Isle of Wysteria: The Monolith Crumbles (56 page)

Calla and Athel both realized the same thing. If Calla yelled out, they would be caught.

For an agonizing moment, no one moved.

“Is the foyer clear?” came a dark voice from beyond.

Calla opened her mouth, but then hesitated. “Yes, it’s clear,” she lied.

The black guard could be heard heading down another corridor, drawing farther away.

The Queen looked at her gratefully.

Calla stepped aside and allowed them to pass. “I’ll wait two minutes before I call out,” she said.

“I’m grateful, Calla.”

“Don’t be,” she corrected. “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing this for me. Once you’re gone, I’ll be the new head of the family.”

“Of course.”

As the four of them passed her, Calla reached out and grabbed the Queen’s sleeve.

“Thank you for not banishing me,” she whispered, looking away. “It’s more than I would have done.”

The Queen nodded. “Care for our family.”

“I will.”

“Don’t trust Spirea.”

“I won’t.”

The Queen looked on her cousin regretfully, and realized she would probably never see her again. “Goodbye, Calla.”

“Goodbye, Athel.”

The Queen walked away, leaving her home behind for the second time in her life. Only this time, it brought no joy to her.

* * *

“Come on, come on!”

Nikki jumped aboard her Eriia, and watched as it moved away from the branch it had been moored to. Far below, beneath the red sky, the forest fought itself at the base of the royal tree.

Nikki looked out worriedly to the last Eriia docked. It was the Queen’s.

“Where is she? Do you think we should wait?”

She had to grab hold of the doorframe to maintain her balance as the Eriia jerked to one side. Flung from across the island, a boulder sailed through the air where they had been only a moment before.

“You can stay,” King Frians of Hoeun said, fingering the Beastmaster necklace around his neck, “but I’m leaving.”

“There they are,” Nikki said, pointing.

* * *

The Queen and her group ran out along the spine of the branch. This high up, the crimson air was chilled.

The street-sized branch bucked, nearly tossing Albashire overboard. He had to drop down and grab a stem to keep his balance.

“What was that?” he yelled.

The Queen ran up and helped him to his feet. “They’ve found us.”

Lady Buckthorn followed them out onto the branch, her daughters close behind. “Halt right there!” she commanded.

Talliun punched back, releasing a gout of shimmering fog, forcing the Treesingers to retreat and take cover.

“Come on, lads,” Captain Evere yelled from the Eriia. “It’s time to go.”

Evere and Mina reached down, helping Albashire up into the howdah.

“Hurry, sweetie!”

The Treesingers fired through the dissipating cloud, but unable to see, most of their shots went wild. Privet stood before Athel and slashed his silver blade three times, deflecting the shots away.

The High Priestess came out onto the branch with a dozen of her black guard and realized what was happening. “Stop that beast!” she commanded.

Orlaya and Delphinium raised their staffs, but the enormous tree branch did not budge.

“She’s fighting us,” Delphinium yelled.

“All together, at once, Oleander commanded. “Bend her to your will.”

“But she’s…”

“Just do it!”

All the black guard planted their staffs in unison, and the royal tree shuddered in violation. The Treesingers groaned, straining with all their might in a titanic clash of wills.

Orlaya let go of her staff. “This feels wrong,” she said, stepping away in disgust.
“Lady, Buckthorn, help us,” the High Priestess strained.

From her Eriia, Nikki watched as Athel, Trillium, and Privet jumped up onto the Eriia, and it pulled away.

“She made it!”

The Buckthorns planted their staffs and joined in as well. The royal tree squealed horribly, her very essence being defiled. Trembling, the end of the branch whipped out and wrapped itself around Athel’s Eriia, holding it fast.

“She’s got us,” the Beastmaster yelled, doing the best he could to control the struggling air whale as it squirmed and hollered.

“We’ve got to break free, lads,” Evere yelled. The screeching of the tree was truly awful to behold. Like a hare being throttled. The whale screeched and bucked, tossing everyone about, but it could not break free.

Captain Evere managed to bring himself to his knees and fired one of the cannons mounted on the howdah, but another branch reached out and caught the shot, protecting the Treesingers.

