Innocence Lost

by O. J. Lowe

  Reeves said nothing to that, glanced around the surrounding rustlers one more time. “You do realise that your plan is doomed, right? You start to try to take the rest of the kingdoms, everyone will revolt against you? This civil war is splitting people apart, families and friends alike. A common enemy will unite the people of the five kingdoms far better than any other threat effectively could.”

  “Typical Vedo arrogance. Your belief in people will be your undoing.”

  A cough from the ground, followed by a wet laugh as David Wilsin rolled onto his back. “You know, that’s *cough* about as far from the truth as you get. Reeves is a good man. He’s a *cough* useful man. He can’t do the showy stuff you expect Vedo to do. But he’s exceptional at what he *cough* does do.”

  Reeves breathed again, the sigh slipping his lungs and flooding his system with relief. It’d worked then. He’d seen Wilsin go down, he’d seen the wound and he’d hoped to all Divines above they’d worked it exactly right or the result would have been catastrophic.

  Wilsin had explained exactly what he wanted done to the vest and Reeves hadn’t know whether to be impressed or worried. It was the methodological mind of a man who had considered what he wanted carefully. He’d laid it all out and then asked Reeves if he could do it.

  Reeves had shrugged. “Only one way to find out. You don’t do something by wringing your hands and wondering if you can. You try it.”

  Wilsin had been right. So many layers of fabric in the vest, it was the simplest thing to start manipulating them. Fabric became lukonium here, diamond there, a gel lining created to cushion the impact. Suffice to say Wilsin hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having unbreakable metal plates smashed into his chest without some sort of buffer. They both had seen what force those tendrils could deliver. Wilsin had wanted an edge and Reeves couldn’t blame him. Every little helped. It had to be hard going into a fight like this with only wits and weapons to rely on. Reeves had the Kjarn at his back. Wilsin was on his own.

  Except he wasn’t, was he? He had Reeves doing this. The Kjarn worked in mysterious ways. Master Baxter had insisted he travel to Vazara with Brendan King’s team. What if he’d known that his Alchemite skills would be needed here to save a man’s life?

  This was the problem when your own legend got hyped and twisted beyond any reasonable sort of truth. You started to forget yourself. You started to believe.

  Master Baxter had always had a few choice words where belief was concerned, had always said there were a few different types of them. Faith. Blind faith. Self-belief. It wasn’t what you believed or what you called it, rather what you did with it. Your actions determined you.

  Reeves also knew that Master Baxter wasn’t a Cognivite either, so the idea that he could have seen this coming and planned accordingly was ludicrous. Sharing your speciality with an outsider wasn’t generally done lightly amongst the Vedo, a long-standing taboo, not unless you and the outsider had developed a special sort of respect. Amongst each other, living as they did, there were few secrets. Master Baxter might be the most powerful Vedo left alive, but it didn’t mean that his power was limitless. It worked the same way as every other. His mental abilities might exist but if they were anything beyond rudimentary then he was doing well. There were Cognivites in the group though, he could have consulted any one of them. Ancuta for one. She was a powerful psychic, the tale of how Master Baxter had brought her away from the travelling folk was the stuff of legend. Anne as well, she’d developed her mental powers considerably.

  He didn’t know. He might be reading into things that weren’t entirely there.

  “You survived?” The green king sounded bemused as he watched Wilsin struggle to his feet. Reeves could see a shining layer of diamond through a rip in his vest, fabric torn where the tendril had hit him. “You are resourceful, David Wilsin.”

  “Not really,” Wilsin said. “Just try to plan ahead and make use of what I have in my corner. We don’t all have an army of weird plant things, do we now?” He picked his blaster rifle back up. “You know what else I have? I know who you are.”

  The green king leaned forward on his throne, the carved face betraying very little emotion. Those empty eyes grew even more intensely focused on him.

  “Do you now?”

  “Yep. I wasn’t impressed by you in your previous life and I’m not impressed by you now,” Wilsin said. “You had a free shot to kill me and you failed. Just like you failed Claudia Coppinger. She’s forgotten about you now, doesn’t care that you ever existed. She moved on.”

  “You impudent!”

