by John Corwin
Elyssa's brow furrowed in concentration and the shining silver arrow turned black and then golden. The sharp arrow tip morphed into a square block and back into a point. She eased off the bowstring and the arrow vanished. Her fingers stroked the dark wood gently.
I grunted. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you're in love."
“It’s not the first time I’ve fallen in love with something dangerous.” She compacted it by folding the ends and slid it into a holster on her back, a grin spreading her lips. She slid sai swords into the sheaths on her thighs. "You ready?"
I stared enviously at her light bow and sighed. "Guess so."
Elyssa rolled her eyes. "Look, you can shoot lasers out of your hands and eyes, so don't give me any guff about my bow." She shrugged. "Besides, the Atlanteans only had a handful left after all these centuries."
"Maybe it would be redundant for me," I said with a shrug, "but think of all the stylish action moves I could pull off."
"Ha!" She punched me in the shoulder. "Guess you'll just have to watch me."
There was one last thing we needed to do before leaving the ship. We went to Illaena's cabin where she let us use the ship's communications gem since ours weren't powerful enough to reach Elyssa’s father, Thomas Borathen.
Illaena’s quarters were fancier than most: a wide crystal table stood in the center and a cloud bed hugged the curve of the hull in the back. Large crystal windows offered a view that was magnificent while the ship was airborne. Like most women, Illaena had a shelf with an assortment of knick-knacks purely for ornamental value.
A nasal male voice answered. "This is the Uorion, how can I help you?"
"This is Elyssa Borathen," Elyssa said. "I need to speak with Thomas Borathen."
"I cannot connect to him directly right now," the operator said. "We will have a ship in the area in one hour."
"Why aren't there any ships near our army?" Elyssa said.
"I cannot answer that question," the operator replied. "I can relay a message for him to contact you."
Elyssa scowled. "Just tell him we're investigating Kohvalla and I'll contact him when we return."
"Very well," the operator said.
Illaena deactivated the connection. "I believe Xalara ordered Mzodi ships to carry as many refugees from the warzone as possible. That is why there are no ships in his immediate vicinity."
Elyssa nodded, mollified. "That's a good thing. We need to get as many civilians out of Tarissa as possible."
I squeezed her shoulder. "Ready to go?"
"Yeah." She walked out of the door and headed down the gangway. Within a few minutes, we entered the forest.
Blue and yellow leaves whispered in the wind atop the creaking boughs of trees. A chittering red squirrel dashed from cover between mushrooms that reached as high as my waist. One of Shelton's blue foxes watched us curiously from atop a rotting log. I made some barking noises, but it simply tilted its head curiously and watched us go by.
"Next thing you know you'll be swinging from vines and yodeling at all the forest creatures," Elyssa said. She leaned her head against my shoulder. "We can lead a jungle rebellion against Kohval."
I snorted. The rustle and crackle of boots on twigs and fallen leaves jerked my attention to our surroundings. Elyssa pulled me down and put a finger to her lips. I made a Duh face. As if I didn't already know to keep my mouth shut.
She motioned me to stay in place and slipped into the trees in full ninja mode. I went down on my belly and peered around the stalk of the mushroom I'd ducked behind, its pungent, earthy aroma filling my nostrils. The underbrush wasn't thick due to all the giant mushrooms, but the undulating landscape made it difficult to see very far.
I crept forward for a better view and spotted movement just up the hill. Two figures clad in Daskar armor edged around the trees, knees bent, steps slow and cautious. One of them pressed something at the neck of their armor. The faceplate on the helmet split in half and the helmet retracted into the back. The other did the same.
Two variations of Nightliss looked at each other, mouthing something to each other. One of them pointed in two different directions, apparently wanting to split up. The second shook her head. She cupped an ear and pointed in my direction.
They must have heard me earlier.
I didn't know why I'd been so careless. These woods might be crawling with enemies. Then again, the Falcheen had been sitting in one place for more than a day and we hadn't seen any sign of enemies. Since the Daskar didn't seem to know exactly where I was, I decided to put my critical thinking skills to the test.
Why are they walking instead of flying?
That was puzzling. Their flight armor gave them a major advantage. Even the Brightling archangels would be hard pressed to match their speed and agility. On the other hand, we'd decimated the force that attacked us in the Northern Pass. Maybe they'd attacked us with nearly everything they had and were down to only a few soldiers.
If that was the case, then it made sense they'd want to keep a low profile until they assessed the enemy. They may not have even discovered that we'd landed just a couple of clicks from the city.
I couldn’t help but stare at the pair of soldiers trying to sneak through the forest. Backs hunched, knees bent, eyes darting toward every noise, they did their best to remain as quiet as possible. They also failed miserably. Daskar were made for balls-to-the-wall combat and flying, not ninja operations.
More movement up the hill and to the east caught my eye. I spotted Elyssa waving at me from cover behind a tree. She pointed two fingers at her eyes and then toward the soldiers.
Duh, I already see them. I would have rolled my eyes, but she probably wouldn't have noticed. I gave her a thumbs up.
