<u>16</u>


    Lady Alfea did not join the defensive ring on that crumbling stone pillar. Nor did she huddle inside the perimeter, with Beanie, Zara and Lady Faleena. Instead, she kissed her baby’s wee face and the top of Zara’s head, then handed Pudgy across to Faleena. With no time for goodby, she turned herself into a swirl of bright air. Next placed her blessing on all those below; afterward streaming up into the storm and then changing her form once again.


    Van was coming. She could feel him reaching for her and the baby in thought. But her young husband would not find them helpless or hurt when he got there. Rising still higher, that lavender whirlwind shifted into a lovely Quetzali maiden. Alfea had changed, becoming all graceful, winged fairy above, with the lashing tail of a feathered serpent, below. Her long purple hair trailed into the clouds, while her beautiful eyes shone with pent lightning. Raising her voice, she cried,


    “You would send tempest and gale to imprison a princess of air? The winds are my playmates. The storm is my brother. See how they slip from your grasp, monster!”


    Alfea extended her hands to either side, summoning power. Then,


    “Peace,” she said to that roiling cloud bank. “Return to the sky, wild one. Be free of compulsion and servitude!”


    Something like a face formed in those streaming dark clouds, outlined by lightning and filled in with tumbling vapor.


    “Freedom is taken, with thanks,” it howled. “But there is another, far greater, within. Beware!”


    The storm simply melted away after that, revealing a frigid dark night with a rising moon… a pillar of crumbling rock rising from turbulent water… the jagged outline of towering mountains… and a reeking coil of fire-shot smoke.


    “Would you free my lord’s slaves, fledgling?” purred the smoke-demon, in a voice of crackling flame. “Rather, he will capture you to replace Tempest, taking you out of the bottle once every ten-thousand years to… (indescribable filth). Come, little slut, little whore! Come fight, and then practice with <u>me</u> for your eternal service to Arvendahl!”


    And then, laughing insanely, growing to fill all her view, Skyland turned itself into a skull-faced tornado of fiery blades.


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    <u>This</u> time, the portal worked, almost alone of those in the city. Valerian rocketed through it. Was caught on the far side by Filimar and Vikran, the cleric of Oberyn. Found himself back in the Chapter House courtyard, braced up by his worried friend... facing the cleric and a numberless horde of wide-eyed young orphans.


    Filimar pulled him into a rough hug; all tense, coiled anger and… hope? Val leaned away. Studied his heart-friend’s face for a moment, then guessed,


    “He’s alive? Your father’s been…”


    Filimar released him to step back and nod, blue eyes shining with unshed tears and a fierce need for action.


    “He <u>lives</u>, Valno! I have felt his return. He’s with mum and my set. Only…”


    “Only they’re caged someplace,” cut in Val, adding, “My retainer and family, too.”


    “It is certainly a trap, my lords,” cautioned the silver-haired cleric, bowing respectfully. “If you would deign to heed the advice of one long in the service of Oberyn…?”


    The elves glanced at each other, then both of them nodded at once.


    “Speak, Vikran,” said the tall blond (impatient, but very much minded to listen). “What is your god’s command?”


    Their half-elven host smiled, his bushy dark eyebrows relaxing over those crinkled brown eyes. Cleared his throat, saying,


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    “Lord Oberyn bids you make ready to fight, more with your heads than your blades, for once. (<u>His</u> words, not mine.) That you trust none of the city’s transit gates, nor any portal opened by Lord Arvendahl. Use only bright magic: flight or misty-step… and (<u>his</u> words, again) … ‘All is risked on a toss of the dice and a movement of pieces, but the knight-gallant, archer and priest must think for themselves and strike as they will.”


    Vikran’s voice changed, growing subtly deeper. His stature altered as well, increasing the cleric’s height as he channeled Lord Oberyn. Valerian bowed deeply in response, dragging Filimar down by the cloak.


    “Good priest, I would not place you at risk, but…”


    “My lord bids me join you,” said Vikran, shaking his head. “As Chaos has taken with one hand, so Order must give with the other.”


    Taken? Val felt through his links to those that he cared for. Felt them all living, still, just ported out of his ken. Except… All at once chilly and shaken, he sensed the loss of a certain druid, and thief. Gone. Torn away further than death would have taken them.