More black guard arrived. “High Priestess, we are needed below, the men are overwhelming our lines in the plaza.”

“First help us,” Oleander strained. They pulled out their staffs and did so.

Sweat rolled down Lady Buckthorn’s face as she gripped her staff. “Reel…it…in,” she ordered, barely able to speak.

As the whale kicked and bucked, the royal tree pulled in closer. On nearby branches, more black guard arrived, and added their weight to the magical depredation.

* * *

Nikki grabbed King Frians by the collar. “We’ve got to turn back,” she yelled. “Athel’s not going to make it.”

The Beastmaster looked back at the struggling beast. Already some of the Treesingers were firing their rifles at the terrified occupants.

“Not a chance.”

Nikki looked below and noticed a war bow mounted atop one of the nearby trees. “Put me down there.”

Frians looked down at the thrashing tree. “That thing will tear you to shreds.”

“I’ll be fine, just do it!”

* * *

Privet climbed down off the howdah and began hacking at the wood that held them. Mina climbed up top, and released a gale of frost, covering the living wood in ice.

“Don’t hurt the tree,” Athel bade.

“Oh come on!”

“It’s my great-grandmother’s tree.”

“Then tell grandma to let us go!”

“I can’t! If I use my magic, Alder will die!”

* * *

As her Eriia swooped by, Nikki jumped off the howdah and landed on the warbow platform. The enraged tree squealed at her presence, taking a swipe at King Frians and his Eriia as they sped away as fast as they could.

Missing its prey, the tree turned its attention to her, but she took off her glove and with hopeful trepidation, touched the living wood, allowing it to read her heart. It instantly began to calm down.

“See, it knows I mean it no harm,” Nikki said in relief. “I wasn’t sure if that would work.”

Slapping the activation rune, Nikki pulled back the arming lever and aimed the warbow up at the Treesingers attacking Athel’s Eriia. The bow bent and released a volley of darts with a steady staccato rhythm.

Treesingers and black guard jumped for cover, the darts from the warbow ricocheting off their armor and knocking them off their feet.

Their control over the tree weakened, and the Eriia began to pull free and away, the frozen section cracking under the strain of the powerful creature.

“Down there!” Lady Buckthorn called out, straining against her staff, and the women of Wysteria returned fire at the rebellious warbow.

Nikki was hit in the shoulder, her blood splattering against her neck, then again in her thigh. She gasped with pain and doubled over, clutching her wounds.

The Treesingers resumed their spoliation, and the royal tree yanked the Eriia in, trying to bring it close enough for the black guard to climb aboard.

Captain Evere fired another shot with the cannon; Talliun released a jet of fire, and Mina let loose a sonic blade, but it wasn’t enough. More Treesingers were arriving by the second, and there were too many to interrupt at once. Although they scattered women here and there, the tree kept pulling them in, closer by the second.

* * *

Nikki pulled her hand away, looking in terror at the blood covering it.

“No,” she hissed, gritting her teeth. “I am fourth generation military, an officer in the Alliance military, and a proud daughter of Falmar, and I will not die on my knees!”

Forcing herself to stand, blood tricking down her legs, she took a fresh magazine and slapped it into place. Pulling back the lever, she took aim and fired again.

* * *

The shots from the warbow peppered the frozen section of the branch, breaking off large pieces of it, until it groaned and snapped off completely.

The Eriia kicked back, throwing everyone onboard into the walls of the howdah.

* * *

Another volley of shots rained down on Nikki, and she was struck in the chest. Her body quaking with pain, she grabbed the controls to brace herself, watching the Eriia pull away.

“Go Athel, save our world,” she said hoarsely. “Save my island. Don’t let it die.”

She looked down at the carnage below, her eyes growing cloudy. Man fighting woman, woman fighting man, trees thrashing crushing and squealing amid the red air. “Don’t let it end this way…”

Nikki leaned forward against the controls, her head falling forward limply. She reached up and clutched the Alliance patch on her uniform, and then slipped away.

“Not like this…”

* * *

Lady Buckthorn screamed in rage as she saw the Eriia pull away from them and fly off to the west.

