by Frank Morin
Four Boulders stood blocking Wall Gate, swords and maces at the ready. They stared up Market Street toward the commotion of villagers pouring into the distant square from every side. They spotted the ice and turned to face him.
Too late.
Connor cast a sheet of ice across the entire gate. The Boulders max-tapped granite in a vain attempt to withstand the sudden elemental barrage, but the ice catapulted them off their feet. Connor kept them tumbling all the way to Loch Wick.
He followed them through the gate. Verena caught up to him there, swooping out of the night to take up position above and to his right, the speedslings on the Swift already spooling up. She was like a deadly guardian angel, ready to rain destruction upon the Boulders if they turned to fight.
They didn't. Showing more intelligence than Boulders were usually credited with, they took one look at Connor and Verena descending the road toward them. Then they bolted away toward the bridge over the Upper Wick.
Reinforcements were already on the way.
Rampagers, already transformed into deadly monsters, seemed to erupt out of the tree line. The terrifying sight of them awed Connor. The dozen monsters raced toward the bridge, their claws ripping the ground in their eager haste, glowing purple eyes already fastened on Connor.
They moved at least as fast as fracked Striders, their huge muscles rippling under their reddish hide. Their bald, leathery heads seemed to be made almost entirely of elongated, fanged maws and those burning eyes.
They were coming to destroy his home and his people.
They would regret that.
Connor again tapped soapstone. All the water he needed was right there in the loch and the fast-flowing Upper Wick.
As Boulders and rampagers all raced for the bridge from opposite sides, he heaved on that water, and it erupted, shattering the narrow bridge into thousands of pieces. The sharp crack of exploding timbers echoed from the steep cliffs of the Torr.
Boulders cringed back from the inverted waterfall, but Connor seized them with the waters and threw them over the lock. They tumbled into the trees on the far side like stones cast from a catapult. Lacking a bridge, they would find it difficult to return and cause any trouble.
The rampagers came on without slowing, howling with blood lust. Connor swept the waters at them, hardening the liquid into horizontal blades. It swept across them, blasting them out of the air in mid-leap and tumbling them back a hundred yards. They rebounded to their feet, not visibly hindered by the brutal strikes.
Verena unleashed thousands of hornets. The little projectiles buzzed as they ripped through the air in a deadly cloud, tearing into the monsters. Many staggered back. Some hornets were tipped with diorite and they exploded against armored rampager hide, snapping off bony protrusions and ripping open gashes with tiny sprays of fire and blood.
That only seemed to enrage the monsters further.
"They really are nasty, aren't they?"
The voice caught Connor by surprise and he looked up. Captain Ilse was slowly settling to the ground nearby, her catch-fall harness hissing loudly. Lukas and a dozen Crushers fell slowly through the sky behind her.
A huge windrider, over a hundred feet above his head, was banking around for another pass. Connor caught sight of Dierk at the controls, with Kilian standing on the high pilot bench beside him. Connor was startled to see Martys standing in the bed of the wagon, holding to the back of the pilot bench.
Mattias stood at the back too. He waved mightily, his teeth glowing in the dark sky and shouted, "Verena, catch!"
He jumped out of the wagon.
He was not wearing a catch-fall harness.
Mattias might have been hoping to prove he could command the air and slow his fall, but Verena responded to his call. She swooped around and caught him. He stepped into the stirrups at the back of the Swift, exactly the same way Connor usually did.
As Verena circled back around toward Connor, she pushed up her visor and glanced back at Mattias. Connor couldn't hear what she was saying.
Mattias leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.
The sight seared into Connor's mind like a diorite dart through the eyes, and he gasped in horror. His heart howled like the rampagers, who were charging toward the Wick again.
Connor shouted a wordless cry of heartbroken rage. Why would Mattias pick that time to dare kissing Verena? Could she have somehow encouraged him to do so? The thought tore at his mind, and the waters of the wick reacted to his anguish.
