THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 34: Fathers
“The heart that loves will never fail. Even when shattered by loss, it beats ever on.”
– Titania Cavainna, Arcadian monarch (230 PA)
Gavriel stepped down from the hauler’s cab. The blood of its former owner was still spattered across the dashboard as Nihilists surged out onto the mountainside. Black robes stood out against the gray sky, a tide of shadows rising up to swallow all life. Gavriel’s heart swelled to see his flock filling the ground and sky.
But a single stone held back the tide… A barrel-chested Prian man stood at the edge of the crevasse. He was considerably younger than Gavriel, but still an old man. His shoulders were squared as he fired into the nearest Nihilists. Thirteen of Gavriel’s people were already down, lying in the red-spattered snow, including Pharra, one of his Emberguard. With Hallax gone, only four remained…
A screeching hawk swooped out of the swirling fog, clawing and ripping at Nihilists as they tried to charge at her master. The man whistled and the bird arrowed out. The little beast’s wickedly hooked talons shone red. A young Arcadian man was flying toward the ravine and screamed in pain as the hawk tore through the delicate membrane of his wing. The fairy landed in a jumble of wet robes and feathers.
“Gavriel!” the Prian shouted over the howling gale.
Xartasia stepped lightly down from the truck and stood beside Gavriel. “Pay him no mind. There is work to be done.”
“Face me, Gavriel!” The challenge echoed across the mountain. “You are mine!”
Against Xartasia’s soft-spoken protests, Gavriel strode up the slope. His followers parted before him, pulling back to make way. Gavriel stopped at a distance from the shouting Prian and held up an age-scarred hand. The hawk wheeled and came to rest on the other man’s shoulder.
“Who are you, Prian?” Gavriel asked. Thunder punctuated the question. “Why do you challenge me?”
“My name is Tiberius Myles, captain of the Blue Phoenix! I will have your blood for what you’ve done, Gavriel!”
“What I’ve done?” Gavriel asked. “I will deliver your world from pain! I will open the way for death–”
“Shut up!” Tiberius snarled at him. “I’m not talking about that. The Pylos police are on their way to stop you. But you’ll answer to me for what you’ve done to mine!”
“You are Maeve’s captain,” Gavriel said slowly. “Are you angry that I killed her? She is free now, Captain Myles.”
“Maeve chose her own life, the good and the bad. No, I’m going to burn you down for what you did to Duaal!” There were tears in Tiberius’ fierce blue eyes. He held his gun pointed right at Gavriel. “Duaal Sinnay! Do you remember him?”
Now Gavriel frowned, a seething suspicion growing inside him.
“Yes, I remember,” he said.
“He was only a boy!” Tiberius shouted. Even his hawk glared coldly at Gavriel. “A child! You used Duaal. You hurt him!”
“And what does the boy mean to you?”
“Everything! I found him on the Phoenix! I took him away from Prianus! But he’s never forgotten what you did! He’s still suffering… Because of you!” Tiberius’ face was red with fury and the tears fell, joining the rain beaded in his white beard. “If I can kill you, maybe he’ll finally have some peace!”
Gavriel’s fury rose to meet Tiberius’.
“You took the boy?” he asked. “It took me over a decade to replace the power I lost with him!”
“You’ll face me for what you did to my boy! Duel me!” Tiberius roared.
“I answer your challenge!”
Xartasia fanned her wings in irritation. “Lord Gavriel, we do not have time for such distractions!”
“Take the flock to the Waygate and await me,” Gavriel told her. “For what this man has done, what he’s cost me, I will send him into darkness myself!”
“Gavriel…”
“Go!” the ancient Nihilist commanded. He shouted out to the Nihilists. “Follow her!”
Xartasia pursed her lips and sang a single high note. She turned away and swept off into the mist. The rest of the Church of Nihil streamed past the old men and toward the ravine.
“Where are we going?” Xen gasped as Kemmer caught up.
“Where can we go, you little idiot? Unless you can climb that–” Kemmer pointed to the sheer wall of wet gray stone. “–we’re stuck down here!”