Elyssa slid the light bow from its holster, drew back the string, and aimed a black arrow at the targets. She seemed to be aiming way too high, and even if she hit one of the soldiers, she couldn’t take out both of them at once. She released the arrow. It sailed in an arc that carried it way over the soldiers and into a tree.
The arrow sliced through a branch. It fell and knocked loose a large, waxy sphere that splatted on the ground right in front of the Daskar. An explosion of angry golden bees swarmed the soldiers. The pair shouted in surprise and ran in circles, arms flailing comically. One of them came to her senses and fired beams of Murk at the insects to drive them off.
When that failed, she summoned a shield that did little to protect against the bees that had already invaded her armor. The first Daskar punched the top of her breastplate. It snapped open on a hinge and she pushed it off, then did the same with the leg armor. Her comrade followed suit while doing the ants-in-your-pants dance.
Red welts covered their exposed skin, but the bees weren't done with them yet. The Daskar ran through the trees, the swarm trailing after them. When the sounds of their frenzied escape faded in the distance, I stood up and looked at Elyssa's last position.
"Looking for me?" said a voice at my shoulder.
I bit back a cry of panic, but still jumped about four feet off the ground. I growled and glared at Elyssa. "Aren't you the same person who didn't want me torturing those golems?"
She smiled innocently. "What I did wasn't torture. I simply got rid of them in a non-lethal manner."
"Unless they're allergic to bees." I tsked and shook my head sadly. "I'll bet they didn't even bring any epinephrine with them."
Elyssa patted the bow in the holster on her back and sighed. "Yeah, I'm definitely in love." She pulled back her arm as if aiming a bow. "That thing is so quiet and accurate!"
"Next thing you know, you'll be naming it."
Her eyes flashed with excitement. "That's a great idea!"
"How about Bowie?" I suggested.
Elyssa groaned. "You've literally come up with one good name in all the time I've known you, and that wasn’t it."
"I think Captain Tibbs and Cutsauce are just a small sample of the awesome names I've come up with."
"You
literally named a dog Mr. Licks." She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow in challenge.
"He liked to lick things," I protested.
"You call your phone Nookli."
I waved off whatever she was about to throw in my face next. "Fine. You come up with a name for your bow. I'm going to Kohvalla."
We continued at a stealthy pace until we reached the outskirts of the residential part of the city. I scanned the sky, but didn't spot any lurking Daskar.
Elyssa took a deep breath. "You ready?"
I nodded. "Let's do this."
We crept forward into enemy territory.
Chapter 6
Kohvalla was a ghost town.
Crystalline paths wended through a landscape of empty houses in the residential sector. It seemed the soldiers' families had packed up and moved when Kohval took the legion on the southern skyway to Tarissa.
Elyssa peered through an open doorway on a cube house. She shook her head. "They didn't even bother closing the doors on most of the houses."
I poked my head inside a dome house across the way. It was completely bare from floor to ceiling. I walked across the path to her. "Probably in a big hurry to march south."
She peered around the corner of the next house and down the path. "Clear so far, but let's not take any chances."
I didn't argue. If there was anything I'd learned from past experiences, it was that anything could happen. The early ambush in the Northern Pass had proven that. We crept through the residential sector and reached the buildings where the residents ate.
I hesitated to call them restaurants or even eateries since no one actually served the food or prepared it there. If anything, they were more like cafeterias, sans surly people with hairnets dishing out food behind a sneeze guard.
The cafeterias had also been stripped bare of food. Even the heating box—a magical microwave—was gone. I stepped around a squashed glurk on the floor and leaned against a table. Something about this situation bugged the hell out of me, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
"You look like you just ate that glurk off the floor," Elyssa said. "You must be thinking the same thing I am."
"Why would Kohval strip the last defenses of the northern border and march south to Tarissa?" I ran a hand down my face. "It doesn't make sense to attempt a coup while leaving your back open to attack."
"Agreed," Elyssa said. "It's almost as if he doesn't care."
"It goes beyond that." I pushed off the table and walked to the doorway. "Let's say he wanted a quick offensive on Tarissa in the hopes that he could secure the city and then send enough troops back to guard the northern border."
"Not a bad strategy," Elyssa said. "But Meera invaded with her legion and bogged him down."
"Exactly." I motioned back the way we'd come from. "If he wanted a lightning offensive and quick victory, why did he take all the civilians too? It's as if he decided that nothing in Pjurna is worth holding except for the capitol city."
Elyssa's forehead scrunched with worry. "I wonder if Meera did the same with the western borders."
"There's no quick way to tell without traveling all the way there, and we don't have time for more detours." I stepped back to the doorway and made sure the coast was clear. "If Kaelissa gets wind of this, she's going to ram the Brightling army right up our collective asses, and there won't be anything we can do to stop it."
"The only thing standing between Pjurna and a massive invasion force are its impassible natural barriers and the narrow routes that would funnel enemies into a death trap." Elyssa looked toward the dark towers of the military base in the distance. "Once they get this far, they've practically stormed the castle."
My stomach knotted as I realized just how urgent it was that we put a cork in the bottle. "We need to move the Eden army up here so they can guard the pass in the meantime."
Elyssa's worried face seemed to reflect my own. "You're right. We'll need to send scouts to the west to see if Meera left that border as open and unguarded as this one."
