Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins (50 page)

“Yeah,” she fibbed, “my leg’s a little
messed up but I’m okay." She shook another body and asked, “Have
you seen my dad?”

“Your dad and Kahlie are all right,”
Bridgette assured. “They’re doing the same thing you are right
now.”

“What about Ryannon?” Audril kept her voice
low as she and Bridgette continued their attempts to rouse the
Mandelans.

Bridgette opened her mouth to respond just
as a sinister, gravelly, angry sound permeated the dusty air.
"Where is she?” It was a strange, unworldly voice.

Audril turned and saw Ryannon standing
amongst the Brashnellan soldiers at the other side of the field.
There was something very different about him now; he had become
dark—almost like a shadow—a change that was noticeable even through
the clouded air.

“Where is she?” he hissed again, and started
in a stagger across the field.

She could only assume he was looking for
her.

He lumbered toward her, sword drawn and
stabbing everyone with whom he came in contact—including the
occasional Brashnellan that got in his way.

“Where is she?” he bellowed a third
time.

Just then, there was another commotion near
where Ryannon had been standing moments before. Several Brashnellan
soldiers were falling to the ground—one by one—victims of a single
warrior.

That warrior was Kahlie. She was
unbelievable in her skill—twisting and turning—spinning her sword
one way and then reversing and flipping it around in another
direction. Every move was intentional and purposeful; every thrust
of her sword was deadly accurate.

The dark Shadow of
Ryannon, which had been moving nearer and nearer to Audril,
suddenly stopped his advance. “
There!
” he shrieked, spinning around
and pointing at Kahlie who was systematically slaying his
warriors—despite the increasing number of them moving to challenge
her.

He stumbled back toward
her. “It is my turn,” he sneered. “
My
turn to kill!”

By now, the air had cleared enough for
Audril to realize the full bleakness of the situation. There were
possibly a hundred Mandelans left standing amongst what seemed to
be ten thousand Brashnellans—and the battle was resuming.

And the hopeless scenario was about to get
much worse. A strange sloshing noise echoed through the air echoing
from somewhere deep within the lake. The water in the Mystad
shuddered and shook and tiny circles rippled across its entire
surface. The sloshing became louder and louder and then erupted, as
thousands of forceful jets of crystal water streaked skyward.

Inside each jet, a human form was visible.
The jets ascended high above the peaks of the surrounding hills and
then dropped suddenly, leaving multitudes of Trysta soldiers
hovering in the sky where they had been. As the water splashed back
onto the surface of the lake, one very large jet shot up from the
center and disintegrated in a flash of gold. There, hovering in the
air was Ultara, there to lead her Trysta army into battle. The
Trystas levitated above Mystad for a moment, and then Ultara
shouted, “Lortu! Now!”

On her command, the shadows in Mandela City
started to wriggle and move as hundreds of thousands of Dwellers
materialized out of the shadows, and slinked slowly and
deliberately towards the few remaining Mandelans.

“Oh no,” Audril gasped.

She looked towards Ultara, trying to prepare
for what was going to happen next, when Glaron appeared in front of
her.

“What’s she doing?” she asked, hoping he
would somehow know Ultara’s intentions.

“No idea,” he answered, seeming a little
uneasy that the Trystas were there, albeit relieved that they had
actually survived.

What Audril saw next made her heart
sink.

She just happened to glance over at the dark
form of Ryannon who was smiling victoriously. “Yessss,” he hissed,
“I was beginning to wonder what was taking you so long,
Mother!”

Ultara gazed down at him with a stone-cold
expression, but then smiled at Ryannon. She turned to Branlor, who
was hovering at her right.

He made a nodding gesture and all of the
Trystas, with the exception of Ultara, lowered down to the
field.

“Use your eyes!” Ultara commanded so loudly
that it reverberated off the mountains in the distance. "Finish
them!”

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Audril repeated.

All at once, a buzzing permeated the air.
The sound was similar to the buzzing that Audril had heard in Iowa,
back when the Trystas had placed receptors on her.

She watched in horror as the Trysta army
fanned out across the field. In colorful intense waves, their eyes
started to glow and surge.