Dahlia pulled out her rifle. “No, traitor, you are not leaving this place.”

Rising to her feet, Talliun tried to make a shield of hard-light to protect them, but her arm whirred down and went limp.

“Oh no.”

The Queen rose to her feet and saw Nikki laying dead against the warbow far below. “Nikki! No!”

Privet saw what was happening sprinted towards Athel.

Oleander held out her hand at Dahlia. “Don’t hurt her. She must stand trial!”

Dahlia smiled and pulled back the hammer. “Oh, she’s on trial.”

The Queen looked up just in time to see the barrel leveled at her.

“And the verdict...is...guilty.”

As Dahlia fired, Athel’s training kicked in, and she reached for her staff to grow a wall of wood from the branch still wrapped around the howdah to shield herself. Just as her fingers reached the wood, she hesitated.

Wait, Alder, if I…

Athel felt herself rock back, as if someone had poked her hard with two fingers. There was a clear feeling of numbness in her chest. No pain, just raw shock as the world seemed to slow down around her.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could clearly see Privet throwing himself at her, terror on his face as he slowly arced through the air. To her left, she could see Mina turning her face away, amber-colored blood splattered all over her.

Athel looked down and saw the gaping hole in the center of her chest, blood pumping out, falling down her gown in thick liquid spurts. She felt a similar sensation between her shoulder blades, as blood poured out the exit wound.

I’ve been shot.

As the realization of what happened passed through her mind, the waves of nausea started. Her joints went stiff, her skin went cold. The edges of the howdah rolled down over her as she fell backwards. Now the numbness was being replaced with throbbing pain. Every muscle cramped at once, screaming for breath as if her whole being was drowning. She tried to inhale, but her muscles froze tight. Every cell in her body was being throttled.

I’ve…been…shot….

Privet threw himself on top of her just as the other Buckthorns fired. He screamed in agony as shot after shot tore into his back, blocking the seed bullets from hitting Athel with his very flesh. An entire volley tore into him, shredding his shirt and jacket, and tearing away enough flesh to expose the bone of his spine.

Athel’s world contracted. Sound disappeared, the edges of her vision withdrew, the darkness closing in around her like a tunnel. She saw Privet screaming as he held her.

And then all went dark.

* * *

An hour later, the High Priestess fell back, her broken staff in her hand. All around her in the plaza, the beaten and bruised Treesingers moaned as the men clamored over them, beating down with fist and rock any who dared to rise again.

Her face battered, Oleander looked up at Akar’s bloody form as he stood over her, a broken sword held to her throat. Behind him, the red sky of the eclipse reflected his rage.

“You brought this on yourselves,” he hissed, spitting his blood out onto the dry ground. “We would have stood beside you loyally as companions, as equals. We would have worked with you to tend this forest and cultivate it. We would have even given our lives to defend it. We didn’t ask for your love, only that you treat us with a shred of dignity, but even that was unthinkable to you. Was it really so hard to just let go of your hate for us? Is it really so unforgivable that we happened to be born men?”

“Just get it over with,” she returned defiantly.

Akar threw the sword away. “I’m not going to kill you, you despicable parasite. I want you to live a long, barren life. I want you to sit here and watch your wretched forest die around you, knowing every day that this is your fault. I want you to lay awake every night for the next hundred years, reliving this moment, here right now, when I spared your life. Me, whom you call a violent savage. I want you to remember that I showed you more mercy and compassion in one moment than you have shown to us your whole unnaturally long life. I want you to spend a century in agony, knowing that you could have saved your miserable forest, but you chose to let it rot and decay instead.”

Akar stood over her and held out his hands. “Women of Wysteria, you wanted to rule his cursed place. Well, you can have it. We’re leaving. It’s all yours. Come on, everybody.”

The bruised and beaten women watched silently as the men gathered up their dead and wounded. While the women had killed a great many of the men, the men had taken great care not to kill a single woman. Sensing their desire to do them no harm, the trees simply let them pass.

The Treesingers of Wysteria watched as the men marched away, taking the boys and male babies with them, marching to the east towards the blight lands, where fresh transports from the league were landing to take them away to an uncertain future.