Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) (26 page)
Read Forged by Battle (WarVerse Book 1) Online
Authors: Patrick J. Loller
Chapter 62
The Exile
Exile lay in the mud, clutching the pieces of dagger in her hand. She had done it, had done the very thing her people had cast her out for. She thought she could control it, that she had been strong enough, worthy enough to wield such power.
She was wrong.
And now countless people would pay for her mistake. The Shadow was no mere elemental that would run wild until destroyed or contained. It was a calculating, devious mind wrapped in a force of nature.
How could she have been so naïve? Without the Shadow in her mind, the idea of trying to control it seemed like a child's thought, not one of a skilled assassin.
How long had it been powerful enough to corrupt her thoughts? To turn her away from the convent she’d spent her entire life serving and into a tool? She had played right into its hand. Given it everything it wanted. She might have very well ushered in the end her people so greatly feared.
They shouldn’t have just taken her arm and cast her out; they should have killed her. Their own misguided refusal to step away from their religious teachings had allowed Exile to usher a demon into their realm. And now that demon would destroy it.
A thunderous noise ripped through the trees, pulling her out of her head and shaking the ground. Explosions followed on its heels, and Exile took to her feet.
She pulled her Shell over herself and forced her legs to carry her with all the speed she could manage. With each footfall, she felt another of the precious internal capsules break under the strain. Her reserves ran lower and lower. She would have no warning when she ran out. Only a vague notion, and then a sudden end. But she threw all thoughts of self-preservation away and sped towards the sight of the crash.
She pulled up short before she burst into view, and located the source of the noise. A single Chimera was standing a hundred meters back from the smoking wreck of the Shadow's fighter, its form changed into the shape of a man. This was the research she had learned of on the back of psykin she murdered.
Every weapon on the Chimera fired until nothing was left, but Exile could see that it had done no good. The Shadow had absorbed a new host, one that could shapeshift on its own, and between the elven magic and the Shadow's power, it would be unstoppable. The armored, bladed titan rose up and roared at the Chimera pilot, throwing it aside like a leaf on the wind.
Then Exile saw something. The monster had been crouching over a prone figure in the mud. An elf with pure white skin and tattooed with Shadow. All was not lost. The Shadow would never protect something it didn't need. There was no sympathy or compassion in that creature, only a lust for power. The elf must have been the power source the Shadow demanded; there was absolutely no other reason it would have gone out of its way to protect her.
Out of nowhere, a fire elemental landed at an angle between the Chimera pilot and Exile, and its sudden arrival drew the Shadow's attention. Exile saw her chance. When the Shadow moved to face the new threat, she would kill the elf, and destroy whatever power the Shadow was so intent on protecting. She pulled her weapon from her shoulder and braced it against her ethereal arm.
The Shadow charged the elemental.
Exile lined up her shot.
Then Derek Rodrom, the human she had come for, ran out from the wreckage and crouched over the elf.
Chapter 63
Rodrom
Lorelei was still breathing. That was the first thing Rodrom checked. Crouched in the mud over her limp glowing body, he barely registered the battle occurring just behind him, or the mech suit leaning against a tree. All his focus was on ensuring that Lorelei would survive, his own injuries and safety be damned.
"Come on, Lorelei, I need you to wake up now," he said as he shook her.
He pulled up one of her eyelids, the one covering the kaleidoscope eye. Her pupils were slow to constrict from the light. In a human that meant they were good and out, and he figured it was the same for her as well.
"How can you sleep with all this ridiculousness behind us!" he called.
Shouting didn't make her any less unconscious.
Good job, Doc
, he thought.
Next you should try a bucket of water.
He needed to move her. The shadowy knife monster had seemed intent on taking her, and he had no reason to think that would change just because he was dancing with what looked like a girl on fire.
Problem was, he was running low on blood, and his lungs were already painting their picket signs and refusing to work. Rodrom didn't think he had the strength to get her as far away as they needed to be.
Oh, good, more problems.
Rodrom turned to a see a Psykin wearing a formfitting fleet uniform. He noticed a few things all at once. She was missing her right arm, or rather, had some sort of hologram in the shape of one. She was wounded, and bleeding from a dozen or more of the wounds. Most importantly, she was aiming two pistols at him.
"Whoa there," Rodrom called with his hands raised. "I am a doctor."
"Pretty sure I am more qualified to make that judgment," Rodrom quipped. "Maybe lower the weapon and we can talk."
Rodrom believed her. This Psykin seemed half out of her mind.
"Now wait just a—" Before Rodrom could finish his reply, a metal arm slammed into the Psykin and knocked her a hundred or so meters away.
He looked up at the mech and called, "Thanks, I think. Unless you also want to shoot me."
"Nope." Rodrom shook his head. "I am hallucinating."
Rodrom continued to shake his head back and forth. "You came to rescue me, alone, in a cheap robotech knockoff? As far as plans go, Vince, this has to be one of your worst."
