Shield and Crocus Page 13

  Aegis stood victorious on the fallen giant. “Good work, everyone. Make sure the guards are secured before we move on.” Sabreslate sunk through the floor, then emerged a moment later and beckoned her teammates. “There’s a sewer line down here. Bring them to me and I’ll stow the group.” She ferried the guards down in groups of five, as much mass as she could comfortably move at once through stone using her birthright. The other Shields stood watch over the demolished room, broken tables, and scorched walls. Blurred Fists and Sabreslate doused the small fires, Ghost Hands levitated the explosives up to the door from their resting place in the previous hall, and First Sentinel prepared for the next push.

  Aegis walked up to First Sentinel. The older Shield felt his son’s unease.

  “Something’s off,” Aegis said.

  Out of habit, First Sentinel checked over his shoulder.

  “Keep your eyes open. I doubt Nevri and the Smiling King went in on a trap, but…”

  “All done,” Sabreslate said, rising out of the ground. Blurred Fists moved to the door, and First Sentinel gave him the go-ahead. Sapphire piled up several tables and chairs to cover the doorway they’d come in through as the rest of the Shields waited by the far door. Whether the door would hold depended entirely on who was doing the pursuing. If it was a Spark-touched with gigantic ears or twenty fingers, they’d have some time. If it was Onyx, the barricade wouldn’t last three seconds.

  First Sentinel looked back from the barred door to see Blurred Fists settle back into sight. His excitement overtook his discipline as he slipped back into Pronai speed speech.

  “We’re almost there. Rebirth engine’s in the next big room.”

  Aegis gathered the group, speaking in low tones.

  “Everyone keep your heads. We stick to the plan and this goes our way. Not Nevri’s way, not the Smiling King’s way. By tomorrow, the people of Audec-Hal will not have to face a storm every other week, and we’ll have set into motion the toppling of the tyrants that made this city a living hell.”

  Sapphire held open the door, and they entered as quietly as possible. They crossed the last corridor in hushed paces, closing in on the artifact.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  First Sentinel

  First Sentinel stood in front of the black door that led to the Rebirth engine. One hand holding the suitcase, he closed his other glove around the tarnished copper doorknob and looked to Aegis, standing at the ready. Aegis nodded, and First Sentinel threw open the door.

  The room was mostly empty of furniture, save for a few tables along the outskirts, and the Rebirth engine in the middle. It was a towering contraption of gears, flesh, and valves. A ripple of energy arced between the jagged-bone peaks of two fleshy towers; a simmering Spark-storm just waiting to be unleashed. First Sentinel couldn’t help from wondering if there was a person at the heart of it, or several people. He watched fleshy sacs rise and fall in a shallow rhythm within the body of the machine, gears spinning all the while.

  And below the artifact stood fifty Spark-touched, with Onyx at their head.

  Onyx’s gem-black skin glistened in the full light of a hundred lanterns. The Spark-touched Freithin turned to face the Shields, smashing a ready fist into a waiting hand. He looked perfectly rested. Nevri, you lying bitch.

  “Finally, some excitement.” Onyx lumbered forward into a run. Sapphire stepped up to match, with Aegis flanking her. They took his charge together, hitting hard and rolling towards a wall.

  “The storms stop now, Onyx,” Aegis said in between blows.

  First Sentinel re-calculated, a new plan spinning out in his head. He wove the thought into a net and used it to hold back his own worry.

  [Play crowd control and don’t let anyone get out,] he thought, commands passing through Ghost Hands to the group. The suitcase hung by a strap inside the back of his longcoat. He hoped that would be enough to protect the device and keep it from being activated by all the fighting. He didn’t want to risk leaving it with the dynamite, for fear they’d accidentally wipe themselves off the map.

  First Sentinel fit his left hand into a shock glove and drew a fighting staff with the other. A Spark-touched Ikanollo woman with five over-muscled arms closed on him. First Sentinel circled back and away from her three-armed side.

  With arms like that, she could wrap me up in a bow and present me to the Smiling King, he thought. The Spark-touched woman jumped at him. He wrapped a fighting stick around one of her arms, then pivoted on one leg. Leverage swung her past and away from him. As she passed, he hit her across the face with a right cross. Electricity discharged into her face and she went down like a felled tree. Praise be to the City Mother for glass-jawed thugs.