Loud thuds and screams for blood chased the retreating archeologists down the canyon. With the ladder gone, the Nihilists were lowering ropes and cables — probably salvaged from their hauler — over the ravine’s edge.
They were climbing down fast, with no regard for injury as the sick and less athletic of their numbers slipped or even fell. Darius struggled to keep up with the other and leaned against the wall of the crevice. Every time he reached out to steady himself, Darius grunted. Blood streamed from his wounded arm and Ava scrambled back to help her brother. He pushed her away.
“Just keep moving!” he told her breathlessly. “Those bastards are right behind us!”
As if in answer, shouts and darkly exultant songs echoed across the mountain. The Arcadian Nihilists had no need for ladders or ropes and they wheeled, diving down into the ravine on angelic white wings. A bullet whizzed down the crevasse and cracked into the wall, flinging pieces of rock in every direction. Chips of stone struck Kemmer in the cheek, stinging and cutting a pair of red lines into his skin.
The cultists were closing in quickly and another shot rang out. They didn’t have long.
“Get to the Waygate!” Kemmer instructed.
“Doc!” Phillip shouted.
Ava and Xen had made it to their camp and were struggling to pull a worktable up against the side of the Waygate, into some sort of barricade. Phillip darted out from around one of the overturned tables and grabbed Kemmer. They dove back behind cover just as the Nihilists opened fire again. Guns popped and the bullets drove deep dents into the upended tabletops. A laser bored a suddenly molten hole in the steel and seared down the length of Ava’s leg. She grabbed the wound and hot blood spurted from between her fingers.
“Ava!” Phillip shouted.
Darius and Xen hunkered behind another one of the tables. Kemmer steadied his arms on the edge of his own makeshift barricade and emptied his pistol into the oncoming Nihilists. They were close together as they charged down the ravine and Kemmer’s shots tore through five of them, but there were a dozen more to replace each one.
The Arcadians circled his Waygate like oversized white vultures, beating their wings hard and fast to remain aloft in the wind-swept rain. In the presence of the quickly growing crowd, the light of the Waygate rippled faster and brighter, like an iridescent ocean. The whole thing seemed almost alive. Alive and excited.
“Take the Waygate!”
The order rang through the ravine and Kemmer peered carefully around the edge of the barrier. A woman perched on a thin spar of rain-slicked stone above the Waygate arch. It was another Arcadian. For a moment, Kemmer thought it was Maeve. It wasn’t her, he realized, but this fairy looked very much like Tiberius’ first mate. She was older — as best Kemmer could guess — and wore her raven-black hair long. Unlike the dirty, diseased Nihilists pouring into the ravine, this Arcadian was gowned all in perfectly clean, flowing white. She raised her hand.
“Take the Waygate!” she sang out once more. “For Lord Gavriel and the end of all! Take it!”
The cult surged forward, guns blazing. Their bullets and lasers sizzled in the rain as they chopped and tore at the archeologists’ flimsy barrier. Xen jumped to his feet, screaming for them to run.
“Up to the Waygate!” Kemmer shouted. “Get onto the stairs! It won’t help us much against those bird-backs, but we can defend them against the rest!”
Ava leaned on Phillip, blood streaming down her leg, and the two of them ran to the huge white steps of the Waygate. Darius, Xen and Kemmer bolted after them.
The ravine was full of lead and red laserfire and chaos. Ava just couldn’t move fast enough. A pack of cultists dashed across the wet ground and then swarmed over her and Phillip. Ava shoved the geologist aside just as a tailless Lyran leapt at her, foam streaking his muzzle. The Nihilist sank long fangs into Ava’s throat and tore. Blood fountained up into the air, liquid rubies in the light of the Waygate.
“Ava!” Phillip screamed.
“Move!” Darius shouted. He grabbed Phillip and hauled him up the steps of the Waygate.
“Let go of me!”
“Ava wouldn’t want you to die for her, you dumb slat!” Darius grunted. “Come on!”
