by Chris Fox
And if they will not join you? Narlifex crooned. You will be left with only one choice. This ship is needed, regardless of who crews it. Plenty of loyal demons would take their places, and restore this ship to its former glory. Finally, a warship of our own.
He danced around a clumsy blow from the male, then a roundhouse kick from the female. They were faster than they had a right to be, but still sluggish due to their mass. That made avoiding their attacks trivial, which he took full advantage of.
“Listen,” he pleaded as he danced out of range. “I’m a full demon prince and Hound of Xal. You can’t hurt me. I’m here peacefully. If you keep trying then I’m going to have to defend myself. Please. Let’s just talk about this.” At least he hadn’t brought a horde of demons. He had a feeling that would have been instant combat.
They kept swinging, and so Aran reluctantly channeled void, and raised them both into the air with gravity magic. Sometimes the oldest tricks were the best. All that mass meant nothing if they couldn’t control their own movement.
“Now, please, if you could—.” Aran had been ready to counter a spell if either cast one, but neither did anything visible.
Both sank slowly back to the deck, unfazed by the gravity magic, which still existed. Somehow they had dramatically increased their mass, and done it relative to the vessel. And they looked pissed.
Aran danced out of range, and drew Narlifex. “Last chance. Someone’s going to get an arm lopped off.”
They laughed. They fucking laughed. Rage flooded through Narlifex, and Aran gave in. He’d never been very good at diplomacy, but the only person better suited to intimidation might be Crewes. Aran managed just fine.
He flowed between them, a dance of whirling death, and his blade pinged off metal every place it struck. Sparks showered around him with every blow, but none of his strikes did any apparent damage.
“You are amusing.” The female lunged for Aran, and he lost it.
Aran summoned his divinity, and wrapped both hands around the hilt. He swung with all the power he was capable of mustering, and this time, delivered on his promise. Aran began with the woman, and delivered two strong slices, then teleported behind the male, and delivered two more.
Four arms, all severed just below the shoulder, thudded to the deck like anchors from some Terran warship. They weren’t laughing now.
“So, do you want to bring me to your leader, or do I need to lop off some more pieces?” Aran’s words were as cold as the void that backed him.
“No blade can pierce our armor,” roared the male. He stomped a foot against the deck, and a boom rolled out, momentarily drowning out other sound. When it faded the male spoke more slowly, as he stared forlornly at his severed arms. “I do not understand how you have achieved this…or what my purpose is now. I cannot fight. I cannot work. I should be fed to the reactor, and repurposed.”
“Narlifex is no mere blade.” Aran rose into the air, at about eye level. “He has pierced the skin of gods, and whatever you are. As for your purpose. Conduct me to your master. I have no quarrel with him, unless he attacks me as you have.”
“And the damage you have wrought?” The female’s agonized wail echoed through the ship as she stared at her now armless shoulders.
“If we come to an accord, then my people possess an artificer.” Aran intended to bring Kazon here anyway. This provided the perfect excuse. “If you have a workshop, then my brother can repair you. He will undo the damage I have done. If we do not come to an accord, then you won’t need to worry about it.”
“Very well.” The female subsided, and turned to her companion. “Gather the sentinels, and warn them that they may need to repel a demonic invasion. I will take this thing to the guardian, and let him handle it.”
The male nodded, and ran back the way Aran had just come, presumably to gather a lot more of these things. That would make Aran’s situation untenable, which made dealing with the leader all the more important.
“This way.” The strange golem clanked along, and Aran wondered if she was a primal, or some sort of construct. Asking might be rude, and given the fact that he’d just lopped off her arms he didn’t want to make things worse.
She led him through a series of corridors that moved ever closer to the center of the ship, and as they advanced Aran felt the growing power, the earth Catalyst that was the living heart of the ship. It sang to him, a clear, high-pitched jingle, just past hearing.
