The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (33 page)

Reggie was a hundred and twenty-five centimeters tall, weighed twenty eight kilos, and was already the size of an average nine-year-old human boy.

All three children were developing extremely quickly.  The twins had already lost most of their baby teeth, and Valentia had lost half of hers, leaving them all with gapped and uneven smiles.

Karzog was almost twenty years old, and was almost nine meters long from his nose to the tip of his tail, but he still had the slim build of a young dragon, and his neck and tail made up most of his length.  Despite that and the light bones of dragons, he already weighed over eighteen hundred kilograms, and was bigger than any dragon his age had ever been before.

The four of them lay on the grass after sparring, Healing, and Restoring the back yard valley.  All of them were breathing hard, and the children had been so tired and sweaty after fighting that they’d removed their armor and weapons by Translocating out of it.  Karzog lay on his belly fanning himself with his wings,, and occasionally turning his head a bit and burping a bit of smoke and fire out of the corner of his mouth.

“We’re ready.” Helemia stated.

“Yes.” Reggie agreed.  “We’re still improving, but it’s slowed so much that I think we’ve reached the limits of our present potential.  Now we’re only getting better at the same rate that our bodies and brains are developing and growing.”

“I agree about that.” Karzog nodded.  “But what are we ready for?”

“Full warfare training with the grownups.” Valentia stated as she sat up and stretched a moment.  “Without being treated like children, that is.”

“We were probably ready two weeks ago, but now is the right time.” Reggie said as he rolled over and rested his chin in his hands.  “They finished building all the shelters and fortifications yesterday, so they’ll have more time available, and they’ll be able to stabilize the defense plans a lot more.  I’m betting that…  Hold on.

“Sorry to exclude you Quewanak, but you do command the enemy in the community war games.  You’ll have to forgive us for keeping our planning private from you.”

“Quite understandable.”
the dragon psionicly replied.

“Okay.” Helemia closed her eyes as she and Reggie psionicly Shielded against the elder.  “We’re confidential now.”

“Wow!  You can block Quewanak from our minds?” Karzog marveled.

“Yup.  He showed us how.” Reggie stated.  “Him and Father figured out a way to block the gods themselves.  Most magic casters don’t have inherent psionics, but a lot of ‘em can do the same things by casting conventional psionic spells with their magic power.  The advantage of that is that you can put your magic power into your psionics.  Normally psionics don’t take very much raw power, because the only thing you’re changing in reality is other people’s thoughts and perceptions.  As powerful as me and Helemia are psionicly, if we use it all it’s still only equivalent to lifting a kilo or so in raw power, but it takes a lot of magic talent to put more than that amount of power into an artificial psionic spell.  But if you have the talent, and you have warlock power, you can block anyone.”

“Of course, to block Quewanak, you have to block the sound of us talking from him too.” Helemia pointed out.  “His awareness is so good that he’d know it was there, even if he couldn’t hear it physically.”

“That’s pretty good, but I’d do it like this.” Valentia told them a trifle smugly as she passed them her thoughts.  “As usual, you save over a third of the power and three-quarters of the attention span doing it my way.  And I’d automate it like this, so you could forget about it.”

“Ah!  As usual Val, you are the queen of magic.” Reggie chuckled.  “That’s really very good.”

“As usual Six, thank you.” Valentia giggled.

“Six?” Reggie inquired.

“I’ve decided that’s your nickname.” Valentia revealed.  “Our names are too long.  You guys call me Val and we call him Karz and we call her Fire, and I like those. You’re Prince Markhan Reginus Longstrider The Sixth, but we still call you Reggie, and to be honest, I hate the way it sounds.  Same with Reg, and Storm doesn’t feel right either.  I do like Mark, but Father’s already using that one, and Reginus sounds too pompous, besides being too long.  I’m not going to call you Prince unless you’re going to call me Princess.  So, Six.  I like the sound of it.”

“Six.  That’s okay.” Reggie decided.

“Prince and Princess, you say?” Karzog chuckled.  “My, aren’t we fine today?”