Water erupted high into the air, bursting the banks and flooding the western shores. It ripped trees and bushes up by the roots and tumbled the rampagers out of sight in a frothing, watery avalanche.
Connor barely noticed, his eyes glued on Verena and Mattias. She pushed him away, but Connor couldn't see her expression. She was strapped into the Swift, so it was hard to read her body language, but one thing was clear.
She hadn't punched Mattias in the face.
Verena landed nearby, amid the company of Crushers, and Mattias jumped lightly from the back. He was grinning and looked immensely pleased with himself.
Connor decided that smile would look best at the bottom of the loch. But before he could drown Mattias, Ilse gripped his shoulder.
"What's the situation, Connor?"
He wanted to shout, but he forced himself to bottle up the rage and try to speak calmly. "Hamish and Jean are evacuating the village with Aifric's help. They're taking East Gate and might need assistance."
"And the rampagers?"
Through his soapstone sense, he felt them scrambling out of the distant edges of the flood, running away into the hills to the northeast.
"They seem to be running."
"We should hunt them down and eradicate them right now," Lukas said.
The windrider descended nearby and Kilian shouted, "I thought I told you not to rile everyone up before we got here!"
"Things didn't go according to plan," Connor said, not feeling like elaborating.
"I'd say not. Mattias, you help the Crushers evacuate the village. We spotted Gregor and Aonghus ascending the mountain toward the quarry. Connor, you and Verena with me. We have to stop him."
That was why the mighty Petralists hadn't responded to the alarm and come to fight. Dougal was planning to raise the elfonnel. If they didn't stop him, all their efforts would be wasted.
Connor headed for the wagon, but Verena pivoted the Swift closer and gestured him to jump on. He met her gaze, and she gave him that same troubled look she'd had so often of late. He had thought she was still angry about his deal with Shona, but now he realized the truth.
"Were you going to tell me you were dating Mattias again?" he demanded as she lifted off after the windrider. Rage and devastating loss churned through him, and he wasn't sure which emotion would win out.
Verena glanced back, tears in her eyes. "Oh, Connor. I'm so sorry."
So it was true.
"Why didn't you tell me you loved him instead?" Connor hated to say those words, hated how his voice shook, hated that he hadn't punched the man to Sehrazad already.
She shook her head violently. "It's not like that. It was just one kiss."
"One kiss? You were furious with me because Shona forced me to agree to one kiss before I could share important information with my troops." His eyes narrowed and he continued in a softer, but angrier tone. "Did you agree to kiss him as the price to get him to help train me?"
"Of course not!"
"That would explain why he agreed to it."
"He taught you because he's a good man," Verena exclaimed.
"Good enough that you can't resist kissing him again, right after that long, self-righteous rant about how we need to commit to each other."
"I'm sorry!" Verena cried, her tone anguished. "I made a mistake. Will you forgive me?"
When she looked at him again, tears in those big, earnest eyes, the emotion and fear he saw there extinguished his anger like water flooding an open flame.
&n
bsp; "Where are you two going?" Kilian's voice spoke over the speakstone in Verena's helmet, loud enough for Connor to hear.
They had drifted east, and now Verena banked back toward the windrider rising up the long cliff above town, and the quarry beyond.
Connor tried to control his anger, tried to focus on the hope that he hadn't lost Verena. And on how glorious it would feel to break every bone in Mattias's glowing body.
"When we finish this, we need to have a long, honest talk."
She nodded, for once looking subdued. "All right."
Connor took a deep, steadying breath as they rose above the edge of the cliff and caught sight of the quarry dug into the flank of the mountain beyond. The regular, stepped tiers of the quarry were clearly visible, the white stone glowing in the moonlight.
Dougal stood on the west rim, flanked by Gregor and Aonghus.
As they banked in that direction, Connor growled, "First, I really need to kill someone."
Chapter Eighty-Two
"Darkness veils the face of purpose, but many walk the shadows."