  “Yeah, I’m impudent. You know what else I’m going to do?” Maybe it was the pain in his chest making him bold, maybe the lack of oxygen going through his lungs as he took shallow breaths was affecting his judgement. “I’ve stopped you before and I’m going to do it again.”

  “Look around you. The two of you are surrounded. You’re a wounded man and an Alchemite with a magic sword. I am legion. I have an army.”

  “A very flammable army. And you know what I have?” Wilsin held his fingers to his lips and whistled. “I have a dragon.”

  He’d left Aroon in the trees, a little insurance policy. Now, he didn’t regret it one jot. If the green king had killed him, if the tendril had tried to punch through his throat rather than his chest, Aroon would have gone straight for him. And given Nick had failed to kill the green king in his previous life, maybe dragon fire would do the job this time. The beast exploded from the jungle, Wilsin gave the command and fire rained down onto the rustlers. If they’d feared Reeves’ minor act of flammable transference the previous night, they were terrified now, incited to panic as flames ripped through them. Above them, he heard the king’s voice thundering through the screams and wails.

  “Kill them all!”

  Wilsin locked another container crystal into his summoner, pushed the button. Running through this battlefield would be suicide. Reeves had activated his kjarnblade, leaped into the crowd coming for them, the glow of his sword bright as it bit through flesh and wood alike. Limbs fell away, bodies dropped but they kept on coming towards him, more than he could possibly ever cut down. He needed help and the spirit materialising onto the battlefield was going to do that job, Scales the veek had already going for the nearest rustler with claws and teeth alike. At close range, few things in the wild could compete with the natural savagery of the veek, a creature embodying the grace of a cat and the vicious nature of a carnivorous lizard, fur and scales creating a mishmash appearance across s slender body.

  He needed to get to the rock, needed to get Brendan and the others. He brought his blaster rifle up and started to run, all too aware of what was in front of him. Deep breath, he gave Aroon the mental command. He needed a path. He wouldn’t get twenty feet through the mess of bodies ahead before one of them got him. Twenty feet might be optimistic. Too many of them were there, writhing and shaking. The heat had gotten worse, like half the army was aflame, the background humidity rising cruelly. He saw Aroon swoop over out the corner of his eye, fire erupted from his jaws, three explosive blasts raining down on the rustlers, bodies thrown about by sheer force. He fired as he ran, not going for kill shots but aiming for legs and groins, anything to put them down and distract them. If they were trying to get back up, they wouldn’t be focused on him. Their attention would be divided. He’d already seen how much it took to bring one down, he couldn’t afford to get tangled up in swordplay with them. It’d take too damn long to kill them with the machetes. Hopefully Aroon would sweep up any stragglers on his next pass, charred piles of black sludge the only traces left of ones already dead, grass scorched beyond repair.

  Scales! To me!

  The veek bounded to his side, crashed to the grass with claws outstretched and took a swipe at the closest rustler with his tail, damn near tore it in half with one swipe. Veek tails were naturally hard, even more so when callers got at them with genetic mods. It was always easier to work with what was already there rather than what
wasn’t.

  Wilsin pointed towards the rock and the veek rushed ahead, snarling furiously as powerful limbs slashed out, tearing apart anything in range. Rustlers went down, limbs torn apart and bodies mangled. Glancing back, he saw Reeves rushing to follow him, clothes torn and his face a smeared mask of blood. He didn’t appear unharmed otherwise, blade still aglow. Wilsin fired, dropped another rustler. And another. And another. Up ahead, he could see a narrow path cut into the rock, a way up it. He made the decision in a heartbeat, that was where he’d go for. If he stayed here, he wouldn’t last long. If in doubt, go up. Always a sound strategy. Reeves would follow, the Kjarn augmenting his speed and indeed, the Vedo had made it to the path an instant before Wilsin touched rock. Scales bounded ahead, up onto it and Wilsin went next at Reeves’ nod. He glanced back, saw the Vedo step onto the path before closing his eyes. Beneath them, the ground started to rumble, gently at first before increasing its ferocity, Reeves’ entire body shaking with it as he expelled a harsh breath, a moan. The base of the path was moving, fresh virgin rock slipping up through the stone, rising high. In a matter of seconds, it was waist height. Even sooner, it rose above their heads, the view of the battlefield lost to them.

