Powerless, helpless, nothing. Nothing except fear.
“Come back, Lyrah.”
Other girls were brought in and there was nothing she could do but what he commanded.
“You are strong, Lyrah.”
She wasn’t strong. She was helpless, weak. Nothing but an object for a monster’s sick pleasure.
“You are knight.”
A knight could fight back, but she wasn’t a knight. She was a weak little girl. If only she could be strong.
“Fight, Lyrah.”
Maybe someday, if she ever escaped this nightmare, she could become strong; but that was the future, this was now. Right now she was weak.
“You are knight. You are strong.”
A knight. A knight could fight back. She could become a knight, if she tried.
“You are knight!”
She…was…a…knight.
She was a knight?
She was a knight!
How could she be a knight if she was so helpless? That didn’t make sense; but she was a knight, she knew it, somehow. And a knight was strong. A knight didn’t submit to monsters, a knight killed monsters!
Her breathing evened out and her wild eyes stopped quivering. Awareness slowly came to her face and she focused on her companion, saying softly, “I’m a knight.”
“Yes,” Cueseg said with relief. “Yes, you are!”
“Thank you, Cueseg,” she said and pulled herself from Ahrek’s arms to stand. She looked back down to him. “The Conqueror, he’s alive?”
Ahrek nodded.
“Then we’d better do something about that.”
Chapter Forty-Four
I was merciless in my tactics, yet even the most brilliant tactician can’t win against overwhelming numbers and an order of knights wielding superhuman powers. At one point I even sent an annihilator to destroy the knights’ Arch Hold, which it was more than capable of achieving. For some reason, however, the ship never reached it.
After months of fighting, I was forced to recall what remained of my armies to Highdawn itself, where I would make my last stand.
* * *
Daylen stood at the helm of the battleship, gazing out to the horizon with four bonds stacked to his sight, periodically switching one bond to his light sense, which increased its range significantly, just to feel out if anyone might be approaching.
It was like Daylen could see everything and focus in on details far in the distance. He wondered what this Seer Lem could see with a level-six sight bond. It must be incredible.
Still, neither he nor Lem noticed a single island move.
Daylen switched one bond to his light sense and noticed three lights on their way toward him.
Gee, I wonder who that could be, Daylen thought sarcastically.
Daylen turned to one of the crewman of the battleship. “I lost my skimmer recently, and while I’m onboard, I’d like to have another one.”
“But, aren’t you an Archknight?” the crewman said, which caused the Archknight speaker who was with them to turn his head with a disapproving look. “You jumped on the ship like you could fly. Why do you need a skimmer?”
“Just give me one.”
“Uh, sure, take mine. I’ll get another from the quartermaster.”
Daylen took the skimmer and walked away from the helm. The skimmer’s steel sphere, which encased the small sunstone drivers and darkstone core, was split into two halves which were threaded together. Daylen unscrewed the top half and put it in his belt pouch. Out of necessity the lid held the top driver but the five other drivers sat in the bottom half. The darkstone core was now exposed but still had uniform light on all sides. Daylen hooked the skimmer to his belt. Without the lid the skimmer wouldn’t work, of course, but that wasn’t why he asked for it.
Daylen then took out all the sunstone beads he had in his pouch and tucked four under his glove and the rest under his shirt, ready for use. He turned to face Lyrah, Cueseg, and Ahrek as they landed on the deck of the ship.
Ahrek looked much the same as he had before, and the Tuerasian was staring at him curiously, but Lyrah… Daylen couldn’t express the hate he saw in her eyes.
She knew.
“There!” Archon Lem called out. “Hamenday Island is moving.”
So the island was not from the Floating Isles. How under the Light had the Dawnists managed to mine their way into Hamenday’s core without anyone noticing? And with Hamenday being so close, it would get here much sooner than he had feared.
The battleship jerked into motion, flying to join those ships with the knights.
The speaker was whispering something, and then said loudly, “The Archallion has been alerted. We’ll meet them in flight.”
So with voice, a knight can whisper messages to another person, Daylen thought. Good to know.
Daylen looked back to Ahrek and the others, sighing. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll stay,” Cueseg said to Lyrah. “I know why you cannot. We will stop the island. You go and stop him.”
Lyrah nodded once, slowly. Cueseg walked to Lem and the Speaker, who were looking very confused at what was happening.
“You would think that if the Light wanted me dead, it wouldn’t have renewed my life,” Daylen said. “I hate it for that.”
Ahrek sneered. “Your delusion is amazing.”
“I’m not the one who’s deluded, Ahrek,” Daylen urged. “You don’t want to put me on trial, you want to kill me! This isn’t about justice, it’s about your own selfish feelings. Who cares that everyone else I’ve wronged, who’ve also had loved ones die at my hands, don’t get any satisfaction so long as you do?”
“No,” Lyrah said, her clear and emotionless voice a stark contrast to Ahrek’s, “we’ll kill you in the name of all your victims! You are a monster, Dayless the Conqueror, and I kill monsters!”
“What?” Lem exclaimed in shock as he stood at the helm watching. “Dayless the Conqueror?”
