The Battle for Arcanon Major (The Lost Dacomé Files)
Page 10
“What do you want me to do?” Nerí asked.
“Yours is the easiest challenge. Can you raze Arcanon Minor to the ground? Kill every disease and plague that lingers there. Destroy the sewers and burn through the rot. After this war we can begin building a whole new Outer City and start again.”
Nerído hung an arm over my shoulder and smiled in approval. Sanátu joined us and draped an arm over the other side, drawing Avíra into him.
“You have the most amazing mind, almost as dangerous as a Xipilé,” Nerído laughed.
“She is a Xipilé now,” Avíra chirped. “No getting away from that one.”
Sanátu smiled. “Trust my Maloké wife to bring up the finer points. She gets more like a Batavéan every day.”
“So we can do this?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah! Definitely! Bring it on!” they said in unison.
Jerik mumbled at Nerído’s side. “What can I do? I don’t have any magic.”
Sanátu laughed and grasped his shoulder reassuringly. “You have the most important job of all.”
My brother looked confused and Nerído patted him on the back. “You are going to look after us this time, Jer.”
“I am?” Jerik said in amazement.
“Oh, yeah,” Avíra added. “No job is as scary as this one. I hope you’re up to it.”
“Hally?”
“Jerik, you’ll be our shield in case something flies up and tries to stop us,” I answered. “You have to make sure we stay alive.”
“Oh!”
“Think you can handle it? It might get hairy.”
“Of course I can!” His face lit up. “It’d be an honour.”
“That’s settled, then,” I confirmed. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter 11 - The Battle for Arcanon Major
For the next hour, everything was manic. I silently spoke to all captains and advised them on the change of plan. This morning there would be no captains’ ritual. The only people I wanted the Primords to eventually see on the observation tower were the five of us.
The 5th, 6th, and 7th Corridors at the back of the city were closed down. The inner gates to the city were barred and the city people warned to stay inside the buildings. All the remaining soldiers divided themselves with their captains to fill the other corridors. Today was the first time that the different Legions fought together, side by side. Soldiers who wanted to fight at the 1st Corridor did. Those who had seen enough of the 1st Corridor went to the ones farther back. Nobody judged if the 1st Legion wanted to see less action. The soldiers had proved themselves time and again that they were the best.
Now was the time when we would fight together for Arcanon as one army. Not for the Legion, not for the captain, and not for me.
THIS was the final war to end all wars.
The expectation was so palpable, you could almost taste it. Soldiers scuffed the soil under their feet to keep up the adrenaline. Others warmed up their arms and shoulders. Swords and knives were sharpened, armour tightened and clamped down a little tighter.
These things happened as the rabid, throat-gurgling roar of the Primords grew closer. Every pair of ears could hear the angry mob approach. The stamping of feet, the pulling of heavier barges to break down our barricades once again.
The atmosphere began to darken and grey clouds wandered across the sun’s path, breaking up the bright light. There were no sparrow hawks today. The sky was devoid of anything. Only the din of the encroaching army could be heard.
I closed my eyes to see again. Nerído grasped my hand on one side, Sanátu and Avíra on the other. This time my vision was in multicolour. The black shadows now had form. The elements of their bodies were clearer as we all saw the air in their lungs, the water in their survival systems, and the heat of their bodies. The living mass was moving quickly through the Inner City, alive and enraged.
“You see it?” I whispered.
“Yes,” Nerído answered. “They’re so close now.”
“I must admit I don’t envy your visions, Halíka, but this is something else,” said Sanátu. “Their hatred for us is so real.”
“I want to kill them all,” muttered Avíra. “Such loathing I have for these Primords. With their dirty, stinking bodies.”
We unlinked hands. Jerik moved in front of us again. “So, when?”
The engines of the two smaller ships started on either side of the city, announcing the mass of Primords getting closer.
“We start right now,” I announced. I raised my glaive into the air and faced the soldiers one last time.
“FOR ARCANON!” I shouted. The four at my side joined me in our final salute.
“FOR ARCANON! FOR ARCANON! FOR ARCANON!” the soldiers cried. The eager yells soon met with those from the other corridors and the whole of the Inner City shouted together.
“Captains, it’s time. Get your soldiers ready! Good luck all, and good fighting!”
Down below, inside the Arc, Captain Orthían started with his orders. The soldiers formed their ranks and lines and drew arms. They balanced on one foot and then the other. Swords wielded overhead brought tension to their shoulders as they eagerly awaited the collapse of the barricades.
“Nerído, instruct your crews!”
“Avíra, manipulate the air on the plain!”
They positioned themselves and started. Eyes closed, Nerído silently issued his orders.
From the left and right, the small ships took to the skies and initiated their bombardment. Killing beams of bright red shot down to the ground in quick, thick bursts, pulverising the Primords nearest. Slowly they moved, circling the Arc and continuing the firing tirade.
Avíra waved her hands in front of her and concentrated on the horizon. She moved her fingers so delicately, you would imagine her in a dance. But the view ahead near the horizon told a different story. Groups of Primords started staggering into one another, gasping for breath. Thousands at a time searched for that little pocket of air that was richer than the air they had. They clawed and pawed at each other in desperation.
