Shadow of the Otherverse (The Last Whisper of the Gods Saga Book 3) (41 page)

As they crested the hill, the killing field came into view. The first thing Sorial noticed was the fire - a large conflagration burning in a pit, designed to provide warmth for the men gathered in the camp and fuel for Justin’s magic. There was little snow to be found atop the hill - just mud turned rust-color by the mixing in of blood. Scattered around were bodies. The two djinn - twisted, blackened husks that steamed in the cold air - were immediately visible. In addition, there were approximately thirty men, none moving. Sorial recognized the nearest corpse only after studying it for a long moment. It was Lieutenant Fangot, the leader of his escort. He was badly burned with parts of his uniform seared off and other parts fused with his flesh. His sword, which lay beside him, was an unrecognizable lump of metal.

Sorial and Alicia advanced warily, scanning bodies for signs of life, their boots making sucking noises in the freshly churned mud. Some of the men showed the kinds of bloody wounds one would expect in a battle. Others were charred beyond recognition. The djinn had done significant damage before perishing, but they had died, apparently brought down by the flammable rocks the men had carried.

“There,” whispered Alicia, pointing to a slight figure on the opposite side of the fire pit. Prone and unmoving, it was Justin, or at least it appeared to be. The emaciated form was unmistakable. For a fraction of a second, Sorial found himself wondering if it could truly be over. Had they defied the odds and actually
won
? Then the reality of the situation evaporated the quicksilver hope. The hilltop was littered with corpses but Justin’s body wasn’t as lifeless as those around him.

The Lord of Fire rose calmly, taking the time to brush the dirt from his simple wardrobe of trousers and a loose-fitting shirt. That he was uninjured marked this as a masquerade, part of a trap whose nature Sorial couldn’t yet identify. Why pretend to be dead only to rise when his opponents approached? What advantage did he have that Sorial was missing?

The answer came swiftly when the form next to Justin also rose. Unlike the frail, wizened fire-wizard, this was a giant of a man - a brute whose size dwarfed the likes of Vagrum, the sadistic Langashin, and Overcommander Vikon. He brandished a fearsome cudgel and the only signs of injury he exhibited were minor cuts to his bare left forearm and right cheek. Sorial saw the mortal danger of the situation. The jaws of the trap were revealed now that they were ready to snap shut.

“We meet as was fated,” said Justin, his tone casual. He spoke as if this was a banal conversation, not an encounter upon which the future rested. “I wish it could have been different. Truly, I do. You can’t conceive how distasteful I find all this waste. But you’re both obstacles to a greater goal and obstacles must be removed.” Turning to his companion, he commanded, “Do what must be done, General Gerthak. With dignity if possible but without mercy.”

* * *

Not dead yet
. It had become the refrain of his life, it seemed. How many near-death situations had he survived?
Not dead, but damn it hurts!
His legs, buried under debris, were broken, perhaps crushed. His ears detected someone moaning; it might have been him. He supposed there could be someone else alive up here, in the ruins of what had been The Citadel’s observation room. The odds of surviving a dragon attack like that weren’t good but, if he had done it, why not someone else?

Carannan was atop The Citadel but half-buried under the remains of the upper two or three stories, which had been demolished by the dragon in the three passes it had made. He was trapped in such a way that he had a clear view to the east but couldn’t see much beyond broken stone in any other direction. Although he couldn’t detect any other survivors atop The Citadel, there was a severed hand not more than two feet from him and, close to that, what looked like a crushed head in a helmet without an attached torso.

He supposed the pain he felt in his lower extremities was a good thing since it meant he wasn’t paralyzed from the waist down. The salty tang in his mouth argued that he was bleeding within - not unexpected for someone who had fallen fifteen feet through a collapsed floor and been landed on by a huge slab of rock. It appeared he was not destined to die in combat. He had been denied the opportunity in Vantok, had lost it again in Widow’s Pass, and there was no possible way he could defend himself if confronted in this situation. He might still survive this but the odds didn’t look good at the moment.

