Chapter 75: Way of the Wyrm I
Ikharos drew back on his bowstring and fired. The Arc-tipped arrow streaked through the air, smacked into the flapping wing of the chimeric mess of the first Ahamkara and discharged enough electricity to drop an elephant - which it may well have just done to some degree, if some of the flashing shapes boasted by the flailing shapeshifter were anything to judge by. The dragon gave a shuddering shriek, muted what with the mountain winds, din of the furious sleet and the sheer distance between them and it, and it plummeted hundreds and hundreds of feet down to the canyon below - dashing itself across the rocky valley floor.
Tracers filled the skies - from automated flak cannons and the more precise headhunter rifles, the latter wielded by the accompanying Psions atop the Land Tank's summit. A metaconcert, suffocatingly thick with power and forced calm, tossed up its barricades around the vessel charging through the valley. Ikharos felt more than anything else the mighty momentum of draconic minds bashing against the formidable mental defensive, just as they physically converged from all around. His Light flickered in response; it was muscle-memory, in essence, and he knew instinctively what to do when dragons approached.
"That's a lot," Ikharos gasped. He pulled his focus inwards, lest a wyrm snag its teeth on his consciousness. "Traveler above, there's so many..."
Uren grunted his agreement. He didn't sound especially happy - particularly with him.
The feeling was very mutual.
Ikharos twisted about and loosed another arrow. The concrete-hided serpent stealthily slithering along the valley wall gave out a dying shriek as it was pinned by the neck against the rock, and not a second later a burst of flak-fire splattered the rest of it against the mountainside.
He twirled and fired twice more, catching another drake by its wings and forcing it to drop before the Land Tank - and a few moments later, he sensed its life being coldly snuffed out beneath the mobile fortress's merciless tracks. Another followed it, pulsing flight-organs lanced through with micromissiles and superheated particle jets. More drakes were in the air, on the ground, within their thoughts - more and more to fill the gap of those shot to pieces, making each previous kill seem so meaningless. They were many - more than Ikharos had ever encountered in one place before, more than Venus at the height of the Great Hunt.
Something was different, though. Venus had been a lesson in wrestling with the unknown. There the dragons had pushed hidden agendas and chased unknown objectives - never to actually fight a war, like these ones were. No, the beasts rushing towards the Amarz Amalz were crippled in their alien nature, left as slathering beasts possessing only the mean, cruel cunning of acausal animals - their sapience portioned away to render them receptive to another's dark desire, free of soul-biting risk.
Still, it didn't make fending them off any easier. Ikharos was forced to fire and fire, watching for those places where the great bulwark of Cabal gunfire slackened and let a lizard slip through. His arrows felled Ahamkara after Ahamkara, most on point and those that weren't still forcing the beasts to stumble or fall, becoming simple targets for Psion sharpshooters to eliminate. Uren stood by his back, fusion rifle at the ready, and covered him at those rare occasions where a creature came close. At one point a flickering, shimmering beast moving with all the jerking motions of a cold-blooded reptile darted through the fierce barrage of hissing Solar smoke and jagged bursts of shrapnel and raced for them with bloodied, sundered jaws. Uren stood his ground, settled himself in front of the creature's charge and braced his rifle against his shoulder - and fired, melting its head down to cinders. The body rolled and slid to a stop not a few feet away, motionless and dead.
The whispers were snuffed out too, by all the might of the ever-alert psionic metaconcert. The minds of Flayers crushed the Ahamkara's meagre mental resistance almost effortlessly and left it a mess of broken thoughts and scattered rationale, incapable of doing anything other than drift aimlessly.
Still, though, even with every drake they killed, Ikharos knew it wasn't enough. Either they were only just stemming the tide of bodies by the skin of their teeth - or they were being tested, played with. There was too much going on around him, too much power in the air to divine the true numbers of howling, screeching shapeshifters and desire-eaters nearby, but the sheer amount of acausal energy in the air was choking his Light, strangling his ability to throw his paracausal-orientated senses further than a few feet in any direction. It was beyond frustrating; it was unnerving. He was largely rendered into something no better than a mortal in that aspect, forced to rely on his physical senses alone.
