The Clockwork that Counts Aeons
Chapter Six:
It was something of a general
misconception, held mostly by those in the Domains of Nor ‘Am who thought too highly of their power,
that conventional troops were useless against users of the Art.
In general terms, this was true; one high
class level adept of the Art, with the proper attack spells under their
command, could, if prepared, defeat a considerable number of enemy troops.
Several users of the Art, working in consort, could generate a large enough
elemental working to ground airships or immobilize large numbers of soldiers on
the ground. In practical terms, however, it was not as simple as that. First of
all, the number of high level users capable of mastering the most lethal attack
spells, the ones with the greatest amount of area affect, were few and far
between. Secondly, one had to be prepared for an assault in order to defend
against it; having plans in place for defense meant nothing if the enemy struck
too suddenly for one to use their defenses. And, lastly, higher end users of
the Art tended to cancel each other out on the battlefield, leaving the actual
fighting to be done by airships and ground troops. So it was that Jumi had
their legions of Jumi Knights,
Aesgir Haroy had known all of these things, and his plan had
relied on that knowledge. Speed and surprise was key to taking the island of
Nitaru and holding it until he possessed the Books-he had no illusions that he
would be able to defeat a full response from Gilead, an elemental barrier
around the island or no. He knew he was facing a competent force of civic
guards, a handful of well trained swordsmen, and a city full of Artists, some
possessing relatively minor skills, a few possessing considerable power. He had
twenty-four Templars, several thousand Aeuropan mercenaries, and himself. He believed that the
odds were fair for the moment.
The first wave of airships was tasked with
covering the ships that would have to hover for long minutes as they discharged
their troops. They descended in low arcs over the city, their cannons blasting
away at targets of opportunity, raking the airfield, the docks, and the command
buildings for the Guard. They used a mixture of solid shot and explosive
rounds, causing property damage and starting fires that distracted both the
Guard and Artists from their duties. As this happened, ten airships hovered
over the borders of the city, hatches opening in the bottoms of each hull.
Ropes fell from each hatch, and the Aeuropan
mercenaries rappelled down to the ground, covered by the gunners of their
respective ships. The first man to touch down on the ground in the region of
the docks was Captain Turilli; he drew his sword and
shouted to his men, "Advance in the name of our Lord Haroy!"
His men, who were a little less gung-ho than he, still hit the ground running,
advancing on their first target, the command precinct for the dock district.
Only a handful of the Guard was in place,
the speed of the assault catching Mars by such shock that she had not had time
to reinforce them. In a battle lasting less than two minutes, Turilli and his men had taken the precinct and were moving
towards the city center. The other nine groups reported similar success, except
at the airfield. There, so close to the command center of the Guard, they had
met fierce resistance, by a combination of the forces already on duty and the
crews of the airships who were docked there. Elsewhere, though, the landings
went well, and the mercenaries began making their way towards their target, the
Library complex.
It was then that the mercenaries began to
find out how difficult it was to capture a city populated, by and large, by Artists.
When the attack began on the dock region, a
young woman by the name of Arielle had been walking the docks, somewhat lost in
thought. She was an Artist, of relatively minor ranking, training at Nitaru to
learn to master the skills she had as an illusionist. Arielle had come from a
family of fishermen on the coasts of Nor ‘Am, and
she had spent a great amount of her formative years near the sea, helping her
father on the fishing boats, dragging in crab pots and nets, that sort of
thing. So, though she had left the sea behind when she displayed her first hint
of talent with the Art, she came down to the docks when she was bored, or lost
in thought, more or less out of a force of habit. She had witnessed the bombing
of the docks and the fall of the precinct, and while she was no warrior, she
knew that her home, her friends here in Nitaru, were at risk. She crouched in
an alley just off of one of the main avenues, watching as Turilli’s men marched up
the street, almost in a parade formation. Arielle had no skills as a warrior,
but she knew that something had to be done to slow them down. She reached into
her robe, the designs marking her as an apprentice to a higher-order
illusionist, and produced a short wand of dull colored wood, not much longer
than a pencil. She concentrated on her power, and began sketching in the air,
light trailing behind her wand, creating an image in the air. She added details
in a hurry, hearing the boots of Turilli’s men as they
neared her hiding place. Then she looked at the drawing, raised one hand, and
whispered words of power. The drawing flashed twice with a yellow glow, then
vanished. Arielle flattened herself against the wall and slid forward, wanting
to see if she had properly visualized the scale of her illusion. It would do no
good, after all, if she had misjudged the scale and the enemy stomped through
it.
