Once the air had cleared, the true Knights created a crisp formation meters above the lawn, waiting at attention for an order from their High King. Nauseating smoke rose into the air from the bodies of the fallen Knightshades, and Quinn powered off his lance to salute them. Old John stood alone on the lawn, unscathed by the battle, looking at the men around him who had fallen, and those above who had joined him. Varion was shaking, pale and weak, and leaned against the doorframe for support.
“You have betrayed me and my people,” John grated.
Regent Varion fell to his knees, his power gone. He lifted his hands in pitiful supplication. “Please, be merciful John! I beg you, please! This war would have destroyed the dragons and led us into a new, glorious era! I did this all for the empire...for you!
The High King shook his head. “No. You have lied to yourself, to me, and to my people, for years. You've begun an unjust war that has repercussions far beyond your limited understanding. You corrupted good Knights, and used them for murder. You slaughtered nearly half the House of Lords, an ancient symbol of unity among the twelve kingdoms. So...tell me why...why should I show mercy to you if you have none for anyone else?”
Stella heard the device Fox had given her chime as it received a new packet of information, and she opened it. “Oh, no,” she whispered as she quickly read its contents. She looked up and saw one of the other Citadels above them, her eyes going wide as it dawned on her exactly what that meant. “Dare to be courageous,” Stella whispered, and took a deep breath as she gripped the heavy chrystum gate. Could she make it in time, or would all be lost?
“Wait!” she shouted through the silence, then began to climb. Someone tried to pull her down, but Quinn knocked them off her and she kept going. It was hard, but she made it to the top and worked her way over to the other side.
She dropped down clumsily onto the grass, and rolled over to break her fall. It was farther down than she'd thought, and she felt her ankle twist. Still, she ran for all she was worth straight toward John Phoenix and the Regent. Holding up her small display, Stella shouted, “He's not telling the whole truth, John! You need to see this!”
The High King looked at her, recognition dawning on his face. “Stella?”
She nodded as she approached, winded from the sprint over.
John Phoenix grabbed Varion roughly by the collar and lifted him into the air, staring at him hard with a single eye of blazing fury. With gritted teeth, he took a deep breath and reined in his anger. “Very well,” he said, and tossed Varion several meters away to land with a soft thud on the grass. “What is this you have to show me?”
Stella rushed over to him and held up the image. “King Harris is behind this! The Regent, the war, all of it! And he's about to attack!” She pointed at the other Citadel as old John instantly uploaded the files onto his meta-chip ring.
John's face went white, but to his credit, he didn't hesitate. “Shields to maximum power!” he immediately commanded into his earbud, and Stella heard a loud hum from above as they kicked into overdrive. Just in time, too. As soon as the resonance-shields were up, the Prime Citadel was rocked on its celestial foundations by heavy bombardment from the Highreach.
John Phoenix looked up as the Highreach rained down accelerated pulse-cannon fire. “I'll be right back,” he gritted as his lance crackled with power, then he shot into the air like a bolt of lightning, directly at Harris's Citadel.
He looked like a rising golden star as he arced through air and space to intercept the lesser king's city ship. The Brigadier Knights took to the sky to assist their High King in battle...and what a battle it looked to be, Stella thought.
Suddenly there was a thick arm around her neck, and a gun pressed into her back. It hurt, and she let out a small cry, dropping Fox's display on the ground. Varion laughed from behind her, and Stella caught the acidic scent of corruption hidden beneath thick cologne. It made her feel sick. “Thank you for helping me out there, girl,” Varion whispered menacingly in her ear. “Let's go for a little ride in my yacht, shall we?”
Stella tried to say something witty and cutting, but he squeezed her neck with his arm, and it was all she could do to keep from choking. She felt tears blurring her vision at the injustice of this situation. She clawed at his arm, but he just laughed as he dragged her across the grass.