~Evander
Verena sidled through the air, keeping the speedslings aimed at Dougal. The windrider rumbled through the air nearby, eighty feet above the south rim of the quarry. Connor was about to ask Kilian how he intended to attack, but movement at the west rim, to Dougal's left, drew his attention.
The rampagers swarmed over the rim there, leaping up the steep western slope above the Upper Wick with remarkable ease. Instead of forming a protective screen around Dougal as Connor expected them to, they leaped down the stepped western side of the quarry and assembled on the lowest level. Aonghus's billowing flames provided ample illumination to see them.
The long sloping ramp that led up to the exit tunnel on the eastern side of the quarry ended near them. The position made sense if they were expecting an attack from Quarry Road, but they had to know the attack would come by air.
"That's odd," Verena said with a frown.
Then the rampagers transformed, returning to human form. "And that doesn't make any sense," Connor said.
Dougal had to be planning some kind of subtle trickery, but he couldn't imagine what it might be.
Dierk slowed the windrider to a hover. Kilian, who stood on the high pilot bench beside him, gestured down at the southern rim of the quarry, almost directly below them. Dierk descended.
Verena swooped in toward the rim after them and called, "Kilian, what's the plan? I can shoot Dougal from here."
Kilian shook his head, his expression grim. "Dougal is mine. Connor, you deal with Gregor."
"No problem," Connor said, and his voice didn't even tremble.
Of course Gregor would be a problem. Only Anton could face the mighty Sentry with confidence, and he was probably smart enough to feel nervous.
Hamish roared up over the rim of the quarry nearby and waved as he pivoted in mid-air and slowed. "Everyone's out of town."
Martys waved from the back of the windrider. "Where are they headed?"
Connor said, "Don't worry about them. They've got a bolt hole concealed in the plateau just outside of town. They'll be safe there until we finish this."
Verena said, "Good timing, Hamish. You and I will keep the rampagers off of Connor while he deals with Gregor."
Hamish said, "Especially if we hit them before they transform. Why haven't they started charging?"
"That's what bothers me," Verena said.
The windrider touched down. Martys leaped from the wagon before Kilian and rushed down the inside access ramp toward the lowest level. The rampagers formed into ranks and faced him.
"Wait!" Connor shouted. Martys was a great fighter, but a suicide charge wouldn't help anyone. "Those are the rampagers, Uncle. Get back, or they'll kill you!"
Captain Aonghus rose into the air on a pillar of fire. In his hand he held a sculpted marble statue of a beautiful, burning woman. His laugh echoed across the quarry, repeating and building upon itself into a crescendo.
He raised the statue high. "Kilian, this time I'm the one with something to teach!"
Kilian approached along the southern rim, walking with a casual stride that belied the impending violence about to erupt across the quarry. "Did Dougal tell you that if you ascend today, he'll raise an elfonnel through you?"
"Fire is a purifying agent," Aonghus laughed. "And the threshold is the ultimate burn."
"Did he also tell you that if you do this, there is no coming back? You will be consumed."
Aonghus's grin faltered and he glanced at the statue in his hand. "You've done it."
Kilian nodded, still advancing. "That's because I know what I'm doing. There are required steps that Dougal has withheld from you. Today is not your time, Aonghus. Don't throw away so much potential. There's so much more I can teach you."
When Aonghus hesitated, Dougal shouted, "Don't listen to his lies, Captain! Kilian has murdered and plotted and thwarted our nation for centuries. Your duty is to fight for me, and I command you to ascend!"
Connor was surprised Gregor hadn't moved to block Kilian. He looked more closely at the big Sentry, tapping a bit of quartzite to enhance his vision. Gregor was standing as if in a trance. The rim of the quarry was made of solid granite, but it was power grade stone. If he was tapping granite, he could walk his senses through it as easily as earth.
So Connor tapped granite and dropped from the Swift to the rim of the quarry. He reached for slate and his senses plunged through the gateway.
