The dark-scaled dragon dove at Inura, who glided away, then erected a shimmering barrier between them. Nefarius breathed, and the ward dissolved. She dove again, and this time slashed Inura across the face with three of her claws.
Golden droplets of blood fountained out into space as Inura gave a pained screech. His claws came up, and a cocoon of wards flowed around him, shielding him from his sister.
“So predictable,” Nefarius rumbled, her voice somehow audible in the void, as contemptuous of petty physics as she was of her little brother. “Your wards protect you, but they also prevent you from casting...”
Nefarius turned back to my world, and both her muscled arms came up. A wave of magic rolled out of her. It was invisible, but the spell was so powerful that even I could feel it. Tremendous gravity emanated from a point near Inura, and it pulled our world into Nefarius’ clawed hand.
It was comically large, as large as Nefarius herself, but she easily flung my world toward the life-giving star that had sheltered and nurtured us for a millennium now.
As our world approached the sun, the tidal forces tore it apart. It became rubble, strung out like a comet with a tail. Hundreds of millions, those who’d survived Nefarius’ breath, died in an instant. It happened so quickly, and as my world shattered, so too did my heart. Everyone I’d ever loved was already dead, but now our very world, our culture, our way of life, and the Great Trees themselves were gone.
This was a war of annihilation. “Genocide. They’re trying to wipe us all out. But why?”
“Inura is a dreamer, as I said.” Patra had begun pacing along the bridge’s wall where the viewscreen lay. “He ignores some children and favors others. I’ve been aware of growing resentment for some time. Many of his children have been quite brazen. They went so far as to form the Inuran Consortium and now sell the technology he has always gifted. Greed and hunger for power drive them. Their ambition is limitless, and this is the proof.”
I couldn’t argue with that, but I also couldn’t get my head around it. Inura was loved on my world. He’d given us everything. Magic. Power. Life. Our very planet, and the Great Trees themselves. Why would his children betray him?
Anger smoldered in my heart, and it gained strength as I peered out at the battle before me. We were already losing, and Nefarius’ strange black ships were only just now entering the fray.
Normally in a catastrophic situation like this, the fleet would flee into the Umbral Depths and make for whatever prearranged fallback point they had selected. Nefarius hadn’t just destroyed our world to anger Inura. She’d done it to block our escape.
Entrance to the Umbral Depths requires darkness, and is usually done in a planet’s umbral shadow. Except now we had no planet. No darkness. No escape.
“You excel at one thing,” Inura roared, his shining white scales glittering in the light of the star as he hovered in the void. “You destroy. You break. But you do not save. You do not build. And so you cannot know the resourcefulness those of us who can build possess.”
Inura stretched out a claw, then swirled it. The fragments of our planet answered. He spun them around into a cloud that began to elongate even as it thinned. Inura spun a vast disk from the crumbling remains of the world he’d created and used it to provide shadow to our desperate fleet.
The instant the darkness touched us, vessels began opening Fissures. The sky cracked in a hundred places, then a hundred more, as the Vagrant Fleet began to flee.
“My children will survive.” Inura interposed himself between Nefarius and the fleet.
“You do not understand.” Nefarius delivered a hideous, draconic grin. “Your children have betrayed you, Maker. Even as your vessels make for the depths, their crews mutiny. Mortal battles mortal. And when it is done, all you have built will be broken.”
“Virkonna will hunt you,” Inura gave back, apparently undaunted by the destruction of my home world. “And when the day comes, she will slay you for this.”
“Will she?” Nefarius mused. “I believe our elder sister may have problems of her own.”
Nefarius vanished, and sudden sunlight streamed over her black ships, the hollow asteroids having now reached that part of the fleet. Black tendrils exploded out from them to seize their opponents, and those ships were drawn back into the main body where they were...consumed.
Whatever the black tendrils were attached to seemed to gain strength from devouring our ships and our people. The very idea sickened me, but I could do nothing but watch. The last service I could offer my brothers was witnessing their final moment.