Turilli was
about to break up his force into smaller platoons to deal with a square that
was about to open up before him when the skies overhead went black. He tightened
his grip on his blade and shouted to his fellows, "Be alert! There’s magic in the air!"
You aren’t kidding, Arielle
thought as her illusion continued to take shape. Admittedly, it was hardly an
original thought-she had plucked the illusion from a text that she had
"illustrated" as part of her training-but hopefully these
mercenaries, in their bright armor and waving their swords and firearms around,
had never read the text she had.
Twelve figures fell from the skies, each
one gilding down on wide wings that made thundering sounds as they cracked.
Their eyes glowed red, the glow of a furnace, and they dove towards Turilli’s
men with plain purpose. Turilli, being a
superstitious sort, raised his blade and yelled to his men, "Beware! They
send the gargoyles of the abyss against us!"
Well, my VERSION of the
gargoyles that attacked Jumi during the end days of the War with Ultima Thule, Arielle thought.
The gargoyles landed in front of the troops
and began to advance, and that was where the chaos started. A decent number of Turilli’s
troops panicked and raised their guns to fire on the gargoyles as they charged
into their midst, and, not too shockingly, only succeeded in shooting their
mates. Men slashed at the empty air and wounded others, and Turilli’s neat advance
fell apart. Arielle grinned to herself and drew a quick illusion around herself
that made her appear to be invisible. With any luck, she could conceive another
illusion that would slow the attackers down until someone came to support her
with real power.
Across the city, similar events occurred;
Artists threw whatever power they possessed in the path of the advancing
mercenaries while the Guard raced to help. Men fought against illusions,
against spells that turned the ground to tar or ice beneath them; they faced
minor telekinetic spells that turned normal objects into lethal weapons, earth
spells that made the ground shake, and fire spells that turned men into
torches. And yet the mercenaries, driven by their love of the gold that Haroy had promised them upon their success, drove forward,
ever forward. War flared across Nitaru, leaving destruction in its wake, as it
always had.
In the command center of the Guard, her
mind linked to the Artists of the precincts through Nao’s, Mars was doing
something she hated to do: reacting.
Her trainers, the Circle of the Bloody
Moon, had taught her that initiative in battle was everything, that even the
defender, in a static location, could make moves before the battle had started
that gave them the edge. She had done no such thing, and in fact, they all had
woefully underestimated the amount of manpower that Haroy
had. Ky and Orochi had told them, during their first days at Nitaru, that the Templars were of relatively low number and had very few
airships…if that
was the case, then they had committed a great deal of their force to this one
operation. Which meant if they lost here, then they would probably be destroyed
as a power in the world. Mars meant to see that would happen. "All right,
here’s what we
do. The enemy is approaching the center of the city in ten columns, the largest
being the two that attacked the airfield and the docks. The dock precinct has
fallen, but the airfield is still ours. Neu, Foxfire,
Kristof, you take everyone you can get your hands on
and hold the airfield. Haroy needs it if he plans to
hold Nitaru for any amount of time" Neu saluted
and ushered Foxfire and Kristof out of the command
center with a hearty shove. "Nao, are there any
active Artists in the path of the group attacking from the docks?"
"Several, but they’re mostly hiding." Nao
closed her eyes and concentrated. "I…I sense a
mind near the troops. Something has caused them difficulty; their advance has
stopped."
"That’ll do. Enii, Nao
will direct you to whomever she senses. Gather men from…" Mars referred to her mental map of
Nitaru, "the tenth and fourteenth precincts. Your defense line will be the
trading district. Do not let them advance past there."
"Enii’s going to need a
hand," Orochi spoke up. "Mind if I tag along?"
Enii laughed.
"I’m going
to mind a Seikishidan tagging along
with me? Right…of course
you can come. Nao, contact the Artists at the tenth
and the fourteenth. Tell them to organize defenses on the trading district.
Orochi, me and you will go to the Artist that’s slowing the enemy down and delay them until the defenses are
up." The two women sprinted out of the command center, leaving Mars and Sakkariah with Nao.
"What do you want me to do?" Sakkariah asked.
