The Starfall Knight (41 page)

“I’d say you’re right, sergeant.”  Benton wheeled around.  “Let’s move out!”

A battle raged at the next intersection just as Ressen had predicted.  Sirinese thrashers – who had armed themselves with Centaran weapons – skirmished against a squad of Centarans spread through the crossing of the two main roads.  Above, Tarius rained down fire, scorching bodies as much as the churned mud.  Devan shielded his eyes from the sudden glare, bright in the darkness.

“Archers!” Benton ordered and Ressen’s squad nocked arrows.  Benton himself took aim with his rifle.  “Target in the air!”

Devan plunged his hand into the ranger’s rucksack and pulled out an arrow and connected cord that was threaded with steel.  Normally used in conjunction with a grappling hook, the shaft was fired across gaps to latch onto tree branches while thicker lines were pulled across.  An archer handed over a bow with a quick nod.

“Loose!”

Devan released and the flurry of arrows melded with the satisfying crack of the andonite ammunition.  The aerock cable hissed as it played out.  “Not this time, bastard.”

Tarius wavered as Devan’s arrow struck a leg.  More arrows sprouted from an arm and a shoulder while the rest glanced against his armour or sailed through the air.  The Imperator wobbled in the sky.

“Forward!  Swords to the side!  Cover!”

Devan returned the bow and charged.  Tarius fell, landing in the middle of the battle with a muddy slap.  Ressen and his squad took up the flanks as they headed into the fray.

Metal sang to either side and Sirinese slammed against the soldiers but Devan pushed all thoughts aside.  Even as they neared Tarius, the Imperator clambered to his feet.  Devan dropped his rifle and the rucksack.  Flames shot from Tarius’ hands, pushing himself into the air.

Devan leaped onto the trailing cord and tugged with all of his weight.  Tarius howled and tumbled back to the ground.  Devan sprinted forward.  He felt Benton following and as Devan tackled Tarius, his brother latched onto a leg.

Tarius roared and hell burst from his hands.  Devan clung onto the Imperator as his grip slipped to an ankle and they launched into the air.

The wind screamed in Devan’s ears as ground shrank from view.  He slammed into Benton and his brother slipped, one gauntlet snatching at the trailing cord.  A blast of heat shot past Devan’s shoulders.  Even as they arced through the air, Tarius still had the presence of mind to burn them, knowing that he could fly but Devan could not.

Devan drew a dagger and slashed at Tarius.  The blade scraped against the plate in the Sirinese brigandine, again and again.  Tarius twisted and rolled in the air.  Devan’s swings flew wide and high as gravity tumbled every which way.

Another swing and his blade bit into flesh.  Somewhere below, Benton shouted encouragement, words snatched away by the wind.

Tarius’ climb stalled and the air grew still.  “Fuck you Centarans!”  He jetted towards the ground.  The woodlands north of the city flashed past.

Beyond lay nothing but the maroon night sky.  The edge.

“Shit.”  With one hand clinging to an ankle, Devan slashed at Tarius’ calf, tearing through the leather boot.  Devan swung again and the dagger slid into Tarius’ leg, separating tendons and muscle.  The Imperator screamed and his flames spluttered out.

Devan slammed into the ground, his mouth filling with mud and grass.  His right arm snapped as he tumbled helplessly onwards, aerock and sky jumbling into one.

He came to rest on a smooth surface.  The Ledge.  Devan sat up, his broken arm dangling by his side.  A short distance away, Tarius found his feet.  The moonlight reflected off the blood pouring from his wounds.

Devan curled one foot underneath him, dizzy with the effort.  The Imperator snapped the arrowshafts protruding from his body.  Then, the last one with the hissing cord that stuck out from his leg.

Tarius met Devan’s gaze, held out the shaft and the end of the aerock cable, and dropped it.

Devan gasped and leaped onto the rushing line.  The cord scraped through his gauntlets and behind him, Devan heard the flames as Tarius fled.

With the rope in Devan’s hands, Benton’s weight pulled him to the edge of Centara.  Devan flung out his legs and his broken arm, catching himself at the last moment.  He screamed as his muscles pulled the shards of his upper arm apart.

Devan hung over the Ledge from the waist up, the endless sky staring back at him.  He’d managed to wrap the aerock cable around his gauntlet once.  The weight of the line bit into his hand, cutting off circulation even with the thick leather armouring his skin.  Some distance below, Benton clung to the rope.

“Benton!”

“I’m here, Devan,” Benton answered, his voice drifting on the wind.

