Authors: Stuart Meczes
“No!”
I sprinted forward in time to see the female knight and her two companions vault out of the window and grab hold of thick chains hanging from one of the Skyships. It rose into the air and its boosters started to engage. I pounced after them, stretching out for the chain, but the ship jerked out of my grasp and I fell towards the tank, ricocheting off one of its legs and landing hard on the ground. I jumped straight back to my feet – vaguely aware of the throbbing all over my wounded body – and charged after the Skyship. It soared over the buildings as I scaled them, vaulting up their sheer sides like the possessed and drawing on energy so deep and pure that it allowed me to move in ways that I wouldn’t have dreamed possible. I sprinted along bridges and made death-defying leaps, refusing to let the Skyship leave my sight.
Its wing-mounted turrets turned and unleashed a storm of fire towards me, smashing windows and cracking the roofs I sprinted across in a storm of glass and metal. I pushed myself harder and faster, dodging out of the way of every round it threw at me as I screamed Gabriella’s name over and over. The knight hung from the chain, watching everything in silence, my soulmate still slumped over her shoulder hundreds of feet above the city, and me. The Skyship rose higher and moved faster towards the edge of the city. I reached a long, final walkway that led to a huge balcony area that overlooked the thrashing sea far below. The Skyship kept rushing away from the city perimeter and without a second thought, I followed.
I vaulted onto the railings and jumped from the edge of Fenodara.
My fingers stretched out towards the knight, and she reached out towards me at the same time. A moment before my hand closed around hers she laughed and snapped it away. Gravity took over and my body plunged through the air as I fell two thousand feet into the sea below. At the moment before impact, I extended my body and stretched my arms out, trying to brace myself. Still, hitting the surface was like being fired by a cannon into concrete and I felt my fingers and arms shatter from the impact. Water smashed into my face as I sank into the depths. The water was dark and cold. Below me were the remains of dozens of Luminar Battleships and Umbra Skyjets. I flailed my broken arms, and they creaked like old hinges as I fought my way up. After what felt like an age, I broke the surface treading water surrounded by oil and flames. Through the shimmering waves of heat caused by the infernos around me, I saw the Skyship lower down and hover close to the water, sending waves rolling out in great shockwaves. I started to swim towards the ship, ignoring the screaming pain from my body.
There was a rumbling sound from nearby and then the three metal fins I had seen before appeared from below the waterline. They kept rising until a large section of a colossal ship broke the surface like some ancient sea creature. The rear of its domed back started to churn water as its massive engines activated. The knight holding Gabriella jumped down onto its deck, followed by the soldier carrying Grey and the oversized one carrying Troy. I kept swimming, beating against the furious waves that the ship sent towards me. A hatch opened from within and the two guards sank inside. I swam as hard as I could against the water, screaming Gabriella’s name over and over, moving as fast as I could. I had enough time to see the knight point her fireblade down towards me in a provoking gesture. Then she turned and dropped down into the hatch, and it closed behind her.
A piercing sound emanated from the ship, rising in crescendo until it was almost subsonic. It vibrated as it activated, and then a second later the ship burst into life, tearing through the water at an unimaginable speed and again sending huge waves rolling towards me that sent me careering backwards, forcing me under the water. By the time I had broken the surface again, it was shrinking into the far distance.
“Gabriella!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs.
A moment later the ship had disappeared from view, swallowed by the night.
Alex
The invasion of Fenodara ended just as quickly as it started.
Moments after the vessel carrying Gabriella had escaped, the remaining Umbra had been carried away by an influx of Skyships that had landed among the ruined remains of the city. The Needle had taken a few out, but not enough – the weapon had been designed as a long-range defense system that was intended to destroy airborne vessels well before they reached the city. It wasn’t well equipped to stop those that had already
arrived.
Although the Umbra had retreated, it couldn’t be called a defeat. The simply truth was that even with the re-activation of the Needle and release of the deadly Vengeful, the Umbra had been well and truly on the winning side. For some strange reason they had made no attempt to claim Fenodara, and they hadn’t done enough damage to the city to wipe it from the face of Pandemonia. By the principle of Occam’s razor - that the simplest conclusion is usually the correct one – that meant that the Umbra had retreated purely because they had achieved whatever it was they had come to achieve.
With the fighting done, the cold light of the morning had bought with it the dreadful aftermath of war. The Convalescence Centre was filled to breaking point with the injured. They were everywhere – on the beds, on benches and lying shoulder to shoulder on sheets that had been spread out over the floors of the numerous wards. The cries of the sick and helpless poured from every direction, filling my ears. Fenodarian Clerics and nurses were joined by priests – known as Faiths – from the temples, and they all ran between the howling patients, offering medicine to those who would survive and spiritual comfort to those who wouldn’t.
