Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) (25 page)

“Always together!” Quinn shouted, and reached through the gate to grab the fallen lance. He charged it back on, and shouted over his shoulder, “Stay away from the sparks, Stella!” Before the words were out of his mouth, he'd shot a Knightshade out of the sky, and it hit the turf with a spray of dirt, grass and fire.

“Knights!” Quinn yelled over his earbud as he scored a hit on another Knightshade. “This is Knight-Commander Quinn Orion Deston of the Silver Fist calling you on emergency channel Bravo! Drop whatever you're doing right now, and get yourself to the great lawn! Our High King has returned, and he's under attack by the Regent's Knightshades!”

Two more Knightshades turned in midair and made a course for Quinn, their lances aimed at him. Quinn blasted them before they could unleash their weapons at him, and both Knightshades crashed, smoldering into the lawn.

Stella could feel the heat from Quinn's lance as electricity arced along its chrystum surface. She felt the hair rise on her arms, and could smell the metallic scent of scorched air. How Quinn could hold and use the large powerful weapon was beyond her, but he clearly knew what he was doing. He took another Knightshade down, then another, counting them off as he went, “five...six...”

“Wow,” Stella whispered.

The hungry crowd pressed in as close as it could, because this was history in the making. They were rewarded as their High King cut a swath through the horde of Knightshades with a preternatural speed and strength all his own. One by one and five by five as they came at him, the ancient hero rended asunder their unrelenting forces with swift sentence and righteous might. He seemed unstoppable, and Stella prayed that was true. Even so, she was glad that Quinn was helping from the sidelines.

The wall of corrupted warriors flooded old John, and eventually covered him with a struggling, armored dog-pile. Nearly half the Knightshades had already fallen to their final rest upon the rich grass, but those remaining were fighting like a desperate pack of wolves.

“Where are the other Knights?” Stella shouted, but Quinn didn't answer. He just kept firing, and some people nearby were cheering him on. He was oblivious to their praise, though, focused completely on dispatching the Knightshades. Still, Stella could see a tear welling up in his eye. Why was he crying? He was a tough old man, and a Knight besides.

“Always together,” his lips formed the words as he shot down one more.

Stella looked at the writhing dog-pile, the other bodies strewn across the lawn, and couldn't believe what she was seeing. How could one man take on so many? She'd known, somehow, that it was possible, that the High King had done great heroic deeds in the past, had slain dragons single-handedly, but she hadn't truly believed the stories, not deep in her bones. Not until now.

From deep within the dark mass of Knightshades on the center of the lawn came a loud roar like unto a lion, followed by an earsplitting blast, and light spilled out from the spaces between the struggling bodies. With a concussive boom, the Knightshades were hurled away from the High King.

There was a faint hum, and then Stella gasped in surprise as the Knightshades were all simultaneously blasted from the sky in a stunningly synchronized attack by the real Brigadier Knights. As they joined the battle from above, there was a powerful sense of life and connectedness that emanated from the aerial host. Their clear unity of action was a breathtaking display of martial mastery that the Knightshades had not possessed.

Once the air had cleared, the true Knights created a crisp formation meters above the lawn, waiting at attention for an order from their High King. Nauseating smoke rose into the air from the bodies of the fallen Knightshades, and Quinn powered off his lance to salute them. Old John stood alone on the lawn, unscathed by the battle, looking at the men around him who had fallen, and those above who had joined him. Varion was shaking, pale and weak, and leaned against the doorframe for support.

“You have betrayed me and my people,” John grated.

Regent Varion fell to his knees, his power gone. He lifted his hands in pitiful supplication. “Please, be merciful John! I beg you, please! This war would have destroyed the dragons and led us into a new, glorious era! I did this all for the empire...for you!

The High King shook his head. “No. You have lied to yourself, to me, and to my people, for years. You've begun an unjust war that has repercussions far beyond your limited understanding. You corrupted good Knights, and used them for murder. You slaughtered nearly half the House of Lords, an ancient symbol of unity among the twelve kingdoms. So...tell me why...why should I show mercy to you if you have none for anyone else?”