  The elder Shield found himself the calm at the center of the storm. Shields and Spark-touched circled, swooped, and clashed throughout the room while the machine that brought them here bristled with a growing storm.

  He kicked, punched, and dodged his way through three more Spark-touched, making his way to the Rebirth engine. Across the room, Aegis and Sapphire were tagteaming Onyx, using hammer and anvil tactics to press the Spark-touched Freithin from all sides.

  Blurred Fists was fighting off a pink swarm of starling-sized sharks. He dodged instinctively under a reptile–bird hybrid with two wings, four legs, and a yard-long tail.

  Looking back, First Sentinel saw a Spark-touched forming a foot-wide snake’s maw just feet from his head.

  A metamorph. Wonderful. it pounced on him with one, two, three quick bites. He scrambled back, trying to keep the staff between him and the Spark-touched. The metamorph grew a set of claws on its body, which lashed out on spindly limbs.

  The Spark-touched creature bit him in the back, but its teeth were unable to pierce the longcoat’s enchantment. First Sentinel drew a knife and pinned one of its claws against a table. It shifted away from the stab-wound, forming a sitting bear, but as soon as it had a spine, First Sentinel wrapped the fighting staff around its neck and pulled up, then pushed and twisted down. The metamorph was too slow, and the snap resonated through the room as its body went limp.

  Some of the tyrants’ minions could be subdued, but First Sentinel had never known a metamorph that stayed unconscious for longer than a moment.

  Where’s Aegis? First Sentinel had lost track of his son, and panic ripped at him for a half-second as he scanned the room. Aegis was still fighting Onyx, but the fight had rampaged all the way across the room since he’d last seen the boy.

  Keep going, old man. Stay mobile and get to Onyx, use the drainer disks. a cacophony of powers and screams, grunts and blows filled the room, and as he scanned the melee, First Sentinel saw an opening.

  [Push the Spark-touched away from the machine and Onyx towards it. Swinging Elbow on my mark.] First Sentinel trusted Ghost Hands to relay the message as he jumped up and then off a table to avoid the shifting and swirling battle between Sabreslate and a Spark-touched whose body was made of blades. He pushed and dodged his way through the more threatening but less trained Spark-touched guards to get into place for the Swinging elbow maneuver.

  Onyx had a hand around Sapphire’s neck, using her as a shield against Aegis, who dodged around and over to get an open shot. First, First Sentinel would have to get Sapphire free. She had a gash on her side from a bone strike, an elbow, or a knee.

  First Sentinel holstered his fighting staff and pulled out one of his drainers as Aegis ducked under a swinging arm. First Sentinel rolled over his son’s back—a move they’d practiced countless times—then dropped to the ground and slapped the drainer against Onyx’s calf with a palm heel strike. He couldn’t apply them more than one at a time, or the effects wouldn’t compound.

  With luck, Onyx wouldn’t feel it right away, take it as an ineffectual strike, and give him time to apply the second disk.

  But First Sentinel didn’t count on his luck for much of anything. The drainer would sap the magical energy out of anyone or anything, and First Sentinel knew from previous experience that it
even worked on the Spark-touched. How many it would take to weaken Onyx enough that he could be subdued, that remained to be seen.

  Rolling up and away, First Sentinel targeted Onyx’s grip on Sapphire. She was wrestling and punching Onyx’s arm, trying to free herself, but the Spark-touched Freithin’s strength was legendary. His thick fingers tightened around her throat, and First Sentinel saw she was weakening. Each of her punches had a little less strength.

  Stay strong, Rova. Hold on for just a second more.

  Sapphire dropped all of her weight forward, pulling Onyx off his balance for a second. First Sentinel took the chance and slapped on a second drainer disk.

  Onyx regained his footing and hit First Sentinel with an uppercut that sent him sprawling toward the wall. The old Shield braced for impact, already anticipating the broken bones. Instead of a painful crunch, he hit the wall as if it were a downy mattress, and slid down to the floor. First Sentinel looked up to see Ghost Hands turn back toward the rest of the room.