Mars pointed at a map of Nitaru on the wall
beside of them. "There’s groups
attacking the city in a wide arc around the coast line. At a guess, I’d say that they’re heading for the Library. The two
easternmost groups have the shortest distance to cross. I’m sending troops now, but I don’t know if they can hold."
"You want me to go reason with these
clowns?" Sakkariah grinned. "Easily done.
What are you going to do?"
"I’m going to wait. I don’t sense
any higher-level powers like those the Templars would
possess. Sooner or later Haroy will land, and when he
does, his ass is mine." Mars thought-cast to Strawberry You remain at
the Library, organize what Artists you can find with attack spell ability. Some
of these guys are going to get through.
Already working on that. We’ll put up a shield around
the Library; Daimira is on her way to the hospital to
coordinate with the healers. There’s going
to be a lot of wounded on both sides.
So there will; let’s just hope that there’s more on their side than
ours. Mars watched as Sakkariah transferred
from the command center, then her hand fell on the hilt of Lucifel. You won
the first round, Haroy, but I will not let you win
anymore. Bella nostra officiae, Haroy; our war is my duty. That makes killing you
my duty. She turned her mind back to the reports coming in from Nao and the others, thinking for one last second about Ky
and Sephira; in many ways, this war depended on what
happened with them. It doesn’t matter
if we defeat this attack; they HAVE to stop Hikari
from leading Gunderson to the Books. If that happens, then all of this is
irrelevant. She sighed, then her mind went back to work.
Kloften followed
Hikari through the vaults, a sense of unease building
in him the further they traveled.
At first, he could attribute it to the
strangeness of the situation, to the sensation of walking beside Hikari, sensing the presence of whatever it was that had
taken her over. It was not every day that one felt a force that stank of being
from beyond this world, after all. Hikari was walking
through the vaults, occasionally speaking under her breath in a language that
did not seem suited for humans to speak, or making rapid gestures at the walls
with her right hand. As she did, runes-some visible, some not visible until she
spoke or moved a hand-appeared. With each turn of a corner, each rune that
appeared, the air began to almost vibrate, to fill with a sensation of power
being built, like a summer storm hovering overhead, waiting for the right
moment to be unleashed upon the ground before.
That, however, was not the thing that
disturbed Kloften most.
He figured out what it was when he realized
that he and Hikari were walking down a corridor that
was sloping downward at a relatively shallow grade. He, as Gunderson, had been
to Nocturnus before, and he knew the vaults well, and he had no memory of a
corridor that went downward. “Where are we?” he asked, more to himself than to Hikari.
“You are still within the vaults of
Nocturnus, Kloften,” Hikari
said, her voice echoing oddly off the walls, in a fashion his did not. “There
are more vaults, more spaces, than can be detected unless one has the paratext. As I journey, I assemble the runes that make up
the Books, until I reach the central vault that contains the energy of the core
of the Books, which is also a key and a lock.”
“To...to this Empyreal Lexicon?” Kloften wondered.
Hikari smiled.
It was not the smile of a human being. “To many things, the Lexicon among them.
You will see, Kloften, you will see.”
“And if I choose not to see?”
Hikari did not
speak for a moment. She waved her hand, and just beside of them a corridor
appeared. Actually, that was not entirely accurate; it was more like the
corridor had always been there, and when Hikari
spoke, he merely noticed its existence. The walls of the corridor were gently
rounded, making it more of a tunnel; runes covered every space of the surface
of the walls, each rune glowing brilliant blue. Hikari
turned to Kloften and said, “Then you cease to exist.
I have use for you, but there are other means to achieve my goals.”
The way she-or rather, the entity that was
within Hikari-had spoken, in a flat, emotionless
tone, convinced him of her sincerity. The being that stood beside of him would
kill him as simply as he would pull on his boots in the morning; it was simply
a part of life to her. He shuddered and followed her into the tunnel, but was
surprised when she stopped after a few steps and looked up. “We’re being
followed. One of Nitaru and the swordsman.”
“The swordsman? Kiske?”
“Yes. I sense his life force and the life
force of the one called Sephira. They mean to rescue Hikari and defeat you. There is some irony there.” She
closed her borrowed eyes, and an eldritch, emerald glow surrounded her for an
instant. “We have blazed a trail for them, I fear. But what I have summoned
will at least slow them down. Come, Kloften, we have
much to do.”