I had been fished from the sea by an early morning patrol boat, unconscious and floating on my back among the wreckage – drained of power and succumbing to my wounds. The crewmembers had mistaken me for one of the many dead, so had apparently been shocked when I’d called out Gabriella’s name in my stupor.
I’d woken to a haze of pain and the sticky discomfort of the various drugs that they were pumping through my body. In my delirious state, I’d tried to shout that I didn’t need help…that I would heal myself in time, and that they needed to stop screwing around and let me go and find Gabriella, but my mouth translated my words into slurring mumbles. So I had stayed lying on the hard bench I’d come around on, tethered to drips containing bright shimmering liquids and being checked over periodically by nurses and Clerics, as I yo-yoed through varying states of awareness.
At one point I came around enough to see the blurred faces of people I cared about, but was still far too out of it to know if they were anything more than figments of my exhausted mind. Delagio, Danny, Scarlett, Hollie and Aran had all been there. At another point I had watched a group of male nurses place Mikey down on a sheet next to me, a blood drip feeding into his arm. I’d tried desperately to reach out and touch him, but he had been too far away and my hand had dropped to the floor as I drifted back into oblivion.
As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I dreamed of Gabriella’s face. From time to time the image of my soulmate was replaced by beating wings and the decimated remains of the Reapers, which dissolved into flickering visions of The Sorrow, standing tall and breathing steadily as it watched me with its hollow eyes. And at the end of it all, two words that tore through my mind like razor blades.
I understand.
*
When my eyes opened properly for the first time, the first thing I noticed was my hand clasped in Sophia’s. The young Witch was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the large ward with her Familiar perched on her shoulder in gecko form. She had signs of battle all over her – a ripped uniform, bloodied lips and a network of bruises that latticed her face. She had also aged several years – the stress of the battle clearly reacting with the miscast spell that had become her curse – appearing closer to her mid-twenties than the teenager she’d been when I’d last seen her. I made a croaking noise and she glanced up, a small smile appearing on her wounded face.
“I thought you were never going to wake up,” she admitted.
“What happened?” I breathed. My thoughts had become hourglass sand.
Her smile faded and she explained.
She told me of the invasion and how the mysterious female knight and her followers had kidnapped Gabriella, Grey and Troy. How all of the Lightwardens and innocents in the Atrius had been killed. How Delagio and Mikey had both been injured in the battle – the latter much more – but were both making good recoveries. How if it hadn’t been for the arrival of Aran and me, then all of the Guardians would have been kidnapped or killed, including Sophia herself. As she explained, the memories of it all came flooding back and tears brimmed in the corners of my eyes.
“It’s my fault,” I lamented. “I didn’t get to you all in time. I stopped to help other people. I…I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t just leave them…But I should have been faster, I-”
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Sophia. “There was nothing more you could have done. You even jumped
from the side of this city suspended a kilometer in the air trying to rescue them, and almost killed yourself in the process.”
“Was…was she still alive?” I asked her, my lip trembling.
Sophia glanced away. “I…I don’t know. She was shot several times…with Banshee Bullets.”
The tears took over and I couldn’t stop myself from crying. Sophia leaned over the bench, wrapping her arms tight around me in an expression of genuine compassion that I hadn’t seen her display for months. As she pressed her cheek against mine, Midnight crawled onto my chest and rubbed his scaled head against my chin in his own display of comfort. “Listen to me. If they are alive then we are going to get them back, no matter what it takes.”
“Okay.”
Sophia pulled away and scooped Midnight up, returning him to her shoulder. I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, staring past her and seeing Mikey, who really was lying on a sheet next to me, his head cradled in Scarlett’s lap. It was then that I noticed the remaining members of Orion. Danny, Hollie and Delagio were all sitting on stools around me. Even the errant Aran was in attendance, albeit staring out of the glass wall that overlooked the smouldering city below, rolling an orange flower between her cerulean fingers.
Delagio looked up first, his Stetson brim rising to reveal a face that was an absolute mess of bruises and cuts. He had a thick bandage wrapped around his midsection and another one over his right hand. But he still managed to crack a trademark smile and gingerly touched his fingers to his hat in greeting. “Hey bud, how you feelin’?”
“Forget about me, how’s Mikey?” I said, glancing down at my unconscious brother.
“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,” Scarlett assured me. “Like Sophia said, he took some heavy hits when that bitch and her weird troops stormed the Atrius, but nothing that a few more pints of O negative and a couple of hours won’t fix.”
“Thank god,” I breathed. “And Del, you’re okay too?”
He gave a difficult wink. “Superman ain’t got nothin’ on me.”
“Thanks for coming to help us, Alex,” said Danny. His lip was swollen and he had a gauze-patched wound that ran from the corner of his eye all the way down to his chin. “If it hadn’t been for you, god knows where the hell we would be now.” Hollie slapped his arm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sa–”
“Guardians!”
