Centyr Dominance (20 page)

They only needed to hold them for another ten minutes
to allow her main force to catch up to the enemy’s rear. Then it would be
over, but for the lengthy chore of freeing the people of their metal parasites
while trying to minimize casualties.

“If I can save most of them, perhaps it will excuse
some of the evil I have done today,” Moira muttered to herself.

Of course, nothing ever goes according to plan.

In the distance near the city gates a large plume of
dust and dirt rose into the air, obscuring their vision of a small area, but
Moira’s magesight saw the metal monster rising from the ground where it had
been hidden. It was another dead, metal monstrosity like the one they had
encountered before—like the one that had nearly killed Grace.

It had arisen in the midst of her spell-twin possessed
allies, and it wasted no time as it set to work. Leveling one of its strange
arms, a heavy sound like the buzzing of hornets crossed the distance to her
ears. A small gout of flames flickered at the end of the strange arm, while
dust began puffing up from the ground wherever it pointed. Anything between
the metal creature and the area where the dust was exploding upward simply fell
dead. It swung the weapon in a slow arc, scything her troops down like grass
before a farmer’s sickle. A mental scream filled Moira’s head as her
collective self felt the deaths of hundreds of its hosts.

It swung the weapon in the direction of Moira and her
defenders and they flinched as their shields shivered with many unseen
impacts. Some of the enemy’s own soldiers fell as the weapon’s invisible
hornets tore through them. Then the weapon swung away as the metal creature
turned it to kill those on the other side of it.

Chad’s mouth was agape, and then he spoke, “That thing
is three quarters of a mile away…”

Moira’s possessed allies tried to fight. Some used
what remained of their aythar, and all that of their hosts, to channel blasts
of fire at the strange monster, but it simply ignored their attacks, seemingly
impervious to flames. At close range, its weird weapon roared and any flesh
and blood body that entered its path simply collapsed, frequently in multiple
pieces.

Some of them created shields to defend themselves, but
their efforts were in vain. The thundering weapon destroyed everything that
sought to block its aim.

Gram ran forward, covered in shining steel. Thorn was
in the form of two long swords now, one in either hand as he charged. “Open
the shield!” he yelled.

Moira’s spell-twins near the center of her defensive
line did as he asked, and the enemy began rushing through as the barrier before
them vanished. Gram slew any within reach as he passed, his blades flickering out
to cut into legs and throats, leaving a bloody swath of the dead behind him.

The shield went back up after he went by, but some
twenty of the citizens of Halam had survived Gram’s passage. They charged
toward Moira and Cassandra, but they started falling immediately as feathered
shafts began appearing in chests and throats. One of her spell-twins froze the
few who remained and seconds later arrows finished those as well. Chad drew
his long knife as soon as the danger was past, moving forward to salvage what
arrows he could from the dead and dying.

Gram continued his charge, slipping through men and
women with such grace and speed that few even tried to stop him. Those who did
manage to block his path found themselves dead before they could react. He ran
through throngs of parasite controlled citizens, trusting their bulk to shield
him from the vision of the enemy he sought.

Half a mile went by in a flash while the beast
slaughtered the spell-possessed minions who surrounded it near the city gates.
Gram broke free of the crowds and continued running, but the thing turned its
attention toward him then. Dirt erupted from the ground on his left and he
zigged to the right, but even his enhanced speed was not enough. Before he had
made another ten feet he felt sledgehammer blows thudding into his armor,
throwing him down. The chattering roar of the metal creature’s weapon followed
a split second later.

Moira’s heart quailed when she saw Gram go down in an
explosion of dirt. The dust hid him from view, but her magesight never lost
him, his body lay still on the cold earth.

“No!” screamed Alyssa, running forward to press
against the shield that held the rest of the enemy back, as though she would
fling herself into the press to get to Gram’s side. She pounded her fists
against empty air that felt as solid as stone. “Let me pass! I have to help
him.”

The glowing defender closest to her turned a grief
stricken face toward her and answered in a voice that sounded identical to
Moira’s, “I’m sorry. I won’t let you throw your life away too.” Hundreds of
bodies were pressed against the shield just a few feet from where they stood,
straining to reach them.

The strange metal beast returned to killing Moira’s
minions as it advanced steadily toward their position. Sweeping left and right,
it slew men and women by hundreds and then thousands, and Moira felt each death
with a stab of pain and despair.