  [Thank you,] he thought, and found his feet again, shaking off the hit. Aegis landed a solid jab to Onyx’s middle and Sapphire tore herself out of Onyx’s grip, gasping. First Sentinel sprinted across the floor, pain flaring in his hip. He pulled up the pain and added it to his voice as he yelled, “Mark!”

  Aegis leapt at Sapphire, who grabbed him by the arm, swung him in a circle, tightening the circle to accelerate, then threw him directly at Onyx. Aegis straightened into a post with the shield face-first, and as Onyx leaned for the impact, First Sentinel dove into a slide and scissorkicked the Freithin’s calf.

  Unbalanced, Onyx toppled backwards when Aegis crashed into him. The young hero brought down the shield on Onyx’s windpipe as they collapsed, and First Sentinel slapped another drainer on the Spark-touched’s calf. That’s all of them.

  The three Shields all jumped onto Onyx as the big man slowed. After a moment, Onyx leapt up and threw all three of them off with a scream, murder in his eyes.

  So much for a quiet, efficient in and out. Recovering into a roll, First Sentinel took a second to check on the crowd. Over half the Spark-touched were already down or out. Blurred Fists cut a red swath through the room, supported by Ghost Hands’ air dominance and Sabreslate’s flowing stone weapons.

  Despite the chaos, First Sentinel thought for a moment that they were well-in-hand. Then a spiny Spark-touched pincushion shot a foot-long needle through Ghost Hands’ side. She had strength enough to float to the ground instead of dropping, but her shields dropped, and the two Spark-touched she’d been containing took to the air.

  One flew on buzzing insect wings the other soared on gouts of fire. First Sentinel crossed the room again, moving to Ghost Hands’ side as the tide turned against them. The flame-winged Spark-touched rained fire down on Sabreslate, forcing her to duck and pull a semi-sphere of rock around her to block the flames.

  With Sabreslate curled up under her sphere of rock, Blurred Fists was left alone with the crowd. A door swung open and more Spark-touched poured through. City Mother, how many of them are there? Panic rose up again, feeding on his fatigue.

  First Sentinel pulled a Spark-touched with a huge mouth and three rows of serrated teeth off of Ghost Hands, dropped it with a haymaker. He turned back to the Qava, producing a bandage from his belt.

  [ Stay still,] he thought, and then yanked the needle out in one clean motion. He turned and impaled the needle in another charging Spark-touched. First Sentinel bound his friend’s wound as best as he could in a hurry.

  [ I’m fine. Get back to the fight,] she said in his mind, her voice strained. She may not be fine, but she can at least keep herself out of the fight if need be.

  Ghost Hands proved her strength with the extension of an arm. First Sentinel followed her motion and saw the airborne fire-starter raining another plume of flame at Sabreslate. The Spark-touched spun in the air, losing control, then crashed into a smoldering heap. The fires subsided and Sabreslate emerged from her dome.

  After smiling to his old friend, First Sentinel rejoined the fight with Onyx, who was still trading blows with Sapphire and Aegis. He was a juggernaut, fighting on with three drainer disks sapping his strength. Onyx landed a kick to Aegis’ chest, knocking the young Shield into a wall.

  I don’t have time for this. First Sentinel reached into a rear pouch on his belt and pulled out a sticky black marble, palming it on his left hand as he advanced. Let’s hope this works.

  The Spark-touched behemoth reached out and stopped Sapphire’s punch in mid-swing, though the force of her blow pushed him back a few inches. He was fading, just not fast enough for First Sentinel’s liking.

  “When I present the pile of your broken bodies, the Smiling King’s rewards will be limitless!” Onyx bellowed. “You’re a fool. What’s to say he won’t take off your head for the presumption of killing us yourself?” Aegis said, pulling himself up and back into the fight. Good. Draw his attention. And Sapphire, keep him occupied, let me get in. Onyx obliged, burying a knee in Sapphire’s side and then turning to face Aegis. Sometimes First Sentinel didn’t know which orders were being relayed by Ghost Hands and which his friends just intuited from their own skill. It seldom mattered.

  “You don’t know him like I do,” Onyx said. “The Smiling King is not mad, he’s brilliant. He has found enlightenment in the Spark.”