Suddenly, hundreds of Brashnellan soldiers
collapsed to the ground in pain. The lights in the Trystas’ eyes
intensified and the field was filled with the agonizing shrieks of
the Brashnellan Army. Any of the Black Warriors who were not being
electrocuted by the Trystas were being attacked by the remaining
Mandelans…or the nearly invisible Shadow Dwellers.

Ryannon continued to move toward Kahlie. The
Trysta assault seemed to have no effect on him.

“How dare
she
,” he seethed. “No matter! I will
kill
her
still!"
It sounded as though he was talking to himself. He looked over to a
group of his Warriors who had managed to break away from the Shadow
Dwellers and commanded, “Get the atoh! I will take care of
her!”

In the blink of an eye, Ultara appeared at
Audril’s side.

“Atoh,” she nodded. “Let’s get this over
with, shall we?”

A Brashnellan soldier charged toward them.
Ultara raised her hand and he flew backward easily fifty feet
through the air.

“I can’t even tell you how happy I am to see
you, Vritesse,” Audril beamed. “And, I’m certainly glad you’re on
our side now!” She watched the warrior that Ultara had just
repelled land in a thud on the ground.

“I’ve always been on your side, Atoh. I told
your mother I would watch out for you and protect you, and that is
precisely what I have done.”

Four more Brashnellans came running up
behind them. “Look out!” Audril warned. “Oh, so I suppose that
having Lortu kidnap me was for my protection then?”

She took on one of the soldiers, while
Ultara handled the other three.

“Of course it was.” Ultara flicked her wrist
and one of the Brashnell Warriors stiffened like stone and dropped
over backward. “You would have been safe in Koria. But Glaron here
kind of threw off my plans a bit.” She leaned her head back towards
Glaron who was fighting off Brashnellans behind her and added, “. .
. yet again.”

Glaron smiled sheepishly. He kicked his foe
in the stomach, causing the warrior to double over and drop to the
ground. He leaned back and playfully gave Ultara a quick peck on
the cheek. “Sorry, Vritesse,” he chuckled, “I was only trying to
help!”

She shook her head and continued to toy with
the one Brashnellan soldier of the three that was still left
standing.

As she sent him zooming through the air, at
least twenty more raced toward Audril.

“Lortu! Time for you to have some fun,”
Ultara yelled loudly.

In a flash Lortu was with them, fading in
and out of shadow, confusing and tormenting the Brashnellans.

“’
Ello, Atoha,” he hummed,
bowing as he passed in front of Audril. “You zee?" He grabbed a
warrior from behind and hurled him through the air right into
another one. “De Vritessa is steel maye best offer.”

Before long the Brashnellan Army was on the
run. They were clearly no match for the Trystas, the Shadow
Dwellers and the remaining Mandelans, many of whom had regained
consciousness and had gotten back into the battle. Furthermore,
several of the Shadow Squanki, including Tabbit, had come to fight
for Mandela.

But now, a new problem was developing.
Water—and not just a little of it—was seeping up through the
ground, rising rapidly, and washing in strong waves over the bodies
that remained on the ground—carrying them away toward Mystad Lake.
New Lor Mandela was beginning to flood.

Ultara floated into the air, along with many
of the Trystas, and began pulling people up onto rocks and into
trees. Everyone left on the ground struggled to keep their footing,
lest they be swept away in the growing current.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking
directly at Audril.

“It’s the Advantiere,” Audril replied. "Give
me a second!" She clambered her way up onto a rock that was jutting
up out of the water.

“I don’t believe we have a second, Atoh,”
Ultara replied.

“Glaron!” she yelled. “Get over here! I need
your help.”

The water continued to rise as Glaron waded
to her side.

“I’m going to have to create a bolder
chamber!” she yelled, pulling a green pebble from a small bag that
hung at her side and tossing it onto the ground.

“What?” Glaron blurted. “You can't! It's
suicide!”

“Just cover me,” she insisted. “Make sure no
one interrupts the process, and I’ll be fine!”

Ultara stepped onto the pebble and raised
her arm skyward, and a sheet of water obediently rose into the air.
It swirled around her in a wide, twisting, transparent whirlpool,
as a giant sheet of a crystalline, glass-like material started to
form across the floor of the field.