“What is that?” He asked, cocking his head as he trotted alongside the much larger guide. He could fly, but everything he did to appear mortal made him less threatening. Not that it seemed possible to undo their opinion of him.
“The core.” She glanced nervously at him, but did not slow her course. “It is all that remains of the mighty god Osmium, my forebear. He gave us birth so many millennia ago, and chose to serve the Earthmother. When she constructed this vessel he contributed us to aid, and to crew it later. When the day came to empower it Osmium tore off a large part of his own essence and gave it to the ship.”
“Do you have a name?” Aran kicked off into the air and focused on listening to her as he drifted along. He found the history of the godswar fascinating. There were so many gods that seemed to dwarf him in power, but nearly all were dead now.
“I am Osaka, of the earthen.” She inclined her head in some sort of ritual greeting. “I conduct you in good faith, demon. It is my hope that our leader will deal with you, rather than slay you, for I’ve no wish to exist in a capacity where I cannot fulfill my primary duties.”
Aran didn’t have a good response to that, so he followed in silence as they neared the core. They’d nearly reached the source of primal earth when the tunnel emptied into a tremendous cavern.
A much larger metal golem stood basking in the light of a smoldering core of molten metal, a lake of liquid swirling primal osmium that seemed to fuel the ship.
The earthen turned to face him, and he realized this one also seemed to be much older, and more powerful. Easily five meters tall, and carved from the same blocky metal. The earthen took lumbering steps in his direction, though he said nothing as he approached.
Aran waited patiently, and hoped that his guide would explain. Hopefully this master proved reasonable. Aran would much prefer to coopt these earthen and have them tend to their own ship than annihilate them and replace them with demons.
He wanted his demons to learn that they worked with other races, and this was an excellent way to foster that kind of cooperation, if he could persuade the earthen to allow demons on the ship.
“What has happened to your arms, little sister?” The earthen knelt over Osaka with great care, and tsk-ed over each arm. “This will not do, but if I fix it, you will be diminished. The material must come from other parts of your body.”
“No! I will lose half a meter.” She shrank back from the larger earthen. “Is there no way to salvage my arms?”
“They are inert.” The master earthen’s shoulders slumped. Then he turned to Aran, and his acidic eyes began to bubble and hiss. “Have you done this, little demon? Must I turn to violence once more, instead of the purpose for which I was bred? A hammer can crush feeble demon bones, but it is best suited to forging metals.”
Aran bowed low, then rose into the air to be at eye level. “Apologies. I am Xal’Aran. I have come to claim this ship. My legions will arrive shortly. I’d hoped to come to an accord, but have already seen how you treat demons.”
“So you will seize this holy vessel?” The earthen raised a metallic eyebrow. “You think you can simply best me, and take it? Come then, little demon. Try. Attack me if you will.”
“I can if you wish.” Aran offered a shrug. “I can do to you what I have done to Osaka. I can remove your legs as well, and then mount you on the wall, limbless, to give advice. Or you can work with me. You can grant my people leave to berth on this ship. You can let us help power and repair it. You can bring her back to glory at a time when the last of the dragonflights
is fighting against the unseen, and against Necrotis, a worse threat than even Nefarius, perhaps. She murdered the Inura’s Grace, and has raised it as a twisted spirit vessel. She has perfected necrotech, and I’m not sure the sector can stop her. We need this ship to even have a chance.”
The earthen hesitated and doubt entered his gaze. “Almost I could believe it. Xal always took to causes, and you have his appearance.”
“You knew Xal?” Aran blinked up at that. He’d found very few who remembered the ancient deity, and Aran endlessly searched for more scraps about Xal’s life as a mortal, and how he rose to godhood.
“Not I.” The earthen shook his head. “I am called Osmar. As with all my brethren I am a shard of Osmium, and can commune with other shards. The core is also a shard, a shard from the beginning, and remembers much. I can see what Osmium saw, back in the Great Cycle, before the exodus. Long and bitter was the war between the dragons and the demons, and casualties mounted on both sides. Xal was known as a traitor to his people, before he became a demon, and a hero thereafter to the hordes of dark creatures. He saved them from annihilation, although I lack the memory of the threat.”
