Echoes of a Shattered Age (31 page)

“Then we must work together,” the strider said. “Before we go to sleep, we must meditate on each other and unite in our dreams. If they can enter our dreams or use residual energy on you while you sleep, then we should be able to link in our dreams and fight together.”

Akemi nodded. “Hopefully we’ll discourage them and get a restful sleep soon.”

With a confirming nod from the strider, Akemi left him to take watch and lay beside her brother. Whether the evil poisoning her could sense hers and the strider’s resolve, or just through luck, her rest was mostly peaceful.

***

Chapter Thirty-Six

“I’ve never seen a
night
this dark,” Mira said. “The stillness is unnatural, and I feel uneasy.” She and Iel stared out the window at the blackened fields. “The forces seem unmoved, though.”

Iel stood beside his student, hands clasped behind his back. “It takes more than darkness to shake a warrior, my young pupil, and magical warriors are altogether unshakable. You need not worry about morale out there.”

“I feel small in this,” Mira said. “Like there is nothing I can contribute.”

“Your contributions are dependent upon you and you alone,” Iel replied. “If you feel that you should stay here, that is fine. If you wish to join in the fight directly, that is your choice as well.”

Mira could tell by the expression on her teacher’s face that he would prefer for her to stay within the relative safety of the tower.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I want to help, but I don’t know how. My skill is underdeveloped, and I can sense these
things
that approach us now … they’re stronger than anything I could have imagined. I can’t deny the fear that I feel.” She looked at her teacher in shame.

Iel smiled. “If you would have denied your fear, I would never have allowed you to fight.” He smiled wider at the young woman’s confused look. “Anxiety is a natural feeling and helps us to stay alive. If you were to go out there relaxed and unconcerned, how careless would you be? When you have no nervousness or anxiety, you are less cautious. The difference between a skilled warrior and an untested one, is not whether they feel fear, but how well they manage it. Fear holds us back until we learn to use it as an opportunity to grow. If you can summon the courage to face that which you are afraid of, then that fear will weaken.”

“You don’t seem worried at all,” Mira said.

“He then looked back out at the darkened landscape. “Yet worry, I do …” the Ilanyan’s features darkened and he moved for the door. “They come,” he said.

The statement made Mira’s blood run cold and her heart fluttered. She had difficulty breathing and the room suddenly felt hot. With an effort, she marshaled her nerves and steadied her breathing again. Finally, having regained her composure, she followed her teacher out the door and caught up to him just as he was stepping onto the elevating platform.

“I’m nervous,” she said. “Terrified actually. But I’m here.” She stepped onto the platform next to her beaming teacher.

“You have come far,” Iel remarked.

“I have a good teacher,” she replied.

* * *

A few hours before sunlight, the five warriors were awake and packed to leave. The Stonecliff Clan had finished a tunnel underneath the canyon floor and had begun angling it toward the surface, a safe distance outside the raging sandstorm. The humans were amazed at the clan’s ability to manipulate all forms of rock, including the ability to listen to the earth and feel what was happening to the land.

“How did you get your name anyway?” Kenyatta asked Marblehead.

The stone leader tapped his fist against the top of his head, which made an echoing thud. “On my head a boulder fell, when young I was,” he said in his usual, rumbling voice that made Kenyatta’s chest vibrate.

“From far up it fell, a hundred feet maybe. A long time it took me to get better, but surprised others were that survive I did. My name, this is how I got.”

“That sounds like a nickname,” Kenyatta observed. “You didn’t have a name before that?”

“From experience grongolians give names. A year, maybe ten, fifteen could be.”

“Fifteen years without a name!” Kenyatta said, incredulous. “How could you go that long without a name?”

The clan leader smiled. “Short lives humans live, and impatient you are. Many years grongolians live, maybe two hundred years, maybe three hundred. Fifteen or twenty or thirty years, a young child still.” Kenyatta just shook his head, unable to wrap his mind around such a lifespan.

Behind them, conversations and well wishes were being exchanged. Kenyatta and the grongolian leader turned to see the other four humans practically surrounded by their unlikely hosts.

“I guess it’s time for us to go,” Kenyatta said.

Marblehead nodded. “Come.”

