Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  Then a fist like a stone wall hit him in the side and Rome went flying. He landed on his shoulder and lost his grip on the axe. He rolled and came to his knees. The day pitched and tossed around him, but he fought to hang onto consciousness, looking around for the black axe.

  He found it and struggled unsteadily to his feet. Tharn was staggering away, bleeding from huge gashes in its neck and head. Nalene had gotten up and was stumbling after it, hitting it with one Song bolt after another.

  With a last bellow of pain, Tharn went back through the pass, wading through the soldiers that had surged through in its wake, killing dozens of them, and tearing a new hole through the wall. After it came a throng of Qarathian soldiers, heartened by Rome’s victory, shouting and killing as they drove Kasai’s forces back.

  Once again Qarath’s army had survived certain defeat.

  Fifty-six

  Netra stood at the edge of a huge cavern. She had lost all sense of time and direction and had no idea how long she had been wandering underground in the absolute darkness. But it did not matter. All that mattered was answering the Mother’s call. All that mattered was that she was almost there. She looked around, wishing there was something living nearby that she could draw Song from. The ecstasy that had filled her after draining the nomads was dissipating. Emptiness was once again stealing back into her. But there was nothing and so she had no choice but to move forward.

  Across the cavern stretched a massive wall. It was the white of old, rotted ice, but with a hint of purple so dark it was almost black under the surface. A harsh, discordant buzzing emanated from it, as if millions of angry wasps were trapped within it. The sound clawed inside Netra’s mind, painful enough that she stopped, suddenly unsure. Like someone awakening from a dream, she looked around. How did she get here? Where was Shorn?

  “Shorn?” she called. The word echoed in the darkness and there was no answer. She tried to remember what had happened to him. Had she hurt him? She remembered the Crodin village then and cringed inwardly. It seemed like something done by another person, long ago.

  “What do I do now, Xochitl?” she asked the emptiness. “Are you really here?”

  Come to me, my chosen. Free me.

  Netra approached the wall hesitantly. Chaotic, unnatural power radiated from it and she knew instinctively that if she touched it she would be killed.

  This way.

  Netra walked along the wall. Something deep inside her cried out to her to run away, flee before it was too late, but it was very small and she was gripped by something larger than she was. Every step she had ever taken had led her to this place, this time. It was what she was chosen to do. She could not turn away now.

  Ahead was an oval section of the wall that looked different. It seemed to be made of dirty granite and there was a vertical crack in it. Just beyond, lying beside the wall, was the body of some huge, black-shelled creature.

  Netra walked up to the crack. Was this, then, how Xochitl got into the prison? She held her hand out, close to the stone. There was something different about it; she could tell that much. A deep hum of something lurking within it. But there was none of the painful wrongness she felt from the rest of the wall.

  She laid her hand on the stone.

  A vision flashed into her mind and she quickly pulled her hand back, alarmed.

  Cautiously, she put her hand back on the stone. The vision returned. She was looking at some kind of amphitheater. There were rows of seats along the walls, sloping sharply upward. In the middle was a large stone slab, and on the slab was a rectangular stone, set on its end. There was something unusual about the rectangle of stone, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Suddenly it flickered, as the stone temporarily became transparent. Inside stood a tall woman of porcelain beauty. The woman raised her head and stared into Netra’s eyes.

  Netra knew her at once.

  It was Xochitl.

  You came. I knew you would.

  Netra nodded, breathless. She glanced at her hand where it rested on the stone. Was this really happening? Netra looked back into Xochitl’s eyes. “I came as fast as I could.”

  Are you ready?

  Netra shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what to do.”

  Xochitl smiled and Netra felt something flip over in her heart. I am weak and cut off from my power. All you have to do is return my power to me. I will handle the rest. I will stop Melekath.

  “What do I do?”

  A trunk line.

  Netra gaped at her. Trunk lines branched off the River directly, before branching off into feeder lines, then down to the flows that sustained individual lives. The smallest trunk lines carried LifeSong enough for a small city. “I can’t. I…I’ll be torn apart.” No person could hope to so much as brush against that much power.

  The Songs of those nomads fill you. While they are in you, you possess the strength to do this.

  Netra flinched. Scattered images of people running from her, dying. “I killed them,” she said softly.

  It was all to free me. You did what you had to do.

  Netra straightened. “You’re right. I had to do it. I had no choice.”

  Now I need only one thing more from you. Xochitl pointed. There. Do you see it?

  Netra turned her head. There, underneath the mists of beyond, pulsed a thick flow of LifeSong, as big around as the trunk of a large tree.

  “I can’t do this.”

  You can. Xochitl looked over her shoulder. Hurry! He comes.

  Netra raised one hand, focusing Selfsong there. In a second it glowed like a small sun. She took a deep breath, then barely brushed the trunk line.

  The shock that ran through her should have torn her to pieces. Golden fire played across her skin. She cried out and jerked her hand away.

  It’s too late! Xochitl cried.

  A figure emerged from the shadows and approached Xochitl.