Devan’s boots slithered along the slab of rock and his weight tipped forward.  Even if he could slip off his boots and gauntlets, he doubted if he would be able to reach for the andonite within Centara.  “Can you climb?”

“Devan.  He’s getting away.  And you can’t hold it.”

“I can!”  Devan’s reverse grip on the corner of the Ledge slipped to the tips of his fingers.  His arm burned, sending spikes through his shoulder and gut.  A finger slid off the corner.  Another one, soon.

Benton met his gaze and smiled.  “Don’t let Tarius escape.  For Verovel.  For our parents.”  He released the line and fell into the sky.

“Benton!”

Devan dropped the slack cord and the returning circulation stung his hand.  He pulled himself back from the Ledge, feeling hollow.  Tears could wait.  He cradled his broken arm and strode south, back onto dirt and rock.

Devan summoned the earth.

Alessa huffed as the squad emerged onto the road and the chaos.  Corpses lay across the intersection, both Centaran and Sirinese.  Fires blazed in almost all of the surrounding buildings as the battle continued, waves of thrashers crashing against the Centaran forces, illuminated by flames and shrouded by rain.

“Weapons!” Romaine called out.  The squad, or more accurately, the newly formed army of Centara drew their blades and maces and halberds and bows.  In the surge southward, they had collected more outcasts – Captain Sturgar’s company had emerged from hiding, almost at full strength; ranger captains Dannal and Kelun had tracked them down and brought two more companies comprised of their own rangers as well as those from surrounding outposts.

“Charge!”

Warcries filled the air and Alessa stormed forward with the rest of her new allies.  Next to her, Rika screamed, sword raised high.

The Centarans slammed into the Sirinese.  Alessa slashed wildly as her vision filled with only enemies and tattoos.  Only a few moments passed and she was clear.  The fighting descended into frantic combat.  Alessa realised that these Sirinese were not only well-armed but had no intention of retreating further south, out of the city.

Rika found her and they formed up again, back to back.  In the calamity of close-quarters combat, Alessa had read, it was the wisest tactic to hold.  They moved through the battle, never far from other allies.  Alessa smashed in a Sirinese nose – she recognised him – Hermos, was it?  Before she could ponder his identity, another Sirinese loomed up, a woman who reminded Alessa of Elina.  Alessa sliced open the bitch’s belly and moved to block a charge on her flank, Rika spinning around to cover the other side.

Leonus crossed Alessa’s gaze and she growled.  “Rika, this way!”

The ranger shouted, “I’m with you!”

Alessa pushed across the road, stepping over bodies and fending away swords.  The screams of the dying filled her ears but she kept her eyes on Leonus even as he kneed a city guard in the groin and slashed open his throat with a knife.

Leonus’ back remained turned and Alessa sprinted the last few steps.  Though seeing his face as she dealt his death would be a moment to savour, Alessa much preferred revenge.

Her boot slipped on a shield, half-buried in the muddy road.  Alessa stumbled into Leonus’ legs and his assailant smashed a mace into Alessa’s side.  Ribs cracked and she swore.  Rika screamed at the soldier but the words didn’t register for Alessa.  Where was her sword?

Leonus grappled her and threw Alessa onto her back.  He too had lost his weapons and he punched Alessa’s cheek, then the other.  She fended off the next blow but Leonus grabbed a wrist.  His other hand clamped onto Alessa’s neck and her face began to flush.

“Traitor bitch!”

Alessa’s breath tightened.  She twisted with all of her weight and sank her teeth into Leonus’ forearm.  Blood filled her mouth and she tore off a chunk of flesh.  He shrieked and fell back.

Alessa ripped her dagger from its sheath and lunged at Leonus.  The blade sank into his raised hand and he screamed again.

Leonus lunged forward, a fist smashing into Alessa’s temple.  Her vision burst into stars and she grappled Leonus’ injured hand, her fingers slipping on the blood covering the hilt of the dagger.  Leonus wrapped his good arm around Alessa’s nape, crushing her into his body.  His sour breath filled her nose.

A lance of ice pierced Alessa’s flank.  Leonus crowed as he slapped his injured hand, knife and all, into Alessa’s side again.  Warmth ran beneath her armour and she choked back a scream.

As Leonus laughed again, Alessa wrenched her body over his hand.  The blade sank into her flesh, deeper, her innards spasming.  But her weight kept Leonus’ arm in place.

Alessa dragged the drenched blade from Leonus’ palm, from her body.

“Wait!  No!”