Enemy soldiers were swarming across the blasted remains of the eastern wall like insects. Two feet of jagged rock - roughly all that remained of the once-mighty barrier - proved far more manageable than fifty feet. There appeared to be little resistance from within, although it was difficult to be sure in the confusion. Carannan could hear the clanging of steel-on-steel although his field of vision wasn’t sufficient to determine its source. His men probably thought he was dead. He took some consolation from the realization that, even if he had still been in charge, there was little he could have done. In street-to-street fighting, the orders from a centralized command meant little. It was every man for himself.

He couldn’t see any of the djinn, which led him to believe they were behind him, ravaging the city. That would make sense since, with the fall of the eastern wall and gate, their primary function, opening Obis to the invading army, had been accomplished. Their role had changed from being on the front lines to supporting the infantry. The dragon, meanwhile, was making strafing runs on groups of men in the streets. It occasionally passed across his field of view as it cavorted in the sky, enjoying its dominance of the air and its ability to deliver death with impunity.

Where, he wondered, were his daughter and Sorial? Had they reached their goal? In a sense, everything that was happening here was a distraction. The war was being fought
out there
, somewhere. If Justin prevailed, it wouldn’t matter how stalwart the defenders were; the city would fall and The Lord of Fire would continue his campaign with no one of equal power to obstruct him.

How many had died thus far? It was difficult to estimate but the number had to be well into the thousands, many of them civilians. Plans to protect the innocent of Obis had been established but no one had anticipated a complete failure of the wall. As best Carannan could determine, the eastern quarter of the city was awash in Justin’s men. The looting and raping had begun. The only benefit to this was that it delayed the enemy’s push forward. The eastern section of Obis - the city’s most prosperous - was preserving the remainder for a short time, giving Sorial and Alicia an opportunity to sever the serpent’s head. Carannan assumed he would perish up here, bleeding to death while the city convulsed beneath him. It wasn’t a vision he relished taking to his grave.

He caught sight of the dragon again - that magnificent, malevolent creature, a relic from the old days, still alive. It swooped away to the east, making a wide turn, a mixture of grace and power. The wings beat just enough to keep it aloft and propel it forward. Then, as if out of nowhere, it let out a bellow of outrage and agony, spewed a stream of fire skyward, and flailed as it tried to stay airborne. It took Carannan a shocked moment to process what he was seeing: the dragon was under attack.

The initial blow came from below as a rock wyrm split the earth, rocketed skyward and smashed directly into the dragon’s underside. The two creatures were of a similar size and the impact stunned the dragon. The rock wyrm used its powerful front talons to rip through the natural armor of overlapping scales that human missiles had proven unable to penetrate then quickly disengaged even as the free-falling dragon struggled to right itself and lash out at its attacker. At that instant, a second rock wyrm burst through the ground and used its momentum to further destabilize the dragon, shredding the thin membrane of its left wing with teeth and claw.

The dragon was slow to react and the second rock wyrm had dived below the surface before a burst of flame could reach it. It alighted clumsily, trampling a group of Justin’s soldiers in the process, and whipped its head back and forth, seeking an enemy that had seemingly vanished. Dark blood streamed from long, jagged rents in one wing. Carannan wondered whether the creature was still capable of flight.

The rock wyrms gave their opponent little time for respite. This time they attacked in concert, one from the left and one from the right. The dragon spun to fight one head-on, while whipping its tail to catch the other. The tactic was partially successful. The tail contacted one attacker in the head with enough force to send it spinning away but the other engaged it directly, teeth tearing and claws ripping, heedless of the danger posed by the dragon’s own talons. It wedged its head under the dragon’s jaw, out of range of the flaming breath, and bit into the creature’s neck.

