The Ventifact Colossus (The Heroes of Spira Book 1) (43 page)

“It might surprise you to hear this,” Dranko called, “but we have no intention of stopping you. But I do have one question you could answer for me. If Emperor Naradawk wants to come back and rule Charagan, why would he want a bunch of giant turtles stomping all over it?”

It was a question intended to put Aktallian off his guard, but the red trespasser only laughed. “You are remarkably well informed,” he said. “And yet also tragically naïve. But here’s a question for you, Dranko Blackhope. If you believe I’m about to cause Ganit Tuvith to be overrun with Ventifact Giants, and you don’t intend to stop me, why are you and your friends here at all?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Dranko, “We haven’t entirely agreed upon not stopping you. But I figured that either way, we’re going to want to do something about you
after
you’ve either blown your horn or not.”

Aktallian laughed. “‘Do something about me?’ Is that a euphemism for ‘kill’ on your world? If so, it’s delightfully optimistic.”

“We should kill him right now,” said Tor.

“No,” said Morningstar. “In my Seer-dream, Eddings killed the turtle, but the turtle was there to be killed. If we need to sacrifice this city to save the kingdom later on, so be it.”

Ernie fumed but nodded his resignation.

“But we can kill him afterward, right?” whispered Tor.

“Oh, Hells yes,” said Dranko.

Dranko wasn’t
quite
as confident as he sounded. He was meddling in the proverbial things whose understanding was far beyond him, but the one thing that kept coming back to him was Abernathy’s last pronouncement: that unless they found the Crosser’s Maze, an ancient and unstoppable being was going to show up and lay waste to everything. There was also the possibility that Stormknight Turtlebane had some prophesied destiny—and by the Gods those things were lying thick on the ground these days—to kill the Ventifact Colossus before it got very far.

And of course, when the dust had settled and the colossus was slain, and the Stormknights were queried about what prompted their heroics, the name of Horn’s Company was bound to come up.

“Aktallian, please, be our guest. Let the trumpet sound and the world’s largest turtle have its tour of Sand’s Edge.”

Aktallian gave him and his friends a long, hard stare. Dranko belatedly worried that he had gone too far, that now Aktallian would suspect a trick and not blow the horn after all. The man adjusted both his stance and his grip on his black sword; was he going to rush them, figuring he could kill them all and summon the Colossus afterward? Dranko didn’t doubt he was a formidable warrior even in the waking world, and unlike them he was heavily armored, but Dranko still liked the odds of six against one.

Without taking his eyes off of Dranko and the rest, Aktallian brought the Chelonian Horn to his lips. The bright green instrument was slightly bigger than a typical drinking horn; the sunlight brought multicolored reflections from its surface as though it were studded with a variety of gems. Despite the imminent enormity of consequence to Aktallian blowing it, Dranko couldn’t stop himself from wondering: would he get more from selling the gems off individually or from presenting the intact whole as a collector’s piece?

Its sound was low and piercing, a pure, even tone at the lowest register a person was likely to hear. A dull pain throbbed in Dranko’s ears, his teeth vibrated, goose-flesh prickled his skin. Arrowshot Tower emitted an alarming percussion of crackling rock, like a whole block of stone houses settling at once.

Aktallian held the horn blast for ten full seconds before releasing it, after which a profound quiet rushed in. Dranko’s eardrums popped from a sudden cessation of pressure. On the streets below, the pedestrians of Sand’s Edge stopped, confused. The city held its breath.

The red trespasser himself stood on the westernmost side of the rooftop, closest to the desert. He must have been exerting superhuman self-control not to turn his back to them, to see if his summons had been successful.

“Ernie, go around to the left!” It was Morningstar barking orders. “I’ll go to the right. Tor, straight ahead. Kibi, if you think you can fight well enough to make a difference, stay near Tor. Our best chance is to attack from different sides. Aravia and Dranko, support and healing.”

Dranko was impressed; Morningstar must have been thinking this through since they first landed on the tower.

Aktallian tossed the horn aside and took a few relaxed steps forward, slashing the air with his shiny black sword and moving with fluid grace. For all it hindered him, the crimson armor he wore might have been made of woven grass. He made a feint forward, then sidestepped quickly right and turned to meet Ernie full on. Ernie grew wide-eyed and backpedaled, leaning backward as the tip of Aktallian’s sword came close enough to trim his eyebrows. This spurred Tor into a run, and for just a second Dranko thought the kid might be able to take full advantage of Aktallian’s divided attention, but the man in red armor spun and easily blocked Tor’s overhand swing.