Her foot bumped into something as she struggled against his grip...the cracked helm of a dead Knightshade. Through the blur of tears, she saw yellowed teeth surrounded by dark bandages, and caught a strong whiff of charred flesh. Who had that been before they'd become this nameless thing of darkness and decay?
As the Regent pulled Stella toward his private yacht, she could hear people yelling from behind her. Varion swiveled around with a curse but when Stella saw why, she felt her mouth open into a smile.
Running toward them was what must have been the entire population of the Citadel. Once they'd seen Stella climb over the fence, apparently they realized they could do it too. The peacekeepers had begun unlocking the gates, but it seemed like the climbing was as much symbolic as anything, and people were doing it in droves.
“No!” Varion yelled, and fired off a volley of shots into the crowd. The people slowed down to pick up those who had fallen, but still they kept coming.
At the front of the pack were faces Stella instantly recognized. Rok and Mtumba were right there, both singing the running song as they rushed across the grass, and Eli and Kita close behind. Stella felt tears flowing freely as she felt how much they cared about her, and how much she cared about them. She was not about to let them be shot on her account.
So, with what strength she had, she lifted her foot and grunted as she slammed the back of her shoe into Varion's shin as hard as she could.
“Ah!” he gasped in pain, and fell back, his grip loosened enough for Stella to slip free.
As she darted away from the Regent to join the crowd that had stopped a few paces short of trampling him, Stella felt something zip over her.
She looked back at Varion and saw that his trigger hand was burnt, his pistol fallen on the ground. She caught a whiff of burnt flesh.
Varion screamed as he held his injured appendage at the wrist, and glared at the crowd. “No!” he shouted, twitching. “You don't understand...this was all for the glory of the Empire!”
A glance in the other direction revealed Captain Eli Hawk still holding his pistol, pointed at the Regent, and Eli spoke. “No, what you did was for yourself and other greedy power-mongers like you. So don't give me that line. Won't work on me.” Eli kept his pistol trained on the Regent as Stella rushed over to her friends and hugged them, tears on their young faces.
“I'm sorry I wasn't more careful,” Stella sobbed as she clutched Kita's jacket. Kita shushed her, and Eli smiled as he lightly squeezed her shoulder.
“You done good, kid,” he grinned.
A horrible, buzzing whine cut into their reunion from high above, drawing Stella’s gaze.
“What are they doing?” Rok gasped, clutching his stomach in pain. “Why are they tearing it apart? Can't they feel it?”
“What is it?” Mtumba asked. “What do you see?”
“They're ripping apart the sky,” Rok winced, “It hurts so bad.” He fell forward onto his knees and Stella knelt beside him.
“It's going to be all right, Rok,” she said.
“Rok,” Mtumba whispered urgently, “there's something I have to...”
“Look!” a man shouted from the crowd. “Do you see that?” Stella followed his gaze and shivered at what she saw the man describing. “Harris is opening a wormhole, and his ship's right on top of us! He'll kill us all!”
“We're with you, John,” she whispered, and squeezed her amulet.
29
Hard Reckoning
“Clean sweep, Knights!” John Phoenix commanded over his earbud. “Dragons and Spearcraft are secondary priorities to disabling that wormhole! Leave the heavy cannons to me!” His Brigadier Knights spread out
behind him, fist by fist, engaging Harris's forces. The dragons, strangely, didn't seem so thick down here.
John was still freezing cold, though. Just because he could survive being in space without oxygen or a suit didn't mean it was comfortable for him. Quite to the contrary. It felt like his face was going to freeze solid, but this was necessary right now. There was so little time.
They had to stop that wormhole from opening before it killed everyone on the Prime Citadel. As his vibrating jetpack zipped him along the base of the Highreach, dodging its particle-accelerator cannons, he reflected on something he hadn't dared hope for in many years.
Might his daughter have survived the Nanite Wars that had claimed his wife? She'd been kidnapped, and he'd been unable to find her. Everything had been in such disarray, and he'd been so young, then. So foolish...but this could be his second chance. He may have finally found his descendants. His bloodline.