Aran rested his hand on Narlifex’s hilt. The reminder that he was some sort of genetic reimagining of a god didn’t sit well with him, nor did finding cryptic clues but no real data on who Xal actually was.
“Will you allow my troops to come to this ship? Will you join the war against Necrotis, and help our pantheon to bring stability to this sector?” Aran released Narlifex’s hilt, and clasped his hands before him, waiting patiently for an answer.
“Very well,” Osmar rumbled after an eternity of deliberation. “I will allow you to run this ship. I will name you Captain. Your demons may take the vessel into combat, and my brethren and I will remain impartial. We will repair, and create, and aid, but we will not kill, nor will I condone pointless slaughter. If you are as mad as Nefarius, then I will find a way to end you, legions or no.”
Aran nodded at that. “You’d be right to do that. It was my hand that ended Nefarius. I know the threat she posed. If I ever become a similar threat, then you rally everyone you can and take me down.”
Brave words, Narlifex hissed, but if we become a threat the lot of them together will not be able to stop us.
Aran chose not to dwell on that. He had his vessel, and his armies, and now he could do what he’d never been able to as a part of the confederacy.
He could win.
13
We waited for full darkness before beginning our approach on the bear village, and doing so allowed the storm time to thicken. Boiling clouds blotted out all light save the occasional streak of lightning. That was the best we were likely to get.
“All right, people,” I spoke into the comm, and applied another layer of duct tape to my makeshift helmet. “It’s time. Rava, Miri, you’re on point. If you spot a target let me know and I’ll take it out with dream. No casualties. We get to that portal thing, and we teleport directly inside the god’s mouth.”
No one had asked me what I intended to do if we arrived in another village, with even more bears, and some Marid to boot. I wouldn’t have had an answer, except rolling the dice was the best choice we had right now.
There might be a threat on the other end. There was definitely a threat on this end, and no source of food or reliable shelter. We needed to get out of the storm, and I had to imagine the inside of that god was more hospitable than the outside. I hoped so at least.
I picked a path down a snowy ridge, and impressed myself with how little noise I made. I was getting better at this whole stealth thing, especially as I got stronger. I’d never expected strength to matter for something like stealth, but the kind of precise control needed to manage your movement wasn’t agility alone.
My crew moved all around me, each a master, save Briff who crashed into a snow drift with an explosive puff of white powder. He rose quickly, tail swishing like an agitated cat caught doing something embarrassing.
We kept moving without further incident, and made it into the western edge of the village. Most of the structures were igloos constructed from thick ice blocks, but two pavilions sewn from the skins of some sort of animal stood near the center. Firelight flickered from inside one, and the sounds of drink and laughter.
“Looks like they’re at dinner.” I moved forward until I rounded the first igloo. This might be easier than I’d thought if they were all drunk, laughing, and ignoring their…uh oh.
Two pillars of blue that I’d mistaken for part of the architecture were, in fact, ice elementals. The dense blue sentinels towered over the portal, and the storm did nothing to deter their vigilance. They’d stare at the portal forever, and execute whatever their orders were should anything meet their programmed criteria.
My guess? Kill or restrain anything that tries to use the portal without clearance. Which meant we weren’t going anywhere unless we dealt with those things, and that was going to take a lot of firepower.
I had no idea where ice creatures fell on the physical toughness scale, but they were known for being at least partially resistant to magic, and as we were mostly mages, we’d have to rely on explosive rounds.
“Switch to explosive rounds,” I ordered over the comm. “Focus on the elemental on the right. Small arms fire only, and try to disable, not kill. We want to keep these things off us long enough for me to figure out how to use that portal.”