  Aegis threw a horizontal slash with the shield, but Onyx parried it down, and then threw an elbow over at Sapphire. She ducked under and closed for a grapple.

  First Sentinel shifted around to Onyx’s left, where First Sentinel had planted the first drainer.

  The old Shield dodged a wide swipe from Onyx by dropping into a roll, which he regretted as pain flared across his hip again. That was a terrible idea.

  He missed his target—right on top of the drainer—and instead slapped the marble into the side of Onyx’s foot, sticking the artifact to the ground as well. The force of the impact activated the enchantment as First Sentinel ripped his gloved hand away.

  The marble started to expand, swallowing Onyx’s foot and sticking it to the floor.

  When faced with superior strength, mobility is the key to victory. The first Aegis taught him that.

  Onyx pulled at the expanding marble, ripping it from the floor and swinging his leg at Sapphire. She dodged away, putting space between herself and the Spark-touched.

  If he put his leg down, it’d stick to the ground and trap him, but without it, he had no balance.

  Sapphire grabbed Onyx’s wrist, and with Aegis’ help, they knocked him to the ground. The marble continued to grow, enveloping Onyx’s knee. Sapphire and Aegis pinned his upper body as First Sentinel slammed a heel into his lower back, landing all his weight on another nerve cluster. When Onyx’s bellow was that of a beast, not a man, First Sentinel knew it was over.

  Sabreslate molded lengths of flexible stone rope, which Blurred Fists tied around the Spark-touched, locking them down. Sapphire and Aegis held Onyx, who was still screaming for the Shields’ heads as the marble covered him entirely. First Sentinel stepped back from the marble, drew out the small suitcase and flipped it open.

  Still intact. Thank the City Mother.

  “Hold the room. Ghost Hands, the dynamite.” “everyone else, bar the entrances until we’re ready.” First Sentinel pulled out his grapple gun and hooked the line to one of the bone spires.

  He climbed up the undulating surface of the Rebirth engine, getting himself into position to arrange the dynamite just so. With Ghost Hands injured, he could afford to do some more of the work.

  His Qava friend levitated the dynamite beside him, and First Sentinel built a small pyramid of the explosives, then wound the fuses together and trailed the cord down and off the device.

  Kicking off of the fleshy side of the still-bristling Rebirth engine, First Sentinel descended his line, recoiled the grapple, and wound the fuse out into the center of the room.

  Blurred Fists would light the fuse when the group was clear, since he
could run in and out in a heartbeat. First Sentinel filled the room with his voice. “We’re heading north; walls come down until we reach the last one.”

  “Let’s go!” First Sentinel shouted. At his command, Sapphire charged the north wall. She dropped her head and slammed her full weight up through the wall, punch ing a gaping hole.

  “Keep going!” Aegis helped Sapphire through the next one with a shoulder and shield slam. Sabreslate carried Ghost Hands along as the Qava held her side. The rest of the Shields crawled through the rough holes in the walls, and time slipped away as they broke their way out of the building.

  “Faster!” First Sentinel called. He pulled a spare stick of dynamite from the crate, tossed it through the hole made by Sapphire’s fist. They cleared away from the explosion, and then filtered through the rubble.

  They reached the last wall, which was far thicker. Aegis and Sapphire’s blows barely cracked the reinforced stone. “Find a door, now!”

  Sabreslate beckoned Aegis over to help with her partner, then stepped up to the stone and concentrated. The wall rolled back from her touch, slowly but surely. For small walls, the direct way was faster, but with walls that thick, Sabreslate’s talent couldn’t be matched.

  A ten-by-five-foot door opened, and Sabreslate dropped her arms, huffing.

  Blurred Fists ran back inside to light the fuse as the Shields made their way to safe distance.

  The group found an open patch of cobblestone street.

  They circled up, joining hands to align with Sabreslate.

  The Jalvai shaped the cobblestones beneath them, and the group sunk through the street to wade through the foundation, made semi-solid by Sabreslate’s talent. Wrapped in the turquoise threads of her empathic tie to stone, Sabreslate pushed along a shifting pocket of air for a city block, getting them to what First Sentinel hoped was a safe distance. Sabreslate solidified the ground beneath them again and pushed the Shields back up to street level.