by P. K. Lentz
Blue fire spat across the chamber in rapid bursts. One Surgint's head exploded, another's chest opened up. A third dove for the safety of the floor, while a fourth fell with a hole in his back as he tried to run. One or both of the spiders loosed a horrible, hissing scream. Her Majestrix, meanwhile, black tube trailing like a tail from the socket on the back of her head, sailed up and up toward the high ceiling, puppet-like on her flexible supporting arm.
“Do not let him steal my prize!” she screamed in a newly unmelodious voice.
Jaxitza's support arm's point of origin was an open triangular hatch in the ceiling, and it was into this that she meant to flee. Spiders and Surgints dealt with by the time he arrived at the gurney, Blaik aimed both razers upward and unleashed a hail of blue fire at the Queen of the world. Just as she reached the exit, blasts ripped through her flowing gown, and might have struck her head and upper body; the hatch shut behind her, making it impossible to tell. Blaik fired a few more times, punching holes in the hatch, but Qilliara and escape were more pressing concerns at present than regicide.
All around, the hulking Warpy Priests of the Witch-Queen were converging, faces twisted with rage, weapons at the ready, including a few mini-cannons and handful of crossbows.
Rotating the gurney, on which Qilliara lay face-down, to put it between himself and the bulk of the enemy, Blaik pressed one razer against the back of Qilliara's head. He glimpsed there, but did not have the luxury of studying, a circular socket which rather resembled the one in Jaxitza. Around it, staining the webbing, was a fair amount of red blood.
The drill had not merely been a drill but some device for the insertion of whatever that was. Qilliara had survived the process; surely with the aim of telling him so, she flexed the only hand which was not pinned under her body.
“You heard your Queen!” Blaik yelled to her servants. “Who wants to be the one who causes her prize to get shorter by a head!”
While he spoke, he temporarily set the second razer on Qilliara's back while reaching down to grab the solvent canister from the floor. Keeping one weapon on Qilliara's head to maintain his empty threat, he placed the canister in the palm of Qilliara's exposed hand, and she grasped it. The thing had a small knob on top as well as a button; Blaik twisted the knob to what he hoped was the fully open position. Qilliara's finger found the trigger, and reddish liquid began spraying out, causing the webbing to melt in a small area around her wrist.
While she worked on that, Blaik took up the second razer and swept it menacingly across a wide arc of the Witch-Queen's servants.
“I'm leaving here, alone! I don't care what you do with her,” he lied. “But if you want her to stay intact, don't stop me!”
Each hand filled with a razer handle, Blaik used his body to shove the wheeled gurney in the direction of his chosen escape. An unlikely escape, but the only one considering he was hardly about to attempt to use the corpse-filled ascension chamber.
“You have any more of those... boom-balls?” he asked Qilliara quietly.
“Bomblets. Yes.”
“Don't want to tell you what to do, but you might get one ready. And your—”
“I know.”
“Halt!”
This command came from Jaxitza's black-clad human aide Trynnt, who had survived Blaik's slaughter of the Surgints next to him.
“You two are in league! You will not harm her! Priests, the heretic is bluffing! Do not—”
Shifting the razer lower down Qilliara's body from her head, Blaik aimed and fired. Blue fire flashed, and a fist-sized hole was ripped through the webbing and the lower leg entangled within it.
“You were saying?” Blaik asked, halting the gurney near a tall, narrow slit-window through which nothing but gray sky was visible.
Qilliara by now had freed her lower arm, which in turn gave her greater freedom of movement to spray the solvent onto surrounding areas, including the leg Blaik had just holed.
He hoped she would not begrudge him that.
Trynnt laughed. “You can fly, heretic?”
“No...” Blaik began. He removed the razer from Qilliara's head as she flipped herself over and sat upright on the gurney, still half covered in webbing which one hand continued to spray with solvent.
The other hand slipped into the neg-pouch on her back.
“... but she can,” Blaik finished.
Qilliara tossed an eyeball-sized metal sphere in the direction of the gathered servants of Her Majestrix. It struck the floor and rolled in among their feet.