“Get out of there.” Patra moved to stand before the matrix. “We’re out of time. I’ll take over.”
I dutifully ducked from the matrix without protest. I was dry on magic, which made me a poor pilot at best right now. I’d be worthless until I got some sleep.
Patra stepped back into the matrix, sketched a single air sigil, and then stepped upon the cushion she’d created. She rose high enough to touch the sigils and initiated the connection with the ship, which terminated my own.
“Joost relax for a bit,” she offered as the diminutive drifter focused on the viewscreen. “We’re out of time, so I’m abandoning the stealth approach.”
Flame burst from the Remora’s thruster as Patra fed fire into the ship. It burned differently than life, but just as potently. Our illusion faded, and we burst from cover a mere hundred clicks from the Word of Xal.
Combat around the Great Ship had thinned, but that also meant they were able to effectively focus on targets. Targets like us.
Several massive cannons swiveled in our direction.
“Hold on,” Patra instructed. She tapped a dream sigil, then an air, then another dream.
A wave of chilled air rushed past me and swept through the entire ship, though I couldn’t tell what the spell had done. Until the cannons fired.
Their spells converged on an area about five hundred meters away from the ship, upon an illusionary version of our vessel.
“Displacement.” Patra gave me a half smile. “They’re not the only ones with magic. So far as they’re concerned, we’re dead, and I can keep us invisible for our approach.”
Patra was true to her word, but to my surprise, she didn’t make for the shimmering blue membrane. She passed the cargo bay entirely, and instead attached the Remora to the Xal’s hull not far from the bridge.
“I don’t want to question your plans,” I whispered as our vessel magnetically locked to the Word’s hull, “but I am curious. Why didn’t we dock in the cargo bay?”
“In case Nefarius was telling the truth.” Patra’s expression hardened. “If she is right, then we could have traitors on the ship. I want to make it to Admiral Kemet as soon as possible without running afoul of them. But I’m not stupid. We’re going to power down the ship and get some rest. Once we’ve recovered our magic, we’ll sneak aboard and track down the admiral.”
* * * * *
Chapter 4
I felt worlds better after a night’s sleep, though dark dreams plagued me as my mind fought to process everything I’d witnessed in the battle. Over and over I failed to save my family and watched my planet, my friends, and even myself disintegrate into the void.
Paladins were trained to withstand trauma, as large-scale death was all too common, but somehow I didn’t think the trainers had the death of our entire world, our entire culture, in mind. And whatever training they’d provided me was insufficient to do more than numb the loss.
“The Maker watches over me,” I intoned as I rose from my bed, my chest coated in sweat. I began pulling on my uniform, then my armor on top of it. Most people didn’t wear their armor within a ship, but then most people weren’t paladins. We like to be prepared.
Patra had provided quarters, a tiny, cramped room with a metal bunk and not much else. The Remora wasn’t exactly state of the art, which raised more questions. Why wasn’t a soulcatcher of her power given more resources? Who had she pissed off?
&
nbsp; They were probably dead now, along with their petty grievances, and most of my race. Damn it. Every time my brain got away from it, I remembered.
I tugged my breastplate on, then the helmet. Once it connected, my HUD lit and began filling with data. I didn’t often wear it, but I had a feeling that I’d want another layer between me and the world today.
I departed my quarters and headed for the bridge, where I found Patra waiting next to a wide silver disk on the floor that I hadn’t noticed the day before. She offered me a weak smile that did nothing to alleviate her haunted gaze. “Good, you’re awake. I wanted to let you rest, but we need to be moving. Kemet still lives, but I don’t know how much longer that will remain true.”
I nodded as I stepped onto the bridge. At first I thought the viewscreen was malfunctioning, as it showed nothing but unrelieved black. Then I remembered.
“We’re in the depths,” I muttered aloud.