But those, at least, had been trained relentlessly for a scenario just like this. Only difference was that Ikharos had only ever expected to face Hive in such numbers. Never dragons.
Ah well. Not like he didn't appreciate the opportunity to rid the universe of another kind of monster - and by the dozens at that. If only they would get in line and wait patiently, please.
A dragon landed down nearby, crashing to a stop and scrabbling for a grip on the smooth steel of the Amarz Amalz. It turned its baleful eyes on them, huffing with exertion and plain old hunger, and its head summarily exploded. Ikharos nodded to the Flayers responsible - Neuroc and a friend, both armed to the teeth (did Psions have true teeth, or was it more cartilage like the rest of them?) and filled to the brim with brutal power. Their every fired slug pulsed and crackled with Arc, twinged with eager Void, drilled through chitin and scales and fur and hide with searing Solar. It was fascinating to watch.
"Focus," Xiān chided.
Ikharos almost, almost, snapped at her, but he resisted the temptation like a mature, responsible, semi-functioning adult and cast his attention back on the sheer chaos unfolding around him. There was no strategy to the dragons' assault, just blatant swarming maneuvers, and they pecked and lashed at every crack in the Cabal defensive that they could.
Another tried to slither past a trio of Psion rank-and-filers. Ikharos reached back to his quiver, but the device beeped a warning and clicked empty. With a muttered curse he tossed his bow into transmat and drew his sword. A Blink dragged him most of the way to the encroaching drake and a Glide-boosted leap got him the rest of the way. Ikharos hit the crawling, hissing thing from above, straddling the beast's corded neck with his legs and driving his blade down into its skull - right through its brain. Néhvaët ran all the way through with a sickening crack, forcing the dragon onto the ground with a final violent spasm. He didn't waste time either; the moment it hit the ground, he dragged his sword out and moved on, Blinking to the next creature to break through.
It didn't help that the number of dragons battering against their frantic charge through the mountains was only increasing, drawing in lust-eaters and formless serpents from all corners. It wasn't long before the Cabal defensive cracked under the weight of it all. The first mortal casualty occurred only metres away from Ikharos, skewered through its middle with a long, thorned, branch-like arm from some sort of towering dryad-thing. He felled it not a moment later, tearing it apart with Void-tossed strokes of Néhvaët, but the death had a domino effect. It was one less gun to shoot at the swarming things, one less soldier in a place to kill dragons before they reached the Land Tank. Soon, very soon, they were flooded with the creatures, both small and large.
Ikharos hissed out a curse as some boar-ish minotaur with flames spewing out of its tusk-framed mouth swung for him, a heavy fist tipped with jagged nails curving towards his head. He brought Néhvaët up, tearing through fur, hide, flesh and bone effortlessly - bisecting the thing from shoulder to hip and moving on to the next.
Despite the gravity of their situation, of the dire threat posed by such a massive gathering of dragons - Ikharos genuinely felt like he was in his element. Not for the first time, clashing with some multi-faceted crystal-insect beast with too many wings and mandibles to count, he fancied himself fortunate for having garnered the fledgling alliance with the Cabal - because all that was standing between him and facing his own inner-demons-made-manifest was the protective embrace of the Psionic metaconcert.
At least until the dragons realized the issue and started aiming for what few Flayers had exposed themselves atop the Amarz Amalz' artillery-platform.
Ikharos spied a trio of respectively-sized beasts dive down through the barrage of flak and searing blades of lasers, after having lost their pack in the chaos, and went straight for where he remembered Neuroc and her companion being. He swore and Blinked - twice, because the distance was that far - and found two of the dragons facing Uren. The Hunter had an Arc staff in hand, and was in the midst of swatting one beast aside while the other was delivered a scything kick for daring to strike anywhere near him. Neuroc was behind him, firing around when the opportunity presented itself.
