Edda (19 page)

“But will you help us?” asked Jodocus. “Because this is not about humans; it is about revenge for what has happened to us here.”

“Show me your weapons.” Anadia got off her chair and opened the door of the room; a draft came in, disturbing the fire. She led the way back outside to the heights above the clouds.

Unstrapping his Atanski, Milan looked about. “Right. What do you want me to aim at?”

“How about that rock over there, shaped like a finger? Is that too far away?” Anadia pointed to a distant rock that was not being used as a resting place by the birds surrounding the dome.

“No,” replied Milan, lining up the sights. A moment later a bolt of green light flashed across to the rock, and they all had to blink away its bright afterimage as the echoes of the explosion rang out around the mountainside. Hundreds of birds leaped into the air, cawing in dismay, and their cries filled the vastness of the blue sky. The top of the rock had been blasted away and little chips were still falling through the air and clattering on the mountainside.

“Impressive.” Anadia gave Milan a nod of grim satisfaction. “All right. Give me a few days to summon all my forces and I’ll fight. But understand two things: first, if I ever see you humans approaching this mountain in the future, I will attack you; second, I’m not going with you beyond the portal. I shall direct my army from a very safe distance. Once you’re through, you’re on your own.”

“Thank you,” said Erik. “That’s all we ask.”

Chapter 19

CHARRED AND LIFELESS

“What’s your plan?”

They had landed behind a ridge of hills and were now surveying the army posted in front of the portal, Cindella through the Eyes of the Eagle and the others taking turns on the binoculars. It had been an exhilarating journey. Anadia’s flock of birds had accompanied them like an immense cloak flowing across the sky, a mile across and several miles long. At their head was the sorceress herself, traveling in a chariot suspended on golden ropes, which was drawn by six enormous birds. They were monstrous creatures, much like the roc in Epic. Each was capable of grasping an elephant in its wickedly sharp talons, and the powerful beat of their wings could be heard over the rushing sound of the air elemental. With allies such as these, Erik was filled with confidence that they could defeat the army ahead of them. The enemy’s defenses and weapons no longer seemed anywhere near as intimidating as they had the previous day now that he had an army of raptors on his side.

“How about we crawl into weapon range, then you come storming down from the skies and we open fire?” It was Milan who replied to Anadia, even though she had addressed the question to Jodocus.

“Very well. See that copse of bushes?” She pointed ahead. “Crawl up to it, and when you are in position, I’ll attack from above. Aim low; I don’t want your stray fire hitting my birds.”

“Understood.” Milan lifted his rifle and held it across his chest.

“I’ll need a moment to summon an earth elemental, or two, if the terrain is suitable,” said Jodocus.

The sorceress of the skies glanced at the elementalist with a haughty smile. “If we were dueling, you would be dead before your summons could come into effect.”

“Not so, my lady. It is just that for now I choose not to release the elementals from my tattoos, not while there is good material beneath my feet from which to draw forth elementals of stone.”

“I see. Begin your spells. I’m sure you will be ready by the time we are high above the enemy.” With that, Anadia swept her blue cloak around her and walked off to her chariot, her head high. Without a cry, but with a vast fluttering of wings that sounded like the applause of a large crowd, the avian army lifted itself from the valley. The larger birds rose first, the smaller ones curving about them, a dark column rising into the blue sky with Anadia at its head.

“Come on. Let’s leave Jodocus here to cast his spells and get into position.” Milan led the way, crawling forward from rock to rock, bush to bush. Behind him was Ghost; then came Athena, Cindella, and Gunnar. And once the battlements of the enemy compound were comfortably in range, they halted, lying in a small dip in the land.

“Stay close to Ghost; she should be able to protect you,” Erik whispered to Milan. After getting his acknowledgment, Erik looked to Athena, who also nodded. “Gunnar, you should probably stay here, too.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Ghost in a low voice.

“Run around and have some fun.”

This drew a grin and a thumbs-up from Milan, and even Athena, who was looking pale, managed a smile.

Gunnar was watching the skies. “Get ready, they’re coming.”

Initially, the avian army seemed no more threatening than a dark cloud drifting high in the sky, but as it descended, the patch of shadow grew rapidly larger. All of a sudden the cloud stretched toward the ground, as though a stream of dark water was being poured onto the army compound. And just when it became possible to see that the leading edge of the cloud was made up of individual eagles, they dove downward with the swiftness of a hunter’s strike. The sharp claws of the birds struck the heads and shoulders of the gray soldiers. A storm of feathers and claws now swirled around the compound, accompanied by the screams of avian battle cries.