As Kloften
continued walking with Hikari, he found himself
placed in a rather ironic position; after a lifetime of loathing the Seikishidan of
Ky and Sephira
appeared just outside of the doors of the vaults, Xin
perched on Sephira’s shoulder. Ky drew Thundercross and looked around him. “Well, we made it,” he
said, trying to seem light hearted. “I can’t sense Kloften
or Hikari.”
Sephira
concentrated for a moment. “Xin can. Whatever power
is within Hikari, it’s rending the flux in a fashion
I’ve never felt before. Just not within the frequencies of the flux that
fighters such as you draw upon. That’s probably why you can’t sense them. It’s
just...” Sephira frowned. “They seem to be much
deeper inside of Nocturnus than they should be. The vaults have to be
multi-dimensional.” She pointed into the vault, and Xin
flew before them, glowing with a bright light. “They can’t escape us now. Xin has their pattern.”
Which means, of course, that
they probably know we’re coming, Ky thought. Standing shoulder to shoulder
with Sephira, he followed the familiar into the
vaults, gripping his sword in one hand. Like Kloften
below, he could sense the power that was building in the air, the force that
was being released by Hikari’s presence there, and
perhaps that was blocking his ability to sense them. He and Sephira
followed the path that Hikari had taken into the
vaults, Xin quickly dimming his glow at an order from
his mistress when she saw how much light the runes were putting out. Neither
spoke, as if they feared that their voices would somehow reach those that they
pursued. Which was not entirely impossible, they knew.
They had reached the corridor that sloped
downward, which prompted the same reaction from Sephira
as it had from Kloften, when a greenish glow came
from the walls. Ky took a step in front of Sephira,
sword raised, his eyes darting from one side to the other. He could feel the
force of several presences, four in fact, but they simply were not visible. He
knew they weren’t cloaked; only a high-level adept of the Art could mask their
energy signature behind a cloaking spell. So what, then, was he facing?
“Ky, look,” Sephira
said, in a subdued tone. “Look at the runes.”
Ky looked again, and this time, he saw that
the green glow was coming from four runes, two on each side of the corridor,
just in front of them. Both of them took a few steps back as the glow
intensified, and then from each rune came a beam of light that stabbed into the
floor. As they watched, the beams almost seemed to fill shapes in the
air, as if some sort of container was there and the beam was fluid. Each entity
quickly took shape, humanoid, featureless, their bodies a darker green, an aura
of emerald around them. They were all armed, Ky saw, with bladed weapons that
seemed to grow out of their shadowy hands, and as Ky looked, he realized that
what had appeared featureless actually had some details, hints of armor,
gauntlets, and the sheaths of other weapons were visible, almost in outline. Ky
did not wait for the enemy to attack, but rather went for the nearest one, Thundercross slicing downward in a lethal arc. The entity
raised what looked like a broadsword to deflect Ky’s
blow, then expertly sent back a counter strike, but one rather slow. Ky easily
raised his sword to parry the blow, and that was when things went rather bad.
The broadsword passed through Ky’s sword as if it was ephemeral, a phantom blade. Ky
twisted away on instinct, and the broadsword cut into his overcoat, taking a
quarter of it’s length away. Ky sent a strike back at the entity, which parried
it again, and again attacked, the sword becoming intangible when Ky met it in
mid-stroke. What in God’s name am I fighting? Ky thought. I had
better figure it out fast, before I wind up dead.
Sephira quickly
spoke an attack spell, and fire lanced from her fingertips. It washed over the
quartet of creatures, and yet had no affect on them at all. She thought a few
rather unladylike words as the entities charged at them, their shadowy weapons
raised. This is not going well, not in the least, she thought. I hope
things go better in Nitaru.
The troops that
had the shortest distance to cross from their landing point to the Library were
led by one of Turilli’s most trusted lieutenants, a
man by the name of Staropolli. Under other
circumstances-if Haroy had not wanted the dock operation
to be overseen by Turilli-Turilli himself might have
been here, leading the attack towards the Library. That was the main reason
he’d selected Staropolli to lead the troops assigned
to this landing; they both had a similar worldview, and had worked together on
a number of mercenary missions. Which meant that, yes, both men had the same
maddening (to the men under their command) way of viewing their duty as being
almost knighthood. Still, the amount of money that the Templars
had paid the troops that served under Staropolli more
than compensated for their disliking of his more eccentric mannerisms.