Locked in a twisted embrace, both bellowing, the rock wyrm and dragon rolled on the ground, claws flashing, blood splashing from ghastly wounds, and fire flaring from the dragon’s mouth. The rock wyrm had an unshakeable grip on the dragon’s throat and nothing the winged creature could do would shake it. Then the other rock wyrm, recovered from the stunning blow, re-entered the fray. It dove beneath the surface and came up under Justin’s pet. The impact threw the dragon ten feet into the air and allowed the other rock wyrm to finish the job and rip open its opponent’s throat. A steaming, viscous ichor spewed from the gaping wound, spraying the combatants and coating the ground. Just like that, the brief, brutal battle was over and Justin had suffered a major defeat.

Victorious, the rock wyrms vanished beneath the surface, allowing the dragon to die alone. It struggled weakly for a while, flopping around on the blood-soaked earth, trying unsuccessfully to rise, the injured wing cradled protectively against its body. Eventually, its failing strength spent, it collapsed, toppling onto one side. As life ebbed away, its movements became less pronounced, more spasmodic. Eventually, even the twitching stopped as one of last great creatures of legend passed beyond the world.

Carannan had watched the confrontation in amazement. From start to finish, the struggle took less than five minutes. As the dragon lay dying, the injured overcommander felt the birth of something he had not experienced in a long time: hope.

* * *

When Alicia produced a pistol from under her robe, everything changed, although the concept that she might have come armed to this confrontation shouldn’t have surprised her opponent. General Gerthak was already rushing at Sorial, devouring the twenty foot separation with long strides, but Justin couldn’t afford to risk his life on The Lady of Water’s target selection. He didn’t know if she could use the gun but this wasn’t a time to be taking stupid chances - not with victory so near. So, acting out of a finely-developed sense of self-preservation, he dropped the void, freeing the path to the Otherverse and allowing the return of magic.

The gambit, which had been an integral part of Sorial’s plan, worked. He didn’t know if Alicia’s limited training would allow her to shoot the pistol with any accuracy but he understood that Justin couldn’t risk it, not when a single shot could ruin everything. The sudden return of magic washed over Sorial like a balm. His footing solidified as he regained control of his leg. His senses sharpened and he once again felt connected to the world around him. Everything that had felt
wrong
since the establishment of the void felt
right
again.

There was no time to bask in the sense of health and well-being that accompanied his reawakening as The Lord of Earth because his life was in immediate danger. Wizard or not, if General Gerthak reached him with that vicious cudgel, Alicia would be forced to face Justin on her own. So he acted to protect himself against the dual threat by opening the ground under Justin’s protector and allowing it to swallow the big man while simultaneously shielding himself with earth to deflect the spray of fire that erupted from Justin’s outstretched palm.

While this was happening, Alicia replaced the pistol in her robe’s inner pocket and, after establishing her own shield, joined Sorial in attacking Justin. From the beginning, she knew that her participation would be limited. With his powers re-established, The Lord of Fire would recall the surviving djinn and the dragon. It would be Alicia’s duty to fend them off while Sorial dueled Justin. The end game was much in doubt. If either Sorial or Alicia died or if Justin re-established the void, the situation would transform from indeterminate to bleak.

Justin deflected Sorial and Alicia’s straightforward attacks, turning aside streams of rock and water with ease. He also had little difficulty with the mass of earth accumulating several feet above his head. While a seemingly inconsequential distraction, it served a vital purpose. If Justin created a void while that was there, the magic suspending it would dissipate and it would crash down on him. Consequently, every time he obliterated it, Sorial allowed it to reform. Like Alicia’s pistol, it was insurance against another attempt to block the Otherverse - a possibility that would become more likely with the arrival of Justin’s allies.

Sorial sensed a change in Justin’s tactics when the air around him started to hiss and steam. He firmed up his shield but found it to be only partially successful in dissipating the heat. Magic-tinged fire poured out of Justin like water through a fractured dam. The intent wasn’t to break through Sorial’s defenses - it was too basic for that - but to keep him off-balance. A successful counterattack would be difficult if he was concentrating on not being roasted alive.