The Primords in the Outer City and closest to the barricades sensed the new danger. Panic was spreading, although they had little idea over what exactly.
The barges started beating against the barricades two at a time. As one drew back, the other bashed against it and so on.
The main ship started its engines and the earth shook from the vibration. The cylindrical ship clipped the light above the mountains and reached up into the air. The grey oval headed south towards the plain and grew smaller in our view.
“Captains, the sonic beams will begin any moment! Warn your men!”
As if on cue, the soldiers reached for small plugs that had been handed to them early this morning. The sonic waves wouldn’t harm Elementals, but the high-pitched frequency of waves still caused intense internal discomfort in the ears.
The gigantic wave boom could be seen as the ship hovered in the sky. A shimming of air fell to the ground as the Primords underneath collapsed. The waves would shut down their nervous systems and cause their internal organs to implode.
The first wave killed a hundred thousand; the second wave killed more. The ship skirted forward slightly and the Primords started running away from it. They were too slow, though, and a third wave hit the ground, destroying more than both previous waves. The waves came down quicker as the ship began to disappear from our sight, moving farther back, eradicating more Primords. Nerído’s eyes remained closed as he communed with the ship’s crew.
“They want to know if they can head farther out. There isn’t an end to them yet, but a few more minutes and they could kill at least a quarter of them,” he spoke suddenly.
I nodded. “Do it.”
Avíra was still choking the air above the Primords near the city. The two ships continued to blast their beams, pushing the Primords into one group.
It was working. A bottleneck was beginning to form as the Primords ran in horror at our deception.
“Hal, the main ship has reached the back. It’s going to travel along the back line and then come forward,” said Nerído.
The shadows were beginning to clamber forward over their dead brethren to escape the sonic waves, but running in fear was their downfall. They ran towards worse dangers as the third small ship launched its engines and ascended.
The beams of this ship cut through the sides of the central horde, pushing them into the middle. It worked around the back and then down the other side.
“Nerído, has the main ship finished the blasting?”
I waited.
“Yes, they’re on their way back. The ship’s navigation system is displaying the death estimate to be approximately one million, seven hundred thousand,” he said, finally opening his eyes. “Just one more wave into the throng in the centre and that will be the plain taken care of. All that’s left is for you to empty the ruined city.”
I checked in with the captains. Not one of the outer barricades had been broken yet. For now, all of our soldiers were safe and unharmed.
The three smaller ships closed in on the ever-decreasing group on the plain. The big ship returned to our eyeline and emitted its final blast.
The Primords on the plain were finally dead.
“Sanátu, can you place your fingers on my neck and stand behind me. Nerído, Avíra, and Jerik, stand behind him.”
The Primords at the barricades and in the edges of the Minor were beyond frenzy. As the barges failed to make the impact that they had before, the black sub-beings started climbing on each other to reach the top of the barrier. Their roars and cries were now high-pitched wails, shrieks, and hollers. The sound of desperation.
I lifted my hands and tested my magic. It spurted from my fingers in tiny sparks.
I stretched my shoulders back and held my arms wide behind me. Pushing along my arms, I felt the white tendrils extend through my limbs and stop at my fingertips. The blaze flashed from my fingertips and shot out into the ether. Farther and farther, I pushed, the short distance to the outer barricade, another five miles to the edge of the Outer City.
Now was the hardest part. Eyelids closed, with Sanátu’s hand firmly on my skin, I felt for them.
Large clusters hid in remote sections of the ruins. Scared and cut off from their kind. I brought down the buildings on top of them until the life was squeezed from their bodies. I sensed the heat escaping like a hot mist, thanks to Sanátu. I dug deep into the soil under their feet and found a small crevice. Pulling them into it was easy. Covering it took more effort.
I travelled farther doing the same. Sanátu started to make his mist rise and the stench was unbearable. I shifted rubble, ruined debris, and brought it all crashing down whether the Primords were there or not. The buildings toppled easily, the foundations long since rotted from mould and subsidence.
The Primord groups started to run away from me.
The hot sweat of their bodies made their outlines clearer, more colourful than before. Nerído must be holding Sanátu and passing on his gift.
Another large cluster of Primords hid in one of the only two-storey buildings left, caught in my trap. I pulled the middle floor away from under them, sending them crashing to the ground. Their broken bodies soon suffocated where they lay.
I intensified the heat, drawing it in through my bracelet from Nerído, and continued. I set fire to an old warehouse roof, the charred beams falling on seventy multicoloured shadows. The flickering light of their very beings faded into the misty droplets I brought forth.
Halfway around the Arc, the numbers grew larger. More than I expected sought sanctuary in the remains of the small skeletal building frames. A spire from a bakery was next to crash down, sending dust into the air and pushing dust smoke into the faces of the hidden.
Any building more than five bricks high I wrestled to the ground, leaving nowhere for them to run but forward to their doom.