The troops under
his command, some three hundred, had landed to virtually no resistance, and in
fact, he had quickly ordered them into what amounted to a parade formation,
albeit one with the troops on the perimeter of the formation armed with
firearms, watching for ambushes. At their head marched Staropolli,
resplendent in his highly polished, intricate armor, a long sword in his hands.
In the distance, he could see the field that the Artists of Nitaru had raised
to defend the Library, shimmering, almost appearing like heat haze. Staropolli raised his sword and shouted “You will not stand
against us, witches of Nitaru! We will win this day!”
Almost as if speaking
for his men, a chuckle came to their ears, feminine, somehow bringing a chill
to each man who heard it. Standing before them, having apparently managed to
appear without being seen, was a slender woman, cloaked and hooded in black
clothing. She was the only person between them and the next block, standing in
the center of a small town square. “Boys with their toys,” she said, shaking
her head slightly. “When do males grow up exactly?”
Staropolli
stepped in front of his men, motioning with one hand to the nearest riflemen to
raise their weapons. “It is not wise to resist us, witch. Stand aside or
perish.”
“Strangely
enough, I was going to say the same thing.” She raised one hand to shoulder
height, in a manner that was not threatening enough to justify anyone attacking
her. “I am Lady Sakkariah of the Council of Nitaru.
You were dead the moment that you raised a hand against us. Leave here now.”
“We can not do
that,” Staropolli shouted back. “Prepare to face our
wrath!”
Sakkariah
closed her eyes and began to chant, in a voice that was at once a whisper and
yet somehow echoed with the minds of the three hundred men that stood before
her. It was a voice that would haunt those who heard it for the remainder of
their lives-assuming, of course, that one lived to recall it. The very tenor of
her voice brought ice to the veins of the men under Staropolli’s
command, freezing them in place. Staropolli tried to
raise his sword, but the chant seemed to sap his very strength, his will, even
though he knew that whatever the witch was doing, it wasn’t likely to be
pleasant.
“Black energies in the
twilight space
Comes shivering through the
shallow haze
Into darkness so impure
divine
A bloodshed emotion to evil
wine”
The streets
beneath the men began to glow crimson, as if there was blood beneath the
cobblestones. A hideous black light shot upwards through the cracks in the
street, sending a chill that penetrated to the very souls of the men. Sakkariah raised both her hands over her head, an aura of
black light surrounding her, as she finished chanting the spell that she had
decided to use to deal with the attackers. There were other ways to deal with
the enemy, she knew, but this one was the most memorable. This is what
happens when you anger a Lady of the Art, boys. Don’t say you didn’t expect it.
“Darkzone
martyrium, endless vast mysterium
Give to me the blessing,
when I meet my destiny!”
The black light
wrapped around each member of the troop in front of her and slowly, implacably,
began to pull them seemingly into the ground. In truth, her spell had actually
opened a gateway to an entropic realm, a dimension of cold and decay that those
versed in certain paths of the Art could open. It was believed that the
dimension opened by Darkzone Martyrium
was a minded thing, that it hungered to devour the souls of the living, but Sakkariah knew better. It was merely the nature of things,
of cold entropy; all things fell into its embrace in the end. She watched as
the entropic realm drew into it three hundred souls, trapped in the power she
had raised; some tried to claw their way free of it, as if the streets offered
some handhold out of the spell. Others tried to turn their weapons on it, only
to find their blades shattering against the blackness, entropy bringing the stress
of long use to bear on them in an instant. In the end, it did not matter if one
fought or not; one by one, the darkness claimed them. The last to fall, by
chance (for all Sakkariah controlled was the amount
of space that the entropic dimension encroached upon this plane) was Staropolli, his hand raised in a fist, a gesture of futile
defiance as the darkness claimed him. Sakkariah moved
her hands in a complex series of motions, and the zone of entropy swirled away,
as if it was caught in a whirlpool. In less than half a minute, no trace of Staropolli and his command remained; they had been claimed
by the darkness. “If only I could do that to all the enemy,” she said to
herself. “Still, that will definitely inconvenience Haroy.”
She reached out with her mind, reporting to Mars and Strawberry what she had
accomplished.
Only three hundred, Sakkariah, Strawberry sent.
You’re slipping, my friend.
Three airships
boomed overhead, heading in the general direction of the airfield. “The day is
still young, ladies. There’s plenty of the enemy to go around.” Sakkariah closed her eyes, searching for another advancing
group of mercenaries, hoping that this day would not get any worse.