Bright light flashed, the room shuddered, and Priests, statue pieces, pole-axes, and huge hammers flew in every direction.
“Razers,” Qilliara demanded, throwing aside the canister and reaching toward Blaik as she slid from the gurney. Neither the new hole drilled in her neck nor the leg-wound seemed to pose any concern.
Blaik moved the weapons out of her reach. “Get me to the ground.”
“I'm not leaving without the Piece.”
Blaik held one of her dearly beloved razers outside the slit-shaped window. “Would this thing survi—”
In a flash, Qilliara snatched the other from his nearer hand and aimed it at him.
“Would you?” she asked.
Her threat was as evident as his own. And as empty: Blaik saw that her other hand had meanwhile produced the black tube from her neg-pouch. While the debris was still settling behind her in the crescent-shaped room, she pressed the tube against the stone edge of the window. It made a popping sound, and a crack appeared in the stone.
Through a haze of smoke and dust, Priests charged forward, bellowing loudly with weapons raised. Mini-cannons boomed. As one, Blaik and Qilliara leveled a razer each and put up a hail of blue fire, stopping the horde's advance.
While firing, Qilliara wound the line several times around her opposite forearm and climbed backward into the window.
“Hold on?” Blaik asked.
“You know it.”
Joining Qilliara in the opening, he wrapped his arms around her midsection and squeezed tightly. She pushed off into the gray, and for the third time since meeting her, Williym Blaik flew.
* * *
Ten
As fresh sirens wailed from within the tower, the escaped prisoners descended in swift arcs, each of which began and ended with Qilliara planting both feet on the outer wall of the tower and pushing off again. Ten or more such leaps brought them to the ground in a more controlled landing than the one which had followed their battle with the Sky Wing. Qilliara's thin cable detached from the window above, out of which smoke and dust billowed, and reeled back into its tubular housing.
They came down among the neatly trimmed, leaf-bearing trees of a garden. Between the trunks, Priests were visible running about and shouting excitedly. Most were headed toward Qilliara and Blaik and either died in, or dove for cover from, the barrage of blue fire sent toward them.
“I'm going back in,” Qilliara said when the attack on them was repulsed. She snatched her second razer from Blaik's hand.
“Naturally,” Blaik said. “I'd like it noted that you would be the Witch-Queen now if not for me.”
Holstering one weapon, Qilliara put fingers on the object implanted at the base of her skull. She pulled and twisted, wincing slightly, until the cylindrical metal object popped loose in her hand, dripping red blood which likewise trickled down her neck.
“Doesn't that hurt?” Blaik asked.
“Yes.”
“What is it? What is Jaxitza?”
“A symbiote,” Qilliara answered. “The real Jaxitza was going to enter me through this port.” She tossed it away.
Blaik looked at the object on the ground and imagined a tiny Warpy Queen sliding down a little, winding tube. “Good thing I stopped it.”
“She wouldn't have been able to control me,” Qilliara countered. “If anything, you ruined my plan.”
“Sure I did,” Blaik said. “Sorry.”
He didn't pursue the matter, but somehow felt
that were that truly the case, Qilliara would be much angrier. Much, much angrier.
She hadn't even mentioned her leg. Blaik sure wasn't going to bring it up, but it did lend support to the conclusion that he had truly just saved her mission, and maybe her life.
“This 'crown' of hers has to be the Piece, right?” he observed. “She said that it's hidden but she always wears it.”
“It's somewhere at the end of that arm. It's what's keeps her bodies alive. Without it, she would have to switch hosts almost constantly. You in or out of what's coming?” she asked. “There's no reward. If you're smart, you'll ask me to help you over that outer wall, then leave Witch City as fast as you can. Faster.”
While he considered his answer, which did not in fact require consideration, Blaik observed a distinct lack of activity in the immediate area. Why were Her Majestrix's forces not attacking? Were they cowed, or—
He fished the fracker from his coat pocket. “I'm in,” he said. “I won't give you—”
The ground shook. It shook again, and again, rhythmically, like—footsteps.
