by Stone Thomas
“Only twenty-nine cursed men were forced to evacuate at the tower’s base,” Brion said. “None died. Twelve have since been contained.”
“Contained?” I asked.
“Contained,” he said. “The eighty-eight mounted cretins, however, are not contained.”
The next wave started before the cursed men had been dealt with. Cretins and war dogs, almost invisible against the black sky, jumped over our electrified wall. The war dogs’ hulking and muscular bodies propelled them in high leaps with shiny black cretins on their backs.
Each cretin held one arm around a war dog’s neck and clutched a long curved blade, the same black as its body, in the other hand. They snarled and grunted as they bounded toward us, familiars riding other familiars into battle.
Lumentors were formless. Cursed men were, well, men. Cretins and war dogs, however, I could stab. While Halcyon’s bravest residents parried attacks from the men Duul had conscripted into his army, I prepared to slay his familiars.
“There are too many,” Nola said, blocking an attack with her sword. “We’re outnumbered three to one.”
“Then let’s whittle them down,” I said. I thrust my spear forward and stabbed the hard, metallic ribcage of a war dog. I tore a gash across its body, but it rose on its hind legs and leapt at me, knocking me into the dirt.
I had forgotten what it was like to wield a normal weapon instead of a Vile Lance. I rammed my polearm into the monster’s belly twice more before it fell limp on top of me, leaking its black life force.
Its cretin companion lost no time sinking a sword into my leg. I howled from the pain, but pushed the war dog’s body off of me and kicked that cretin in the face. In a moment, I was up, on top of the prone familiar, and pressing my iron spear into its sleek black body.
The familiars’ lifeblood rose from the ground and snaked through the air, thin streams of divine energy winding their way toward the energems that would contain them.
“Nola,” I said, “can you charge any of those with the ability to make more guardians?”
“Maybe one of the larger ones,” she said. “The ground carries too many vibrations from all over the hill though. An energem needs elevation to form the psychic link.”
“We have plenty of unused towers and we’ll need the reinforcements,” I said. “Go, we’ll handle the fight here.”
Nola nodded, then jumped. With a few strong thrusts of her feathered wings, she was gone.
“Wait,” Brion said. He caught me by the arm. “Kāya is coming too. She’ll destroy Nola’s heavenly soul at a rate of 21 per second. Her plan will only take two minutes to ravage Nola’s 2,477 plus the remaining 43.”
“I just wish I knew what that meant,” I said.
Only eight of our original twenty seraph guardians remained. They raised their weapons to block cretins’ swords, but Duul’s mounted minions had the advantage. I cracked open a guardian’s skill menu and pumped up its Hardiness to level six to improve defense against sword attacks, but I knew these familiars couldn’t last much longer.
Meanwhile, war dogs kicked people down and their riders sliced into the marbleskin of our fighters. A few puffs of marble dust erupted to my side. The potions were wearing off. As each warrior lost their protective shell, they fought more defensively. They retreated toward the center of our group, allowing Duul’s familiars to creep closer, tightening our circle and penning us in.
“Where should I go?” one woman asked.
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“You said when the potions wore off we should seek safety, but I can’t break through this wall of attackers. I’m trapped here.”
“Me too!” someone else yelled.
The cretins dismounted their war dog steeds and sent a volley of curses toward us. A few of our men struggled to keep their wits about them. “Fight it!” I yelled.
The cretins and war dogs closed in. A seraph guardian made of slime approached, glowing with the light of the strongest lumentor, the one that had drained the combined energy of the other rotten souls and won that slime body for its prize.
I stepped forward. It would take a lot of damage to drive down my HP far enough to trigger Spear Cannon, but I could blast an opening and let our people escape.
A cretin raised its sword and I stood there, prepared to take the hit.
Mamba stepped forward with one leg and kicked high with the other, almost completing a perfect split while standing. Her battle heel sparked with red magic, caught the familiar under the chin, and knocked him three feet into the air. She planted her foot back on the ground, held her hands above her head, and started to spin. Snakes burst from the ground, beating back a war dog that leapt at one of our fighters.