Dranko’s experience in analyzing swordfights was not much cultivated, but he could tell that Tor was out of his league. The boy gamely took his hacks and dodged or parried Aktallian’s counters, concentrating on defense until more help arrived. Ernie had regained his balance and took cautious steps in, looking for an opening while his enemy danced with Tor.

Behind him and off to one side Aravia shouted a pair of incomprehensible syllables, and Dranko waited for some magical effect that would sway the battle in their favor. When nothing obvious occurred in the following heartbeat, he guessed Aravia had done something subtler, like turn Aktallian’s sword to wood or unbuckle his armor. But Aravia spit a most unladylike oath involving goats; had he taught her that? He must have. Either way, whatever Aravia had cast, it hadn’t worked.

Morningstar moved up unnoticed and swung her mace down hard at Aktallian’s head, but the red trespasser must have caught some glimmer of her movement; he ducked and leaned forward so that the head of Morningstar’s weapon clanked against the back plate of his armor. Without even looking he spun and slashed Morningstar right across her stomach, opening a gaping wound, then finished his twirl in time to block a swing from Tor. He was a dervish, never still for a second, a fighting machine they had no business contesting.

“Kibi,” said Dranko, “they need help. Our only hope is numbers.” He dashed forward to where Morningstar had fallen, praying out loud as he ran. “Lord Delioch, whose might heals all hurts, time is very short right now.”

He slid as he arrived and put his hands on Morningstar’s gashed body. Aktallian flicked a look at him, then at Kibi. If nothing else, the stonecutter’s arrival with a weapon drew Aktallian’s attention away from him. Dranko’s hand glowed golden, and energy was drawn from his body to heal Morningstar’s wound. It came so easily now, a transferal of vitality made in full knowledge and acceptance of the price. His vision blurred, but with a mighty effort of will he retained his awareness.

“I’m becoming way too familiar with your insides,” he said to Morningstar “And there’s probably a good rude joke I could be making along those lines, but this isn’t the time. Now get up and—”

Two things happened quickly then, much too quickly for Dranko to do anything but observe. As Morningstar rose to one knee, ready to return to the fight, Aktallian twisted away from Tor and executed a perfect backhand slash destined to take Morningstar’s head off at the neck. At the same moment Aravia shouted a quick syllable and the Chelonian Horn sailed in from off stage, connecting hard with Aktallian’s wrist. The black sword turned in his grip, and instead of the blade sweeping Morningstar’s head from her shoulders, its flat struck the side of her head at a greatly reduced velocity. It was still enough to send Morningstar staggering back. She dropped to her knees, her mace falling from her fingers.

Dranko fumed. “Dammit, I just healed her!”

Aktallian spared him another brief glance, but Ernie and Tor diverted the red trespasser’s attention. The three squared off, Tor and Ernie huffing a bit and bleeding from several shallow cuts each, while Aktallian spun and leapt like an armored dancer with not a scratch on him. Dranko had hoped that his allies’ numerical advantage would translate into victory by attrition, but it wasn’t working out that way. It didn’t help that Kibi was still hanging back, looking for an opening that was never going to come.

The tower shook.

No, more than that, the
city
shook. Aktallian’s nimble maneuvers had carried him back to the wooden railing on the west side of the roof, and over his shoulder a great gray hill was rising into view, heaving itself up out of the desert. Faint but shrill, screams filled the air of Sand’s Edge.

The swaying of Arrowshot Tower seemed to sharpen Aktallian’s focus.

“I suppose we’ll have to wrap this up,” he said. Gods, he wasn’t even breathing hard. Aktallian lunged and drove Ernie back, the baker barely lifting Pyknite in time to parry, and at the same time kicked high behind him, striking Tor in the sternum and sending him reeling backward. Aktallian was already cocking his arm back for a stroke that was likely to cut Ernie in half. Dranko doubted he had any channeling left in him.

Kibi finally found his opening. He lunged forward and swung his pick, driving its business end into Aktallian’s breastplate. Knowing how unusually strong Kibi was, Dranko half expected to see the curve of the pick emerge from Aktallian’s back. Aktallian himself was knocked three steps backward. Kibi looked up at him almost apologetically.

The point of the pick had made a deep dimpled dent in the breastplate, but had gone no further.

“Damn,” said Kibi.

All hope left Dranko then. Aktallian scowled and hacked contemptuously at Kibi, cleaving through the wooden handle of the pick and chopping off the bottom two inches of the stonecutter’s beard.