The second Psion, though, was facing the other way and shooting at-
Ikharos Blinked again, just to put himself between them, and angled Néhvaët out for the leaping dragon to land on his blade, but the bloody thing just... flowed past, body becoming an amorphous mass of clumpy liquid, one that shifted back into a somewhat more physical form behind him. Four legs, multi-pronged tail, dark hide over jellied flesh - and a face full of shining, bioluminescent tentacles reminiscent of the limbs of some deep-sea jellyfish, glowing with oh so many colours. The thing's alien maw met the flailing Flayer and pulled its tendrils around the Psion's pulsing head. Ikharos broke out into a leaping run, forcing a Glide beneath his feet, but just before he could smite the thing down with righteous Solar, something slammed into him.
Into his mind.
Ikharos froze and shivered and trembled, collapsing on the spot. His entire vision faded to a thumping white curtain of pure pain - his blood roaring, roaring, roaring in his ears, his skull tightening around his brain, it was too much, it was too much-!
Cease your struggling.
The Psion, helmet roughly torn away by the snaking gelatinous tentacles, mouthed the dragon's words, its sightless eye upturned to the sky. The Flayer's Y-iris was gone - replaced by a deep, bottomless pit. The dragon's cranial limbs pulsed and pulled, bulging and carrying some sort of essence back to its mouth, dragged straight from the Psion's potent mind.
There are other avenues for you to direct your efforts; dreams from which you will never want to wake up.
Ikharos was only dimly aware of Uren staggering away, of Neuroc crying out and visibly flickering in the gloom and rain of the stormy night - the edges of her form indistinguishable, no longer apparent. He saw little more than that; only the dragon had his attention, had his focus, and it was snaking around the Flayer, paws grasping the Psion's limbs and holding them still as it fed upon and weaponized the alien's very mind.
Will you dream for me?
"I'll-" Ikharos started, but the veritable wave of sheer agony building up at the base of his skull stole away first his words and then his world.
Caer Lerion was bustling. It hadn't ever bustled before. The city had been built that way - with paths and roads and elevators specifically designed to eradicate traffic trouble. You could walk from one end of the orbital station to the other without ever stopping to line up for something, because the place was just that well-organized.
Welp, now it bustled. Now it burgeoned under the yoke of panic and dread and plain existential terror.
"Where?"
"London," Ikharos rattled off. He scooped up Lev's schoolbag, shoved in a couple sets of clothes, a stuffed rabbit-squid, a freshly packed lunchbox and threw it over his shoulder. His own bag followed it a moment later - filled to the brim with essentials and little else. Spartan packing, Tisa called it. Usually paired with a knowing chuckle.
Neither of them were laughing anymore.
"Your parents?" Tisa asked.
Ikharos shook his head. "I don't know, I don't."
"Where-"
"Heathrow spaceport. We can't- we'll have to stay there for a while. In case we need to move again." His hands shook. "I... no one knows how this is going to go."
Tisa nodded, quickly, and raced off to gather her own belongings. Neither took long; emergency practice drill participation was compulsory in the orbital cities. No one stayed any length of time without learning a thing or two about 'priorities.'
Ikharos moved through their apartment, found Lev sitting on his bed with a thoughtfulness that ill-fit a child his age and scooped the boy into his arms. Lev didn't complain. Didn't say much of anything. Something important was happening; they could all feel it.
"Will we come back?" Lev whispered as they left their home for the last five years behind. Ikharos exchanged a look with Tisa; she looked like she wanted to ask the same thing.
"This is a SKYSHOCK emergency," Ikharos breathed out, staring ahead with wide, wide eyes. "It's bad."
They hurried through the complex, shoved through terrified throngs of confused, disturbed people and ran to the nearest spaceport - where they'd reserved seats on a shuttle bound for Earth. It was no better there than anywhere else; crowds actually formed. Crowds. They were a nigh-on extinct animal in the delicately moderated preserves of Caer Lerion. Ikharos stiffly powered through, loudly ordering people out of the way when they wouldn't move fast enough.