Stella heard the device Fox had given her chime as it received a new packet of information, and she opened it. “Oh, no,” she whispered as she quickly read its contents. She looked up and saw one of the other Citadels above them, her eyes going wide as it dawned on her exactly what that meant. “Dare to be courageous,” Stella whispered, and took a deep breath as she gripped the heavy chrystum gate. Could she make it in time, or would all be lost?

“Wait!” she shouted through the silence, then began to climb. Someone tried to pull her down, but Quinn knocked them off her and she kept going. It was hard, but she made it to the top and worked her way over to the other side.

She dropped down clumsily onto the grass, and rolled over to break her fall. It was farther down than she'd thought, and she felt her ankle twist. Still, she ran for all she was worth straight toward John Phoenix and the Regent. Holding up her small display, Stella shouted, “He's not telling the whole truth, John! You need to see this!”

The High King looked at her, recognition dawning on his face. “Stella?”

She nodded as she approached, winded from the sprint over.

John Phoenix grabbed Varion roughly by the collar and lifted him into the air, staring at him hard with a single eye of blazing fury. With gritted teeth, he took a deep breath and reined in his anger. “Very well,” he said, and tossed Varion several meters away to land with a soft thud on the grass. “What is this you have to show me?”

Stella rushed over to him and held up the image. “King Harris is behind this! The Regent, the war, all of it! And he's about to attack!” She pointed at the other Citadel as old John instantly uploaded the files onto his meta-chip ring.

John's face went white, but to his credit, he didn't hesitate. “Shields to maximum power!” he immediately commanded into his earbud, and Stella heard a loud hum from above as they kicked into overdrive. Just in time, too. As soon as the resonance-shields were up, the Prime Citadel was rocked on its celestial foundations by heavy bombardment from the Highreach.

John Phoenix looked up as the Highreach rained down accelerated pulse-cannon fire. “I'll be right back,” he gritted as his lance crackled with power, then he shot into the air like a bolt of lightning, directly at Harris's Citadel.

He looked like a rising golden star as he arced through air and space to intercept the lesser king's city ship. The Brigadier Knights took to the sky to assist their High King in battle...and what a battle it looked to be, Stella thought.

Suddenly there was a thick arm around her neck, and a gun pressed into her back. It hurt, and she let out a small cry, dropping Fox's display on the ground. Varion laughed from behind her, and Stella caught the acidic scent of corruption hidden beneath thick cologne. It made her feel sick. “Thank you for helping me out there, girl,” Varion whispered menacingly in her ear. “Let's go for a little ride in my yacht, shall we?”

Stella tried to say something witty and cutting, but he squeezed her neck with his arm, and it was all she could do to keep from choking. She felt tears blurring her vision at the injustice of this situation. She clawed at his arm, but he just laughed as he dragged her across the grass.

Her foot bumped into something as she struggled against his grip...the cracked helm of a dead Knightshade. Through the blur of tears, she saw yellowed teeth surrounded by dark bandages, and caught a strong whiff of charred flesh. Who had that been before they'd become this nameless thing of darkness and decay?

As the Regent pulled Stella toward his private yacht, she could hear people yelling from behind her. Varion swiveled around with a curse but when Stella saw why, she felt her mouth open into a smile.

Running toward them was what must have been the entire population of the Citadel. Once they'd seen Stella climb over the fence, apparently they realized they could do it too. The peacekeepers had begun unlocking the gates, but it seemed like the climbing was as much symbolic as anything, and people were doing it in droves.

“No!” Varion yelled, and fired off a volley of shots into the crowd. The people slowed down to pick up those who had fallen, but still they kept coming.

At the front of the pack were faces Stella instantly recognized. Rok and Mtumba were right there, both singing the running song as they rushed across the grass, and Eli and Kita close behind. Stella felt tears flowing freely as she felt how much they cared about her, and how much she cared about them. She was not about to let them be shot on her account.