When the next cretin stepped forward, it failed to make an attack. A goblin had jumped on its back and pushed it off course. Goblins jumped on all of their backs now, clutching war dogs and groping cretins in a fighting frenzy. Our people rushed forward again, sensing the tidal change. I stabbed one, two, three cretins and released more life force energy that sped toward raw energems wherever they lay.
“Thirty-nine cursed men are contained,” Brion announced. “Fifty-two cretins and fifty-five war dogs remain.”
One goblin pushed through the fray, a dark green shape darting between the legs of our taller combatants. Her eyes scanned left and right as she wove through the group.
“Mayblin!” I yelled. “Over here! How many more goblins can join us?”
“This is everyone,” she said, still looking all around. “We can’t let these monsters get near the lord of the rocks. I know it’s just a pile of useless dragon bones, but we spent so long admiring it we can’t give up on it now. Where’s the yellow one?”
“Mercifer?” I asked. “He was here a minute ago.”
“I’ve decided to date both of them,” she said, tossing her long, stringy hair to the side. “I just need to let him know.”
“Maybe wait until this is over?” I asked.
I didn’t wait for a response. The ground rocked with the force of a minor explosion. A cloud of lilac haze hung near the southern wall, where Lily and Ambry fought alongside another contingent of our people. It wasn’t just cursed men and cretins they were fighting against now.
“Kāya’s here,” I said. “Mamba, I’m leaving you in charge now. The cursed men—”
“I won’t kill the music,” she said, “even if I don’t like the song. My snakies will slow them without stopping them.”
“Thank you,” I said. I pushed through the throng of evil familiars and raced toward Kāya. Nola finished affixing a glowing energem atop a nearby tower, then flew toward Kāya as well.
“Wait for me!” Brion yelled. “I can see her skill menus.”
“Why would you help us?” I asked.
“The psycholowitch you brought me to did little to help me, but that does not mean she did nothing,” he said. “I know I did not witness the Great Mother in a vision; I was under Cindra’s spell. I don’t blame her for the deception, but it means there is no redemption waiting for me. I must earn it.
“The variables between Nola and Kāya are clear,” he continued. “Kāya will destroy Nola’s heavenly soul in under one minute and fifty seconds if her attack is uninterrupted.”
“That’s faster than your last estimate,” I said.
“It wasn’t an estimate,” he said. “It was an exactitude.”
Arden!, Nola screamed inside my mind. Hurry!
+60
We ran from the center of the hill, hopping the low brick wall that bounded our cannonball field and crossing the empty expanse of Halcyon’s southern half. Pulses of red and blue magic erupted from the few energems set in our defensive wall, trapping enemies in rings of fire or blocks of ice. Snakes sped through the grass and electricity pulsed around our perimeter.
An explosion rocked the ground as Kāya summoned another anibomb. The rabbit-like familiar’s life was short, erupting the second something moved near it.
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We passed cursed men who spit and swore at us, but they couldn’t reach out to attack. They were “contained,” as Brion put it. Their entire bodies were buried up to their necks in holes that were expertly dug from beneath.
“Great job, Ess!” I yelled. As we ran, gi-ants clawed up from the ground. Their bodies rose only a few feet high on six thin legs. Their antennae twitched and their sharp mandibles fiddled while they crawled behind us, a battalion of segmented bodies with hard exoskeletons and a penchant for digging.
Kāya’s words carried toward us as we got near.
“Golden goddess,” she said. “Have you seen my lost kitty cat? Big bushy mane and carnelian red eyes. Responds to Brion, Bwion, and Bwi-Bwi. Likes to pee where he sleeps?”
Is that why the prison smelled like that?, I asked.
He’s a lionkin, Nola said. Marking his territory comes with the… territory.
I was out of breath from running to the edge of our hill where Kāya stood, staring Nola down. Lily and Ambry were close by, aiming their spells at the cretins and war dogs that lingered here, closer to the purple-skinned goddess leading this charge. Kāya’s body still threatened to burst free from her outfit, her purple breasts bulging against her firm, too-tight corset.
