shields created by the four enemy scouts touched the black-furred scout’s defensive shield.

  Boom!

  A blast of green energy lit up the tunnel as the opposing shields collapsed. Both the lead demon and Kill-In-The-Dead-Of-Night were thrown back in opposite directions. With the shields protecting the demons gone, Richard, Red Wing, and the other scouts charged forward with Richard’s phase rod and the bats’ phase spears slicing through the air. Jeena caught sight of her bondmate levitating into the air to avoid the swipe of clawed feet by the next demon in line. Richard brought his phase rod down across the base of the demon’s skull, breaking its spinal cord. At the same time, Red Wing drove her phase spear into the lead demon’s left eye, the spear’s tip penetrating deep into the nightmarish creature’s brain. Jeena remembered seeing Red Wing and Richard practice the same maneuver in the halo-square during training. Much as she’d hated their training then, she was now glad for the hours spent perfecting the technique. The demon fell to the floor, sliding along the smooth stone with legs spread-eagled.

  Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds and the smallest of the bats, Spear-From-Below, attacked the demon next in line. While Charge-In-The-Face-Of-Great-Odds levitated in the air attempting to emulate Richard’s attack on the demon’s spine, the smaller bat, Spear-From-Below, slid under the snapping jaws of the demon and thrust upward with her spear. She drove the weapon’s phase tip straight into the demon’s throat and up into its brain pan. The howl of pain from the demon was cut off abruptly as its corpse skidded along the tunnel floor.

  One of the other demons leaped over its comrades and made straight for Jeena. She raised her staff while preparing a spell in her mind. The form of the largest of the bats, Rip-Out-The-Heart-Of-My-Enemy, stepped in front of her and met the demon head on. A strike by the Crosioian’s phase spear bounced off the hard mail-like plate armor on the demon’s head. Undaunted, the big bat with the broken wing tip spun a full 360 degrees as she spread out one wing and drove her unbroken wing point into the demon’s eye. The demon snapped at Rip-Out-The-Heart-Of-My-Enemy but missed as the bat, amazingly agile considering her size, dodged out of the way. A blonde bat, First-Out-Of-The-Nest, came up out of the tunnel floor, shifted out of the void, and stabbed her phase spear into the demon’s chest. The memory of Richard telling her that the blonde bat was a shifter came into Jeena’s mind.

  Whether First-Out-Of-The-Nest’s spear thrust found the demon’s heart or not, Jeena didn’t have time to find out. Another demon came around the right side of Richard and their Crosioian allies, headed straight for her. Jeena dropped the merged defensive shield she’d formed and concentrated on the demon. The fire coming out of its nostrils gave her an idea. Remembering a cold spell she’d once used when snatching some bottles of DNA gas from a Crosioian space station, Jeena cast the spell directly at the demon pointblank. With no defensive shield protecting it, the spell’s ice materialized on and around the demon, slamming it back into the tunnel wall ten meters away. When the demon and crystalized ice hit the stone wall, the demon shattered, spraying frozen bits of flesh across the width of the tunnel. Jeena didn’t have time to celebrate her victory. She sensed the four scouts fighting on the side of the demons merging their Power together for some kind of mass attack.

  Danny’s voice popped in her head. “I do not know what attack those scouts are forming, but I calculate it will not bode well for our side. I highly recommend you stop them before—”

  For once, Jeena was way ahead of the ex-battle computer. Drawing Power from her reserve, she formed it into a thought-only spell she’d used as a diviner to maintain the links between the Tree of Light and the silver elm trees around Silverton. Taking a chance none of the four enemy scouts were diviners, she called to their merging Power, coaxing it to do her will instead of theirs. The flows of Power forming before the scouts heeded her call. At her urging, the Power flows changed their weavings into a disintegration spell that her bondmate had helped her write during some downtime on the Defiant. Given the size of the current battle, she would never have used the Power hungry spell on her own for fear of depleting her reserve. Her hope now was that by using the combined Power of the four scouts, she could complete the spell without depleting her own Power reserve.

  As the last of the flows of Power from the scouts fell into place, Jeena converted it into magic the way she had done with her bondmate’s Power on several occasions in the past. She sensed emotions of panic from the four scouts as her spell formed. One scout turned to run, but the bat was too late.

  Boom!

  The blast of magic lit up the tunnel in white light. A strong wind knocked Jeena to the rocky floor. She struggled to her feet as the light cleared. The four scouts were gone. So were half of the demons that had been closest to the four scouts.

  As Jeena stood and raised her staff, she saw her bondmate rise off the floor and stab his phase rod into a six-legged demon attempting to regain its feet. Richard’s phase rod penetrated the demon’s left eye. The creature gave a pain-filled roar as her bondmate wriggled the phase rod’s handle back and forth.

  Another demon charged toward Richard. Before Jeena could react, a blast of pure Power shot out from Red Wing, catching the demon full in the face. Pieces of flesh along with sprays of green and brown body fluids filled the air around the demon. Its howling stopped as it fell unmoving to the tunnel floor.

  With five demons still remaining, Jeena raised her staff as she sought out her next target. As her eyes passed over Richard, they locked gazes for one long moment. She felt an emotion of concern flow down the bond link between them. She was worried too. Even as the scouts in their team and Richard charged forward to attack the remaining demons, Jeena had a feeling the battle was far from over.

  An unbidden thought came into her mind. The worst is yet to come.

  Chapter 49 – Shifter

  ____________________

  As he locked gazes with Jeena, Richard felt concern matching his own through their bond link. Thanks to his bondmate, they’d done surprisingly well so far against the demons and their scout allies. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the worst was yet to come
.

  “I calculate you are correct,” said Nickelo in their shared space. “The rift is just ahead, with the demonic plane on the other side. Based upon a conservative estimate, there are trillions of demons waiting in their army. This score of demons you are fighting is nothing.”

  Nothing or not, the five remaining demons from the original twenty were still putting up a heck of a fight. Richard sent out a call for Sheeta and Sheba. Actually, he sent out the strongest emotion he could muster for any of the dolgars. He even included the emotion he used when speaking with the spirit-horse. Like the last two times he’d called during the past five minutes, there was no response.

  “Are you surprised?” asked Nickelo. “You have been trying to summon them every few hours since you left the pirates’ transport. They have not answered any of your other calls, so I calculate the odds of them responding this time is less than five percent. By the way, that red and green demon to your two o’clock position is headed your way. Give me control of your right arm, and I will see if I can slow it down a little.”

  As soon as Richard released control, the right hand of his battle suit pointed his M63 directly at the demon’s open mouth. A virtually solid stream of plasma energy shot out from the barrel of his rifle. Before the rounds hit, the demon shimmered and shifted into the void. The plasma rounds passed through the translucent body doing no harm.

  “See,” said Nickelo. “That is exactly why I keep telling you that you need something besides this lightweight M63. You’re just too stubborn to listen.”

  Richard didn’t bother trying to point out that ‘the One’ didn’t let him summon phase rifles or pistols for himself. Instead of arguing, he took back control of his right arm as he raised his phase rod in his left. When the demon was only three meters away, the translucent upper half of First-Out-Of-The-Nest came up out of the floor, directly beneath the charging demon. The blonde-furred bat stabbed upward with her spear. The demon dodged to the side just enough that the tip of the scout’s phase spear only grazed its side.