What do I do? What?!
She
felt paralyzed by fear and doubt. Moira knew that she was out of her depth.
The enemy’s champion was killing her newly made army and approaching steadily.
Her own position was now completely surrounded. Her defenders had retreated
into a circle using their shields to keep the thronging horde of people at a
distance of only fifty feet from where she and her companions stood.

In the distance, her minions continued to assault the
metal beast, throwing blasts of fire and simple force against it to little
effect. One of them had the bright idea of pulling the ground from beneath it,
but the tactic only worked for a moment. The beast targeted that one next,
when it clambered from the pit that had appeared under it. They were scattered
and fleeing back toward their creator now.

She was defeated. She had been a fool to think she
could liberate an entire city, much less do it bloodlessly.
I’m just a
stupid girl, playing at war and thinking I could save people. Now they’re all
dying—because of me.
There was nothing left. Their only hope was to
accept defeat and take wing. That was assuming they could even escape. There
was every chance that the demonic beast would shoot Cassandra out of the air as
they took flight.

She remembered the day she and her brother had tried
to save Dorian Thornbear, and failed. Now his son was probably dying on the
field, alone. Once again she was helpless to aid her friends. How could she
have thought that she could succeed?

The monster was only a half mile away, chasing what
remained of her army. They were spread out and running in every direction,
forcing it to fire selectively to kill them. Its accuracy was unbelievable.
Moira could almost imagine it looking at her as it advanced implacably.

And then a figure rose from the earth, sunlight
glinting from the polished steel that covered his form. Gram had waited until
the enemy’s champion had almost passed him, moving some twenty feet away.
Leaping up as the monster leveled its weapon in the opposite direction, he
closed the space between them in a flash. Thorn was in its original form now,
that of a long two-handed great sword, and he swept it across in a powerful
slash. Enchanted steel cut through alien metal, and one of the monster’s legs
fell away.

Moira’s heart leapt into her throat as a surge of hope
swept over her, and Alyssa cried out in pure delight, “Yes!”

The thing had begun to swivel its upper torso even
before Gram reached it, and removing one leg didn’t destabilize it. It was
still standing level on its three remaining supports, and while removing a limb
might be enough to send a living being into shock, the metal beast made no
particular outcry of pain.

There were no eyes that he could detect, but it had
seen his approach, of that Gram was sure. Somehow the monster could see in all
directions. Ducking low to avoid the perilous line of death being spewed out
by its weapon-arm, he bent at the knees and tucked his shoulder in beneath the
nearest leg and then straightened, heaving the massive limb skyward.

The weight was more than he expected. He had thought
the thing hollow, perhaps containing a living occupant, but its bulk felt more
as if it were made of almost solid metal. A normal man would not have budged
it; several together might have done little more than shift it slightly, but
Gram was not a normal man. Inside his armor his cheeks turned red and his jaw
clenched as he lifted, an angry growl escaping his lips.

Thorn pulsed in his hand, beating in time with his
heart, and then the leg was above his head as the massive beast overbalanced,
tipping backward to land on its side. The weapon that had killed so many
already was facing the earth, unable to fire as he shifted his stance. He lifted
his sword, and prepared to remove another leg, but the second arm, which had
been dormant thus far, began to track his movement.

Gram dropped flat, close beside the thing, too low for
its arm to follow him as it rang out with a strange metallic clacking sound.
He couldn’t remember their first encounter with one of these things, but he had
heard Moira’s description of what the second weapon could do, and he doubted
his armor would offer any protection. The city had been behind him as he had
ducked, and he heard a noise from its direction, a loud booming sound, as if a
giant had just struck a huge drum.

From the corner of his eye he saw dust billowing
outward from the city wall as a thick section collapsed. Whatever the weapon
was, he had narrowly escaped death. Sweeping his sword upward, he attacked the
nearest leg, but the blow lacked the power his first one had due to the short
distance and awkward positioning. Even so, his strength and the enchanted edge
would probably have cut through an armored man, but against this foe it only
left a superficial cut in the strange metal.

The leg swept down, as the thing attempted to crush
him against the hard ground, and he was forced to roll to avoid the attack.