Another shockwave traveled through Sand’s Edge as the Ventifact Colossus took another step. The tower swayed and shed flakes of stone.

Aktallian whipped around before Dranko and Ernie could get out of the way.

“You people are like gnats,” he said. “But I—”

He turned again. Tor had regained his equilibrium and was charging forward. Aktallian’s black sword flicked like a shadow and speared Tor’s abdomen as the boy closed, splattering Dranko with blood. But Tor simply grunted, wrapped his arms around Aktallian, and continued his barreling run, bearing the man backward even as the black sword emerged from his own back.

The wooden railing had no chance. It splintered and gave way, and both Tor and Aktallian vanished over the lip of the roof, Morningstar’s first Seer-dream coming to pass.

Aravia sprinted past Dranko in a blur, braced herself against an intact section of railing, and leaned out over it. She shouted a single word, then staggered back.

“Save Tor,” she gasped before falling comatose onto the roof.

Dranko lurched to the railing and looked down. Tor was far below, on his back and looking up with wide, terrified eyes. Next to him was the sprawled body of Aktallian, but the armored man looked disproportionally small. Something was playing tricks with Dranko’s perspective.

Red light shone out from Aktallian’s body, and he disappeared, sword and armor and all.

Another temblor rocked Sand’s Edge; clouds of dust rose from its streets and buildings. The Ventifact Colossus had its two front feet planted on the ground above the desert. Its turtle head was nearly level with the top of Arrowshot Tower and continuing to rise. Its immensity was of a sort that Dranko’s mind could make no sense of.

Tor was another story. The boy was flailing around now, making swimming motions with one arm while the other was drawn in, hand tight against his side. The boy’s body spun like something hanging on a string, and several pedestrians were reaching
up
to grab him.

He was levitating! Aravia had saved his life, at least for now. But Dranko had seen Aktallian’s sword go right through the boy. He had little time left to live.

Dranko turned to Kibi. “Are you injured?”

“No, I…”

“Can you carry Morningstar and Aravia down the stairs? At the same time? I don’t think this tower was built for what’s coming.”

Kibi nodded even as he gazed open-mouthed at the Ventifact Colossus dominating the horizon.

“Then do it.”

Ernie was also looking dumbly at the world’s largest turtle. Dranko grabbed his shoulder.

“Ernie, I need to go save Tor.”

He pointed to the carpet, still hovering where they had dismounted. “You need to fly that thing. Find the three Stormknights. Two women and a man, probably wearing something with a shield and red fist. Make sure they’re on the job and see if they need help.”

“But I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. And you will. Go.”

Dranko bolted for the trap door.

Delioch, if Tor is still alive when I get down there, take whatever you need, even if it kills me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Ernie’s attention was uniquely divided.

On the one hand, there was the carpet, its orange fabric gently undulating two feet off the ground. As he had admitted back when they were taking turns flying the thing around the Greenhouse yard, he had no stomach for heights. More accurately it was
ledges
that sent some primordial cliff-fearing part of his brain into a blind panic. It didn’t even have to be
himself
on the ledge. When his father climbed on the bakery roof to make repairs, Ernie literally couldn’t look; his fear directed his head to turn away without consulting any rational part of his mind.

Vyasa Vya
was not very large. It was all ledge.

On the other hand, there was the Ventifact Colossus. The great sand turtle had by now lifted its entire mountainous body out of the desert, its feet having pounded the cliff face and fifty yards of once-flat terrain into a compressed ramp of earth. Standing at the apex of a seventy-foot tower, Ernie was about even with its underbelly and the tops of its legs. Its enormous head was a hundred feet higher. Behind it the body stretched out like…like…

His mind balked. Other than mountains, there was nothing big enough for comparison, certainly nothing that could
move.
And it carried a mountain on its back already.

Its left foreleg was off the ground but descending in a kind of otherworldly slow motion, like a tree slowly toppling in a forest. It didn’t seem to slam down with great force, but its impact set the tower to pitching to and fro even from a mile away. A cloud of debris the size of a city block plumed up from its foot.

Ernie was fascinated almost to the point of paralysis by the sight of the colossus, but the thought of standing on the roof when the tower collapsed spurred him to action. He ran to the carpet and stepped up gingerly, then spent a few seconds wiggling his backside in a vain attempt to feel comfortably stationary. Giving up on that, he grabbed two of the tassels along the front edge and willed the rug to rise a few feet. It responded to his wishes, sending fear creeping up his throat and thickening his tongue.

He imagined Old Bowlegs standing before him.

