Halcyon Rising: Breaking Ground

by Stone Thomas

  “The men will kill each other if that is their wish. The women must bear the children of war. I will populate the world with my own flesh and blood to ensure no Great Mother can stifle war again!”

  “This is insane,” I said. “If the men all kill each other, your own sons would do the same.”

  “My sons will be demigods that train their anger from birth,” he said. “They will not be victimized by war, they will relish in it. Every death will be bloody and honorable in the world that I will create.”

  “So human women are just wombs to you?” I asked.

  “And elf. And beastkin. I am everywhere, Arden. You cannot escape what comes.”

  “Watch me,” I said.

  “I shall,” he replied.

  I covered my ears with my hands. My head hurt. I didn’t want to let Duul plant any more ideas in my skull. I wanted out. I shook my head back and forth, as hard as I could. I had to snap myself out of this.

  “Arden!” Mamba yelled. My eyes opened slowly as she shook me awake. “You were having a nightmare.”

  My face was drenched in sweat. “That was no nightmare,” I said. “Duul visited me. He hijacked my mind.”

  Mamba’s face tightened. “Is he coming?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I need to speak with Nola.”

  I left my room and walked to the altar. Everyone else had gone to sleep, likely cramming into the restoration bed suite. I was glad to be alone to speak with my goddess.

  Nola?, I asked. As I listened for a response, I heard her crying.

  She’s dead, Arden, she said. Duul killed my mother. He’s not just coming for the minor deities now, he’s coming for all of us.

  I know, I said.

  I thought my psychic link was closed, she said. The Great Mother spoke to me anyway, casting aside the weak barrier I had put up. She told me Sajia died at Duul’s hands, and that as the next of kin I would inherit the gift of premonition. I told her I don’t want it. I told her to find the god of resurrection, or the goddess of rebirth, and bring her back to me. She refused.

  Can you believe that?, Nola continued. She refused… Wait, did you say you knew?

  She appeared to me too, I said. Then Duul took over the connection. He’s stronger than I ever realized, Nola. He has an entire army outside the Imperial City. Can you see the future now? What happens next?

  Premonition, Nola said, is a delicate power. My mother warned me that not all fates can be changed, and that those that are altered will only diminish the faith others place in a god’s power. If I tell you Duul will win, and then you defeat him, wouldn’t you wonder whether I was right or wrong about the future I first saw?

  It doesn’t matter, she said, I don’t have the ability yet. I must evolve before I am strong enough to wield it.

  How did he speak to me?, I asked.

  You and I are linked, she said. He traced the Great Mother to my mind, then forced his way into yours. I’m sorry, Arden. I didn’t know how weak my psychic barrier was.

  Nola, I said, I’m so sorry about your mother. I’ve spent my whole life wishing I had one, but that’s not the same as losing one.

  Thank you, Arden, she said. Please, go back to sleep. Tomorrow will be a difficult day, and for now I’d like to be alone.

  I nodded and left. I wasn’t sure I’d get any sleeping done, but I knew I should try.

  +25

  Day after day, we worked. I was grateful that none of the settlers grew complacent over the two weeks’ worth of peace we had. Vix finished our stone wall, made from the same brown rock we had been digging from the quarry. Two wooden doors stood at the mouth of the flat path that led to Nola’s door.

  We had towers everywhere, some of which were equipped with energems. I had upgraded Vix’s ability to build, so the newest ones were five and six stories tall. They all had zip lines leading to the successively smaller towers that lined the inner path.

  The vestiges of our old “gate” were still in place. The innermost set of towers had a wooden pike fence strung up on pulleys, as did the next set of towers. Vix thought it would be good to have a backup gate. Now we had two backups.

  We ran low on food and other supplies, but some of our settlers were already experimenting with farming and gathering from the forest. What we didn’t lack, however, were weapons. Lily and Ambry had the foresight to tell their people to come equipped.

  I made a habit of training everyone in the compound once per week, so we were all in top shape when it happened.