Although awed by the clamor and the sight of the massed ranks of raptors swooping down on their prey, Erik had not remained inactive. As soon as he had seen how swiftly the birds were hurtling to war, he had launched Cindella into motion. The rattle of machine guns and the hiss of bullets around her proved that the guards were alert, at least to enemies approaching over the ground rather than from above.

Utilizing the powers of the Boots of the Lupine Lord, Cindella sprang right up on top of the nearest revetment, drawing her magic weapons as she did so. This was going to be hand-to-hand warfare for the moment. The Rapier of the Skies and the Dagger of Frozen Hate were both swift and both bore enchantments that allowed them to penetrate full-plate armor; but it was the dagger that was the more lethal of the two, as it had a tendency all of its own to seek out the weak spots in an enemy’s defenses and embed itself in them.

The gray gun crew could not turn their machine gun quickly enough to bear on Cindella and were dead before they could draw their pistols. Ignoring the flashes of hundreds of bullets striking his avatar—aimed by guards on the higher inner wall—Erik saw that the machine gun crew in the next revetment had unfastened their weapon and were pointing it up to the skies, causing havoc among the birds above them.

Cindella sheathed her rapier and leaped up to the inner wall, letting the Dagger of Frozen Hate find the throat of a soldier who tried to block her. As she sprinted toward the soldiers firing into the sky, she drew throwing daggers with her free hand and lashed them through the air to take down the medieval-style guards blocking the way. Toppling down either side of the wall, they were gone before she reached them, leaving the path free for her to leap down into the machine gun post. Whirling around with rapier and dagger once more, she cut and stabbed until all in the gun crew were down. Although it strained her strength bar to the maximum, Cindella was just able to heave the machine gun out over the revetment and as soon as it tumbled to the ground below, she leaped back up onto the inner wall, immersing herself in a desperate fight with the metal-armored guards there.

Despite being able to parry and deflect most of the blows coming at her from their iron short swords, some blows got through and Erik noted with concern that Cindella was on 74 percent health by the time she had cleared the walkway of her immediate opponents. This was still a comfortable amount; but even so, she should probably drink a healing potion while there was time to do so. But there were only two potions left. He took a risk and left Cindella as she was, hoping the small regeneration effect from one of her magic rings would be enough to restore her health before she took more damage.

It was hard to make sense of the battle, especially as it was easy to get distracted by the chaotic movements of individual soldiers struggling against the birds flapping around their heads. A particularly remarkable sight, though, was that of a roc sweeping through the skies with a tank grasped in its talons and releasing it to crash among the other vehicles, leading to a series of explosions and a scream of tearing metal that temporarily drowned out the cries of the birds.

Below Cindella, inside the compound, a giant creature formed out of boulders had torn apart the army’s gate and forced a path through the enemy soldiers, overturning troop carriers as he went and stamping on the soldiers who spilled onto the ground. But impressive as he was, the stone elemental was looking distinctly ragged and chipped as shells from some of the still-active tanks ricocheted off it.

Glancing back, Erik saw that Ghost and the others had come nearer to the compound so that they could fire through the damaged gates and pick off soldiers with their bolts of pink and green energy. Their proximity to the incredible storm of bullets and crossbow bolts made him a little anxious, but Ghost would not have advanced if she couldn’t deal with the weapons being fired her way.

A new sound, more regular than the wild surging noise of battle, came to Erik’s attention. It was a deep drone that immediately resolved itself as the powerful engine of an airplane rushing past in a roar of machine gun fire. In its wake the air swirled with feathers and falling birds. The plane banked as it turned, ready to make another pass. Already Cindella had her Longbow of Accuracy in her hands and Erik hurriedly scrolled through the contents of the Bag of Dimensions in search of his collection of special arrows. As the plane dove back, it rose high above the fighting, evidently making for Anadia’s chariot, which was carefully out of range of the ground weapons. Before the plane could rise any further, Cindella fired. His Arrow of Lightning met the plane with spectacular effect. The arrow’s magic was visible in the violent blue-white discharge of electricity that ran along the length of the aircraft and out past the tips of its wings. The plane lost all ability to steer and raced straight on past the conflict, eventually stalling, before tipping over and shrieking as it accelerated toward the ground. The crash was a massive explosion that sent glowing shrapnel hurtling in all directions.

More of the medieval wall guards were now running his way, but Cindella was able to fire the bow just quickly enough to deal with them. The enemy charge dwindled until there were no more assailants threatening her, only riflemen who persisted in shooting at Cindella despite the fact that their bullets had no effect at all.

