When the first machine appeared and engaged him in battle he was not surprised. Its several long, thin arms rose, creaking and whining as they twisted and turned slowly in the air before him, clothing themselves in flesh and blood and more unnatural fluids, and Lucien lashed out with his singing sword. It bit into one limb and chopped it clean through. The amputated appendage spun in the air but it did not fall. It waited. And then, after dodging Lucien’s second parry, it reattached itself to the growing machine and struck back.
Wounds opened in Lucien’s face, his chest, his stomach and arms. The machine curled itself around every thrust of his sword, and those rare instants when he did make contact caused little damage. As he put a slash into the machine’s new flesh, it healed again before his next strike. He aimed at the more stony protuberances, but his sword raised nothing but sparks, seeming only to add more energy to the magical monstrosity.
Lucien raged inside. He had lived, breathed and worked all his life against this ever happening, and now he felt the magic he so hated thrumming through the ground beneath his feet. The air stank of it, the dusk shone with its reemergence, and all across the valley he heard evidence of magic’s success: screams, the sound of Monks being cleaved in two, stone and metal hacking through the brave, strong flesh of his brethren. So he raged and fought back, but as each second passed by he felt victory slipping farther away. It was being eaten by these unnatural things, sucked into their new veins and arcane power routes, subsumed beneath the dirty magic that had cast so much damage across the land all those decades ago. They had not arrived here in time. An hour earlier, two, and maybe, maybe…
Lucien fought long and hard, taking many hits. He meted out strikes too, hacking chunks from the machine, but its suffering seemed only to increase its strength. It had no mind, of that he was sure. It had no soul, no compassion, it had no place in this world. But each wound it bore made it more real.
Still fighting, Lucien sensed a shadow fall across the valley. And looking up, seeing the shapes circling way above the battle, for the first time he truly believed that the Monks would finally lose.
LENORA RODE HERhawk hard, diving toward the battle, scenting blood and realizing that this was the most important moment of her life. The creature spat and bubbled beneath her, the sudden rapid descent rupturing its side and sending spurts of blood and fluid into the air. Its tentacles folded in to her command. Its head hunkered down. It had turned itself from a gliding shape into an arrowhead, slicing through the air and moving so fast that splashes of its own torn insides were left behind in bloody red clouds. It screeched and screamed but it was essentially a dumb creature, and it obeyed this command that would take it to its death.
Lenora clung tightly to the hawk’s back, knees tucked in and hands twisted several times around the steering harness. She squinted against the buffeting winds. Yet even above this roar she heard the sound of the Mages finally sensing their quarry, the magic they had sought to regain for three hundred years, and which had driven them both completely mad. It was a sound that Lenora, seasoned warrior and soldier in the Mages’ army, hoped that she would never hear again.
Angel sat upright on her hawk’s back. Air tore around her and clapped behind her back, casting wispy vapor trails in her wake. Her eyes were wide-open. She had seen the object of her desire, and there was no way now that she would lose sight of that again.
To Lenora’s left, a few wingspans away, S’Hivez held on to his mount, digging his heels in so hard that they penetrated the creature’s side and encouraged its inevitable demise. Blood flew back from the wounds in a fine spray, though Lenora could not tell whether all of it was from the hawk.
Neither Mage carried any weapons. That did not worry Lenora. She had seen them in action before.
Less than a mile beneath them, the battle raged below the setting sun’s rays. The glitter of sparks from steel striking steel was visible at this altitude, and even though the air was ripping past at an incredible rate, still the scent of blood found its way up to them. And not only blood-Red Monk blood! A sliver of fear slipped into her mind past the bombardment on her senses, and the fear gave her a thrill. A real fight, she thought. A real enemy. She was as conscious of the weapons pinned and strapped around her body as she had ever been, ready to employ them instantly upon landing. They were a part of her life and soul, as much a part of her as her own limbs. Extensions of her body rather than mere tools. And soon they would be blooded again.
She could hear the battle now, a whisper of cries and chaos seeping past the roar of air about her ears. She could make out the lay of the land too… and what she saw amazed her. She had dreamed so much over the centuries, her ancient memories turning into something that resembled myth in her mind, but she had never truly believed that she would ever see magic in action again. Here, now, directly below her diving hawk, machines were entering into battle. The shimmering blue light of magic cast its sheen across some of their weird constructs, and yet others fought in darkness, their magic contained within. The whole area inside the bowl-shaped valley was a slightly different color from its surroundings: lighter, more animated, more alive.
Lenora glanced across at Angel just as the Mage screeched her delight.
Here was their target. Here was magic. And it was mere seconds from their grasp.
TREY HAD FOUGHTfledge blights, vampire bats and cave snakes. Several years ago his cave had battled a plague of the snakes, vicious serpents whose normally pleasing song had been turned shrill and threatening by some weird disease. They had made away with three babies before the men had time to band together and hunt them into the tunnels. Normally creatures such as these would easily elude capture, easing into holes and cracks that could never be penetrated by the fledge miners, however supple evolution had made them. But these creatures had not only grown mad with their illness, but large as well. It gave them a hunger that could not be allayed, and their incessant eating-each other, cave creatures, the babies they had caught-made them large and ungainly. The hunt had been short and brutal. The fat snakes had come apart under the onslaught of the miners’ disc-swords, spilling things onto the cave floor that did not bear closer examination.
That had been a killing, not a fight. The snakes had not fought back. And they had not screamed in ear-shattering rage as they came at him.
The Red Monk had been severely lacerated by its encounters with some of the reanimated machines. Its right arm was all but severed, hanging on by threads of gristle and shredded robe. Blood spewed from wounds in its chest and stomach, and Trey knew that this thing should be dead. Its wounds were fatal, surely, and yet it charged like a fledge blight in full ferocity, its voice louder, its rage more obvious, its blooded sword raised high in its left hand. Trey was too stunned to act.
Kosar’s sword saved his life. The thief stepped between them and lashed out, stumbled as the Monk fell at his feet, stepped in quickly, stabbed down and jumped back again. It screeched and writhed and Trey, instantly shamed by his inaction, swung his disc-sword. It caught the Monk beneath the chin and whipped up its head, burying itself in the jawbone and holding fast.
The Monk opened its mouth, but the scream was choked with blood. It turned to look at Trey. The movement forced the jammed disc-sword handle down toward the ground, and though the pain must have been immense the Monk cast its rage-red gaze upon him, marking him in case it had a future.
“Back!” Kosar hissed. He lunged in and stabbed at the floored Monk again, his sword finding and parting flesh.