The airfield was
best described by a single word; chaotic.
Haroy’s arriving troops
had met what had started as a relatively makeshift group of ground crew mixed
with a few of the Civic Guard, both groups knowing how important the airfield
was to the survival of Nitaru. The first ship tasked to the landing had dropped
to the ground, hovering above the field, and had unloaded seventy percent of
its troops when a truck, filled with fuel, had been driven into the side of the
airship, setting off a huge explosion that had also killed the desperate driver
of the truck. The airship tried to rise, but listed badly and crashed into the
ground, spreading fire and burning debris across the entire airfield, setting
hangars on fire and generally complicating matters for defenders and attackers
alike. The next few minutes of battle saw the attacking mercenaries forced to
split up into smaller groups, to attack defenders rallying around airships,
transports, and any other object of decent size, all the while avoiding the
fires that were spreading.
It was then that
Neu, Kristof, and Foxfire
arrived.
Neu had already
been warned by Mars via thoughtcast how chaotic the
situation was at the airfield, but seeing it with her own eyes was another
thing entirely. The sound, the heat, the sheer madness of the situation was
somewhat overwhelming, even to one of her training and skill. Behind her, the
two platoons she and the others had managed to quickly organize stopped and
stared at a sight that was beyond, perhaps, their comprehension. They were,
after all, Civic Guard, essentially glorified policemen, intended to deal with
small acts of civil disobedience, mostly to deal with drunken brawls in the
tavern district. This was war, pure and simple, and the Guard perhaps could not
be blamed for being overwhelmed for a second.
True to form, it
was Kristof that spoke for them all. “No problem,” he
said, adjusting his hat with one hand, “we’ve got this covered.”
Neu grinned at
Foxfire, who merely shook his head, then she raised her sword and shouted,
“First platoon, support the hangar defenses with Foxfire and Kristof! Second platoon, follow me, wedge formation towards
the runways. For Nitaru!”
The two platoons
charged into the fray, firing their rifles, Neu at
the head of the second platoon, her sword flashing around her as she cut her
way through the attackers. While the
number of troops in the two platoons wasn’t great, their sudden arrival was
enough to catch the attackers off-guard, and drive them backwards. Slowly,
surely, the defenders began to reclaim the airfield, even as three ships
arrived and discharged reinforcements. For the moment at least, Haroy had been denied the airfield.
Arielle had
managed, with her illusions, to delay Turili’s units
for far longer than anyone could have expected. However, she was not a soldier,
merely an apprentice Artist, and eventually, one of Trulli’s
men managed to spot her when, while concentrating on a new illusion, she
dropped the one that protected her. A burst of rifle fire wounded her in the
shoulder, dropping her concentration and sending her sprawling back into the
alleyway. She groaned in pain, trying to rise, but before she could, a group of
mercenaries, Turilli amongst them, rushed into the
alley, aiming their rifles at her. Turilli stared at
her in shock for a moment, clearly amazed that so much damage had been done to
his force by what most would consider a mere slip of a girl. “Kill her,” he
said coldly, turning his back to her.
The men aimed
their weapons at her-to her credit, Arielle glared back at them, not willing to
show the utter terror she felt to these invaders-but before they could fire,
something blurred around them, a flash of silver cutting at the air. They fell
to the ground, their bodies exploding apart in gore, their rifles sliced neatly
apart. Arielle slid backwards down the alley, trying to get away from the
fallen bodies and the rivers of blood that came from them, when a hand fell on
her shoulder. Arielle bit off a scream and looked up at a young, long haired
woman, dressed in a crimson and black version of the Civic Guard uniform, a
sword in her hand. “I’m Enii, Civic Guard,” the woman
explained. “You did good here, but let her handle this.”
“Her?” Arielle
asked.
Enii nodded at the
head of the alley, where Turilli was only just now
turning to see what had happened. Standing there, her sword covered in blood,
Orochi Ogawasara fairly glowed with power, exuding
utter calm and confidence. “Her,” she said. “The local representative of the Seikishidan.”
Turilli took a grip on
his sword and regarded Orochi with a smile that bordered on the insane, given what
he was facing. “So, you’re one of the ancient foes of the Templars?”
he asked. “Finally stepped forth to challenge me?”