The water that had been steadily rising was
forced out and around the barrier.

Once the glassy floor of the bolder chamber
completely covered the field and areas around it, jagged crystal
walls started to inch up from it, gradually encasing Mandela Palace
and all of the surrounding territories and pushing the water
further away from the hundreds of thousands of people who had been
in danger of being swept away just moments ago.

Audril was intrigued by what Ultara was
doing, but forced herself to focus on the Advantiere. It was up to
her to save New Lor Mandela from the same fate that had just
obliterated its clone.

“One comes swiftly in the morning,” she
began. “One comes swiftly in the morning.” She thought hard,
frantically searching her mind for any clue to the mysterious
prophecy. As she repeated the line a third time, it hit her. “Of
course! The pictures!”

She looked at Glaron whose horrified eyes
were locked on Ultara. “One comes swiftly in the morning!” she
yelled, “The first picture was Darian! It matches! He attacked
Mandela City in the morning!”

The water continued to rise outside the
bolder chamber.

“Okay,” she continued, “One unknowing moves
in haste.”

In her head, the image of Darian was slowly
replaced.

“Next was Doctor Brockman,” she spoke loudly
and quickly, as if she were explaining the Advantiere to Ultara,
who was, in fact, listening intently from inside the cyclone.

“One beloved though mighty fallen.” Again
the image changed. “That’s momma . . . at the battle, and One is
chosen to forget her place.”

She struggled to remember who’d been next.
“Nenia?” she questioned, “Yes! The next picture was Nenia!”

Ultara’s eyes grew wide. “What?” she gasped.
Her voice was strangely distorted by the water in the funnel around
her.

Audril shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know
. . . I saw Nenia . . . it was her!” she explained loudly. “Chosen
to forget her place?”

She tried to figure out what that could have
possibly meant.

She looked across the field and noticed that
Ryannon and Kahlie were isolated in an area near the Anaria, locked
in a violent battle. Kahlie was amazing, the way she bashed her
sword so forcefully against Ryannon’s that he was having a hard
time keeping his balance.

Kahlie took two or three more swings, and
then spun around to give her next blow added momentum. As she
stepped out of the spin, she lost her footing and tripped on a
large jagged rock that was sticking up out of the floor of the
bolder chamber. She fell hard onto the pointy rock, which ripped
through the leg of her armor.

Jonathan saw it too, and raced to help
her.

Ryannon lifted his gloved arm into the air
and aimed it at Jonathan. Several long thin spikes glinted in the
few rays of sun that had pushed through the predominantly cloudy
sky.

Jonathan grabbed for Ryannon’s arm, but
narrowly missed as he jerked it back. The black form of Ryannon
leered at Jonathan and took aim.

“Dad! Look out!” Audril screamed. She jumped
down from the rock and raced across the field, knowing there was no
way she would make it to her dad in time.

Ultara was also watching the scenario play
out from inside a clear cyclone of water. The walls of the bolder
chamber were just starting to curve over at the top in the
beginnings of a ceiling.

Glaron could see what was happening as well.
He jumped in front of Ultara, hoping to distract her from what he
knew she was about to do.

“Audril! Transport,” he screamed.

She didn’t hear him, though. The sound of
the water funnel drowned out his voice.

Just as Ryannon was about to unload his
spike darts into the atoc, Ultara lowered her arm and flung it
forcefully toward Ryannon. A golden beam of light ripped through
the meadow, hitting Ryannon in the chest and sending him hurling
violently through the air.

An enormous jolt of energy surged down
through Ultara. She jerked ferociously and then collapsed into a
gasping heap onto the ground.

Glaron dropped down next to her. “Oh,
Vritesse! What have you done?” he breathed.

Kahlie, Jonathan, Audril and Bridgette all
saw Ultara fall wasted no time rushing across the field to her
aid.

“What happened? What’s going on?” Kahlie
asked, gaping at the panic-stricken Glaron.

“You can’t stop a bolder chamber once you
start! It has to be finished or all of the power it takes to create
it flows back through the creator!”