Following the sound past the trees of the garden, Blaik saw a dark shape appear over a low wall of the tower complex. All smooth curves and sharp spikes, its form was not particularly humanoid except for two glowing green wedges near the top, in just the spot where eyes would be. As Blaik watched, it raised heavy arms that ended not in hands but a collection of tubes bearing a disturbing resemblance to ten or twelve mini-cannon barrels bound together.
The sound and shaking of the ground hinted at legs concealed by the wall, but not for long did they remain concealed: the wall tumbled down, and the creature—or machine, for it was difficult to know—stood fully revealed.
It stood six times taller than any human, but proportionately it was much wider, with fatter limbs. Every surface was covered in plates of dark gray, unreflective metal, a great many of which were spiked. It had no neck, but just a vaguely triangular head into which the glowing green eyes were set and which was fused point-down onto the armored torso. In narrow gaps at the joints, various tubes and cables were visible.
“Maelstrom?” Qilliara asked.
When Blaik regained power over his dropped jaw, he answered, “I... I hope so.”
The Maelstrom was reputed to be the most terrifying of Her Majestrix's servants, and he did not wish to conceive that another thing existed worse than this.
Above the sound of the collapsing garden wall, engines roared, coming from the direction opposite the Maelstrom. Blaik saw through the trees several of the same armed and armored vehicles which had borne them to Witch City. Jaxitza's forces did not intend to let the Maelstrom work alone.
“We're both in it now,” Qilliara said. She reached into her void-pouch and produced a flat, black square to which a flexible strap was attached. She tossed this to Blaik.
“Put it on your arm, push the button. You wastelanders know what a shield is?”
“Yes.”
“Use it just like one. But it's invisible.”
Blaik strapped the device to his left forearm and pressed the button. It emitted a high pitched sound and nothing more.
“What about you?” he asked.
Qilliara drew her second razer. “I move fast.”
The punch of a cannon punctuated her claim, and in the same instant she proved its truth by diving to one side just as the ground exploded under their feet. Blaik, swinging up the shield device in the direction of the Maelstrom, was shoved backward while feeling his arm pressed against his body. Though debris flew everywhere, only a few harmless pieces struck him.
It truly was an invisible shield. Not that he had had reason to doubt.
Blue flashes and the razers' cracking sound erupted as Qilliara returned fire at the trudging, armored behemoth. The Maelstrom answered with booming hand-cannons that dug huge craters in the earth and splintered ornamental trees, scattering rare leaves of green, red, and gold into the air.
Either Her Majestrix no longer cared whether her prize was taken undamaged or her oversized pet had missed that order.
The rumble of engines behind him brought Blaik to the quick decision that the vehicle-borne threat was his to deal with while Qilliara faced the Maelstrom. Ducking behind the slim trunk of a tree which offered little cover, Blaik put the shield between himself and the five or so vehicles advancing into the tower garden. He aimed the fracker over what a gentle tingling in his wrist informed him was the invisible barrier's edge.
He fired, and a tree between him and the lead vehicle toppled. His target's main cannon was bumped aside, but beyond that the only effect was to alert the enemy to his location. Most or all commenced firing, and Blaik shrank into a crouch behind his left arm and repeatedly squeezed the fracker trigger.
Around him, the green grass was churned, and the tree behind which he sheltered fell to pieces, as if to an overzealous gardener, but Blaik remained unharmed and all but untouched. With every other heartbeat, he witnessed a fist-sized projectile stop a foot in front of him and bounce away, producing no more than a momentary pressure on his forearm.
Qilliara had the best toys.
Meanwhile, his return fracker fire began to show an effect. Apart from wrecking a lovely garden, which it also did, it caused one vehicle to swerve and roll over several times as it lost a wheel. Another slammed into a tree, which did not quite stop it; fortunately, the second tree did.
Behind Blaik, the crack of Qilliara's razers and the boom of the Maelstrom's weapons persisted. Then came a louder blast, which turned Blaik's head in time for him to see the smoky cloud of a promising explosion centered on the behemoth's waist, surely the product of one of Qilliara's 'bomblets.'