  “That should hold them,” Reeves said. “For a while anyway.” Behind the wall, rustlers were already starting to pound away, limbs beating the rock, thud after thud after thud. “Way to piss them off, David.”

  “It’s a gift,” Wilsin said. “Come on, can’t stay here. We have to go.” He turned and ran, Scales leading the way up, feline grace making it look so much easier than it truly was. He just followed the veek, trusted in his spirit to guide the way. Scales sprang from rock to rock, not touching the path, tail twitching in the wind.

  “Guess you really planned ahead with this, huh?” Reeves said. “I mean, how long can your dragon keep the assault up?”

  “Long as we need to, I guess,” Wilsin said. “I don’t want to think about what happens when the fires burn out.”

  “That a danger?” Reeves asked. “Can they really burn out?”

  “Dragons? Of course,” Wilsin said. “It doesn’t happen often, especially not in spirit calling bouts. They don’t go on long enough. But if you think every fire needs fuel, sooner or later the fuel’s going to run out, leaving you with a dragon that can’t do much more than cough up smoke. I know they say there’s no smoke without fire, they got it wrong here. If your dragon coughs up smoke, he’s about to get heartburn.”

  “You know a lot about that.”

  “Wade told me,” he said thoughtfully. “Wade Wallerington, the spirit…”

  “Yeah, I trained with his cousin. The Kjarn is strong in his family.”

  “Didn’t know that.”

  “I think he wants to keep it a secret. She loves it though. Talented girl. Helped Master Baxter heal her cousin’s eyes.”

  Wilsin remembered that. Felt like too long ago now, mere months but it felt like years to him.

  The next corner they turned, they found their friends, Scales stood in a crouch, ears flat against his head as he studied them. Wilsin skidded to a halt, patted the veek on the head.

  “Good,” he said simply, as he took in the scene. All three of them were still alive, Suchiga looked in the worst shape. His arms had been broken, all three of them bound tight with vines. Brendan’s face as he saw them was a picture, flickering from relief to fury and back to relief. “Come on, let’s get them out of there.”

  Reeves coughed. “Are you sure? Brendan looks ready to murder you.”

  “He’s not going to murder me,” Wilsin said, drawing one of his machetes. “I mean, we risked life and limb to get up here for them.” Behind him, Aroon let rip another blast of fire into the crowd of rustlers beneath them, he could hear the screeches and the chitters singing in outrage.

  “I’m not going to murder him,” Brendan confirmed. “I may have him disciplined when we get out of here, but that depends if we survive or not.”

  “Transport is on its way,” Wilsin said, pulling the beacon out of his jacket. “We’re going to get out of here. I pushed it hours ago, they have to be here soon.”

  Brendan said nothing, other than to give the beacon a curt glance and then jerk his head towards Suchiga and Tiana. “Get them out first. Mister Reeves, if you can do something to alleviate Mister Suchiga’s pain then I’m sure he’d greatly appreciate that.”

  Wilsin moved to Aubemaya, saw Reeves roll his eyes. Despite all his learnedness, Brendan wasn’t as up on the Vedo as he was on other historical matters. Maybe none had confided the information in him. He got the feeling that didn’t happen often, it just served to make him feel more special. He hacked at the vines, careful not to hack into her. Her dark skin had several grazes on display, shallow cuts marring smoothness. Reeves had moved to Suchiga, had his eyes closed and his hands gingerly dancing across the ruined limbs.

  Several careful cuts and Aubemaya was able to wriggle herself free, massaging feeling back into her arms as she pushed herself up. First thing she did was throw her arms around his neck, not the most unpleasant sensation he’d ever experienced as he felt the contours of her body press against his. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear. “Thank you for coming back for us.”

  He looked at her, grinned. “Never going to be a chance I wouldn’t, my dear.” Her eyes were red and blotchy, she looked like she’d been crying. All of this was new to him, had to be new to all of them and different people reacted to different things in different ways.

  Suchiga’s eyes had closed, he looked at peace, even though his chest still rose and fell with every breath. Reeves coughed, removed his hands and mopped at his brow.