She caught sight of Brion trailing behind me and smiled. “I have been without my priest for too long. Skill me!”
“I will not,” Brion said.
“I’ll scratch behind your ear,” she said. “Or that soft spot under your belly.”
“The one that makes me purr so loudly?” He shook his head. “No, my days as your lap cat are over. The past few days have brought me more focus than I have had in months. I will not make you stronger.”
“Focus,” she said. “Nothing a boon of chaos can’t fix.”
A wisp of purple energy left Kāya’s fingertips and Brion’s body began to glow. He dug his fingers into his mane and wailed, a high stringent sound.
“I will not lose my head priest’s devotion,” Kāya said. “Not after all the times I’ve been rejected. No one else would serve me when awkward moments were my only gift. I begged, I promised access to the skillmeister class, I offered everything a god could offer. Your mind is mine now, you promised it to me!”
I knelt by the lion’s side. Tears streaked his face. “You really want to be rid of her?” I asked. “I may have a way. I just need to remember how it goes.”
He nodded and continued to whimper.
“Your psychic link destroyed him,” Nola said.
“Spillover,” Kāya replied. “My powers are not mine to control, at least not yet. They rush like a river in the back of my mind, flooding my thoughts. The lionkin complains, but he doesn’t suffer it the way I do. That chaos rages through me with ten times the fury.
“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same way. All those visions of the future. They don’t make any sense, do they? They bubble up at random, flashes and glimpses of things that may never even happen. But then, those moments of clarity come like a sequence of dreams and it feels, for one moment, like you’re the fully-fledged goddess you were always meant to be.”
“It takes work,” Nola said. “Clarity comes with time.”
“My moments of clarity aren’t peace and joy,” Kāya said, jabbing at her temple with her forefinger. “They’re the realization of the havoc I’ll cause, of how to take meaning, and order, and structure and destroy them.”
“But your father used chaos to create,” Nola said.
“We are not our parents!” Kāya yelled. “Our gifts won’t work the way theirs did. We have to find our own path, and mine is demolition. The Great Mother won’t risk someone like me becoming the next matriarch of our kind. You know what she did to Valona. I won’t be shut up and forgotten like that. Duul is my only hope.”
“Put your hope in me,” Nola said. “We want the same thing. No one has to die so that you can live.”
“We both know that’s not true,” Kāya said.
“I’ve seen how this plays out,” Nola said. “If we fight, I’m the one that walks away. You won’t survive this day.”
“Then kill me already,” she said. “It’s that simple.” She lifted her arms in the air and summoned six anibombs around us. Their rabbit shapes glowed softly against the dark. “I’m strong now, Nola. Duul put his army at my disposal. I can call them off. Stop the cretins, the war dogs, the explosions. All you have to do is kill me.” The longer she spoke, the more anibombs took shape, some near and some further toward the center of our hill.
Kāya stepped toward Nola, her arms spread wide. With a snap of her fingers, the nearest anibomb exploded unprovoked. “I’ll kill everyone, Nola. Or you’ll kill me. The price for their protection is your innocence.”
“Was that Duul’s plan all along?” I asked. “Forcing Nola to kill you?”
“I don’t know if it will work,” Kāya said. She set off another anibomb that blew a hole in the ground and pelted us with dirt and rock. “I don’t even hope it will work. But I don’t have a choice.”
“We all have a choice!” I yelled.
“You’re lucky you don’t have parents, Arden,” she replied. “Then Duul can’t use them against you. I already lost my father. I won’t lose my mother too. I won’t let him hurt Lonne.”
“Our mothers were friends once,” Nola said. “We may not be our parents, but we can live by their example.”
Kāya stepped closer to Nola. Then she punched her in the face.
Nola’s hand reached for her nose. Our hill was shrouded in preternatural darkness, but I still saw blood. Kāya pulled back for another punch and Nola lifted an arm to block it.
