He pulled on his own life thread and poured energy through the link. Silver energy mingled with Demos's dwindling life force. The soul light spread like a forest fire wrapping the general's body in a glove.
"Ronan," Rika's voice shuddered from behind. "Please don't hurt yourself."
Hurt himself? He glanced behind. "Rika, I —"
Rika's gaze fixed on the cobblestone. The knight's behind him held out their hands as if blinded by bright sunshine.
The troopers squinted and shielded their eyes against a flood of sliver energy.
"I —" He swallowed hard. Would he kill Rika this time? Kill Rika and his father and a thousand other fathers and mothers in the square? What choice had he? He couldn't walk away and let humanity fall. Despite the threat he posed, he owed the world his best effort. Both races would need each other in the days to come.
He reached out and settled his hand on Rika's back. "I'm okay," he said. "Stay close Rika. I won't hurt you or the baby."
Rika squeezed in closer wrapping her arms around his chest. "I love you Ronan Latimer," Rika said in a whisper.
He turned back to Demos and gasped.
Demo's orange soul blazed with an intensity unlike any baerinese soul in the square.
"Like the chief's son...," he said speaking the thought aloud.
The wounds riddling the general's body a moment ago faded and he released his friend's soul thread.
Beyond Demos, Tara watched transfixed. Tears streamed down the witch's face.
General Demos's eyes flickered open.
"Gregor," he said in a hushed tone. "Are you okay?"
Demos smiled and nodded.
He let go of his own life force, took Rika's hand, and stood.
Demos's arms and legs moved. Murmurs rose among the general's troopers.
He extended his hand.
General Demos took it and leaped upward.
Wild cheers erupted among the troopers and Demos turned to face them. The general took his hand and raised them both high.
"We are not at war with humanity," General Demos shouted above the noise. "We come as friends and allies. I order an immediate halt to all hostilities."
Across the square, silver light swirled. A triangular door, rimmed with three black and purple spheres, opened. The buzzing of a thousand insects drowned out the celebration.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Doorway
A portal hung open before the monastery. The droning of a thousand insects carried across the square. Through the portal, orange skies dominated a landscape missing grass, shrubs, and trees. Shapeless mounds of soil stretched to the horizon.
Ronan's flesh crawled. He recalled Tarbin's warning about the insects in the glade. The visitor had called them ickaret. Were the faceless man and the ickaret connected? On instinct, he reached for Elan's magic. Gone.
His chest tightened and his legs turned to mush. How could he defeat an enemy powerful enough to wipe out the banthers? He didn't understand his new power or how best to use it.
The droning intensified.
He leaned into General Demos and shouted above the drone. “Prepare your troopers.” He turned and grabbed Connal’s shoulder who stood gaping through the opening. “Gather every soldier you can lay hands on and lead them here now.”
Connal nodded still gazing into the spinning portal. General Demos shouted orders to a cadre of lieutenants.
“And, no flight form,” he said. “Father, do you hear me?”
Connal met his gaze. Fear touched his father’s eyes. “What?”
“No flight form,” he said. “The sky isn't safe. Spread the word to every guardian you can find.”
“What is it?” Rika said over his shoulder.
He whirled to face Rika. “It’s death.” He scanned the high buildings surrounding the square and tried to get his bearings. “I don’t want you here for this. It’s not safe.”
Rika glared. “Since when do you start telling me what I can and can’t do?”
“Rika, this isn’t the time. Please.”
Connal shifted into a gazelle. “There’s a shelter inside the government building,”
He nodded and pointed toward the government building. “Rika, go. There’s no time to argue.”
Panic touched Rika’s eyes. “I’m not leaving you. I feel safe here with you.”
He shook his head. “I’ll worry about you the whole time.”
“Wouldn’t you anyway?” Rika said.
“You know I will,” he said.
“Then let me stay here with you,” Rika said. “You’ll need me.”
He sensed desperation in Rika’s tone. What if their roles were reversed? What if Rika sent him away while she fought and died a hundred yards away? He couldn’t live with himself.
He searched Rika’s eyes. “What if…?” He let the question hang unable to finish the question. What if he couldn’t save her? What if he couldn’t save anybody?
“Then we’ll be together,” Rika said as if reading his thoughts. The only woman he ever loved perched on her toes and kissed him. “I love you. Always have. Always will.”
“Don’t leave my side,” he said voice trembling. “Do you hear me?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Rika said and squeezed his hand.
Hundreds of wagon-sized insects swarmed through the portal. Uneven armor covered the bugs making up the frontal assault. The insect’s swiveled their abdomens revealing thorny spikes. The spikes gashed the trooper’s front line.
A hundred troopers dropped dead. Other troopers released a volley of arrows into the approaching swarm. Two-dozen insects, skewered with arrows, dropped. Yellow fluid leaked from the puncture wounds.
He opened his mind to the souls packing the square and gasped.
Orange and gray souls, by the thousand, intermingled. Orange soul light flared brightest among the troopers nearest the gate.
The soul threads of the invading insects caught him off-guard. No soul light appeared around them.
He couldn’t use their life force against them. “What in Elan’s name…?” His words trailed off as he gawked at the buzzing mass.