“I'm going in to quell the cannons,” John said as he dived toward the main firing assembly. “Take out that generator!”
John sensed the approach of a Spearcraft from his left, and tore through it. He was able to see the shocked expressions of the pilot and gunner right before they were engulfed in the flames of their exploding ship. Two more deaths he'd just caused. It made him sick to have human blood on his hands.
“Stella,” he whispered as he fired his lance into another Spearcraft. It exploded in a fleeting burst of fire, and John felt his heart weighed by the deaths of the men inside.
Harris hadn't sent any Brigadier Knights to intercept him. No wonder, really, since John Phoenix had founded the order, and Harris undoubtedly needed his Knights on the Highreach if he ever wanted to travel anywhere by wormhole again. If they would fight for him at all after this, John mused.
John Phoenix swerved around another pair of Spearcraft, and then darted directly up along the side of the cannon generators. He unleashed a full-powered blast into the gap over its primary disc-focus array, and caused a violent power-surge. He was knocked back into the void by the powerful explosion.
More people dead from that, John Phoenix knew. He prayed for their souls as he felt the ethereal void created by their abrupt departure from the land of the living. Did Harris have any idea what darkness he could be unleashing? “Blast it, Harris! You're better than this!”
“Objective completed, Majesty,” Lord-General Waters reported. Before he finished speaking, there was a massive explosion from the wormhole generator that rocked the Highreach on its foundations. “That should slow them down.”
“Good work, men,” John commended his Knights. “Prime Admiral, turn our guns on them before they regroup.”
“Aye aye, Majesty,” the Admiral replied over the line.
Then the Highreach was turning, and abruptly snapped into warp. Gone, leaving only the twinkling light of the silent stars. Unusual procedure for a Citadel, but not unheard of in certain emergencies. It left John and his Knights hanging there in the void of space.
“Always together!” John shouted.
“Always together!” his Knights answered him.
It seemed like disasters never stayed under control forever though, and John Phoenix knew he would have to deal with Harris soon. John sighed with regret and turned back toward the great lawn of the Prime Citadel, his army of faithful Brigadier Knights in formation behind him.
No, right now John Phoenix had to deal with someone else who had betrayed him. He wished he understood why that kept happening. It was a recurring theme in his life, one which had haunted him through the long, lonely years. He needed to pray for greater wisdom tonight, he decided.
Thank goodness the dragons hadn't attacked them.
“I wonder why,” John muttered.
“It looks like the battle's over...for now,” Stella said as she thumbed the dusty hem of her shirt, and noticed the grass stains on the knees of her jeans.
“I think you're right,” Mtumba nodded, and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Maybe old John will let us fly to Kaj. With Harris gone, maybe we can get it back from his company. The tribe has to be reunited. We have to return home.”
“Well, I guess every wadi ajali has to come to an end sometime, and I can't think of a better way than that,” Stella said
“Thank you, Stella,” Mtumba smiled, “But something tells me this is just the beginning. At least you look like you're feeling better, Rok.”
“Here he comes,” Rok whispered, and pointed up at the sky.
John Phoenix returned at the vanguard of his faithful Knights, and Stella saw the ocean of people part to make way for him on the great lawn. His cape was a red, smoldering wreck, and his once-gleaming golden armor was battered and tarnished. Of all his regalia, only his shining golden lance appeared undamaged by the battle. He slowly walked over toward the Regent, who sat huddled on the ground, under guard by peacekeepers.
John Phoenix stood there for a moment as he decided what to do with the man who had so completely betrayed his trust. The news about the House of Lords had come to the public’s attention while the High King had fought off Harris's attack, and everyone wanted to know what would be done with the traitorous Regent. John Phoenix drew a deep breath, and let it out long and slow. He turned his earbud on, relaying his verdict to the skydome, and when he spoke, all saw him and heard him speak.