A bright laser blast lanced through Xen’s stomach. He swayed and pressed shaking silver hands to the wound. Kemmer caught his elbow and struggled, trying to drag the other archeologist up. The clean white of the ziggurat was growing slick with blood and rain… but the lasers and the bullets seemed to simply slide off without leaving a mark. Kemmer yanked Xen’s arm.
“Move, you arrogant bastard!” Kemmer grunted. “Get up!”
But Xen wouldn’t move and the color was fading from his compound eyes. “I can’t. Tell Xia–”
Kemmer never found out what Xen wanted him to tell her. The Nihilists were at the foot of the stair and the air was full of fairies. One of the bird-back bastards swooped low and stabbed a spear into Xen’s chest, terribly and finally silencing the Ixthian. Kemmer made a futile grab at the Arcadian, but he was already out of reach. Swearing, the archeologist clambered up the oversized stairs, toward the Waygate.
Darius and Phillip had pressed their backs up against the huge shimmering ring. It protected them from the Nihilists climbing the steps, but offered no defense against the Arcadians circling overhead, shouting and singing. Phillip was doubled over, clutching a wound in his stomach. His freckles stood out against his pale skin.
Darius sported several fresh red wounds. His shirt clung to his skin, wet with blood and rain. The digger had grabbed a one-armed Arcadian and run him through with his own spear. It was a knife lashed to a broom handle, really, but the weapon had done its job. Kemmer threw himself down against the Waygate beside Darius as the other Prian kicked the impaled fairy cultist off the top of the pyramid.
“I had no idea you were so useful,” Kemmer gasped.
“You never asked,” Darius said. His voice was tight with pain. “You just assumed I didn’t know how to do anything but dig. We’re not going to win this, doc.”
There was nothing to say. After all Kemmer had done to try to protect the Waygate, he was going to lose it. And to a bunch of… of uneducated aliens!
Darius fended off a Dailon cultist with his appropriated spear, but a cluster of Arcadians dove out of the sky and snatched Phillip. The geologist screamed as they yanked him off his feet, up into the air. Darius shouted and hurled his spear at the Nihilist holding Phillip’s arms. The clumsily-made weapon fell well short of its intended target and clattered down the steps of the Waygate. The Arcadians flew higher.
“Phil!” Darius shouted.
If the freckled geologist gave any answer, it was whipped away by the wind. The Arcadians abruptly parted, releasing Phillip. He shrieked and plunged to the rocky ravine floor. There was a horrid crunch and Phillip was still.
Darius swore and charged down the stairs toward the broken body.
“No!” Kemmer shouted. “Darius, hold your damned ground!”
The Cult of Nihil was waiting for him. A human in red and a tarnished-looking Ixthian grabbed Darius, dragging him down to the rain-slicked steps. He shouted and wrenched his uninjured arm free. Darius balled his fist and slammed it into the Ixthian’s nose, but before he could stand up, the human stomped down on his knee. The Ixthian pulled a snub-nosed gun from her wet black robe and shot Darius twice in the stomach. The digger groaned, pressing his hands against his bleeding guts as he died.
Hundreds of the moaning, crying, singing and howling Nihilists surged all around the Waygate, closing in on Kemmer. The woman in white watched imperiously from on high.
Another Arcadian dropped on top of Kemmer and he dove out of the way. The fairy couldn’t correct his course in time and crashed into the Waygate. He tumbled down the stairs and into the other Nihilists. Kemmer ran after him and landed badly on one ankle. Something inside popped agonizingly, but he didn’t slow.
Kemmer snatched up a fallen gun and swung it around at the regal Arcadian woman. He fired, but she was far away and the laser only bored a steaming hole into cracked stone.
Robed cultists leapt at Kemmer. They had guns, too, and bullets slammed him in the chest like hammer blows. A laser burned down Kemmer’s side, exposing the bone of his hip and filling the air with the sharp, acrid scent of burnt flesh. Kemmer’s legs could no longer support him and he fell. The gun spun away across the slick white stairs.