“Yup, I’m a princess three times over.” Helemia laughed.  “I’m a princess of The High People through Grandfather Yazadril and Mother, I’m a princess of Hilia through Father, then I’m a princess of Hilia again through Mother because they co-rule. Same with Reggie, he’s a prince three times.  Val’s a princess of Hilia and a princess of The People of Life.  And now that I think about it, make it four times for me and Six, and three times for Val, ‘cause Father’s also Lord of Serminak, so I’m a princess of there too.”

“Excuse me for not exalting your greatness, Your Highness!” Karzog laughed.

“What are you laughing about?” Helemia teased.  “You’ve been legally adopted by Kragorram and Povon, so you’re a prince of Serminaki Draconia through your father, and a prince regent of Serminak through your mother.  But you can’t call me Your Highness because our positions aren’t hereditary, and you can’t say I’m
the
princess of anything because I’m not the ruling monarch, the way Alilia is
The
Princess of The People of Life.  I’m just
a
princess of Hilia.  Our titles are just a courtesy, and we only get to use them as long as our parents still rule.”

“Wouldn’t you inherit the rule of Hilia?” Karzog asked.

“We’d inherit all the land, and all the buildings and stuff in Hilia, and our house here, because our parents bought it outright with their own money and with contributions, none of which came from taxes.  But we wouldn’t inherit their political rule unless they explicitly say so, and designate one of us as their heir.  I doubt they’ll do that, they’ll probably do the elven thing and let the people decide who’ll rule after they’re gone.  I think they’d even step down if the citizens demanded it, but that’s about as probable as the sky turning pink.”

“Still, it’s a fine thing, I think.” Karzog grinned.  “I’ve never thought of myself as a prince before.”

“We’ve gotten distracted.” Reggie pointed out.  “As I was going to say, now that they’ve built all the shelters and emplacements, I’d bet that the next time they have war games they’ll have a full community drill, and everyone will take their kids to the shelters like it was a real attack.  I bet Quewanak will do it by surprise too, probably in the middle of the night, instead of at their regular training time.  He might even do it tonight just to surprise the four of us, since he already knows that we’re planning on joining the exercises.  The grownups will probably put us in as reserves and observers, so if we pick the right moment, we can give everyone a good surprise.

“First we have to familiarize ourselves with all the exercises they’ve had before.  In order to keep the training advancing, Quewanak and Ria always have their demons come up with a way to counter whatever the grownups do.  Usually a spell or a tactic only works one to three times before ‘the demons’ figure out how to counter it, so we need to know everything they’ve learned to counter already, and plan some stuff they haven’t seen before.  And we only have an hour till suppertime.

“Here’s the Reading I got from Father about it last night.”

Their verbal conversation ended as the four of them were Linked by the twins.

Surprisingly, the demons that Quewanak simulated for the community exercises were distinct from the ones that Ria simulated for their family training every evening, and they used different methods, even though Ria assisted Quewanak with the larger exercises.

In the early stages of the war games, the demons had attacked by flight, giving the community plenty of warning when they were detected approaching over the horizon.  Later they came up out of the sea at the perimeter of the archipelago, then from the channels in the heart of the islands.  Then they’d appeared through Gates that appeared at the periphery of the community, and lately they been Translocating into the heart of the community in packs.

In the beginning, the demons had been vulnerable to the warcraft that had been developed in the War of The Founding of The Just Alliance six years previously, or eight weeks previously in real time.  Most effective was Alilia’s Circle, a spell based on Karbak’s Needle, which allowed the caster to concentrate an incredible amount of Force onto an area no wider than a human hair, and penetrate the Shielding, armor, and skull of an enemy.  Mark had improved and automated that spell, and Alilia had added the innovation of having the needle of Force curve into a tiny circle and spin around a bit after it reached the enemy’s brain.  Automated versions of the spell could be cast by the thousands, and it was very efficient in its use of power, but the demons had eventually found a way to harden their Shields enough to block it.  That brought the contest back to more conventional methods; overwhelming the enemy’s Shields with massive and concentrated power, devising new spells that used different kinds of energy from what they’d used against the demons previously, and physical attacks including fire, muscle-powered weapons with magical enhancements, and Movement-driven weapons that varied from darts to boulders.