  “All I can do,” he said. “He needs medical attention, Mister King.”

  Before Brendan could reply, a crash broke out over the horizon, Wilsin and Reeves looking first at each other and then to the path they’d come up. They’d all heard sounds like that before, rock being smashed, eroded away by hundreds and hundreds of blows, finally worn out by the attrition thrown at it. Already, the sounds of rustling were coming up the trail.

  “Think we just ran out of time,” Wilsin said. He looked at Scales, jerked his head towards the path and the veek raced away, flung himself across the first rustler that turned the corner, slashing and biting until it couldn’t move any longer. The bad news for Scales was he was surrounded very quickly, dozens of the things laying into him and Wilsin heard the yowls of pain, defiant hisses that quickly turned into screams. He pushed the recall button on his summoner, the rustlers suddenly fighting amongst themselves, hitting empty air and each other.

  “Someone grab Suchiga!” Wilsin bellowed, startled as Brendan obliged, scooped the dazed doctor over his shoulder and ran. Aubemaya followed him, Reeves brought up his blade hilt again, prepared to hit the button. “No!”

  Reeves threw him a sideways glance. “No?!”

  “We can’t fight them here. Too enclosed. If you can do something to the ground, I’d do it fast. Make it hard for them to follow us as possible. I’ll cover you!”

  To prove the point, he started to fire again, placing his shots amidst the thronging masses. Too close together, too many to pick out, just hit and hope. It wasn’t the most effective way of shooting, but it’d have to do. Any of them got too close, he’d have to prioritise. Too quickly his blaster ran dry, cells clicking empty and he let the pack drop, slammed another one in before resuming. Reeves had dropped to his knees, his hands on the ground, his eyes squeezed shut in deep concentration.

  Come on Ben, do your damn thing fast!

  The first sign he got things were changing, one of them slipped at the front, losing its footing and sliding back into those behind it, hit them like a skittle ball, the ground beneath its feet looking a lot less solid than moments ago, clawed rustler feet digging into something rapidly losing viscosity. A few more of them stumbled, still coming forward as Reeves jumped up and turned to run.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “Don’t hang aroun
d!”

  Wilsin didn’t need telling twice, he’d seen the look of emergency on his face, knew it couldn’t mean anything good. Even worse, he smelled something familiar in the air, had a feeling that it wasn’t water the Vedo had managed to turn the stone into. Several feet back, Reeves stopped, started rubbing his fingers against his thumb furiously, muttering under his breath, “come on, come on, come on.” He tore past him, brought the blaster rifle back up and slapped in his last charge pack. This was going to get nasty real fast if something didn’t change. He dared himself a glimpse over the side, could see more of them swarming out the trees. Thousands of them covered the clearing below, rustling their way towards the path. Aroon was running on empty, he could feel warning tugging at the back of his mind. All reserves of energy were bottoming out, the fires were waning.

  Losing air support now wouldn’t be ideal but they’d be dead already if not for what Aroon had done, once again he pushed the recall button and watched the dragon vanish from sight on the horizon.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Wilsin muttered. He gave another glance over the side, wondered what had happened to the green king. His throne stood abandoned and alone as the bodies swarmed around it. He had to be somewhere out there. Maybe he’d been killed, although he doubted they’d been that lucky.

  The green king had shown remarkable perseverance by not being killed by his and Nick’s best efforts months ago, he doubted he’d been killed here. He shook his head, jumped back as Reeves let out a screech of triumph, fire billowing from his fingers, roaring towards the slipping rustlers. It hit the liquid beneath their feet, Wilsin grabbed Reeves’ arm and they ran as he heard the sucking sound behind them, heat taking the moment to expand and finally the explosion booming out as the ground caught fire beneath their enemies.

  It wouldn’t hold them for long, but it’d have to do for the time being. He glanced to the side, saw the colour draining from Reeves’ sweat-drenched face. He looked done for, shattered beyond recovery. Wilsin wondered how hard he’d had to push himself since this had started. They needed to survive this, they all needed to pull their weight and Reeves’ abilities meant he had a lot more weight he needed pull.