A dozen feet away, the witch gasped as if coming to the same realization.
Like an ax through spring saplings, insects dipped, stingers out, into a wall of troopers. Stingers met armor and troopers dropped. Tearing flesh and desperate screams lit up the square.
His stomach spun as he watched helpless to react.
In slow motion, hundreds more insects swarmed through the portal. The mass blotted out the setting sun dipping behind Elan’s Great Library. The insects stormed forward wrecking paths of destruction. By the score, soldiers and troopers fell.
A disembodied head flew high into the air. A leg without an owner slipped like a greased pig through a river of blood.
He stood frozen unable to move a muscle. Let this nightmare end. Please Elan. This lies beyond my skill. A dull throb settled in his hand. He glanced sideways.
Rika stood beside him squeezing hard enough to snap the bones in his fingers.
A tug came on his bare arm and his mind snapped back to the present.
“You have to do something,” a girl’s voice said from beside him.
The world sped up and he focused on the girl's face. “What?”
An insect’s high-pitched drone buzzed overhead.
Rika shifted into some exotic forest creature. A hairless ape with long limbs and short squat legs. Rika swung a hand broad enough to hold two of his and batted the insect from the sky.
“You have to save us,” the girl said.
He studied the girl’s exquisite face and expected to find fear. He noticed something else altogether. Steady determination.
“I saw you,” he said. “Earlier. On the rooftop.”
The girl’s jaw clenched. “You have to stop them.”
He gazed across the battlefield. How? If he knew, he would’ve done it by now.
Insects swarmed the monas
tery, the library, and the government building. They slaughtered defenders by the hundred.
The insects speed and ferocity left him breathless. He faced the girl and shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
Rage blazed in the girl’s eyes and he flinched.
Fingers of gold light flared from the center of the teenager’s gray soul light.
A battle knight. The thought struck him like a smith’s hammer. How many others like this girl? How many others could fight back? He scanned the gray soul’s dotting the square. Fingers of blue came from a balding guard near the library. White threads laced a gray souled monk fighting beside the guard.
Ten paces ahead, General Demos’s sword flashed. “Form ranks behind me. Archers stand at the ready.”
He spotted two shield knights holding dim shields around him and Rika. “Shield that man,” he said pointing toward Demos.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” a sandy haired knight said. The knight directed spirit toward the baerinese general.
A thin shield formed around General Demos.
“Now fall in line with his troopers,” he said. “We’ll need every ounce of magic you can bring to bear.”
The knights saluted and fell in beside a wide-eyed baerinese archer.
Thin shields appeared around the troopers in the makeshift line.
“Archers take aim and fire at will,” Demos said.
Insects’ stingers flashed against the spirit shields. A shield knight launched a spirit orb into the belly of an approaching insect. A fist-sized hole melted through the bug’s abdomen. Yellow fluid poured from the wound while the insect spun to the ground dead.
A few feet away, Rika swatted insects buzzing within range.
Insects continued to pour through the gateway.
He needed a way to close the portal or they had no hope.
“Your Majesty, look.” The teenage girl pointed toward a grouping of bugs battering General Demos’s shield.
He tugged on the troopers' soul threads standing behind General Demos. He gathered and combined the soul energy. With a thought, he flung the energy toward the swarming mass.
A flash of orange lit the sky and the insects, twenty-strong, burst into flames and dropped from the sky.
General Demos stumbled backward wearing a stunned expression. Behind the general, the three troopers he'd used fell dead.
His heart sank while the living troopers behind Demos cheered. He’d killed those troopers like he had Devery Tyrell.
Beside him Jo cheered. “Do it again, Your Majesty. Do it to all of them.”
All of them? That would cost the life of every man, woman, and child in Prynesse. He couldn’t live with himself.
Connal, using the same form as Rika, bounded across the square. A half-dozen insects trailed behind.
He wouldn’t use Connal’s soul thread. He wouldn’t take the risk.
Near his father, a pair of gray-souled warriors hacked at the incoming swarm.
He pulled on each man’s soul thread and directed a trickle of energy toward the bugs. The men staggered but remained upright.
A mist gathered above the swarm and coated each bug’s wings. Their buzzing stopped and the insects dropped.
A surge of triumph welled in his chest.
The insects stood on their hind legs and scuttled toward his father.
His joy faded.
“Fire,” Demos said.
A salvo of arrows and spirit energy shattered the scuttling insects. Bits of torso, wings, and legs littered the cobblestone. Yellow insect fluid splattered the square like an artist’s macabre painting.
Breathless, Connal reached his side before swatting away a nearby bug.
Could he form a shield from the collective souls like he had over Freehold? He discounted the idea. The thought of trapping the bugs inside a shield made his skin crawl.
“Ronan,” Rika said and pointed toward a line of insects forming halfway across the square.
Numbering in the hundreds, the bugs flew toward him. Each bug appeared intent on his destruction. The swarm ignored the troopers and knights attacking them from all sides.
“Rika, get away from me and take them with you.” He pointed toward the girl and his father.
“No,” Rika said.