I reached halfway; I waited and reached out, trying to sense how many were left alive.
Thousands still.
Pulling down the buildings on top of them wasn’t going to work with such a large mass. I had to do something more drastic, more terrifying than I had ever done before.
I had to kill them using only my gift.
The last quarter remained. My arms pointed northwest and northeast. They were trapped in this small area with nowhere to run unless they wanted death by killing beams or sonic waves from the ships waiting on the boundary.
I kneeled down on the platform and pushed my gift down to the ground below. I dug down deep, the silver veins reaching and spreading like a rolled-up rug, unrolling farther out, farther left and farther right.
They were waiting and fully aware that the worst fate possible was now upon them. I pushed up thousands and thousands of tendril veins from the floor, punching through the entire quarter. I forced the veins up to grab every last Primord.
I squeezed, sucked, and drained the life out of them. I laughed while I did it. The feeling of elation was overwhelming; I was finally killing them all. The race of Primords would be ended when I was finished. Never again would we fear leaving our sheltered walls of the city.
This was what they deserved. This was retribution for my mother’s death. The day she died giving birth to Jerik, I’d been on the battleground and too far away to hear her final cries for help.
Too far away to hear her cries for me.
Too far away to heal her.
Too far away to save her.
Her death had always weighed heavy inside of me. I should’ve been there for her when she needed me most. But I wasn’t. Instead, the Primords had taken her from me and now they had to pay.
I gritted my teeth as my anger once again ignited inside. I had to kill every last one.
I owed it to my family. To the fallen Elementals of Xiryathon. To the soldiers of past wars.
The thrill of four tempered magical essences continued to course through me. My euphoria ignited.
Imagine what I could overcome if I had this power all the time.
Imagine all the enemies I could annihilate.
No more would Xiryathon be the backward run down planet. I imagined how rulers would bow down and fear me, fear what I could do. I would be feared and revered as—
The heat was gone from my magic. I felt its withdrawal instantly. I heard footsteps of someone descending the observation tower. Sanátu withdrew his hand, sucked in a breath but stayed near me on the platform. I couldn’t sense Avíra either.
I clung onto the Primord bodies, not daring to let go until I felt all of them go limp under my tendrils.
I breathed out and laughed again at long last, releasing and pulling the magic back into my arms, feeling the weight of it hang in my shoulders.
We were finally free! The Elementals were saved. We would no longer die out and become myths like our ancestors, the original Primordials.
I opened my eyes to the new day.
And all I heard was silence.
“Where’s Nerído Xipilé?” was the first thing I asked as I turned to face my friends. Sanátu pointed downstairs.
Their blank, stunned faces wouldn’t speak. “What’s wrong? Jerik?”
My brother’s hands shook. He tucked them under his arms to hide them from me. His eyes were wide, scared. “I’m okay. It’s okay. You’ve just … frightened me.”
“Why? What did I do?” I said incredulously. They looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Avíra?”
Avíra was one of the strongest women I knew, but she had tears in her eyes. She averted her gaze, as if she found it difficult to look at me.
Sanátu spoke out. “Halíka, we’ve never seen you use such powerful magic before. Maybe we underestimated you. Pulling down buildings and smoking out the enemy is a fair fight. But you just single-handedly executed the Primords using just your powers. Do you know how horrifying that is? The citizens of the other planets have names for people who kill in cold blood. They call them genocides.”
Avíra butted in. “Halíka, we understand why you did it—about your mother.”
“Yes, Avíra, they killed her, and every single one of my kind, for fun, and for their own glory. Men, women, and children have died merciless, horrific deaths.”
Avíra held her hands out to me and I took them. “Halíka, we’re not disputing that. We’ve all just killed millions. We helped you. We’re all responsible. But we’ve just seen, felt, and witnessed you exterminate them. Alone. On your own. Do you know how scared that makes us of you?”
“Why, because now you know I could kill you too?”
“No, Halíka, I don’t think that. This is just going to take a while to accept. The alliances are going to react in different ways. They may not be so compliant now. You’ve just shown them that you will not be trifled with, and you’ve given them an example of how you might repay any unpleasantries that may arise. They will be wary of you.”
“Well, if the alliances are now scared of me, then good. They’d better be. Because I will not tolerate anyone telling me what to do on my own planet or with my own people.”
I moved towards the ladder. “I’m going to find my husband. Maybe he’ll understand.”
“Halíka, wait,” Sanátu murmured. “I don’t think he will. We’ll go down and send him back up here. Jerik, you come with us.”
Jerik nodded to him but stopped to hug me. “You really freaked me out, is all. I never realised how dangerous my big sister was.”
“Jerik, it’s still me,” I said and smoothed down his hair. I pulled him back and stared into his eyes. “It’s still me, Hally, okay? All I’ve done is rid us of our enemies. We’re free now, Jerik. We can start our lives again. And you can start by asking that miller’s daughter out on a proper date. You won’t have to fight anymore. I did it for all of us. Understand?”
“I do.” He nodded and laughed tentatively as the truth began to sink in. “We’re really free, aren’t we?”