At any other time, Tisa would have giggled and called it his soldier's voice.
Still no one was laughing.
A flash of his ident-card, which doubled as his military-service verification, got them through to the flight-fields with little issue. Shuttles hung from the ceilings on magnetic hooks, some slowly being lowered by distended metal limbs to the hangar floor.
Their flight was delayed just as they joined up behind the queue - a trio of military dropships, the kind Ikharos knew were hell on vulnerable human bodies. They were the kind designed to torch straight through the system without any concern for its potentially fragile occupants - thus, the crew that marched onto the hangar deck were quite predictably inhuman. Transhuman Exominds - men and women shelled in steel, wearing unrepentant all-terrain skinsuits and bearing maltech rifles.
Rifles.
Ikharos hadn't seen a true-to-form firearm in a long, long time.
"Dad, look." Lev pointed. "Robots."
The robots ignored him - ignored everyone. They marched up to the flight-administrator in the midst of stressing over the preparation of the dropship, and the first of them announced, loud and clear, "Crown Six, ordered to New Pac, Titan. This is an AI/COM primary directive. Get out of our way."
The administrator gulped and stepped aside. The Exos didn't wait for the automated hangar systems to lower down the dropships; they leapt up, opened the airlocks and ducked inside. There was something... frightening about the ease with which they moved, the sheer power imprisoned in their synthetic bodies.
The dropships detached themselves and burned a path into the vacuum beyond. The hangar staff went back to work. For Ikharos, it only seemed to hammer the truth home: this was worse than bad. Exomind transhuman soldiers weren't utilized unless there was a job normal, rational, considerate human soldiers armed with non-lethals simply couldn't handle.
And orbital cities weren't evacuated unless the Warminds thought they were vulnerable - or if they were intending to use them as weapons, to pound them like impromptu hammers against something just as big, if not bigger.
"Stay close," Ikharos whispered. "Whatever happens, stay with me. Understand?"
Something brushed against his face; something soft and warm and fuzzy, like hair. Like fur. Ikharos gasped raggedly, pulled away, and the wolf-beast standing guard over his fallen form snarled at the abyssal beast ahead, still grasping the Flayer's twitching head. It was a dragon - another one.
"Kill it, Phelenos," Uren barked from somewhere nearby.
Phelenos struck forth, becoming something sharp, and cut the soft-bodied mind-creature away from the Psion with savage ease. The Ahamkara, Uren's Ahamkara, once more became the hound and dutifully padded over to its owner, its partner, its Rider - leaving the others to pick up the pieces on their lonesome. Ikharos dragged himself to his feet, forced himself over to the prone Psion, but even a glance told him exactly what had happened - the alien soldier was dead.
"Gone," he coughed, first to himself, then louder, "Gone," to Neuroc as she stiffly approached.
She nodded, her eye lit up, and then they were moving again - back into the fray.
Ikharos tried not to think about what he'd seen while he was carving up desire-drakes. It was a lie, probably. A fancy vision of the dragon's own making.
Still - it felt so real.
And that annoyed him. Haunted him, yes, but mostly pissed him off. It. Had. No. Right.
Something massive, a drake of enormous proportions, barreled through the artillery barrage and crashed over the top of the Amarz Amalz - talons sparking over smooth steel, splashing up sprays of rainwater in the eyes of those nearby. It was a dragon - true to form, true to sight, with leathery skin instead of scales but otherwise the same. Larger than Saphira for certain, likely approaching Glaedr in terms of sheer sprawling mass - and with all six limbs still intact to boot.
This was his. This was all he wanted - all he could ever need. Ikharos shook off the false-sight of another's errant dreams, brandished his blades, glittering longsword humming with power and silent knife sheening with dripping blood, and he approached the rampaging beast with singular purpose - speeding up, building velocity and momentum, gathering his strength both physical and paracausal and bringing it all to bear.
Then it glanced at him, and because he was still fifty feet out and conscious of how much Light he was burning through, realized his rudimentary plan to run at the thing and stab it until it died wasn't going to work unless he was going to Blink or fly.