“Your first time.” Patra shook her head sadly. “So young. I wish they’d sent me someone with more experience, but I suppose enthusiasm will have to do. Come here, Paladin.”
I did as she asked and snapped to attention next to the disk. I’d seen teleportation disks before and was starting to understand her plan.
“When we are ready, we will step onto the disk, and the vessel will deposit us in the corridor aboard the Word of Xal, directly on the other side of that bulkhead.” She stepped onto the disk. “Ready?”
I nodded and joined her. There was no point in asking my millions of questions. Most of them would be answered by whatever lay on the other side of the teleport.
There was a flash of light, and then we were elsewhere.
I pivoted a half step and drew my spellblade in one hand, then fed it just enough magic to cause the blade to glow. The lights were down for some reason, even the emergency backups.
My blade illuminated the corridor, but not well enough. I snapped my left wrist down, and a wave of blue and white sigils flowed out in a spiral pattern to form a buckler comprised purely of magic. The spellshield could deflect—and even reflect—spells, in addition to functioning as a normal shield.
The shield provided plenty of light, and I sheathed my blade as we advanced up the corridor. Carrying it for hours would tire me, and I’d need to be fresh if it came to combat.
We’d only made it about a dozen paces when we heard spellfire up the corridor. I stepped instinctively before Patra and positioned my shield so I could block any spells or projectiles targeting her.
After a moment I realized they were far away, but that the corridor magnified the echoes.
“I wonder who’s fighting?” Patra said as she stepped up to join me. “We should wait until the combat ends, then advance.”
“I disagree.” I shook my head. My tactical training objected, and I couldn’t stay silent. “One of those two groups is likely on our side. If we wait, they’ll be wiped out, and we lose a potential ally. We should strike now.”
She nodded and advanced up the corridor. “You make a compelling argument. Let’s hope we can easily tell which side is ours.”
We crept up the corridor, and I was silently pleased with my own performance. Being stealthy in spellarmor is not easy, but I’ve been blessed with extensive training in that area and was eager to finally use it.
The sounds of combat grew louder, and when we came around a bend and saw flashes in the distance, I extinguished my spellshield, plunging us into sudden darkness.
“You could have warned me,” Patra hissed.
“Stay behind me,” I ordered confidently. Now that we’d engaged, our roles had changed. Now I kept my mistress alive, in spite of herself if necessary. “I’m going to engage. Stay back, and only enter combat if you can do so without drawing fire.”
I paused and reached into the air next to me. It shimmered, then fell away just like a Fissure as my void pocket opened. The pocket had been created by a summoner, then turned over to an artificer, who’d anchored the extra dimensional space to the spellarmor. The compartment opened at about shoulder height, a one-meter cubic slash in the air where I could store whatever I wanted.
In this case that meant my rifle.
Like my fighter, it was a Mark III, meaning it sucked. But I’d kept it lovingly repaired ever since it had been issued to me on my first day of training. It might not have been fancy, but it was reliable. That was enough.
I withdrew the rifle and raised it to my shoulder to sight down the scope. I thumbed the selector to conventional rounds, as I had a feeling I’d want to save my magic for wards, or possibly healing.
A large bipedal form filled my scope, and after a moment I realized I’d centered the reticle over a hatchling’s wing. A void hatchling. Something primal in me, the life magic shining in my breast, demanded action.
So I took it.
My finger constricted on the trigger, and the rifle kicked into my shoulder as it launched an explosive round at my target. I didn’t wait for it to hit before firing again, because I knew my target wouldn’t go down in a single shot.
I thumbed the selector back to spell and fired a level 2 light bolt, the strongest spell at my disposal. The conventional round took several milliseconds to cross the space to my target, then detonated.
The explosion knocked the hatchling out of position, though it did no additional damage. That opened up my target to the light bolt, though, and by pure chance it streaked into the hatchling’s chest, directly over the heart.