I stepped forward with my spear, but Nola stopped me.
I’m not done trying, she said.
Do you still have the sleep dust?, I asked.
Yes, but it’s a last resort. She doesn’t want to serve Duul. We can still make her an ally.
I knelt with Brion while he recovered from Kāya’s boon. I tested a few words and phrases, trying to reconstruct something I had only heard once.
When I looked up, Kāya had her hands around Nola’s neck. “You can end this,” Kāya said. “Why won’t you end this!”
Nola held her sword away from her body, then made a show of dropping it. She grabbed Kāya’s hands and began to pry them from her throat. Her face remained calm, even as Kāya strangled her.
An energem lit up in a tower behind Nola and pumped out pale yellow magic that formed a new seraph guardian. It stood there, waiting for instruction, a newborn that would start its life with all the strengths and skills of the guardians that came before.
“This doesn’t end without a blade,” Kāya said. She threw Nola to the ground, then bent down and picked up the iron sword while Nola scrambled to her feet. “I suppose we’ll have to do this the hard way.” She lunged at Nola, but Nola flew to avoid getting hit. Kāya was close behind, floating upward in defiance of gravity without wings of her own. Her blade — Nola’s blade — was slicked with the black lifeblood of the cretins and war dogs whose bodies littered the ground below.
“Nola!” I yelled. “Let me unlock Cunning Edge!”
She nodded and I made quick work of it.
As Kāya’s weapon bore down on her, Nola held up one hand. Motes of golden energy lit up like fireflies, coalescing into the shape of a long, thin blade. The hilt of her conjured sword covered her hand, casting a warm yellow glow in every direction.
When their weapons clashed, Nola’s rang out like a temple bell and pulsed with radiant light.
“No,” Brion said. “What have you done?”
“Um, I gave her a magnificent golden sword,” I said. “The correct reaction is, Arden, you’re a cool dude with good timing.”
“Her experience points are spent, and her AP is depleted,” Brion said. “At this rate, Kāya will destroy Nola’s heavenly soul in only 28 seconds!”
“What do her AP and XP…” A terrible, horrible thought invaded my mind. Nor
mally when that happened, it was a snarky comment or an unwanted haiku. This time, it was the realization of what Brion had been describing with exacting numerical specificity for days.
Nola!, I yelled with my mind. Don’t kill her! Don’t let her die!
I wasn’t planning on it!, she yelled back.
Use the sleep dust, I said. For her own good, and yours!
The smell of burning oak intensified as flames ate away at Duul’s siege tower. A pillar of black clouds still billowed from the cauldron at the tower’s peak, adding a rubbery, tarry odor to the air Nola and Kāya flew through as they fought.
I knelt with Brion while the goddesses fought. “I think these are the right words,” I said. “Recite them and mean them. Good luck.”
Brion stood, clenched his eyes shut, and spoke. “By the gods and with my soul, I free myself from your control. I steel my mind and close my heart. From you, Kāya, I now depart.”
The second Brion finished the incantation, his face relaxed. Kāya twisted in the air and stared down at us while her sword pressed against Nola’s.
“No!” she said. There was sadness in her voice. “Now I have no one.”
“You have me,” Nola said. “Where is your mother? We’ll protect her too. Together.”
Kāya hesitated. She floated a few inches away from Nola and looked her in the eye while their swords rested against each other.
Then a massive war dog, four feet wide and just as tall, shot clear over our electric stone wall. On its back was a man — a god — with red wrinkled skin and a sword held high, already mid-swing. “If you want Kāya so badly, have her!” he yelled as his war dog mount skidded to a stop.
Before I could even yell his name, blood sprayed across my face. In one strike, he had sliced a bloody gash across Kāya’s back.
Her body still hovered several feet above the ground. Her sword arm went limp, forcing the iron sword in her hand to scrape along the edge of Nola’s blade before she let it go completely. She fell as the power that kept her aloft gave way, a goddess descending toward the ground as if in slow motion.