  One of the settlers ran down the hilltop, fleeing his post at the forge. I held my breath. We had installed a large bell at the hill’s highest peak. If he rang that bell, it meant our watchtowers had passed word along that Duul’s army approached.

  Dong, dong, dong.

  So this was it. Our chance to prove what we were made of.

  “This is not a drill!” I yelled. “Everyone, take your positions!”

  Vix and I stood at the temple’s front door. We were the strongest melee fighters in the group, but we could easily be overrun by too many cretins. We’d rely on the others to whittle down their numbers so we could focus on the few that made it all the way through.

  The wooden fences were up for the time being. Whoever made it through the front gates would think the path to Nola was clear until we cut the cords and released the fences. We had a few surprises in store for them when they got inside.

  The first wave of attacks came from cretins and war dogs that emerged from the woods. Two archer towers rained arrows on the monsters, releasing pools of black blood from their hideous bodies. I held a batch of fresh energems in my hand, waiting for their life force to fill the small crystals.

  Atop the frame holding our settlement’s front gates in place was an energem attuned to Lily’s ice magic. Every two minutes it was prepared to send a snowball at a cretin that would freeze it in place. A larger energem, or a more powerful spell, would pump snowballs out at a faster pace, but this was the best we could muster so far. A few cretins screamed as they froze, shrill cries piercing the air like knives.

  War dogs were monstrous, hulking creatures with sharp claws that walked on all fours. They were not true dogs though. They could climb. As they rose up the six story towers at the base’s front wall, the archers had to fall back. They zipped down to the next tower, where more fighters were prepared to take on the monsters.

  Wood chips flew from the front doors as they burst open. Black bladed swords slashed from black shining bodies as cretins poured onto the path ahead.

  The hills rose on either side, since this patch was cut from the hill itself, so the terrain funneled them toward us. The next set of towers, at five stories tall, were curved at the base. Fighters rolled brown rock boulders from the tops of those towers, which rolled toward the cretins. They dodged as best they could, but a few were flattened by the hulking rocks.

  Then we released the brockerballs. Cindra had the brilliant idea of using the gi-ants she charmed to hold brockerballs in place until we needed them. The hulking insects followed her lead and released the rock monsters. Their four stone arms punched and whipped through the air, knocking cretins senseless.

  Still, more monsters poured through the front gate. We had slain five or six, and injured far more, but there were twenty cretins and counting, plus a dozen war dogs. The brockerballs helped, but the fight wouldn’t end with them. Eventually the cretins chopped the rock creatures to pieces and pressed on.

  As the path narrowed toward the temple’s entrance, the towers got closer together. At the four story level, Ambry had charged two energems with her fire magic. When evil attackers got within range, the fire walls erupted, trapping many of them inside burning rings of dancing flame.

  Training constantly had its benefits, one of which being an improvement we made to her fire magic. At her newest level, her fire walls would begin to close in toward their own center gradually. Archers fired at the trapped invaders while the fire magic squeezed them into a tighter circle.
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  One brave cretin ran through the flames. While the fire looked intimidating, it wasn’t deadly. The other cretins chose to follow after, sustaining burns and losing health but otherwise escaping their fiery pens. Only two died from the combined damage of burns and arrows.

  We were whittling them down, but not fast enough.

  The three-story level was Cindra’s department. She was an archer in her own right, so she continued to rain arrows onto the creatures. She also released an army of gi-ants that she had convinced to hide in that pair of towers.

  She directed the insects to tear into the monsters, and they did an admirable job. The energems in my palm were searing hot with the influx of energy, and I had to drop them to dirt floor.

  Eventually, Cindra’s action points ran out. The gi-ants continued to fight until the cretins had diced them to shreds, then it was on to the second story towers.

  Ambry sat atop one while Lily staffed the other. While the cretins had a taste of this magic from the earlier energems, it was stronger and faster coming right from the witches’ own hands. Cretins fought against fire and ice as Vix and I charged.