What are you waiting for, Ernie? Do you think all my training was about goblins? You will do great things in this life, Ernest Carabend Roundhill, if only you find a confidence to match your gifts.

And then, quite clearly, he saw Mrs. Horn smiling up at him, those wonderful wrinkles framing her face.
Stay positive, Ernest.

“Fly forward,” he said, and the carpet responded. It lurched a few times as Ernie’s terrified subconscious fought to delay the inevitable, but then like a stone from a sling it shot out over the tower railing. Ernie’s scream mingled with hundreds of others coming up from the streets.

It would have been easier had he not been obliged to look down, but he needed to find the three Stormknights. He willed the carpet to stop and hover, then leaned to the left and peered over the side. Thousands of people were running through the narrow, twisting streets, mostly away from the desert and the approaching colossus. A few souls, brave or foolhardy, were dashing closer, maybe to get a better look.

He couldn’t imagine how he’d begin to find three people he had never met, from a hundred feet up, in a city teeming like a knocked-down anthill. If all had gone according to plan, the Stormknights would be attacking the Ventifact Colossus, though Ernie had no idea how they were planning to bring it down. His animal instincts yammered for him to turn around and fly to anywhere less imperiled than here, but Ernie collected his resolve and steered the carpet toward the gigantic turtle.

Another foot came down, and this one fell half on an outlying huddle of small buildings. These simply vanished beneath the turtle’s brown-green claw, flattened and driven a dozen feet downward into the beast’s footprint. A wooden shed that stood just outside the radius of the turtle’s claw collapsed anyway from the shock, and several nearby gawkers were knocked over as the ground shifted.

Ernie flew higher, steering Vyasa Vya
in fits and starts as he pummeled the terrified bits of his mind into submission. The ride grew smoother as he approached the impossible grandeur of the colossus, since it gave his fear a clearer object to embrace. Now he was of a height with its eyes, shimmering black walls showing only a slight curve. Its nostrils gaped like caves, and its mouth, slightly ajar, could have opened wide and swallowed the entire Greenhouse in a single gulp.

Though the turtle had been out of the Mouth of Nahalm for several minutes now, hundreds of gallons of sand were still streaming off its shell, creating shoulder-high mounds on roads and rooftops. Through these cascading sheets came volleys of arrows and bolts, as militiamen were firing bravely up at the giant beast lumbering through their city. It was impossible for them to miss, but none of the hissing projectiles were doing any good. The rough skin of the turtle’s legs and belly repelled most of the missiles, and the few that stuck couldn’t have bothered it any more than the tiniest splinter might trouble an elephant.

Its legs moved two at a time, foreleg with the opposite hind-leg, each rising and falling like a god’s hammer. Aravia had been right; its next step landed in the city proper, and it crushed three buildings at once. Ernie prayed that its slow rate of progress had given everyone the chance to evacuate. Swooping around to its left he saw the crater left behind by its previous step. It was matted with pulverized debris, but without getting closer Ernie couldn’t tell if any human remains were mashed into the wreckage.

An arrow whizzed by his head. The air had become thicker with projectiles as soldiers and armed citizens converged on the beast. He doubted they were aiming at him, but what might they think he was doing? A man on a flying carpet was probably just as strange a sight to a typical citizen as was a giant turtle. In the worst case they might decide that he was responsible for the colossus, or even controlling it! To his unspoken thought the carpet moved straight up like an elevator, until it was higher than the top of the wandering island perched on the turtle’s shell, and well out of range of the bowmen. His fear of heights subsided a bit as the ground became more abstract, but if anything the colossus appeared even larger now that he could see it and the city at once. Slow as its footsteps were, another dozen of them would leave much of Sand’s Edge in ruin, and that wasn’t taking into account the prophecy of Romus the Mad, who foretold an entire regiment of turtles following the first one out of the Mouth of Nahalm. Out in the desert two more of the wandering islands were much closer to the city than they had been this morning. A third wasn’t too far behind.

Even as most of Sand’s Edge’s population was now streaming out of the city, spilling in a ragged column onto the north road, small crowds had gathered around the Ventifact Colossus’s feet. Ernie took a wide spiraling course downward (so as to avoid the arrows that filled the air) to investigate.

The back right foot of the Colossus was large enough that over thirty people could stand in a ring around its circumference, and that’s what they were doing. Each was armed either with a sword or else a pitchfork, hoe, or some other farmer’s or tradesman’s implement. They had scrambled and clawed their way through the local wreckage and were hacking at the foot with vigor, but obviously to no meaningful end. They might as well have been flogging a horse with handkerchiefs. A hundred men chopping at the leathery skin for an hour would maybe give the colossus the equivalent of a superficial cut.