Orochi’s
stance was utterly casual, yet Enii could tell that
she could, fairly easily, assume any one of a dozen combat stances and attack
her opponent. She had thought of Orochi as being the brains in the tandem from
Turilli hesitated for a
moment, seeing in her eyes the will that she possessed, the sheer ability to
back up what she had said, but then his pride took over and he charged, his
sword overhead. “For Lord Haroy!” he shouted. Orochi
barely moved, a mere dip of her shoulders, and Turilli’s
strike went wild, smashing into the ground beside of her. Orochi then did
something Enii did not expect; without turning, she
bounded forward into the street, shouting “Enii, he’s
yours!”
Orochi’s
voice had such a tone of command that Enii did not
even hesitate; she stepped in front of Arielle and met Turilli’s
sword with her own, the impact hammering down her arms. She parried two
relatively clumsy strikes from the bigger man, then launched a series of
attacks designed to test his reflexes and gauge his ability. She soon
discovered that she was far quicker than him by wounding him twice in each
shoulder; in fact, he was nowhere near as fast as she was. She risked a glance
over his shoulder and saw why Orochi had so suddenly abandoned her fight with
him; Orochi was in the street, engaging a group of mercenaries that had
appeared on the scene. Enii nearly paid for her
inattention though, Turilli bringing his sword around
in a flat arc that would have disemboweled her had she not noticed; she spun
away from him and brought her sword around as she did, catching Turilli overextended. Her stroke found his ribs and tore
through them, ending just below his armpit. She withdrew her blade and Turilli stared at her in utter disbelief before he fell
over, quite dead.
Orochi returned,
and despite her efforts was barely breathing hard. Enii’s
heart was pounding in her chest, but she suspected that was less from exertion
and more from the simple fact that she had just killed a man in single combat.
“Sorry I dropped him on you so suddenly, but I figured you had a better chance
to deal with him than you did holding off so many,” she explained.
“No problem,” Enii replied, turning to Arielle and helping her to her
feet. “We’d best get to the barricade; this one looks like she could use some
help.” Inwardly, Enii was simply amazed at Orochi’s skill and power, and she wondered why in the world
would anyone, even the Black Templars, wish to make
an enemy of
Aboard the Atavism
of Twilight, Haroy was becoming close to enraged.
The attack on
Nitaru had begun well, which was not much of a shock given the advantage of
surprise, but it had not taken long to stall. The advance at the airfield was
stalled, the defenders putting up such fierce resistance that the field had
been rendered virtually useless. The march on the Library had been stopped
dead, as had Turilli’s advance from the docks. That
endangered the landings his amphibious airships were making, and that was
already problematic enough given that ships meant to land at the airfield were
being rerouted there, becoming potential targets for long range elemental
spells. The Templars had surrounded Nitaru in a ring
of steel, but it was by no means permanent; indeed, Haroy
knew, given time the defenders could begin isolating his forces and decimating
them. Not that he cared about his mercenary force; they were, after all, cannon
fodder. But he had hoped to avoid direct Templar involvement in the wider
battle, using Mickelson and the others to use their elemental skills to keep
All of that had
been predicated on Kloften making contact with them
and delivering the key to the Books, and as the first hour of the invasion wore
on, Kloften remained silent. Haroy
paced the bridge of his flagship, clad in the ancient, rune covered black armor
that had been passed from generation to generation of the Black Templars, his fury such that the bridge crew did not dare
meet his eyes. Mickelson, also clad in his armor, stood near the rear of the
bridge, his eyes closed, lips moving in a chant as he and fifteen others of the
Templars, their minds melded in a crude version of
the bonding that users of a Domain had, sought to maintain the storm that was
holding off the Seikishidan war fleet.
So far, they had been able to keep that defense raised, but Haroy
knew it wouldn’t last-especially in light of the order he had to give.
“Mickelson,” Haroy said, “release five of your bond.”
Mickelson opened
his eyes, keeping the chant that he was saying going in his mind. “You intend
to attack, then?” he asked.
“Yes. Ten Templars, along each line of advance. We’re running out of
time and need to break them. Assign them based on their locations in the fleet.
As for us…” Haroy turned towards the navigation crew.
“I want us in front of their damned Library as soon as possible. Crash landing,
bring us up short of the barrier they’ve raised. I don’t care what happens to
this ship, but we’re taking the Library.”
Mickelson
gulped. “Haroy…that’s insane. You can feel how much
power that they’ve got there-they’ll incinerate the ship.”