  Fifty-seven

  It was afternoon and the battle had not let up all day, as the attackers surged forward and the defenders pushed them back. Rome had spent most of the day in the thick of the fighting. He was bleeding from a half dozen minor wounds, and he was sore everywhere from his fight with Tharn, but none of it was serious.

  They were going to win this battle; Rome was confident of it. The pass was an excellent spot to defend against a larger army, even with the holes Tharn had torn in the old wall. It was narrow enough that only a small part of Kasai’s army could attack them at once. As men grew tired, they could step back and be replaced by fresh troops.

  Nor were the Qarathians losing very many men, while Kasai’s losses were horrendous. The dead were piled in heaps before the old wall, so high that they practically formed a wall of their own. Kasai’s soldiers were fanatical and unrelenting, but they were also poorly equipped and poorly organized. It was only a matter of time until they gave up—or until the Qarathians slaughtered the lot of them, if that was what it took.

  Then Rome felt a new presence arrive and a chill swept over him. Something was coming. All up and down the line Kasai’s men ceased their attack and turned around to look back down the slope. The defenders paused as well, looking to the line of trees, every one of them feeling it.

  A hush fell over them all as a figure strode out of the trees. It was impossibly tall and thin, with hairless white skin. There were no eyes visible, two slits where the nose should have been and a vertical slash for a mouth. It moved oddly, as if it walked in a body it had never become comfortable with, the joints in its arms and legs bending the wrong way.

  Kasai.

  The name whispered through the air, muttered by thousands of the enemy soldiers. For a long, awful moment everyone stood there as if frozen, every eye fixed on the Guardian.

  Kasai raised its hands, palms upward. Gray flames sprang up from each palm. It drew back one hand.

  “Get down!” Rome yelled, running along the top of the wall. “Get down!”

  The first fireball struck the middle of the wall. It
exploded on impact and soldiers flew everywhere. They hit the ground screaming, many with limbs torn off in the blast. All those within a dozen feet of the blast caught on fire, and when they slapped at the flames or rolled on the ground they discovered that they wouldn’t go out.

  Most terrifying of all was that the wall itself, the very stones, began to burn. The heat was so bad that the soldiers waiting in reserve behind the wall had to move away or risk catching on fire themselves.

  Kasai threw another fireball. Another explosion, more soldiers flew through the air screaming, and another section of the wall caught on fire. As it threw the fireballs, Kasai continued to move up the slope, its stride odd and jerky, but deceptively fast. Arrows arced out to strike it, but all of them burned to ash before they struck.

  The Tenders, initially scattered by the attack, reformed under the FirstMother’s shouted commands and Song bolts began to fire at Kasai, striking it in numerous places.

  But they made no difference. It was like shooting at a stone. Small blackened marks appeared on Kasai’s hide, but the Guardian did not appear injured at all.

  Kasai hurled two more fireballs and after the second one the last of the soldiers gave up and jumped off the wall. Kasai’s forces swarmed up onto and through the wall, hacking at any they could reach.

  Quyloc looked at the spear in his hand and thought of the plan he’d been mulling over for days now. It seemed outlandish at best, and might just get him killed while accomplishing nothing. More screams rang out as Kasai reached the wall and threw two more fireballs, lobbing them into the midst of the fleeing soldiers, killing scores outright and lighting dozens of others on fire. Quyloc was out of options. He had no other choice but to try.

  He backed away from the edge of the stone and lay down. Tairus shouted something at him, but he ignored it. He closed his eyes and visualized the Veil. When he opened his eyes a moment later he was in the borderland.

  Now came the hard part.

  Instead of passing through the Veil, he planned to return to his own world, but at a different point than where he entered. Would he be able to do it? When he passed through into the Pente Akka the body he carried with him, formed of his thoughts, was solid enough, but would it be in his own world?

  Another problem: How could he be sure he would emerge in the right spot? There were no directions here, no way to determine distance.

  He walked along the sand, concentrating. After a dozen paces he sensed something, a powerful presence. It didn’t seem like he’d gone far enough to be there already, but what else could the presence be?

  He closed his eyes and pictured Kasai in his mind.

  When he opened his eyes he was standing on the battlefield, Kasai about twenty feet away, right up against the wall.

  Without hesitating, he ran at the Guardian.

  “What are you doing?” Tairus yelled disbelievingly at Quyloc as he suddenly just laid down and closed his eyes. “You need to use the spear!”

  He spun back toward the battle. Kasai was at the wall, readying yet more fireballs. Frustration welled up in him. All his years of experience, all his knowledge of battle, and yet what faced him was completely beyond anything he knew how to fight. Nothing they’d done had made any difference. Two minutes after arriving, Kasai was ending the battle.

  Then, suddenly, Quyloc was down on the battlefield, just downhill from Kasai. Disbelieving, Tairus spun.

  Quyloc was still lying there on the stone.

  He turned back, wondering if he was seeing things. But there was Quyloc on the battlefield as well, running up behind Kasai. Two of Kasai’s soldiers saw him and tried to strike him, but he dodged their clumsy attacks easily and kept going.

  At the last moment Kasai became aware of him and the Guardian turned.

  Quyloc was drawing the spear back to strike when Kasai suddenly turned. The red-rimmed eye fixed on him and he felt his entire being grow cold.