The word thundered across the ward, followed by a sudden rush of commotion. We all looked over the crowded sea of the injured towards the entrance. Aegis Caria was storming through the room, followed by several Lightwardens.
“Highwarden, please have some decorum, there are sick citizens here!” hissed a Cleric, trying to block his way forward. Aegis shoved the man out of his way and he staggered back into several of his nurses. The Highwarden continued to charge through the room, weaving between the wounded until he reached us.
“Which one of you was it?” he demanded, his eyes flashing with anger.
Scarlett slid Mikey’s head from her lap and laid it gently down the sheet before standing up. “What is the issue, Highwarden Caria?”
“Someone broke into the Needle control centre and managed to kill two dozen Lightwardens before deploying a hidden signal blocker that stopped it from activating and jamming our communication frequencies. The only other time anything like this has happened was before the attack on Scholaris.” He glared at me. “An attack I told
you
and your woman about!”
Anger ignited in my stomach at the audacity and disrespect of his words. I stared back at him, my eyes narrowing as I forced myself to stay calm.
“Just what are you suggesting?” demanded Scarlett.
“Oh, I am not suggesting anything.” He stabbed a finger at us. “I am outright accusing you. One or more of you was behind this.”
The rest of Orion stood up and the Lightwardens reacted by aiming their gunpikes at us.
“Watch your tone, buddy,” growled Delagio, pulling a set of marbles from his pocket.
“I am not your
buddy!”
barked Aegis. “It is too much of a coincidence that after you all arrived and instantly started causing trouble, we suffered the biggest attack this city has seen in centuries, while we were rendered almost completely defenseless!”
“You suffered a great loss yesterday, Highwarden,” said Scarlett, placing her hands on her hips. “It’s understandable that you would be upset. But that does not excuse you from storming in here and throwing around ridiculous accusations. We had nothing with the attack!”
“You are liars!” He practically screamed, and after several glances from the Clerics lowered his voice a few notches. “You are right, I
have
suffered a great loss…this whole city has; thousands of Lightwardens and countless more citizens are dead as a result of
your
despicable actions. Not to mention the Vengeful I was forced to deploy here instead of sending them to the front lines, where they are desperately needed. It was a miracle that Prince Rashad and the Elders weren’t killed last night. You have cost this city more than can ever be recovered! It will take decades to repair the damage and regain the trust of the citizens. This could cost us the war!” He was losing all semblance of composure, spittle flecking onto his lips as he ranted, his bloodshot eyes as wide as the possessed.
The Highwarden jabbed a finger at me. “You told me to try to contact my men again. You must have known that the signal had been removed. How else would you know unless you were involved?”
“I said to try again because I was suddenly able to get a good connection on my coms,” I explained through gritted teeth. “If the jammer
you mentioned
had still been in place then I wouldn’t have been able to get a clear signal.”
“Still you lie!” He swept a hand around to the rest of Orion. “You lie and you judge and you conspire!”
He’s lost the plot.
I knew Aegis was devastated and firing accusations in the only direction that made sense to him, but his utter misread of the situation coupled with his complete disregard of what we had done – what we had lost – trying to protect
his
city and
his
citizens – was pushing me closer to my limits. My breathing was loud and ragged, filling my ears as I stared at Aegis.
Keep calm, just keep calm.
“How
dare
you stand there and accuse us without a single shred of proof!” hissed Scarlett. “Three of our own squad were taken in that attack! Why the hell would we orchestrate that?”
The commotion had started to wake up the resting injured and they made groans of protests or called for help. Faiths, nurses and Clerics rushed to their sides, trying to calm them.
“I have no idea – maybe as a ruse to throw us off the scent. I don’t know what you Guardians really want, for all we know you could be working for the Umbra.”
Aran turned from the window and looked reticently at the Highwarden. “That is a somewhat nonsensical conclusion for Highwarden Aegis Caria to draw, considering the fact that Alexander Eden was instrumental in opening the Reaper Archives, an achievement that greatly benefits the Luminar cause. In addition, Alexander Eden killed The Sorrow, and badly wounded the Skinshifter Highguard Yeth – two Umbra supporters that were paramount threats in the Ageless War.”
“I am not interested in the words of an Urisk deserter!” he barked at Aran. She said absolutely nothing in reply, just kept looking at him, rolling the stem of the flower between her fingers.
My rage continued to build until it was brimming just beneath the surface. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to take deep breaths, but it was getting to the point of no return.
They took Grey; they took Troy…they took Gabriella. And now this arrogant bastard wants to blame it on us!
It was Danny’s turn to chime in. “How can you be so unyielding in the face of the facts Highwarden? We appreciate that you’ve lost a lot in this battle…but so have we,” he said, stepping towards him with his hands held in a pacifying gesture. “We fought
with
your men, not against them. You need to see how none of what you’re implying makes sense. We didn’t do this, so rather than accusing us…maybe it would be better if we worked together to–”