He immediately sensed Gregor's presence. The man didn't hold sway over the entire quarry, but his presence was concentrated into an intense pillar directly below his feet, stretching deep into the mountain. A low note, like the gong of an immense bell, pulsed straight into the ground beneath him. Several seconds later, another one sounded.
Connor didn't understand what he was doing, but it couldn't be good. He glanced at Kilian again, who had stopped about fifty yards away from the corner of the quarry where the southern and western rims met. Aonghus, on his pillar of fire, was blocking the corner, but Kilian could easily blast himself across the short distance to Dougal.
Connor called, "Gregor is doing something odd. Some kind of tone pulsing into the ground."
Kilian frowned. "He is seeking the slumbering elfonnel. Time to stop him."
"I don't think so!" Martys shouted.
While Kilian had been trying to talk sense into Aonghus, Martys had continued to the floor of the quarry. The rampagers had moved to meet him, and the entire group faced him, barely ten strides away. They stood right next to the strangely cracked section of quarry floor that Connor's dad had told him about. If they embraced porphyry, they could shred him to pieces in seconds.
"Get out of there, Uncle Martys!" Connor shouted again.
He couldn't stop Gregor and save Martys at the same time. The thought of having to sacrifice another person he cared about in order to block Dougal terrified and infuriated him.
Hamish and Verena, who had been focused on the confrontation with Aonghus, lifted off the rim to support Martys.
"Ye dinnae understand, me boy," Martys said, his voice strangely calm. "I told you me mates were a wild bunch."
Dougal shouted, "Martys, your timing is unexpected. He's not ready."
Martys shook his head. "Nay, my lord. The beast is awake in his heart, an' he willnae resist the call to join the pack."
The truth struck Connor like a blow from his father's hammer.
"You're a rampager?"
Martys saluted. "Aye laddie, and ye no should have told me where your family is hiding."
He was such an idiot!
Connor shook his head in disbelief as fear chilled him to the bone. He cursed himself for not putting the clues together sooner.
No wonder Martys knew about rampagers. No wonder he talked so much about unleashing the beast. And when his eyes glowed, it wasn't because he was a secret Solas, but because he was fighting the urge to transform and embrace rampager battle lust.
>
"Why would you do this?" Connor cried, horrified by the magnitude of Martys's betrayal.
They had accepted him, made him part of their team. Connor had trained with him, had felt like Martys sometimes understood him better than anyone.
Martys barked a laugh. "Because ye are a fool, boy. Ye've filled yer head with tripe. Ye think Grandurians be yer friends, but Kilian teaches ye to show restraint instead of striking with all yer fury. Ye think ye love a Grandurian." He spat in Verena's direction. "But her love is false."
Connor wondered how Martys knew. Had he seen Verena kissing Mattias? Had they spent more time together than she had suggested? Was she still lying to him?
Martys's voice turned hard. "It be past time fer ye to accept yer place in the world, serve yer high lord, an' take the only woman worthy of your potential."
"You're a traitor to your family," Hamish shouted from where he hovered twenty feet above Connor. His face was red with anger.
Martys shook his head and gestured at the other gathered rampagers. "These be my family, boy. I lead this pack, an' today Connor will join us."
"Today I'm going to kill you," Connor declared. The words were like ash in his mouth, and he hated Martys double for making him say them.
Martys grinned in a disturbing, predatory way. "I hope ye be finally ready to unleash the beast, laddie, or I'll rip out yer throat. Here be your choice. Me mates and I are going hunting. We're going to kill every last living soul on that plateau."
He raised a small pouch, then dropped it to the stone at his feet.
Porphyry.
Connor felt a wild hunger erupt in the pit of his stomach, and he took an involuntary step toward the pouch.
Martys grinned wider. "There be no other choice today, laddie. Unleash the beast an' give me something more interesting to hunt than your siblings and your dear, sweet mother."