General Obsidius, who hesitantly accepted the order given to him, explained the preparations they had made. “Already see you can, that to the surface this hole above you goes.” He then pointed to Kenjiro, who stood with his back against a wall farthest from the hole. “Behind him the path of the strongest wind travels. That direction you face, when up you go.” Then he pointed to a path to his right that extended into darkness. “Outside the valley that path leads, and in the direction you want, so your whistle you blow, and leave you will.”

Despite his curtness and eagerness to be rid of the humans, it was obvious that the stone general had grown fond of them. Shinobu smiled to himself. He and Obsidius had become something like friends, although the big rock-man would never admit it. He offered his hand to the stern captain. “Hopefully we will meet again.

“Doubt it I do, because avoid humans we do.”

Shinobu repressed a smirk. “Of course,” he said.

Akemi had secured her supplies in a small pile next to her brother and stood beneath the opening in the ceiling. Next to her was Quickrock, the same young one who had dropped in the middle of them and bound them in stone tentacles. “Strong the sand winds are, and cut they do.” The young grongolian’s voice was much lighter than Marblehead’s or Obsidius’s, but still carried several times as much bass as any human she had ever met. “Not long the walls will hold, so fast you must be.”

“I only need a few seconds,” the ninja responded.

“All you will have,” Quickrock informed her. “Magical is this storm, and like razor the sand is. In seconds, wall is gone.”

With a nod, Akemi and Quickrock stood next to each other. She gave him a nod, and Quickrock lifted his hands over his head. With startling speed, the ninja was lifted to the hole on a small stone platform just wide enough to hold her, and at the same time she ascended the hole, a stone cylinder rose to surround her. She withdrew Sekimaru and cut a slit into the wall in front of her. The intensity of the cutting sandstorm had already begun shaving the wall away. On impulse, she stepped to the side of the slit anticipating a sandy assault to come in. She laughed at herself upon remembering that the wind traveled in her favor. She slid the whistle into the slit and blew three times. It made no sound to her ears, but she knew that the wind would carry it to where the horses would hear. She descended the hole and all looked up as the stone cylinder was ground away by the storm.

“It’s done,” she said.

Marblehead gently stomped his way to stand before her. “On your mission, much luck we wish. Of us tell the guardian. Know us he will and visit someday he may.”

After many farewells and promises to return, the five human companions departed down the dark tunnel. Trusting in their senses and the fact that they were told that the tunnel was fairly straight, they reached the end of the corridor where two of the tunneling team remained. The stone men were awash in the golden glow of dawn. They knelt and cupped their huge fingers together.

“You’re going to give us a boost?” Kita asked, doubtfully.

“Throw you out, we will!” one of the grongolians said, and the two shared a rumbling chuckle. One by one, the five warriors were launched up and out of the tunnel.

“If one of them so much as thumped us with a finger,” Kita said, once they had gathered, “we’d just crumble.

“You’re right,” the samurai said. “When that one hit me, I could tell he held back.”

“You realized this after you awoke, you mean?” Akemi teased. Kenjiro didn’t laugh.

“I know I have asked this before,” Shinobu said, “but how are our horses supposed to find us?”

Akemi sighed. “I told you before. They will run straight in the direction that the sound came from. Since we will not deviate from our path, they will overtake us soon enough.”

“That seems a bit convenient,” the strider said, moving beside her. After seeing the questioning look from the woman, he continued. “How is it that our path is in a straight line from the valley, which is in a straight line from the patch of woods where we left our horses? This just seems so easy and well-placed for us.” The strider looked at her skeptically. “I do not believe in coincidence, but the fact that the tower”—he did not bother trying to pronounce the name anymore—“lies in a path straight from a valley that
happens
to have a path that carries sound for an incredible distance straight in the direction that we left our horses just seems a bit strange.”

The ninja frowned, growing impatient. “When this is all over you can ask the guardian, if you choose, and I am sure he would be happy to explain it to you.”

Shinobu started to say more but stopped short when he saw the strained look in her eyes. She was weakening and needed all of her strength for the road until the horses caught them.

“Then let’s go,” he said.

* * *

Grimhammer looked around at his forces and the surrounding magical warriors. All stood passively and waited, unmoved and unaffected by the unnatural darkness surrounding them. The tallest and sleekest of the Rizanti stepped to the front of their diamond formation and leaned forward.