Lyrah advanced slowly, summoning her yellow sunforged warsword.
She pulled back and swung her sword, not even bothering to try and mask it.
Why was she making her movements so obvious?
Daylen casually raised his gauntlet to block with a confused face, and the moment the sword connected he realized his terrible mistake. Her strength.
She was relying on his own arrogance and her diminutive stature to throw him off.
The sword hit the gauntlet with so much force that Daylen’s arm snapped. By that time Daylen had switched all bonds to fortitude and mass but it was too late. The gauntlet hit the side of his body, the sword behind it, knocking him off the ship to flail through the air in a thirty meter arc.
Ahrek was flying right atop him not having wasted a moment, creating four swords which shot at Daylen without mercy.
Each sword impaled him.
Gritting his teeth and falling through the sky Daylen unhooked the skimmer at his belt. He looked at Ahrek, whose eyes widened as he saw what Daylen was doing. “I’m sorry,” Daylen whispered, and he touched the open darkstone core of the skimmer to one of the swords sticking through his chest.
It exploded and Ahrek screamed in agony.
As Daylen suspected, the swords were linked to him.
Shattered sunforged shards flayed Daylen, but with each bond already healing him, he recovered quickly.
His arm had healed, too, and Daylen pulled the other swords from his chest so he could recover fully.
He grabbed the skimmer lid from his pouch and quickly twisted it back on so it would function again, using it to pull him sideways to the falling Ahrek.
“Please be alive,” he pleaded as he grabbed the Bringer and locked the skimmer in place just before they hit the ground.
With enhanced strength, Daylen’s arm resisted the mighty jerk from the sudden stop. He unlocked the skimmer and dropped to the ground.
They had landed in the courtyard of some rich person’s manor house.
Daylen lay
Ahrek down to find him unconscious and breathing raggedly. Breaking a link never killed a person instantly, but it was akin to being stabbed in the chest: the blow would either kill them in a few minutes, or they would wallow in agony for a fall or so to eventually recover.
Daylen gently shook the Bringer. “Come on, Ahrek, heal yourself!”
Ahrek groaned, light softly glowing around him. He was healing, thank the Light. It must be a subconscious reflex like Daylen’s own healing ability.
A thud sounded nearby.
Daylen looked to see Lyrah standing at the other end of the courtyard.
He jumped away.
She followed him, of course, but Daylen could move faster, being able to stack his bonds.
Daylen raced and leapt through the city, easily putting several kilometers between the two of them before finally stopping in a deserted street.
Most of the lower city had been evacuated by now, though the upper islands were a much different story.
Daylen walked to lean on a building and catch his breath. He could use his powers for another ten minutes, maybe, but if he rested for a moment, he could get more out of them. And then he could find a skyship and help stop that island.
Only a few minutes later a thud sounded to his right.
“I can track you, remember?” Lyrah said coldly. “No matter where you go, I’ll follow—and, eventually, you’ll reach your limit and lose your powers completely.”
She was right; if Daylen kept running, he would just waste the remaining power he had.
“You can’t escape,” she said with sword in hand, walking toward him.
Light burst from her whole body to materialize into a full suit of sunforged plate armor, with helm and everything else already fixed in place.
Light! Just how many sunucles can Archknights store within themselves?
Being sunforged, the armor glowed faintly and was only slightly translucent like thick glass or diamond, Lyrah’s armor having a deep pink tint to it. Her face was a shadow underneath, but the banner of her white mantle swayed outside the armor.
Daylen had seen Archknights wear such armor before. Light, he’d had his own suit in the past, but that was only when they weren’t fighting the Shade—and even then, such armor held the same fatal weakness, as all sunucles did. Touch it with darkstone, and it would shatter, potentially killing the one linked to it.
Still, apart from that, sunforged armor was practically indestructible. It weighed so little that it was like you weren’t even wearing it, and it enhanced the physical abilities of the person wearing it, making them twice as strong and fast as they were naturally. This was the supernatural enhancement the armor bestowed from the sun-forging process.
Would that stack with lightbinding? Daylen asked himself. If the armor made one twice as strong, would the first bond double that? If it did, Lyrah was going to be ridiculously strong.
He sighed. Here we go. There was no other choice—he would have to fight.
Daylen held his sword up and walked away from the building to get some room to move.
Lyrah attacked, and this time Daylen was sure to not let the blows connect. With his enhanced speed and reflexes, he dodged each of her sword swings and struck back when the openings presented themselves.
A few of his hits landed.
Lyrah was very skilled, of course, but Daylen was a Grand High Master moving at four times her speed. The problem was that Imperious couldn’t get through that blackened sunforged armor.
As he fought and dodged, moving like the wind, he knew he had only one way to get through that armor.
He spun around an attack and grabbed his skimmer from his belt. Not having time to unscrew the lid, he sliced it in half with his sword, Imperious making the sound of shattering glass as it cut though the darkstone core.
Seven hundred and eighty-eight.
Daylen didn’t hesitate, and as soon as the skimmer was cut he punched it to Lyrah’s armor.
Lyrah reacted suddenly, and in a single burst of speed she had dropped her sword and grabbed both of Daylen’s arms before his attack landed.