  But he’d been to the Pente Akka too many times. He’d faced the hunter. He’d been trapped and helpless in that other world.

  As Kasai swung one flaming hand toward him, Quyloc stepped in close and drove the rendspear deep into its gut.

  Kasai screamed, a high-pitched, unearthly wail that echoed off the stone face of the Plateau. Its soldiers stopped when they heard the sound, and turned toward it, mouths dropping open at what they saw.

  Quyloc jerked the spear back and stabbed again, up under where the rib cage would be if this was any kind of normal creature, seeking the heart.

  Kasai screamed again and this time fire came from its mouth.

  Fifty-eight

  Melekath laid his hands on Xochitl’s prison. Bolts of reddish light flashed from his fingertips and struck Xochitl, wrapping her in a crackling web of energy. She convulsed and began screaming.

  “No!” Netra screamed.

  She flung caution to the winds and threw herself at the trunk line, wrapping her arms around it. The massive flow of raw energy struck her like a raging flood, staggering her. Compared to the trunk line everything she had taken from the Crodin was nothing. Never had she dreamed of such power. Never had she felt such pain. Flames engulfed her entire body as the power burned through her. Without the stolen Crodin Song protecting her, she would have died instantly. The stolen Song kept her from being instantly torn apart by the flood; it kept her body from being consumed by the fire. But it did not stop the pain and it would not protect her for long.

  Netra was dimly aware that she had fallen to her knees. Her screams echoed throughout the cavern. A detached part of her mind, the part that calmly counted the seconds until her death, noted the screams and recorded them as if they were coming from someone else.

  It would be so easy to give up. All she had to do was quit fighting and in a few seconds it would all be over. All the pain and uncertainty and fear gone, just like that.

  But quitting was not in her nature. Blinded by the pain, Netra somehow fought her way back to her feet. There was no longer any need to hold onto the trunk line. She was immersed in it. She could not have gotten free of it if she’d tried. Unconsciousness threatened.

  She reached for the crack in the stone, knowing she had only seconds to unleash the power of the trunk line before she was ripped apart.

  “Stop.”

  The voice was deep and ancient and powerful. From the broken granite two huge stone hands emerged, clamping onto her wrists with a merciless grip. A crude face formed in the stone, the empty eyes staring at her. The lips moved and it spoke again.

  “Stop. It is a trick.”

  Netra tried to pull free, but she was less than a child in its grasp. She looked back into the vision and once again saw Xochitl in her prison, still writhing in the web of energy.

  Please, Netra! You’re my only hope!

  “I can’t!” Netra cried. “The wall! The wall has me! I can’t get free!”

  From within the energy web Xochitl’s eyes locked on her own. You have the power of Life in your grasp. Use it!

  It was true. Netra’s hold on herself was crumbling. She was seconds from death. But until then a vast power still lay at her command. She could use it as she wished.

  Gritting her teeth, she dug deep and found the strength to fight back one more time. She looked down at the stone hands which gripped her. Instead of flexing her muscle, she flexed her will and diverted some of the power from the trunk line into the stone.

  The hands exploded into bits. The power almost got away from her then, and most of the crude face was sheared away as well. There was a deep, desperate cry from the depths of the granite.

  Freed, Netra reached into the crack, gathering the power of the trunk line as she did so.

  Then she let go.

  Unleashed, the flood of raw LifeSong slammed into the crack.

  The vision of Xochitl wavered and disappeared. For a moment Netra still saw the floor of the amphitheater, the stage empty, then that disappeared as well.

  There was a groan like the end of the world.
The cavern began to shake. Stones fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing her. A network of cracks raced across the entire granite section of the wall.

  The granite exploded.

  The concussion blew Netra backwards, and only the remnants of power that remained inside her kept her from being torn completely apart. As it was she was knocked unconscious, and blood poured from her mouth and the back of her head.

  Dust filled the cavern, and as it began to settle, movement could be seen in the darkness beyond the wall. Scores of misshapen creatures surged forward, wordless cries arising from them, a terrible eagerness. At their head came Melekath.

  It was then that Shorn arrived. Taking in the scene at a glance, his eyes fell on Netra’s crumpled form, lying on the ground. Instantly he sprang into action, racing toward her. He reached her just as the Melekath stepped out of his prison of three thousand years.

  Snatching Netra up, he turned and ran back toward the surface.

  Fifty-nine

  Tairus saw the flames come out of Kasai’s mouth and engulf Quyloc and he winced, knowing there was no way Quyloc could have survived that. But then the flames died away and there was nothing there. He turned, saw Quyloc still lying on the stone motionless.

  He turned back just in time to see Quyloc reappear on the battlefield, this time to Kasai’s right. He stabbed once, twice, in quick succession and then, before Kasai could react, he disappeared once again.

  Almost instantly he popped up behind Kasai and stabbed the Guardian in the back.

  As Quyloc gathered for another strike, Kasai seemed to shimmer, then the Guardian flowed down into the ground and was gone.

  As Kasai disappeared, a howl of despair came from thousands of throats. Kasai’s soldiers held for a moment longer, then they broke and ran.