The move gave the thing time to lever itself back
upward, and before he could position himself for another swing the beast was
back on its three legs again, the first weapon now lining up with his torso.
At this distance, he could see that it was a collection of long metal tubes arranged
in a hexagonal pattern. A strange whine issued from them as they began to spin
around a central axis.

Gram was still bruised from the earlier attack that
had knocked him nearly senseless a few minutes previously, and he had already
decided what he would do if faced with the same thing once again. Leaping
upward and to one side, he shouted a word, changing Thorn’s form to that of a
shield on his left arm and one handed sword in his right hand.

He might as well have stayed still, though, for all
the good his acrobatics did him. The weapon tracked his movement precisely as
the high pitched whine changed to a buzzing roar and something that felt like a
hammer of the gods slammed into his shield. He was sent spinning through the
air while more unseen blows struck his legs and back as he tumbled.

Gram hit the ground hard, but he retained
consciousness and managed to get the shield between his body and the unholy
weapon that was pounding at him. Crouching behind it, he braced it with his
sword arm as well, trying to relieve the pain of the rapid-fire concussions his
left arm was now enduring.

For half a minute he was battered, until his shield
arm was numb, and his shoulder felt like nothing more than a searing mass of
agony, but the shield held. Bits of metal fell around him now and again, though
not from his shield, so he could only think they were fragments of whatever the
weapon was hurling at him.

And then it was over. The weapon stopped with a
strange series of clicks and a descending whine as the tubes began to stop
spinning. His ears noted the sound of the torso swiveling once more—it was
about to bring its second arm to bear on him—the one that had just recently
destroyed a heavy section of the city wall.

Gram surged forward, his shield arm hung limp and
numb, but his sword arm still functioned perfectly. He closed the gap before
his foe could fire, and once there he moved too quickly for it to track him,
darting left and then down, his sword striking with blinding speed. It left
deep cuts in the metal exterior of the thing, but it was tougher than steel,
and without two hands he couldn’t get the leverage to sever another leg.

He continued moving, right, then under, left again,
never letting the weapon line up with him. As he moved, his arm and shoulder
began to throb with pain, an indication that feeling was returning to it.
Just
a little longer,
he thought.

And then he slipped, his left boot sliding on the
rough gravel. For a split second he was still, and his eyes were drawn to the
gaping hole at the end of the weapon as it locked onto his position. He let
his legs go limp, trying to drop beneath its line of fire.

Another strange ‘clack’ rang out, and the shockwave
drove him into the ground as something passed over his head. He could hear
part of the city wall collapsing as he gathered his legs under him. The beast
had gone still, waiting to charge its unearthly weapon, he supposed.

The adrenaline of his near-death energized him, and he
shifted Thorn to its great sword form, the shield disappearing simultaneously.
Moving with what seemed like a lazy economy, he set his feet and twisted his
torso, winding up for his swing like a woodsman chopping lumber. His body
uncoiled like a spring, and a shock ran through his wounded shoulder as Thorn
swept through the highest joint of another of the creature’s legs, sending it
toppling to the ground. Avoiding the weapon, for fear of what had happened to
Grace, he sent a second well placed blow into the thick midsection, above where
the arms emerged. The sword bit deeply into the metal, exposing strange metal
innards—something black bled from the wound.

The thing continued to twitch and heave as he
methodically chopped away at its main torso. A minute or more passed before it
went still—while smoke continued to rise and sparks flew from its hopefully
dead body. Gram took a deep heaving breath and fell as much as sat down before
lying back to stare at the sky.

Everything hurt.

***

“He’s down!” shouted Alyssa, anxiously trying once
more to get past the shield that held her in and kept the enemy back. “Let me
go!”

“He wasn’t hurt,” said the spell-twin nearest her. “I
think he’s just catching his breath.”

The remainder of Moira’s army reached the rear of
those trying to attack them, and chaos ensued. They were outnumbered by a vast
majority, but the end result was inevitable. Moira began channeling power into
them, and they resumed paralyzing and freeing the citizens of Halam, hundreds
at a time.

The horde turned on them, naturally, and some of them
were forced to create shields to protect the others while they worked at
removing the metal parasites from those they had already frozen. Many from
both sides were dead already, slain by the strange weapon of the metal monster,
but there were still close to fifty thousand people struggling on the field.

Moira tried to make a rough estimate in her head and
eventually gave up. She knew it would be several hours at least before they
were done. She kept the aythar flowing at a steady but sustainable rate and
resigned herself to waiting.