  Looking ahead, we saw more cretins coming through the gates, so we knew we had to act fast if we wanted to avoid a deadly pileup. I chopped off a cretin’s head with Razortooth while Vix Walloped a war dog. The vile creature flew at a cretin and landed on top of it, the warrior’s black sword piercing through its body. We continued to spear and hammer at our foes.

  At first, Lily and Ambry froze and trapped enough of them that we were able to pick cretins off one by one. As they melted and escaped the rings of fire, however, they started to overwhelm us. Lily ran out of AP first, but Ambry was soon to follow.

  “Back up,” I said to Vix. She did, stepping between the first and second towers with me. I reached out and snapped a cord with my polearm, forcing the wooden gate at the two-story level to drop.

  Half of the cretins were on this side of the gate, allowing us to whittle down this number without worrying about the others. Vix took a nasty cut to the arm, while my face was bleeding from my forehead down to my chin. We had paid enough attention to our Constitution to give us the HP to survive these blows, but only so many of them.

  We needed to take a breather and regroup. “Fall back,” I said.

  With only a few cretins left on our side of the wooden pike grate, we fell back toward the temple’s front door. We fought off these cretins as the gates at the very front of our base’s wall came crashing down.

  The general was here. There were no more cretins behind him, only the dozen that still clamored at the wooden pikes blocking the path. They destroyed the fence well before the general got close.

  As they charged, Vix plucked another cord with her hammer. It forced the second fence to fall. We were trapped now, unless we fled into the temple itself. We wouldn’t do that though. Under no circumstance were we going to open that door.

  The rest of the settlers, those with low combat levels, huddled inside. They were the last line of defense to protect Nola, and I didn’t want it to come to that. As the cretins piled up against the wooden fence that fell before them, Mamba released the snakes.

  She controlled almost twenty of them now that we had trained her up further, and they slithered up from the ground in a surprise attack against the cretins. She stood in one tower, conjuring more of the ophidian pests without regard to their control. These snakes wanted to fight, so Mamba didn’t have to waste any AP on forcing them to.

  The other tower held an energem, summoning more snakes every two minutes. Cindra continued to shoot arrows at the cretins from her tower as the snakes crawled up their legs and immobilized them.

  By the time the gate was finally destroyed, only two cretins remained. Mamba, dancing on the tower’s roof, forced her snakes to leave us so Vix and I could destroy the last two cretins.

  We were hurt, and exhausted. Cindra, Mamba, Ambry, and Lily were all spent. We had stopped this wave’s most numerous attackers, but now it was time to destroy their boss. He was more powerful than the others, but we were on the side of the right and the just. I hoped that counted for something.

  The general stomped closer, sending a tremor through the surrounding structures and up our legs as he approached.

  “You fight well!” he yelled. “But not well enough!” He pumped black magic out from his fists. It rippled in black ribbons that bounded toward me, licking against my arms and my face as I tried in vain to swat them away.

  The girls weren’t affected, but I was. My mind became cloudy, angry. I wanted to lash out at everyone, but I had to resist. It was a magical mind game. If I lost, I would lose myself. At least until this monster left, but that wasn’t likely to happen. He would kill me first, and then Nola.

  That magic works on your thoughts, Nola said, so think the opposite to counter it!

  The opposite. What would that be, calm? Thinking about sandy beaches and deep tissue massages wouldn’t help me stab my spear through this monster’s face. I tried to steady my mind against the onslaught of unwanted rage, and for the moment, I was still in control.

  The general slammed his fists into the second story towers, knocking them to the ground. Cindra zip lined to the first story tower in time to avoid the collapse, but I was worried. She and Mamba were in harm’s way here.

  Vix ran forward and Walloped this monster in the leg. His knee buckled for a moment, but then he stood straight and kicked her.

  The general was three stories tall, and Vix was not. She flew backward and hit the temple door with a thud.

  I couldn’t look back there. I was dying to know if she was alright, but the second I took my gaze away from my attacker, I would be next.