Funny thing about void creatures. They don’t respond too well to life magic, and my spell sizzled away scale, muscle, and bone until it reached the creature’s heart.
“I hope that wasn’t a lucky shot,” Patra yelled from beside me, barely audible in my helmet. “Because if it was, we’re going to need a lot more luck.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
Two hatchlings advanced up the corridor we were sheltering in, and since the corridor was remarkably empty, that meant no cover. I snapped open the void pocket and tossed the rifle inside, then closed it as I engaged my spellshield.
Just in time.
A pair of void bolts hummed up the corridor. I caught one on my shield, but the other took me in the forearm. My armor blunted the magic, but the mage who’d sent it my way had increased the magnitude quite a lot. It ate through my armor and into my arm.
Thankfully spellarmor comes with potion loaders, and all three of mine contained healing potions. Golden liquid was pumped into my arm, the warmth counteracting the pain.
I could cast the very same spell, but only so many times. Most engagements were settled by whichever side could stay on their feet the longest, and potions helped me do that without tapping my own dwindling reserves.
I sprinted up the corridor with a yell and made myself as large and intimidating as possible to catch their attention. It worked, though I wasn’t sure that having two void hatchlings with lethal looking spellrifles aimed in your direction was a great idea.
Two more void bolts lanced out. This time I dropped prone, and they hummed over my head, and also over Patra’s.
I was about to flip to my feet and do something heroic, but there was no need.
A storm of golden bolts streaked from the opposite end of the corridor and peppered both hatchlings from behind. Their screeches were deafening as the spellfire continued, and it didn’t slacken until the hatchlings collapsed to the deck, smoke rising from their charred corpses.
A quintet of armored bipedal shapes emerged from the smoke, all cradling rifles.
“I am Paladin-elect Seket of Karnak Kamiza,” I called as I rose to my feet and strode up the corridor. “Inura’s grace be upon you. Who is your commanding officer?”
“And also upon you. You’re a damned sight for weary eyes.” A woman in battered golden armor stepped up and removed her helmet. She nodded at me, a soot stain on one cheek. “I am Lieutenant Carlyn. I was tasked with keeping the voids off the bridge, and I plan to keep doing that. Who’s your comma
nding officer, Seket of Karnak?”
I made a judgement call and jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Patra. “She is. Meet the legendary Soulcatcher Patra.”
Carlyn went pale and shook her head slowly. “There’s only one soul that could have drawn a catcher of your renown aboard the Word of Xal. The admiral is sealed on the bridge. I don’t understand how his life could be in jeopardy. We’ve kept the voids at bay. We’ve held the line. I don’t understand.”
Her distress broke my heart. She was clearly attached to this admiral, and had likely served him directly for years. Such is the way of it with paladins. We do have a tendency to become attached to our charges.
“Take comfort, Paladin.” Patra approached her and reached up to lay a much smaller hand on the paladin’s. “It is possible I am wrong. It would not be the first time.”
I knew she wasn’t. She’d been right about everything so far.
* * * * *
Chapter 5
I couldn’t express how much better I felt now that I wasn’t the senior-most surviving paladin. Much of my survival to this point was luck, and I knew it.
Lieutenant Carlyn quickly gathered her four surviving paladins and began heading up a wide corridor toward what I presumed must be the bridge. The armored veterans didn’t speak to each other, and if they communicated, it appeared to be through hand gestures.
It was possible they were using internal comms, but I doubted it. Seeing these people in action, I could tell they’d trained and served together for an extended period of time.
As I walked, Patra fell back a ways, seemingly lost in thought. I kept one eye on my mistress, and the other on the hallway behind her. Carlyn had appointed one of her people as a rearguard, but a second set of eyes couldn’t hurt.
After perhaps a hundred meters, the hallway opened into a larger chamber full of strange circuitry along the walls. I have no idea what any of it was for, but then I’d never been in a god-forged vessel before.
The Dogs of God Page 49