She had surged.
Her sudden speed was only a little greater than Daylen’s, and he could have dodged, but he hadn’t been ready for it.
Daylen struggled, but couldn’t move. Lyrah’s strength and weight were incredible; it was like her hands were made of steel, her body an immovable statue.
“Who’s weak now?” she hissed at him, and then booted him in the chest.
Even though Daylen was enhancing his own mass and fortitude, his ribcage was crushed and his arms ripped cleanly off as the rest of him was kicked into a huge fifty-meter arc.
His whole existence was pain, and he healed what he could as he flailed through the air, switching his bonds to mass and fortitude before hitting the ground.
Daylen made a small crater in the street where he landed. Amazingly, he was still alive.
Blood was pouring from his torn off arm sockets.
Daylen switched all bonds to healing, but it was going to take a while, unless…
He drew on the sunstones tucked under his shirt for a huge surge.
In a flash of light he was suddenly fully healed, his arms completely regrown, though his chest hurt and he could still barely move. That surge was obviously close to the limit of what he could process—good thing he hadn’t sucked in all the sunstones.
He clawed his way out of his small crater to see Lyrah already standing nearby watching him, sword in hand.
“Do you have any idea what you did to me?” she said softly.
Daylen nodded. “I do.”
“Really?” she said mockingly. “You know what it was like, to have strangers come into my home and threaten to kill my family unless I let you rape me, again, and again? To strip me naked and parade me around? To force me to participate in the most perverted acts until you grew bored, threw me out and moved on to another?”
Daylen’s shame overwhelmed him, and he broke down crying, for it was true: everything she had said was true.
“I… I…” But Daylen could think of nothing to say. There was no excuse for what he had done to her.
“I fell pregnant,” Lyrah said quietly.
Daylen looked up, his heart breaking. “No,” he said in horrific agony, “you said…”
“I said I never had any children,” she said fiercely, “but I still fell pregnant. I couldn’t bear the thought of carrying a monster inside me, so I cut it out…only to find that I had ripped out any hope of ever bearing another child again.”
“No…” Daylen said through his tears.
“You destroyed me!” she screamed, before her face grew cold once again. “And now I’m going to kill you.”
Lyrah marched on him, raising her sword.
“I’ve never wanted that more than I do now,” Daylen said, and Lyrah hesitated. “And it’s because of that that I can’t let you. Don’t you see that being alive, seeing what I’ve done to you, gives me more pain than death!”
Lyrah sneered. “Then you clearly don’t know what I’m capable of,” she said, and she attacked.
Daylen channeled light to his speed and forced his body to move.
His pride truly knew no bounds.
He power-jumped away and, once in the air, bonded light to his links with Imperious and his gauntlet and pulled, calling them to his hand.
He caught the sword, but one of his severed arms came with the gauntlet.
He pulled the arm out of the gauntlet, a surreal experience, and then slipped it on before he landed.
Lyrah was right behind him and didn’t pause at all, attacking with a fury. Daylen enhanced his speed, making sure to not let even a single strike land, but then Lyrah’s own speed suddenly jumped again. Daylen wasn’t fast enough to dodge, but he did manage to block.
Fighting the force was pointless, so Daylen let Lyrah’s strike push his gauntlet into him, which then knocked him into the air. Even enhancing his fortitude and mas
s, several bones still broke. He did a low surge, which pushed his healing ability even further, making him whole before landing in one of the city’s marketplaces.
The market was empty, of course: a bare bricked field surrounded by buildings.
Lyrah also landed in the open square and charged Daylen.
Daylen took Imperious in his left hand and as they engaged he surged his speed, spinning around Lyrah’s attack to press his open bare palm on her breastplate.
And then he tried to suck it in.
It worked—the breastplate, which was a sunucle, turned into light, which flowed into him.
Daylen smiled, jumping back.
Without her armor, Daylen would be able to win easily, having landed many strikes already.
But then something pulled on him with such strength that it picked him up off the ground, and he flew toward Lyrah. It was kind of like Ahrek’s power, except that it pulled on his whole body.
Lyrah set her sunforged warsword for a massive swing.
Daylen channeled mass and fortitude, pulled up his gauntlet, and braced his whole body against it as he reached the knight.
Lyrah struck and Daylen’s bracer nearly broke as it screamed in a high-pitched chime of protest, the impact knocking him off at a spinning angle.
Daylen’s arm, ribs and back had broken from the colossal impact, his body becoming a ragdoll as he arced through the air, Imperious thrown from his hand.
And then the same force pulled on him once more.
It could only be one thing, and Daylen summoned Lyrah’s breastplate.
As soon as the breastplate materialized, it shot toward Lyrah, and the pulling on his body stopped.
It had been the blackened link. Absorbing a sunucle that was linked to another person meant that when they pulled on the link, they pulled on him.
Daylen crashed on the ground, rolling several times before coming to a stop.
Well, that didn’t work…
Daylen drew on his sunstones for a low surge, causing his broken bones to snap and click back together after a few seconds.
His powers were really straining at that point.
Shadow of the Conqueror Page 47