  “I’m the one you want!” I yelled. “I’m the one Duul came to. Fight me, not them.”

  “My master spoke to you?” the general said. “You must not have listened!”

  I ran toward the general with my spear facing out, but then I took a page out of Nola’s book. I tried to pole jump like she suggested so long ago. My spear dug into one of the small holes in the thin rocky ground and I catapulted into the air.

  My foot slammed into the general’s forehead. He stumbled but didn’t fall. I, however, did fall. Hard.

  As I lay on my back, wondering if I was paralyzed, the monster bent over me. He balled his fist, then slammed down with it.

  I rolled to the side in time and got to my feet. I ran toward Vix.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, not taking my eyes off my opponent.

  “Unh,” is all she said. Damnit. Twenty-five settlers and not a single healer, or even a potion maker of any kind.

  “Get inside,” I said. “You need a recovery bed.”

  “I want to fight,” she said.

  “And you will,” I said, “but not today. Go!”

  She rolled the front door aside enough to squeeze through and shut it again. Cindra and Mamba watched from atop the nearest tower.

  “I can outlast you,” the general said. I can outlast all of you!”

  I felt my mouth foam. I spit to the side, frothy saliva that reminded me of a rabid dog. That evil magic was working its way into me.

  I was pissed that he hurt Vix. Pissed that he hurt any of the girls I was sworn to protect. Pissed that he wanted to hurt Nola.

  I roared. I ran at him with my spear stretched out and pierced the metallic skin of his shin by a Piercing Blow.

  He howled and reared back, then lifted his leg and stomped. The ground cracked below his foot. He swung his fist low and caught me up, knocking me into the tower’s wall and cracking my back. I was winded, and every inch of my body hurt. I couldn’t fight this way.

  I got to my feet and stumbled toward the door.

  “Duul will destroy everything you have ever known,” the general said. “The delicate cities you so carefully planned will be rubble. The beautiful pastures you manicure with fruit trees and crops will be fire and ash when man learns to fight in his name!”

&n
bsp; Forget your calm thoughts, Nola said. This guy’s the one in need of some serious chill.

  She was right. The goddess of last minute ideas to save the day was right.

  “Enough,” I said. I struggled to keep the hatred from my voice, afraid that letting it strike my ears would send me over the edge. “You’re right.”

  “You would give up so soon?” he asked.

  “I’ve never wanted war more than I do now,” I said. “Everything Duul said is true. The gods are weak. Keeping you from the goddess is a waste. Let me fight alongside you. Let me serve as Duul’s head priest!”

  The general laughed a hearty, deep laugh. It was the callous laughter of a mirthless creature whose only pleasure derived from pain.

  “Let me make amends for my missteps,” I said. “Let me increase your Strength.”

  “You offer to skillmeister me?” the creature said.

  “Arden!” Mamba yelled. “Arden, no!”

  Oh, Arden, Nola said, have I really lost you?

  “I offer freely,” I said.

  “Give me the Strength to crush your goddess with my bare hands,” he said.

  “All I needed was your permission.”

  I opened the creature’s skills menu before me. It had killed so many people and gods, yet its stats were a shadow of what they could have been. The XP stored up was tremendous. I added one point of Strength, then two. The creature grew in size and shape, bulging outward in a massive display of brute power.

  The ground creaked under his weight. I improved its Strength again, one point at a time. A crack split in the rock underfoot. More Strength only increased its size, his weight. The crack grew longer, snaking across the surface of the path to Nola’s temple.

  The earth strained to hold this giant up, groaning under its gravity. Just a little more, I thought. I pumped all of his XP into Strength, forcing his shape into a mighty pillar of metallic muscle.

  His XP ran out before my plan worked. Instead of sending him into the depths below the rocky path, I had made him invincibly strong.

  He beat his fists against his newfound muscles. For a moment, I panicked.

  Then I looked at my own skillmeister menu. My HP was drastically low. I smiled.