While keeping up his fracker fire, Blaik spared a second glance a moment later to witness the smoke clearing to show the Maelstrom hardly scratched. Its cannons resumed blazing, and Qilliara diving and dodging among the trees and rubble of the garden wall.
Another vehicle flipped and rolled. The remaining two halted and reversed while continuing to send a hail of projectiles Blaik's way. Blaik fired back, but the job was done; they had given up. A battalion of Priests formed up behind them in the meantime wisely hung back given the failure of the mechanized vanguard.
Blaik swung his attention back to The Maelstrom. With wood and earth flying all around her, Qilliara zig-zagged to the giant's legs, leaped and touched her hand to one barrel of the left hand-cannon, currently idle. An instant later, that barrel blossomed like an iron flower, and Blaik realized Qil had tossed a bomblet up the barrel.
The damage seemed not to faze the Maelstrom, which moved swiftly for its size. As it swiveled to follow Qilliara, a hatch in its chest slid open, revealing a white glow.
A bright, jagged line shot from the hatch on an irregular path which ended directly on Qilliara's body. Her run became a headlong tumble, and she slammed into the debris of the smashed garden wall. An instant later, the chest-weapon fired again: a snake made of light which sought out its already fallen prey with blinding speed.
As Qilliara spasmed on the light-snake's fangs, the Maelstom's right cannon-hand, the one still intact, began to swing into a position for punching nasty holes in her.
With barely a thought, Blaik ran toward the behemoth with fracker in outstretched arm sending out blast after blast. The Maelstrom's arm was knocked aside, its booming cannon discharge further pulverizing the smashed wall instead of ripping into its intended prey.
Staggering to her feet, Qilliara slipped clumsily over some stone ruins and fell into momentary cover. Blaik dove for cover, too, which in his case meant only some waist-high flowering shrubs. Crouching, he put the shield device in front of him and continued firing over its rim at the Maelstrom, which swung its cannon toward him...
The shrubs flew apart, petals flying from torn blossoms. Thanks to the shield, Blaik was only pushed onto his backside, faring much better than the plants. Then razers cracked, and blue light flashed from the wall. The Maelstrom turned again and relea
sed the jagged light-snake at Qilliara. She vanished behind the wall, a chunk of which exploded behind her. Blaik could not be sure whether she was hit or not. He was busy identifying a distant voice amid the cacophony.
Shoot me! Shoot me!
The speaker was a balcony which jutted out from the surface of the stone tower some five or six stories up. While Qilliara showed she was still mobile by racing to fresh cover, shooting razers which evidently had little or no effect on the Maelstrom, Blaik aimed the fracker upward at the balcony and squeezed the trigger over and over.
“Qil, if you can hear me,” he said in something lower than a shout, “eyes up!”
She heard. Popping from cover, Qilliara ran towards the tower, the direction Blaik intended. Firing on her with its cannon, the Maelstrom thumped behind in pursuit. Above, though it was hard to discern at such height, Blaik thought he saw cracks appearing in the stone.
Too early the Maelstrom halted, loosing another bolt from its chest which set a tree aflame. Qilliara darted from cover again, razers blazing, on a path chosen to draw the behemoth closer to the curved tower base in an effort to maintain a clear line of fire. Small chunks broke from the balcony and fell, their landing spot providing helpful indicator.
Qilliara ran, and the Maelstrom followed, entering the field of freshly fallen rubble. Blaik squeezed and squeezed the fracker trigger, keeping careful aim.
“Come on, come on...!” he urged the uncooperative architectural feature.
The Maelstrom thumped on after its quarry, which suddenly stepped out from cover into the open. The giant stopped, and a jagged white line arced from its chest-hatch to Qilliara, who crumpled in the grass, spasming.
“Come on, you—” Blaik grated at the balcony.
I'm falling!
And it did. Snapping off cleanly with a loud crack, the huge chunk of masonry plummeted toward the ground just about in one piece.
The piece landed squarely on the shoulders of the Maelstrom, which all but vanished under its stony bulk. The light-snake released its grip on Qilliara and went wild, branching into a dozen smaller snakes that set fire to trees all around.