Elsewhere, it seemed that the huge stone elemental was down and some of the surviving tanks were focusing their weapons on Ghost and the others outside. Erik could feel his heart pick up speed with concern over the near-deafening thump of shellfire, but there wasn’t much he could do for his friends, other than hope the shells posed no problem for Ghost. He reassured himself with the thought that he had seen her handle the much greater energies of Saga’s pulse weapons.

From the wall, Cindella had plenty of targets for her bow, and even while Erik was assessing the situation, she had been picking off individual soldiers. But perhaps the most help that Cindella could now provide was to tackle the officer units, whom Erik could glimpse when gaps in the screaming tangle of birds and soldiers allowed. His avatar leaped down and, weaving her way through the battle, came to the wooden structure on which the officers were standing, shouting commands into large handheld radiophones.

“Hello there. Are any of you capable of negotiating?” She raced up the ladder with barely a pause.

The two modern-looking figures equipped with pistols drew them with identical motions and fired upon Cindella. But it was the unit with a sword and banded metal armor that Erik was watching most carefully. It leaped upon her and hammered down hard with its bright blade. There was not enough room to skip back, nor could Cindella fully deflect the blow. It hit her, causing a distinct drop in her health points: she was now below 50 percent. At least the lunge had brought the soldier within range of the Dagger of Frozen Hate, which she thrust at him. Unerringly, it pierced the head of the officer through the roof of his open mouth and he fell to the side, dead. The other two officers seemed to have no other tactic than to attempt to shoot Cindella with their pistols and she had no difficulty dispatching them with the rapier.

What next? This time she really ought to drink a healing potion. The two red flasks were in the first menu of the Bag of Dimensions so that he could access them quickly. As Cindella’s health bar rose swiftly, she turned around slowly so that Erik could appraise the situation.

It seemed that they had nearly won the battle. Two great rocs were still in action, sweeping from the skies to grab at the remaining enemy vehicles and cast them to their destruction from on high. And while the battlefield was covered with the bodies of dead raptors, thousands of gray soldier units also lay strewn about, seemingly resting under a blanket of feathers. The balance of the remaining forces clearly favored the birds, even before he factored in the steady and effective blasts of energy coming from Ghost, Milan, Athena, and Gunnar, now firing from behind the ruined gates into the compound. There was no sign of Jodocus, but if he was summoning another elemental now that his rock one was destroyed, that would add to their advantage.

Just as Erik was beginning to feel a sense of triumph—that they were going to defeat this army and gain control of the portal—the pattern of the fighting changed. All at once, as though the bindings on a collection of balloons had been released, the birds stopped fighting and flew away in different directions. A golden object fell from the sky and crashed into the ground close to Cindella with a stunning clap of sound. It was Anadia’s chariot, and her body was among the wreckage, as shattered and lifeless as a broken doll.

Shocked, Erik looked up, but it was hard to see past the departing birds; their plumage was floating everywhere, scattered by the bullets that the soldiers continued to fire into the sky. There was no sign of another airplane, but all the same, Cindella drew her bow again and Erik sought in her bag for one of his remaining magical arrows.

There were still several hundred enemy soldiers in action and as the birds dispersed, increasing numbers of rifles turned to attack Ghost’s group outside the gate. Even worse, a phalanx of armored soldiers was also running their way. Ghost could control the energy of missiles, but could she avoid harm when fighting hand to hand? Having dispatched a number of shots from her bow, reducing the phalanx by ten or so, Cindella then dropped the weapon and vaulted from the command tower. The legionnaires were bunched together at the gates of the compound and Cindella hit the back of their formation, rapier and dagger lashing out swiftly. They were slow to respond, as they were all pushing forward clumsily and making hacking motions with their swords, but when they did turn toward her, Cindella’s health points began to drop—not too rapidly, but enough that she would not be able to clear them all without dying. But would breaking away to save Cindella put Ghost and the others in mortal danger? Cindella jumped up and kicked against the shield of one of the soldiers to push herself even higher into the air. For a moment, while in mid-somersault, Erik could see what was happening at the gate. A glistening, transparent wall, like ice, stood between the legionnaires and Ghost, who was pale and sweating, her arms outstretched. Dozens of soldiers were hacking at the wall with their swords. There was no sign of the others. Erik’s guess was that they had run, while Ghost was holding up the chase for as long as she could. Cindella landed and Erik was fighting again. It looked like Ghost was straining to hold back these units, so Erik resolved to stay as long as he could, maybe even until Cindella’s death.