"Good god. What in the hell is wrong with those people?" I looked toward the mountains and the Northern Pass where we'd run the gauntlet only hours ago. I half expected to see an army of Brightlings flying through, but it remained mercifully empty of invaders.
"I think we've got a little time before Kaelissa realizes what's happened," Elyssa said. “Hopefully, all her forces are still in Cabala, half a world away.”
Kaelissa had apparently relocated most of her troops to the western coast of Azoris—the Seraphina equivalent of North America—in a failed attempt to assault Atlantis. "I hope you're right." I punched my left fist into my right palm. "In the meantime, I think we should clean up the rest of the Daskar in this city so we don't have to worry about them later."
"Agreed." Elyssa stepped outside and onto the path. "Let's head straight to the military towers and see if we can get a headcount. Once we know what we're dealing with, we'll return to the Falcheen and contact my father to let him know the situation."
"Then we bring Shelton and the others and knock some Daskar heads together?" I said.
A grin spread across her face. "Sounds like a date."
We didn't come across any other patrols until we crossed into the military sector. The training grounds, normally a beehive of activity, were wide open and empty except for a pair of Daskar several hundred yards in the distance.
Elyssa pointed to the command center, a black square squatting against the cliffs of the Vjartik Mountains behind it. Dark towers rose around it, each one usually manned with sentries. In this case, only the one facing the Northern Pass held a lone occupant. Elyssa held up a finger and made a circle.
I mimicked her. "You could've just told me that we're going to circle around the back way instead of using one of your fancy hand signals."
She held up her middle finger and circled it in the air instead, staring at me with a quirked eyebrow for emphasis. "How's that for fancy?"
I made a sad face. "I don't want to go on secret missions with you anymore, meanie!"
Elyssa snorted. "You’re such a goof."
I pecked a kiss on her nose. "Someone has to counterbalance your dark, brooding personality."
"I think you're confusing me with my brother."
"Eww." I wrinkled my nose. "You're a lot cuter than Michael."
She made a show of tossing back her hair. "Because I moisturize." Elyssa grabbed my arm. "Let's get a move-on, lover boy."
We clung to the edges of the residential sector, making our way toward the mountains towering over the military headquarters. We circled around the back of long rectangular barracks, running from cover to cover until we closed to the final fifty yards of open ground between us and the target building.
Elyssa looked up at the nearby sentry towers, but nothing had changed there. The lone Daskar paced around the edges of the circular platform at the top, dead eyes of the facemask surveying the land. We waited for the sentry to turn north and then dashed across the open ground to the command center.
From there we had to be quick, sliding our backs along the black crystalline surface until we reached the east side of the building—the front entrance. From there we had an unimpeded view across the training grounds, which meant we'd see any oncoming patrols, but that also meant there was nowhere to take cover if anyone looked our way.
We skirted the front and peeked through the front entrance. The lobby was unguarded, so we slipped inside and pressed our backs against the wall. My pounding heart slowed, and my nerves unwound with relief.
Elyssa made a hand signal, and I didn't argue with her this time. Now was the time for absolute stealth. The building had a simple layout—administrative offices on the first floor, training and briefing rooms on the second and third floors, and Kohval's top-level war room on the fourth.
We took our time clearing the first floor. Two levitator shafts offered access to the second floor, but we took the auxiliary stairwells in the back to avoid any surprise encounters. The
second and third floors were just as abandoned as the first. As we left the stairwell on the fourth floor, Elyssa held up a fist.
I stopped in my tracks.
She cocked an ear and closed her eyes, then pointed forward down a familiar corridor leading to the main war room. That was where Thomas Borathen had spoken with Kohval and where the Darkling Legiaros had threatened to have us arrested. When we'd left, Daskar had ambushed us outside and chased us through the Northwest Pass where we’d narrowly escaped with our lives.
As we crept down the corridor, faint voices reached my ears. The war room wasn't quite soundproof, but it muffled the voices so I couldn't understand what the occupants were saying.
Elyssa bit her lower lip and stared at the room a moment before shaking her head and pointing back the other way. She was the one with ninja instincts, so I nodded and went along with her suggestion.
We made a circuit of the rest of the floor, clearing each room except the main war room, and took cover back in the stairwell. Elyssa leaned against the wall and bit her lip again, eyes narrowed in concentration.
"What now?" I mouthed to Elyssa.
She pointed to the floor and then made some other hand gestures I didn't recognize. I frowned and tried to make sense of them, but failed miserably. I gave her the universal squad signal for What in the hell are you trying to tell me?
Elyssa rolled her eyes and held up finger to her lips. She pointed to me, to her, and then to the floor. Jabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the war room. Held out the palm of her hand flat and mimicked a person walking with her fingers across it. Elyssa pointed to her and me again and then did the little person walking thing again.
I almost snapped my fingers when I got it. We're going to follow whoever is in the room. I gave her a big thumbs up and a grin.
She pressed the palm of her hand firmly against her face and shook her head.
I sidled up next to her and whispered in my quietest voice. "It's not my fault you didn't teach me advanced hand gestures."