The two monsters were still duking it out. Rodrom watched as the flaming woman flared out her wings, and the woods all around her caught fire. She seemed to draw strength from this, and leapt forward to punch and claw at the Shadow. Wherever her burning hands touched, the black mass turned to gas, but by the time she pulled back, the wound had already healed.
The Shadow swiped a compact car–sized paw with swords for claws into her wing. An explosion of sparks and super-heated air burst forth. The woman staggered back, lifted her arms, and blasted a column of flame as wide as an operating table into the center of the Shadow.
"What the hell are they?" Rodrom asked, glancing back at Lorelei.
"Really, Vince? Even for you, a girl made of fire is a bit much."
"I will not leave Lorelei." He bent back down to check that she was still breathing.
"That is awfully sweet, Vince, but I am not leaving her. She saved my life, and I think the Shadow wants her alive."
Vincent lunged forward, and Rodrom scrambled over Lorelei to protect her. When rifle
shots rang out and the sharp pang of them hit Vincent's armor, Rodrom realized this was foolish."How is she still alive?"
Chapter 64
Vincent
Vincent's enhanced senses warned him of the Psykin’s intentions barely an instant before she started firing. He managed to get his armored side between her and Rodrom, and the blasts slammed into him. Without his own weapons to retaliate, he was helpless until she stopped shooting. Any movement on his part would open up Rodrom to attack.
She would have to reload, and when she did, Vincent would charge. Even without his wings, his jump jets could bridge the distance in a single jump. If hitting her didn't finish her, maybe landing on her with all the weight of his armor would.
The two titans were still battling it out diagonally across from them. The Shadow’s claws burned down to the wrists as it stabbed blades into Ele's side and threw her into the air. Ele flared her wings and hovered, throwing down handfuls of fire bright as stars towards the reforming darkness.
"Damn it, Vince, just stop her," Rodrom snapped. Vincent's rear-facing sensors showed Rodrom crouched over the fallen elf doing something, but what he couldn't see. If he wasn't making jokes, then he was dead serious. Vincent shut the sensors off; it was disorienting to look in both directions.
Eight minutes.
In opposition to her own words, the Psykin threw down her weapons. One of her arms, which Vincent had only just noticed was some kind of hologram, disappeared.
What in the void?
Her remaining hand shot to her horn, and just as Vincent was about to charge, she started twitching. Her skin bulged around the joints like her muscles were trying to tear their way out, and within seconds, the attractive female had become a grotesque monster.
But even as he said it, he could tell something was wrong. He thought he was seeing a monster claw its way out of the lieutenant, but his mind was not only human, and his machine senses told him otherwise.
The monster she had become slashed her arm at him, and Vincent stumbled back. It looked so real, and he had just seen two other monsters destroy women he trusted. Could his machine mind be wrong? If he charged in and tried to attack the psykin the AMI unit was so convinced was still standing there, would he be sacrificing his own life as well as Rodrom's?
Seven minutes.
"Vince, we do not have time for this. The Shadow's pulling ahead."
Ele looked hurt—as hurt as a being composed entirely of fire could look. Her massive wings were gone, and only a woman-sized spark of flame remained. The forest around her was burnt to the ground and smoldering, and as the Shadow pressed in on her, no more flames leapt to her aid.
The massive bladed monster swung blow after blow down onto Ele, who had her arms thrown over her head as she projected a flaming shield between them. Vincent felt a sharp pang in his chest.
He was out of time, out of options, and gave into the senses that told him what he saw wasn't there. He had already broken every rule in his book when he activated the machine meld. To throw away what he could see to trust the AI… How could he? Then he looked back at Rodrom, and knew he had no choice.
He charged into the growing monster, reaching his hand down to grab onto the Psykin.
The illusion broke. It was all in his head. She had used some Psykin magic against him, and the AMI had seen right through it. She was finished, and Vincent had her at his mercy.
He couldn't kill her, though. Not like this, not when she was helpless in his hand. She was struggling against the metal claws wrapped around her, and Vincent could think of no way to contain her. Save one.
He cocked his hand back and threw her as far as he could. She had survived when he’d hit her the first time. He was sure she could survive this time. At least it would give him enough time to grab Rodrom and his new girlfriend and get out of there.
The relief was short-lived. A roar erupted from behind him, so loud it shook him inside the suit, and he saw Ele collapse under the power of the Shadow. Blue sparks lanced from her rapidly dimming flames, licking over the ground and the Shadow. Whatever was happening was doing nothing to it, however, and before his eyes, Ele was crushed swallowed by the abyss.
Thunder cracked, and the Shadow was forced back. The fire was gone, and in its place was a crackling ball of lightning.
What is she?
Vincent wondered, right before she twisted and shot straight for him.
With his enhanced reflexes, he had just enough time to realize the blast was coming, and just enough time to stay right where he was. The energy caught him in the center of his armor, sparking and arching over him like a living thing. He expected pain, loss of consciousness, anything to tell him he had been damaged, but instead the power meter in his mind sky rocketed.
Six minutes.