The enemy had other ideas, however.

Two more of its metal monstrosities emerged from
around either side of the city, heading directly toward their position. They
hadn’t begun firing yet, though, presumably to get closer for better effect.

Fifty thousand still living and breathing human beings
were gathered around them.
If they start attacking now it will be a
slaughter,
Moira realized. She looked for Gram on the field and discovered
he had started moving at some point already. He was close to the back of the
mob now.

Something ripped through the air, destroying one of
the shields protecting them and at the same time one of her spell-twins
vanished in a turbulent spray of disjointed aythar. A tree several hundred
feet behind them exploded into splinters, and a second later they could hear a
strange metallic ‘clacking’ sound echo across the field from the direction of
one of the monsters.

Parasite-controlled enemies began flooding through the
gap until her defenders readjusted their shields to close it. Alyssa began
moving, arms and legs whirling into motion, her hair whipping back and forth
with the violence of her shifting stances. Alone she nevertheless represented
a one-woman rampage of ruthless violence.

Alyssa danced, and there was no hesitation in her
step, no mercy in her hands. Where she went people died, and those who still
moved had suffered crippling injuries. The sheer number of foes might have
overwhelmed her, but Chad stood calmly beside Moira, pacing himself and planning
his shots. Whenever one, or several, seemed about to overwhelm her, they
sprouted feathered shafts, usually in places that were almost immediately
fatal.

The violence was close and disturbing. Moira had to
force her attention away from it as her stomach threatened to betray her, but
even as she did, a quiet thought came to her.
You could end it much more
quickly, with less pain.
With Cassandra’s power she could level a series
of controlled blasts that would kill them all, and even spare her defenders,
though not the thousands of minions who were mixed in with them.

But they were innocents. So many had died already, as
a result of her actions, or the callousness of their enemy. Would it matter if
the rest were destroyed as well? Would they even want to survive only to
discover that half their kith and kin had died in her ill-conceived attempt to
free them? For a moment, the thought of blasting the field clear and putting a
quick end to things was dangerously attractive to her.

“No,” Moira said, firming her lips, and then a second
attack destroyed another section of the shield, and one more of her defenders
died in a flare of shattered aythar. The metal beasts were little more than
half a mile away now.

Gram came through that time, along with another flood
of enemies. Thorn was a great sword in his hands, and he joined Alyssa,
sweeping bloody arcs through the bodies that stood between them. Moira’s
defenders readjusted, closing the gap and making their circle even smaller.

Moira was desperate, but she knew that even if she
resorted to plain violence, they still had two more of those damnable creatures
to deal with. Gram was probably in no shape to fight another one, much less
two. Once again she lamented the loss of her enchanted belt, the rune channels
would have given her the means to cut them into pieces, even at this distance.
But they were gone, and she already knew that simple fire and blasts would do
little, not that she could use them effectively at this distance.

A storm!
Lightning
could be almost as effective as a rune channeled attack, and she could probably
manage to direct it even at a distance.

Ordinarily, weather magic was too exhausting for a
wizard to attempt, at least not on any scale. Her father however, had to watch
his moods, because sometimes the environment reacted to even his simplest
emotions. That was one of the major differences between an archmage and a
regular wizard, of course. An archmage could simply persuade the world to do
what she wanted, rather than spending the aythar to make it happen herself.
Moira didn’t have that option. There had been hints that she might be capable
of it someday, but thus far she had only heard the faintest of whispers from
the earth and wind.

She did have access to a massive store of aythar,
however.

Withdrawing her support from her spell-wrought
minions, she sent her energies skyward, drawing heavily on the dragon, pushing
her limits. Drawing the clouds together took enormous effort, driving the
winds and creating the sort of turbulence needed took even more.

Moira did it anyway.

The skies darkened, and clouds gathered at a rate that
was entirely unnatural. Minutes passed and Moira could feel the newborn
thunderheads filling with latent power. She pushed harder, she needed it
sooner, much sooner.

Another of her defenders vanished in a brilliant
scattering of sparks, and dozens more poured in, to be met by Gram and his murderous
partner. Chad shot only two or three, conserving the remainder of his arrows.

Moira’s arms were held skyward, trembling with the
strain as she continued fighting with what felt like a mountain of air. Doubts
assailed her, but she ignored them,
I will do this!