The demons also developed new techniques, and their latest was the ability to cast Demonfire in a very fast, very narrow stream for almost two kilometers.  It’s properties not only caused burns that were almost impossible to heal and whose pain didn’t fade when they
were
healed, it also burned hot enough and long enough to set fire to almost anything flammable, and it was very difficult to extinguish.

When the demons had attacked over the horizon, the community had built defensive emplacements in the tops of mountains near the periphery of Hiliani.  These were hollows in the rock with no physical entrances, equipped with Translocation Plates, dense Shielding, permanent Viewing spells on the walls to allow those within to see out with any chosen level of magnification, and an arsenal of automated defensive and attacking spells.  They were stocked with food, water, weapons, items with pre-cast spells in them, and charged power batteries.  The batteries were usually diamond, because more power could be stored in a given weight of diamond than in an equal weight of any other material, and they had many of them available since the twins had announced the location of their find.  Hidden in the rock on the surface were various kinds of artillery weapons and spells.  As the demons’ attacks had begun from places closer and closer to the community, further emplacements had been built all over the islands, along with shelters that had been excavated deep beneath the surface in the stone of the islands, also with no physical entrances.

There were also networks of two-way Wards cast all over the islands, constantly charging but not activated until they were needed.  If the demons attacked from without, they were layered defensives, and if the demons Translocated within them before they were activated, they were containment and traps.

The Reading gave the four youngsters a lot to think about, but they still took the time to make some basic plans and review some spells before they went home for supper.

Just less than four hours after midnight that night, a huge slavering demon appeared in their bedroom with a blood-chilling scream and a stomach-turning stench, and raised it’s club to strike down at them on the bed.  The three children screamed even as they struck at it with psionics and spells, but they were Translocated out by Mark before they could see the results of their counter-attack.

They appeared in a cavern in black rock shaped like a low dome with a flat floor, over forty-six meters wide and fifteen meters high in the center.  It obviously served as both the community’s main shelter and their command center.  Around them among rows of simple beds were the village’s other children, and the adult non-combatants who were mostly older human women.  Around the perimeter of the cavern were full silos of food, huge barrels of water, and pens for their animals, which had been Translocated in by Povon and Equemev along with the children.  In the center of the room beneath a bright cone of light was an oval table over seven meters long with a scale model of the Hiliani archipelago on it.  Around the table were their parents, Yazadril, Povon, and Equemev, who were obviously the command group.

Everyone was still in their nightclothes, but over the next second the adults present donned arms and armor by Translocating it onto their bodies.  All around them the other children were screaming and crying, and Sana and the other women immediately set to calming them and checking them for injuries.

The twins and Valentia calmed themselves in a moment and Linked with Karzog, who was eighteen meters away on the far side of the situation table.  They immediately moved as surreptitiously as possible as close to the table as they could get without bothering the adults.  As they did so, they passed through a spell that blocked the sounds and spells at the table from the surrounding non-combatants, and realized this was done to avoid frightening the children any further.

Meanwhile, Yazadril had called out; “I have command!” and cast on the table, even as Mark yelled; “Quewanak, is this a drill?!!”

“Not now, I’m busy.”
was Quewanak’s hurried psionic reply, which they heard as Yazadril’s spell on the table became active.

The model became slightly transparent, allowing them to see their emplacements and shelters beneath the stone, and the locations of all their citizens and all the demons were marked with tiny glowing lights; blue for citizens, red for demons.  All the citizens were within the shelters and emplacements, and the demons were seemingly everywhere else.  Tiny white streaks of light showed where attacks were being launched from the emplacements surrounding the village toward the demons within it, and the demons’ returning fire.  Another cluster of white streaks appeared at the north end of the islands.