And then the dragon opened its mouth and spewed out a thick, oily stream of purple flames.
Ikharos bit out a curse, "PSEKISK!", and Blinked aside, but the dragon's fiery breath followed him, its gaping maw swinging around. Ikharos forced a quick Light ward into fruition in front of him, a basic energy shield that lasted all of a second, but it was enough to judge the distance between him and the daunting wyrm and teleport just above its head. He angled his blades down, but Néhvaët hit spine and horn as opposed to sinking into the creature's skull - courtesy of a last moment twitch, perhaps in no small part due to the dragon's own unnatural senses. Ikharos's arm was almost wrenched out of its socket as the sword caught in the beast's neck, and he slammed bodily against the side of its cranium with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. He had enough clarity of mind, though, to lodge Lennox's knife into its eye - burying the blade right up to the hilt in the ruptured socket.
The dragon shrieked and thrashed about, trying to dislodge him, but for better or worse Ikharos was stuck - or rather, his weapons were stuck and there wasn't a chance he was going to let go. He forced Solar wings to form on his back, pulled away with a single jet of fiery Light and dragged his pointed implements out of the wyrm's flesh with as much strength as he could muster. The dragon - faster than he had expected, having watched Saphira and Glaedr and judged them to be middling opponents in terms of sheer speed - darted its head to the side and snapped its jaws shut on his right leg, cracking the limb between its massive fangs and tearing him out of the air. It let go at the last second, slamming him against the roof of the Land Tank, and while he was still in the midst of contemplating his pulverized leg and less-than-ideal position, it bathed him in a veritable torrent of Voidflames.
His wards and armour didn't last - at all.
Ikharos came back with a ragged gasp just as the half-blinded drake was bearing down on him once more, to tear him apart with its fangs and fire all over again. He Blinked to the side on automatic, his prone body sliding across the rain-slick surface the moment he re-manifested, and he stumbled up to his feet. His longsword transmatted in the air before him; he caught it, grasping the hilt in both hands real and false, and breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the sudden mild weight from one of his boots as his knife was returned to its sheath.
His recent issues with Xiān aside, she really was the best. Honestly - who could force a rez or transmat equipment faster than her, all without needlessly exposing herself to the myriad threats out in the physical world? No one, that's who.
Claws raked over his back, curled around his shoulders, his arms, his legs, and Ikharos pulled the Void out from within him, cocooning himself in a searing field of molecular-thin null - pure vacuum, burning through existence all around him. The claws fell away, the lesser dragons hissing and retreating, and their big cousin swung its one-eyed head around to glare at him.
He was cold. He was soaked to the bone. His armour was hanging off him in clumps of ripped cloth and molten metal, his helmet shattered across one side of his face - giving only his left eye any HUD to peer through. It was mildly disorientating. Still, though, he felt good. To some degree. Unsettled and on edge, yeah, but good. This was... the right kind of work. Terrifying, tense, and probably going to leave him with scars that dug deeper than flesh, but it was right. Dragons - wish-dragons, he inwardly corrected himself, already imagining the unhappy remarks coming from a certain elf should she have heard - deserved to die, and he was the one to kill them.
This was right.
Ikharos shot forward, the same time as the dragon, and he Blinked aside - and it had been waiting for just that, swinging its mighty tail around to swat him, but then he Blinked again in quick succession, lunging forth and jamming the tip of Néhvaët into the place just beneath the dragon's right wing, hadium steel splitting through brown leathery skin and spraying him with hot, steaming red blood. Ikharos grunted, gritted his teeth, forced his Light down into the hilt of the weapon, and he swung it to the left - casting a wave of fanged Void within the Ahamkara, first liquefying its soft internals, the chaotic energy annihilating all matter cohesion within, and then ultimately devouring the soup of pure energy through Néhvaët's core. The dragon thrashed, screamed without sound, and burned away from the inside out.