Up went the leg, slowly, and the crowd scattered before reforming and running to continue their useless assault on the front right foot. Ernie admired their courage and despaired at the futility of it all.

A bystander who had been watching the circle of attackers from a safe distance noticed Ernie and pointed, shouting, but his words were drowned out by the thunderous roar of a massive foot coming down full upon the city, mashing another dozen buildings into fragments and knocking over, in part or in full, fifty more around it. Already the devastation was terrible, and nothing was likely to stop it before all of Sand’s Edge was erased.

He still hadn’t found the trio of Stormknights, but the foot-hacking squads were a likely place to look. Ernie steered Vyasa Vya
clockwise around the back of the turtle, tilting his flight-path upward to avoid the creature’s tail (which was stubby relative to the size of the body, but still a hundred feet long and wider than a toolshed). His control over the carpet was improving, though he was still nowhere as skilled as Tor. On the far side were forty more people bunched in an offensive cluster, attacking the turtle’s back left foot while it was still planted in its crater, but none of them looked like a Werthan Stormknight.

As Ernie hovered, the foot rose from its indented footprint, and directly behind it were three people apart from the crowds. The Stormknights! They were beneath the center of the Colossus, two women and a man, standing alone and wearing tabards emblazoned with the shield-and-fist of the god of War. All carried long swords, and two had small shields strapped to their arms. They were looking up and talking as the majestic roof of the turtle’s underbelly passed overhead. Had they found a weak spot?

He raced toward them, the carpet jerking at the excitement of his discovery. The taller of the two women noticed his approach, wheeled into a crouch behind her shield, and pointed her blade at him.

“Were you visited by four people including a half-goblin?” Ernie asked hurriedly. “Those were my friends.”

The woman nodded. She was taller than Tor and had a warrior’s bearing. Her long brown hair was tied behind her in a ponytail.

“They spoke truly,” she said. “I am Corlea Turtlebane, but how I am to spell the death of this monstrosity is a riddle we cannot solve. Did your prophecies not include some hint as to how we might slay such a tremendous creature?”

“No,” said Ernie. “One just said that that ‘three children of Werthis would lay it low.’ The other one said that ‘three of your number would smite the beast.’ Neither of them said how. We were hoping you had some kind of trick up your sleeves.”

The ground shuddered as the Ventifact Colossus planted another foot; the three Stormknights swayed and clutched one another’s shoulders to stay upright.

“It is impervious,” said the man. “And even could we drive our blades into its flesh up to the hilts, it would feel nothing, not even a flea bite. Who could have dreamt there were such monsters on Spira?”

Ernie blinked. Who indeed?

The answer came to him like a thunderbolt.

“Eddings,” he whispered. Then out loud he said, “I think I know how you can kill it. Hop on the carpet.”

The man regarded him with skepticism. “Are you certain?”

“Yes! And every minute you stand there, the turtle is going to crush another piece of your city. Hurry!”

“I don’t think that—”

“Sorent!” shouted Corlea. “Have faith. Can you not see the Gods’ will at work?”

Ernie lowered the flying rug to the ground and the three Stormknights stepped onto it.

“Best if you sit.” Ernie steered the carpet out from under the colossus and sent it rocketing straight up. “My name’s Ernest, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

“I am Veloun.” The shorter woman had to shout to be heard over the din. “Ernest, what is your plan?”

Ernie flew Vyasa Vya
high over the turtle and towards its front. Enormous round pits marked its progress, and each footprint was carpeted with crushed debris. And as if that weren’t destruction aplenty, its slowly sweeping tail had left its own zigzagging swath of devastation, houses and shops and wells knocked into rubble, statues toppled and trees felled.

“My friend Morningstar is an Ellish Dreamseer,” Ernie shouted to the Stormknights over his shoulder. “She saw the colossus in a dream, and in that dream, our butler killed it by stabbing it with a letter opener.”

“I hardly see how that helps!” Veloun shouted back at him.

Ernie swung the flying carpet in a wide and descending arc, returning to a hovering state a couple hundred yards in front of the monster. He held them at the same height as the giant turtle’s head—at least a hundred feet from the ground—and facing it.

“He stabbed it in its nose! Don’t you see? Its nostrils are plenty big for you to climb into. From there you just have to slice your way up into its head. It must have a brain in there somewhere, right?”