Acknowledging clicks came from all over. They were waiting for my signal, so I drew Dez, and thumbed over to explosive rounds. I crept toward the magical circle, and was able to study it a bit more closely as we approached.
My sight made the snow and lack of light no hindrance, and I was able to read the individual sigils comprising the spell. I’d been right. This was a transportation device. Each outlet connected to a reservoir of primal water that spanned the entirety of Hotep. A knowledgable user could appear almost anywhere. All they had to do was feed the circle a mote of water to complete the circuit.
And we didn’t have a mote of water. No one in our party had water magic. That meant that we were effectively blocked, and my whole plan was about to unravel.
As if the golems were waiting for a vulnerability in my confidence both began tromping in my direction, their arms growing into ice lances as wide as my torso. Up came Dez, and I shot the closest golem in the knee twice.
Shards went spinning off, but unless I emptied a clip or seven into that thing I wasn’t severing the limb with small arms fire.
The golem lumbered closer, and one of the spikes elongated as it stabbed in my direction. I rolled out of the way, narrowly dodging as the spike punched through the ground where I’d been standing.
Desultory small arms fire came from my companions, with the most explosive from Briff, who leaned forward and breathed a cloud of plasma. The combined explosive rounds and breath weapons all tore into the elemental’s leg, and the limb sheared off.
“Yes!” I roared over the comm. “Keep it up, people.”
“How much longer, Jer?” Rava barked as she rolled out of the way of an ice spike. “Get that thing working.”
Oh, yeah…I needed to order a retreat, and do it now. “The circle requires water magic. Abort. Let’s get out of here.”
Too late. Bears came rolling out of igloos, lots of bears from lots of igloos. Too many for a random noise. Enough for a magical alarm caused by someone assaulting your pet elemental. Oops.
I turned and sprinted back into the storm, the others right behind me. We’d made it maybe three steps when a wall of ice easily two meters thick punched out of the ground directly in our path. It rolled upwards, until it towered over us, and left us only one direction to go…right back into the waiting arms of the bears.
We were trapped. There was no getting out of this.
“Do you really hate me so much?” came an ursine roar as the lead bear stalked toward us. I hastily sheathed Dez and pretended I hadn’t been about to shoot the elemental again. �
�You need to come to my home and devil us here? I should have killed you back on the ship.”
This white-furred beast was definitely familiar, and even had a bandage on his right arm…from where we’d shot him.
“They are not to come to harm,” a feminine voice thundered. A tall Marid emerged from one of the igloos. The bears began dropping to one knee, each offering a salute.
“I know my rights,” the bear growled. He surveyed my companions, and I didn’t like his glower. I liked it less when it settled on Siwit, who tried to lurk in our back ranks. “There! Is that a necromancer? The right of the kill is mine.”
“He could possess valuable information, Ursus,” the Marid reasoned. “We—”
What happened next chilled me to my core, more than the dead god ever could. Ursus snapped his spellrifle to his shoulder and shot Siwit in the head twice. The first frost bolt punched through the right eye, and the second through the left.
They sank into the necromancer’s brain, and he slid limply to the ground, a puppet whose strings had been suddenly cut. I activated my sight instinctively, and saw the terrible truth. The life was fading out of Siwit. He was dead.
Were Kurz here I could have saved the soul, but since we’d left the soulcatcher with the necromancers all I could do was watch powerlessly. I couldn’t heal death. I knew some people had enough mastery of life and water that they could, but that wouldn’t help Siwit.
“Get ready to go down fighting,” I muttered into the comm and eased my weapon from its holster. “If they’re going to kill us anyway, then we may as well take some with us.”
“No!” the Marid roared, somehow having heard my words. “None of the rest of them are to be harmed. You’ve claimed your right of purification, Ursus. There are no more necromancers among them. The rest live, until I decide what to do with them. Is that clear?”
The bear hesitated, and walked a hateful glare down our line, but he nodded as if accepting an order he couldn’t control.