“I will not kill you too,” he said. “Move. Now.” He thrust a finger toward Demos and the knights gathered at the foot of Elan’s Great Library.
Anger flared in Rika’s eyes.
Connal hooked Rika’s arm and they sprinted toward Demos. The girl followed close behind.
He sprinted across the square and stood amid the yellow fluid and insect parts left from his first attack. “You want me?” He shouted to the gathering swarm. “Come and get me.”
The insects circled him and their buzz grew to deafening levels. As one, they attacked.
He sank to one knee and drew on his own life force. He pulled more energy than he'd ever dared and concentrated it into a pinpoint.
The first line of insect attackers reached him with stingers out. The stingers gashed his spirit shield. With a sickening zap, three bugs exploded.
Yellow fluid oozed across the shield’s outer shell and greasy smoke curled skyward.
The second wave of insect’s slammed against the shield. Like the first, they exploded raining down bug parts and gallons of inky fluid. The shield held a moment longer then disappeared.
He launched his trapped soul energy outward in an explosion. Like a thousand shooting stars, radiant slivers of energy eviscerated the swarm.
Insect legs, heads, and fluid scattered in wide radius. Pink pulpy meat and slimy organs rained down on the square. Thirty yards around him, the square stood empty of life.
Blackness swept across his vision. He staggered sideways before slipping on a puddle of yellow fluid.
“Ronan.” Rika scrambled across piled bug carcasses.
Mind thrumming with black, he fell and landed face first atop a mountain of insect parts. The putrid stench of severed limbs and steaming guts set him gagging.
Rika tugged on his arm and pulled him over.
He breathed in a pocket of fresh air, and his head swam.
Rika gasped. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Have to save you and the baby,” he said voice slurred. Blurred shapes moved around him and he squinted trying to focus his vision.
“You’re killing yourself,” Rika said.
Through the portal, insects swarmed. The buzzing set his teeth chattering.
“Move away,” he said staggering to his feet. Shapes swirled and a warm hand touched his neck. “Who’s there?”
“Healing,” Demos said speaking in a low reassuring tone.
White flows wrapped his body and his vision sharpened. Demos, Rika, and his father huddled around him. A healer had touched him. He glanced over his shoulder and found Sir Alcott standing behind him. “Thank you, Alcott.” His words came easier than before, but his muscles throbbed with pain.
The buzzing intensified and a fresh wave of insects swarmed through the portal.
Shoulders stooped, he staggered. Strong hands held him. Demos, he knew. “Gregor, the portal…have to close it.”
Across the square, defenders engaged the approaching horde. But, thousands lay dead while hundreds of insects lined up forming ranks for a second assault. One that would finish him.
He opened his mind to his own soul energy. Dimmer this time by half. Taking a long steady breath, he gathered the energy.
“No Ronan. Please don’t,” Rika said through sobs. “I can’t live without you. Please God. Please help him.”
He turned and found Rika’s eyes. Tears stained her cheeks. Despite it all, a face as stunning now as ever before. He touched her cheek letting his fingertips linger. “So beautiful.”
Rika’s chin quivered. “There has to be another way.”
He dropped his hand. “Tell the baby I love her. Tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t watch her grow up.” A dull ache throbbed in hi
s chest.
Rika broke down sobbing. “You can tell her yourself Ronan Latimer.”
“I love you Rika.” He glanced past Rika and found Demos standing beside his father. “Father, after…after I’m done, you must reach the portal and knock one of those spheres loose. It’s our only chance.”
Tears stained his father’s face. “I’ll make sure it’s done.”
Tongue flickering, General Demos gave a single nod. “I’m proud to have walked by your side Ronan Latimer.”
He offered a weak smile and turned his back on them. “Please get to safety Rika. If I harmed you, I couldn’t live with the consequence.”
Rika, Demos, and Connal moved to safety near the library steps.
The buzzing reached a crescendo and the insects formed another circle three deep.
He collected the last shreds of energy his body had to give and the bugs attacked.
Over Elan’s Great Library, a roar shook the sky. Loose body parts bounced from the cobblestone.
A great pair of black wings sent a gust of air billowing across the square. Insects bounced sideways and backward breaking formation.
A thirty-foot arc of fire sprayed from a dragon’s snout. The fire torched a group twenty insects nearest him.
The dragon’s sapphire blue eyes shimmered and a toothy grin curled the dragon’s lip.
“Thoth,” he said screaming into the sky. Fresh energy washed over his body.
Riding atop Thoth’s saddle, Danielle’s golden hair streamed. Behind Danielle, sat a second woman with a long blond braid that streamed like a kite tail caught in a spring storm.
The woman appeared familiar, but a name escaped him.
War birds encased in spirit shields rushed overhead. Jeremy sat atop one of the guardians while Brees Broderick sat atop the other.
“Keely, Arber,” Rika said and rushed forward.
The remaining defenders cheered raising bloody swords.
Fire blazed from Thoth’s snout and another dozen insects went up in flames.
The insect swarm surrounding him a moment earlier split. A dozen separate swarms buzzed in tight circles. Hundreds more insects gathered across the portal.
Maylin's Gate (Book 3) Page 41