    His heart clenched within him for Gildyr and Salem, whom he’d long done his best to evade and ignore. Whom he’d scorned as unworthy companions.


    Once again, sparks and flames filled the air around Val as he surged upright; not just angry this time but riven with guilt.


    “My enemy has done this, and he will very much pay,” growled the young elf-lord, lighting the courtyard with flame-glow and wrath. “I will track him down through whatever shadows he haunts, whatever forms he might take, and root out his evil, forever!”


    “And I, as well!” promised Filimar. “Blood for blood, without mercy or cease, until all is repaid!”


    Vikran nodded soberly, shrinking once more to an old, half-elven cleric.


    “May it be so, my lords. Now, prepare yourselves. Channel manna into as many items as you can charm in a hurry, for the enemy drains power at a word, and he fights not fair, nor alone.”


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    Miche started forward, lost in a storm of confusion and turmoil. Firelord needed him, was caught by the witch and would die without help. The sword leapt into his hand from its pocket as Miche went to the hag’s burning gate. Only, a big hand clamped down on the elf’s shoulder, suddenly. Taking tight hold, Marget tore him away from that glimmering doorway and hurled him across the engine room. Then, roaring like a tornado, axe in hand, she leapt through the portal herself.


    “Meg, no!” shouted Miche. He landed, rolled upright and summoned his sword, which had spun away to strike point first, stuck in a deck-seam. Used magic… near all that he had… to keep that accursed rift from closing; fighting to get there; to save his god and that brave, stupid, stubborn-hide orc.


    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


    Time resumed its flow at his word, bringing back ambient sounds and immediate danger. Warning klaxons blared through the hangar and comms system. OS1210 was under attack once again, by more waves of Draugr than V47 Pilot had ever scanned or read file of.


    Cursing with all the red-hot urgency of a mech-jockey needing to launch (now, now, right the dreck <u>now</u>!) Pilot mashed that upload button. Then, faster than organic senses could process, V47 was there, meshing back into his thoughts, sparking the regrowth of circuitry.


    There was no time at all for more than a hurried, exultant reunion. V47 tore its new mech body free of the gantry, flexing its massive arms to shred adamant metal like paper and string. Next ignited impellers to boost itself into that siren-pierced air. A helmet appeared, which the pilot jammed on for its primitive nerve-feed and contact-plates. There was a brief, sharp sting as V47 lanced a probe wire into the base of his skull. Then the pilot’s awareness jumped from cockpit to clamorous boneyard, as he became the Mark-12 Titan.


    ‘It would seem wise to depart, Pilot,’ sent V47.


    Right. As Icebox would put it,


    “That’s affirm, Buddy. Time to leave nothing behind us but dust and broken hearts.”


    He half-melted three mech shells doing it, but lit up his boot-thrusters and then streaked out of the hangar. Dropped twisted clamps and shorn beams on the way, just skimming past the jaws of the hangar’s blast shield. Had to turn sideways to get through, losing some paint in a shower of fiery sparks.


    Out to the launch-bay, next, ignoring commands to -stop! –  Dodging laser fire as he used the Titan’s force shield to bowl over twenty-two startled red battle mechs. Like a bull in a hen house, came a strange thought.


    Those fallen mechs and the other assets weren’t trying that hard to stop him, whatever commands they were sent. After all, when a (totally synthesized) fire broke out in the control tower, who had time to deal with a single unauthorized launch?


    There was a force shield blocking the runway, though, able to strengthen from atmospheric retention to ‘repel boarders’ mode. It was in near-solid orientation, now; dense enough to entrap him like a gnat in hot glue… if he went through it.


    “Exhaust port, V. Open it!” ordered the pilot, completing the thought long before saying ‘exhaust’.


    -Which vent, Pilot? There are twelve arrayed on the overhead and seventeen more in a grid on the launch deck. –


    “What? Oh… all of them, V. Open them all, assign random numbers, then…”


    Already done. The Titan fired a burst of lens-blinding cover, then climbed wildly twenty degrees to starboard. Hurtled into a mostly open exhaust vent, then up through an echoing quarter-mile shaft, blasting past flak-screens like they were cobwebs.


    8.37 ticks later, the Titan rocketed out of a hull portal. Soared out into space and a solid wall of Draug fighters. 42,126.5 miles away and closing faster than thought.