“In light of Harris's actions, yours are only slightly less treasonous. So you shall be punished for your complicity with Harris at your clandestine meeting. That part, you committed of your own volition, and it can be neither pardoned nor condoned.” The High King paused.
“Regent Varion, I hereby strip you of your title, your power and your rights as a free citizen. You are a now and forevermore shall be a lowly creature of exile. None shall offer you safe harbor without incurring my wrath, and none shall grant you more than the meanest forms of shelter or sustenance. So let it be known throughout all of the twelve kingdoms!” he shouted across the great lawn, and pounded his lance three times on the ground. Varion's rings of authority were instantly shattered from his hands by invisible force, unmade into dust by the High King's command.
At last, the true royal guards made their way forward through the gates, and fell to their knees in front of the High King. “Forgive us, your majesty,” the Captain of the Guard said. “We were battling the squadrons of Harris's shock troops that were attempting to sabotage our wormhole generator. They have been defeated and detained for questioning.”
“Very well, Guard Captain,” John Phoenix nodded, and motioned them to manacle the ex-Regent Varion. “Remove this criminal to the endless dunes of Kalibax,” the High King commanded, his voice hard as iron. “There, he shall pay indentured penance for his crimes until his life is claimed by the dust and sands of that wretched world, or until he is brought to stand trial for his crimes against humanity!” Then with a final act of humiliation, John Phoenix reached over and pulled Varion's earbud out, dropping it to the ground and crushing it under his boot heel. “You are dismissed,” he said to the ex-Regent.
“No, John, please!” the Regent pleaded as he was dragged away. “Please, I'm innocent!”
As the guards took Varion away to be shipped off, John Phoenix shook his head sadly. Then he looked at the Stella and her friends, gesturing for them to come over.
“I need to thank you all for saving everyone in this Citadel.” He drew them into a hug, but it was different from last time, because now they knew who he was, and had seen his power. Still, when he looked at them, they knew he was the same man who had rescued them nearly two months ago. Now it seemed like a lifetime ago.
“What happens next?” Rok asked, and old John looked at him thoughtfully.
“Well, Harris will have to be dealt with eventually, and there are many other things that we'll need to figure out for that to happen, but that's not something you need to concern yourself with. You three have already done far more than anyone could have asked, and I thank you all from the core of my being.” He stood, an
d led them by the hand across the great lawn toward a crowd of cheering people. “But for now,” he smiled, “For now, we celebrate the most precious gift we have.”
“What's that?” Mtumba asked with genuine curiosity.
“Life.”
30
In the Hall of the High King
“Do you know what minister Qortus is talking about with old John?” Stella asked Rok as he rejoined her and Mtumba at the royal banquet table. “They've been at the fountain for over ten minutes!” she whispered, and Rok nodded.
The celebratory feast was being held in the royal gardens, and the bright red geraniums next to her chair were in full bloom. They provided a fragrant aroma that underscored the dishes of delicacies the staff had been catering all afternoon. Stella was full for the first time in weeks, and wiped her mouth with a silk napkin. She looked over at Mtumba. He swallowed his last slice of pineapple-honeyed ham, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.
“If I'm hearing them correctly,” Rok said as he held his glass of hoji-berry juice, “they're talking about the dragons.” He took a sip, and looked at Stella. “Qortus thinks they're not evil, but the High King disagrees.”
“What do you mean, if you're hearing them correctly?” Stella asked.
Rok tapped his earbud. “I put this on shadow-mode, and I can pretty much hear everything that's going on through their earbuds.”
“Are you crazy?” Mtumba asked in disbelief. “If the High King knew you were eavesdropping on him, he'd...”
“Old John showed me how,” Rok interrupted before Mtumba could finish. “Sort of,” he muttered and quickly took a swig of juice.
“Sort of?” Stella prodded, and Rok set his cup down, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
“Well,” he looked around nervously, “there was a...a ghosted file on his earbud that showed me how to do it, okay?”
Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) Page 20