The black-haired Arcadian spread her wings and glided down to stand before Kemmer, looking at him with startling violet eyes. He struggled to rise, but he couldn’t lift his heavy, limp limbs out of the spreading puddle of steaming blood. Icy rain splashed his face, every drop as heavy as lead. The fairy reached into one white sleeve and drew a slender glass dagger. It gleamed like ice.
“You discovered this Waygate,” she told him in a musical voice. “By doing so, you have saved me a great deal of work and for that, I thank you.”
With an effort that brought tears to his eyes, Kemmer grabbed for the fairy’s knife. She smiled — perhaps pleased at his tenacity — and pushed Kemmer’s hands back down to the blood-streaked Waygate stairs, then drew the glass knife across his throat. As his life drained away, the last thing Kemmer Andus saw was his Waygate glowing with cold auroral light.
Gavriel faced Tiberius across the field of ice and mist. To judge by the screams and gunshots echoing up from the ravine, Xartasia was leading the Nihilists successfully to the Waygate. All that remained was to deal with this… thief.
Gavriel raised his arms. Wind billowed his ancient robes and raked across his sallow skin.
“Where is the boy?” he asked.
Tiberius stood as steady and unmovable as a mountain. “Duaal. His name is Duaal. He’s not your tool and he’s not a boy. Duaal’s a fine man — in spite of you!”
“In spite of me?” Gavriel asked. “I gave that boy the only taste of power that he will ever know.”
“You hurt him! You used him!”
Gavriel flexed long, spidery fingers. The knuckles cracked like snapping twigs. “And what have you done for the boy? What kind of life have you given him? Even you speak of his pain. If you truly cared for the boy, you would kill him and save him the torment of life. When I have called forth the Devourers, I will finish what you lack the strength to do.”
Tiberius’ face went suddenly as white as the snow. “You’ll never hurt Duaal again!”
“That is no longer your concern, Captain Myles,” Gavriel said. He laced his creaking fingers together and then brandished them. “Ka li’ae avael baelenox!”
“Fly!” Tiberius shouted to his hawk at the same time.
A burning line of flame sizzled through the rain as the hook-beaked bird streaked toward Gavriel. Tiberius lunged to the side and fired, but the bullet cracked off into the low gray clouds over Gavriel’s shoulder.
With a short song and a flick of Gavriel’s wrist, another red-gold lance of fire lit up the storm. It seared into Tiberius’ ribs, burning a smoking hole through cloth and flesh. The old Prian’s jaw clenched and he brought up his gun to bear on Gavriel.
“Na illya ma’naari su!” the old mage sang.
Summoned lightning arced and snapped across Tiberius’ gun. The old Prian’s fingers spasmed and the weapon fell steaming into the snow. Gavriel smiled and raised his hands again, but a dark shape shot from the sky.
It was that damned hawk, screeching and diving with her talons extended. Gavriel flung his arms across his face as the hawk clawed at him. Pain exploded in his left eye and the world filled with wet red agony. Gavriel grabbed the bird and flung her away. Her talons gleamed with blood and clutched rags of torn skin.
Gavriel shouted another lightning spell and filled the foggy air with harsh blue-white light. But the hawk was gone, vanished once more into the dark storm clouds. Gavriel turned back to Tiberius.
The Prian lay sprawled in the blood-dappled snow. His breath came quick and shallow. Sky blue eyes stared accusingly up into the heavens, unyieldingly hard. Gavriel stood over the dying man.
“You were brave, Tiberius Myles,” he said. “But the darkness is coming. Soon, the boy will join you in death.”
Gavriel stepped over Tiberius and then strode to the edge of the ravine. Nihilists were busily reattaching the ladder to steel pegs in the stone. Those who had not climbed down into the narrow crack gasped, pointing to his wounded face and useless left eye.
“Lord Gavriel, are you alright?” one of them asked.
Gavriel waved the man off. The pain blazed, yes, but he had endured worse and there was too much to do.
“It will not matter for long,” he said. “When night falls tonight, it falls across the entire galaxy!”
Behind him, the old hawk landed beside Tiberius. She hopped closer to her fallen master through the snow and nuzzled his shoulder, keening pitifully.