“That’s assuming
they have time to stop us. Assign them quickly, Mickelson, then you’d best hang
on.” Haroy whirled on the bridge crew and bellowed,
“You have your orders! NOW OBEY ME!” Given a choice, between possible death by
following Aesgir Haroy’s
word, and an imminent death if they did not, the bridge crew decided that the
former choice was the better option. The Atavism of Twilight nosed over
and descended into the heart of Nitaru.
In the area of
the Library, Strawberry had things well under control.
Being near to
the various schools of the Art that were the true heart of Nitaru, it had not
been hard for her to assemble what amounted to a horde of Artists, numbering nearly
fifty, of skill levels varying from junior apprentice to her own of mistress of
the Domain. She had drawn on the power of the Domain to create a sizable shield
over the Library and it’s general vicinity. (She could have had nearly seventy
Artists, but she had sent twenty with Daimira to the healing
district to protect the hospitals.) The shield allowed her and her Artists to
attack, but repelled anything outside of it. Drawing on advice from Mars, she
had established a perimeter defense, placing her most experienced spell casters
in the areas Mars projected were the likeliest to be attacked. And so far, she
had faced little difficulty; a few scattered groups had approached from the
east, only to be flattened by a deftly coordinated group of fire attack spells,
fire that only consumed the attackers, leaving the surroundings untouched.
Strawberry was almost feeling confident that they would ride this out when she
noticed the imposing shape of the largest of the attacking airships she had
thus far seen nose over-and head directly for her. She said a decidedly
unladylike word to herself and sent a hasty thought to Mars. I think I am
about to have company, Mars. Look through my eyes, and get ready to send help.
Understood…that’s their
likely flagship I’m seeing…what the hell are they playing at…?
For a fleeting
instant, Strawberry thought the ship was merely going to attack the shield that
she had raised, as a few others had, but then she realized that it was flying
so low that there was only one possible destination that it could have. The
presence of Mars in her mind spoke it for her. “Those crazy bastards are
crashing their flagship into the Library! Strawberry, let them have it!”
Strawberry sent
a command through the casual mindlink she had worked
up with the defenders of the Library, ordering any Artist that could see the
airship to drop what they were doing and attack it. In theory, it should have
been simple to attack the vessel-it was rather large, moving in a straight
line, and not deviating from that path.
However, as Strawberry, or any high level user of the Art could tell you, while
magic could defy the rules of the world to a certain extent, it still had to
deal with some aspects of physics. And since most attack spells were line of
sight based, that meant that the user had to apply principles of ballistics to
their attack and lead the target. A firestorm of elemental spells rushed up
from the Library, but most missed, being aimed at where the airship was, not
where it was going to be when the spell arrived. Still, given the fact that the
ship was not attempting to evade in the least, it was inevitable that some of
the attacks would strike. Two bolts of lightning sheared off two engines, while
another erupted into flames and huge sections of armor plating were torn free
by sheer elemental power. Still the airship came on, now flying so low that
only Strawberry and a few others in the square before the Library could see it.
Strawberry threw all her power into the shield as the airship’s stubby wings clipped
the roofs of several buildings, closing with the ground.
Aboard the Avatism of Twilight, Haroy
gave out a final order to Mickelson, then threw himself onto the deck and hoped
that he had not just given the order to end his life. Collision alarms were
sounding, and he knew that the mercenary force aboard the ship was desperately trying
to secure themselves-he just hoped enough survived this desperate gamble to
make it worth attempting.
With a sound
that defied description, the Atavism of Twilight crashed into the
ground, the wings that carried the engines snapping off and flying wildly,
exploding behind them and setting several square blocks aflame. The lifting
body of the main hull skidded into the street, listing slightly as it slid
towards the boundary of Strawberry’s field. She raised her hands and
concentrated all her power into it, knowing that if it failed, the wreckage
would decimate the Library.
As if it hit a
wall-and in a sense it had-the ship smashed into the field with an impact that
shattered any window that had not yet already been broken from the initial
crash landing. The armored nose of the ship, designed to deflect forward
attacks, took the brunt of the impact, collapsing inwards; thankfully, at least
for the people in the closest blocks to the Library, most of the fuel for the
ship had been aboard the wings, so few fires broke out. Strawberry’s shield
held, though the effort was such that she lost her link with the defenders of
the Library and even, for a moment, with Mars.