She slammed the dagger into Leonus’ neck and his flank.  Again and again.  His eyes widened into saucers and his pleas became gurgles.

She found herself kneeling over Leonus’ corpse, her hands covered in mud, gore and blood.  Rika pulled Alessa up and handed her sword back.

A ripple of calm spread out.  Sirinese thrashers dropped their weapons, some gutted by Centarans while others dropped to their knees.

“Servius.  Servius.”  The murmur grew with the patter of rain, replacing the din of battle throughout the intersection.

“Fight on!” a call echoed.  “For Sirinis!”

“No.”  A thrasher moved through the crowd and Alessa recognised him – Ramalo, one of Leonus’ allies.  “Leonus is dead.  The Imperator is gone.  We have a new leader.”

“I should take your head,” Alessa said.  She resisted the urge to clutch her wounded flank.

“If it is your will, Imperator Alessa.”  Ramalo knelt.  Like a wave, the Sirinese all followed suit.

Alessa found Romaine in the crowd, the Marshal’s armour covered in blood.  Alessa tossed away the bloodied dagger and stepped over Leonus’ body.  “Marshal.  Sirinis surrenders.”

The earth pushed Devan into the air, higher than the surrounding trees and even above the city towers.  Grass tumbled from the dirt but he could still sense the entire aerock through the earthern legs and his bare feet.  Devan pulled the ground into another set of stilts ahead and he arced towards them, catching himself and launching forward once again.

He strode past the city and the strife in the boroughs, each gargantuan step becoming more natural, his senses extending through the dirt and the rock as he felt the hollows of a rabbit’s burrow, the tapping of terepids on exposed andonite, the slithering worms across layers of detritus in the woodlands.  Orange lit the sky to the south and Devan squinted at the silhouette of aerock Sirinis, a mound of earth.  Verovel trailed behind and disappeared as Tarius’ fires vanished.

Devan pushed himself further and faster but remained careful to stay in contact with each lofted tower of dirt.  If he lost contact for even a moment, the earth would collapse back to the ground.  And so would he.

With the mass of Sirinis to one side, Devan reached the aercarriage station between Centara and Verovel.  Nothing stirred on the abandoned aerock and the carriage remained locked down.

“Walk away, boy,” Tarius called out from Verovel.

Devan followed the aercarriage cables to the edge and peered across the gap.  Tarius tipped out an open vambrace, spent andonite tumbling to the ground.  The mineral was dull under the moonlight.

“And let you go?”

“Yes.”  Tarius placed a wide, glowing shard of andonite in the vambrace and shut the metal around his scarred forearm.  “Look – we both know the Sirinese are no more.  I’ll take Verovel and float away.”

“You don’t have my leave to steal Verovel.”

“Even if you’ll never see me again?”

“Ten years ago, the Sirinese raided Verovel,” Devan said.  “So, you’ll forgive my doubt when you say ‘never again’.”

“Do what you must.”  Tarius launched a flame at one of the tethers and the rope burned.

Devan reached into Centara and pushed the ground up, launching himself across the gap.  As his feet lost the earth, the dirt pattered into the sky.  The connection between himself and Centara vanished completely like a plunge into darkness.

Tarius leaped to one side, flame bursting from his hands.  Devan hit the ground on Verovel and rolled.  Heat licked at his feet and the sense of andonite returned.  Verovel felt different to Centara, smaller, intimate.  Home.

Another blast of scorching heat shot from Tarius.  Devan threw up a wall of earth.  The grass vanished in a puff of smoke.  Devan frowned as he huddled behind the mound of dirt.  With every moment, he felt the wall shrink and disappear from his consciousness.

The dirt glowed as it turned to molten rock and collapsed under its own weight.  Devan pushed himself away with a thrust of the earth beneath his feet.  The molten rock slithered across the ground and cooled, forming a smooth sheet of stone.  As Devan retreated, Tarius put the aercarriage station, the tethers and the cables to the flame.  Verovel shuddered and the gap to Centara widened.

Devan scrambled behind the trunk of a sprawling oak.  His heart pounded and he huffed, catching his breath.  Devan released the andonite from his senses and nausea filled his gut, crawling up his throat.  He retched to one side, as much from andonite poisoning as his fear.  If Tarius were intent on escaping with Verovel, Devan had only one option remaining.

He peeked around the side of the tree.  Beyond the clearing, Tarius stalked through the chest-high grass, searching the shadows beyond the flames shimmering from his palms.  Devan planted himself in the dirt and plunged his hands and soles of his feet into the soil.