So, with what strength she had, she lifted her foot and grunted as she slammed the back of her shoe into Varion's shin as hard as she could.

“Ah!” he gasped in pain, and fell back, his grip loosened enough for Stella to slip free.

As she darted away from the Regent to join the crowd that had stopped a few paces short of trampling him, Stella felt something zip over her.

She looked back at Varion and saw that his trigger hand was burnt, his pistol fallen on the ground. She caught a whiff of burnt flesh.

Varion screamed as he held his injured appendage at the wrist, and glared at the crowd. “No!” he shouted, twitching. “You don't understand...this was all for the glory of the Empire!”

A glance in the other direction revealed Captain Eli Hawk still holding his pistol, pointed at the Regent, and Eli spoke. “No, what you did was for yourself and other greedy power-mongers like you. So don't give me that line. Won't work on me.” Eli kept his pistol trained on the Regent as Stella rushed over to her friends and hugged them, tears on their young faces.

“I'm sorry I wasn't more careful,” Stella sobbed as she clutched Kita's jacket. Kita shushed her, and Eli smiled as he lightly squeezed her shoulder.

“Look!” a man shouted from the crowd. “Do you see that?” Stella followed his gaze and shivered at what she saw the man describing. “Harris is opening a wormhole, and his ship's right on top of us! He'll kill us all!”

“We're with you, John,” she whispered, and squeezed her amulet.

29

“Clean sweep, Knights!” John Phoenix commanded over his earbud. “Dragons and Spearcraft are secondary priorities to disabling that wormhole! Leave the heavy cannons to me!” His Brigadier Knights spread out behind him, fist by fist, engaging Harris's forces. The dragons, strangely, didn't seem so thick down here.

John was still freezing cold, though. Just because he could survive being in space without oxygen or a suit didn't mean it was comfortable for him. Quite to the contrary. It felt like his face was going to freeze solid, but this was necessary right now. There was so little time.

They had to stop that wormhole from opening before it killed everyone on the Prime Citadel. As his vibrating jetpack zipped him along the base of the Highreach, dodging its particle-accelerator cannons, he reflected on something he hadn't dared hope for in many years.

Might his daughter have survived the Nanite Wars that had claimed his wife? She'd been kidnapped, and he'd been unable to find her. Everything had been in such disarray, and he'd been so young, then. So foolish...but this could be his second chance. He may have finally found his descendants. His bloodline.

“I'm going in to quell the cannons,” John said as he dived toward the main firing assembly. “Take out that generator!”

John sensed the approach of a Spearcraft from his left, and tore through it. He was able to see the shocked expressions of the pilot and gunner right before they were engulfed in the flames of their exploding ship. Two more deaths he'd just caused. It made him sick to have human blood on his hands.

“Stella,” he whispered as he fired his lance into another Spearcraft. It exploded in a fleeting burst of fire, and John felt his heart weighed by the deaths of the men inside.

Harris hadn't sent any Brigadier Knights to intercept him. No wonder, really, since John Phoenix had founded the order, and Harris undoubtedly needed his Knights on the Highreach if he ever wanted to travel anywhere by wormhole again. If they would fight for him at all after this, John mused.

John Phoenix swerved around another pair of Spearcraft, and then darted directly up along the side of the cannon generators. He unleashed a full-powered blast into the gap over its primary disc-focus array, and caused a violent power-surge. He was knocked back into the void by the powerful explosion.

More people dead from that, John Phoenix knew. He prayed for their souls as he felt the ethereal void created by their abrupt departure from the land of the living. Did Harris have any idea what darkness he could be unleashing? “Blast it, Harris! You're better than this!”

“Objective completed, Majesty,” Lord-General Waters reported. Before he finished speaking, there was a massive explosion from the wormhole generator that rocked the Highreach on its foundations. “That should slow them down.”