Knowing the magical creation could see perfectly in light and dark, Grimhammer watched it. The Rizanti leader lifted its disk blade and held it over its head. The other Rizanti set their feet and lowered into a crouch, with their disk weapons raised over their backs.

Grimhammer turned to his clan. “It is time, my brothers. Let these magical shells carry us into battle with the same honor as if it were our own physical bodies. The Quentranzi believe this darkness will steal our courage!” He turned toward the darkness and raised his mighty warhammer. “We will show them!” The centaurs roared and thrust their weapons into the air, rearing up on their hind legs.

The brunts, as usual, had not said anything. In fact, they hadn’t waited for a signal or to see their enemies, but were already gone into a thicket, moving from patch to patch.

Once they had decided on a formation from within the trees, Grit looked around uneasily.

“Somethin’ wrong?” one of the soldiers—a rather wide fellow with big, wrinkled cheeks, and arms that looked like short logs—whispered, moving up beside the leader of the brunts.

“This place ain’t right,” Grit replied. “Somethin’ watchin’ us from all round.”

They looked around in the blackness. From the trees, they could see strange forms moving skulking about that seemed to materialize right out of the trunks and slither from tree to tree.

“Look like they try to surprise
us
for a change!” Grit said, a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

“We surrounded!” the big one next to Grit cried, thrusting his club in the air. The Kalistyi materialized everywhere, from the trees, bushes, from the ground, and even out of the sky.

“Everywhere!” Grit yelled. “Be knowin’ they everywhere! More fun than we thought!”

The band of compact fighters practically hopped up and down at the overwhelming prospects.

“We do this now!” Grit shouted, and on his signal, the band exploded into action.

* * *

“The brunts have found battle,” Iel said.

Mira leaned forward and squinted at the wall of darkness. “How can you know that? It’s pitch black that far out.”

The Ilanyan smiled at her. “There are those that can see even in unnatural darkness. Those that cannot must use their mind’s eye to see what cannot be seen by physical eyes.”

He put a hand on her shoulder and her nerves stilled. “Go now, and prepare yourself. It’s time.”

Without a word, Mira retreated back into the tower. Her thoughts whirled as she walked from corridor to corridor until she came to her modest room. Aside from the bed and a circular white rug in the center, the room was bare.

Mira sat cross-legged and rested her hands on her thighs, palms facing up. She closed her eyes, and within a few moments, her body began to glow with white light. The time had come, she focused her mind, and her power grew.

* * *

At Grimhammer’s side, a youngling pawed at the ground impatiently, shifting his weapon from left hand to right. “Patience, my young warrior,” Grimhammer admonished, not taking his eyes from the darkness before them. “No war has ever been won on strength alone.” The young centaur still fidgeted a bit more, but did calm somewhat.

“I smell the filth,” he said.

“So can I,” the centaur leader responded. “Our time draws near, but we must be patient.”

He then noted that the Rizanti had lowered into a crouch with their disks raised over their backs, he hefted his warhammer and signaled for his clan to be ready.

“Be ready, my brothers!” Grimhammer cried. The words had not completely left his lips when the Rizanti darted off into the distance, moving at a speed impossible to match by any living creature. “To battle!” Grimhammer bellowed. The mighty clan reared on hind legs and thrust their weapons high into the air. With a crash, their front hooves hit the ground and they ran into the darkness, charging after the Rizanti.

* * *

Iel watched as some of the magical defenders charged into the darkness while others remained behind, serving as the last line of defense. The Ilanyan could hear everything that was happening in that blackness. The charge was met with unnerving ferocity.

Iel closed his eyes for a few moments, then smiled. Inside her room, Mira sat meditating and raising her energy level. Her body glowed in several colors. The closest to her body was white, and the other layers glowed in various colors of the spectrum. She was calmer now, sitting erect with a peaceful appearance to her face. Iel could feel Mira’s power growing with every second.

“You look worried, Master Guardian,” Siti said. She was one of the more powerful of the magical defenders, spawned purely of earth magic. Her bluish silver skin radiated energy, and a cold mist wafted from her body.

He imagined that if a crystal or a diamond could talk, it would sound like the exotic Siti. Iel withdrew from his thoughts and looked into her blue face, her soft, yet icy features marking her with an unusual kind of beauty. “I cannot sense the Drek or his Quentranzi general,” Iel replied. “I don’t think he is here.