He felt good. Better than good. The dragon fell apart as fine, disintegrating dust and he fed richly on the sheer power it had given him. Ikharos brandished his replenished Void Light with muted glee, reinforcing the impromptu ward around himself and imbuing it with some initiative of its own - to counterattack with hellish ferocity. It was taxing, though, and demanded so much more of him.
Ikharos killed another dragon not five seconds later just to sate the niggling sensation. Uren fell in line with him, his flaring Arc staff mixing with Ikharos's cold Void, their excess Light bouncing off one another with vibrant effect - stabilizing each other's Light usage, reinforcing each flourishing ability of the other, even going so far as wordlessly direct their efforts towards the same troublesome foes time and again.
It. Was. Wonderful.
Battle-delirium and all-too bountiful energy reserves egged Ikharos on, expedited his merciless defense of the Amarz Amalz's battle-platform. Dragons flew and killed and died, and the stream of encroaching shapeshifters ultimately petered out. Not completely; Ikharos, propped up on more Void Light than he could normally handle, could sense the packs of dragons who'd held back, who were watching instead of charging, who had finally realized the worth of strategy and opted not to join their dead and dying cousins on the valley floor.
With nothing left to aim his surging power at, Ikharos bit out a snarl as the Void painfully rattled through his ribcage and tossed a furious Nova Bomb off the side of the Land Tank - glassing a mountain face into pure violet crystal, the air sizzling with matter-eating venom in its wake.
"They'll be back," Uren gasped, doubling over, retching horribly. Ikharos felt a tinge of sympathy for the man; it must have been hell to regulate his inner Light without a Ghost on standby. That he was still wielding Light was considerable enough, particularly given the assumed distance between the pair, and probably hell where absorbing what energy stores his Ghost sent him, but without his partner there to help keep him in check...
Ouch.
Ikharos cast a look around the Land Tank. Bodies lay strewn across it, mostly draconic in origin but there were a couple more Psions dead as well. The metaconcert, still firm and stoic, had taken on a mournful edge that he was hard pressed to ignore. It made him... homesick, but for a home he'd had in the first place.
Ikharos almost reached out on instinct, to the metaconcert, just to be a part of the uniform collective of consciousnesses, to be among others, but he knew the reaction it would spur and the cost it would ask of him, and it was all too much to bear. He carried on, his mind silent save for the silent murmurings of a Ghost held at arm's length and patrolled along the Land Tank, tearing apart the bodies of dragons if they so much as twitched - or even started whispering.
"None of that now," he murmured.
Some of the drakes took it as a dare. Others tried to remain silent, to avoid garnering his dangerous attention - but it mattered little. He found all those that survived in some capacity and summarily destroyed them.
"Ike, what was-"
"Trickery."
"It did NOT look like a trick. It felt REAL."
"A really convincing lie, then."
"I don't-"
"You don't get a say. Leave me alone."
The end of the pass, and freedom out into the chilled steppes beyond, had only just appeared on the horizon when the draconic offensive started up all over again - and with a desperate air to it, shifting bodies tossed haphazardly against the wall of flak and micromissiles with no concern for their own wellbeing.
"They really are back," Ikharos hissed through gritted teeth.
Uren growled from somewhere beside him. "Not alone. This... some of them are looping around behind us."
"Tell the-"
"We know," Neuroc murmured, her voice cutting through the din with apparent ease - words injecting directly on the periphery of his mind in tandem with her moving lips. "We are tracking them. They did not display this level of forethought before."
"That's because something else is here too," Uren explained. "Something else - something more than a chained animal. Phelenos, stay close."
The wolf-shaped dragon snarled. "I can taste... song," it said.
"Harmony," Ikharos realized, glancing to Uren for assurance. The Hunter nodded; a Singer indeed. "If they're here in force-"
"They won't be," Uren told him.
"How do you figure that?"
"Then we'd be dead. Ezyrax doesn't play around. She has no need to. Nor do the other generals of Nezarec. Dervales is content to wait in his laboratory and Midha is... well..."
"Midha's dead," Ikharos grunted.
"So I've learned." Uren paused. "If they were set on squashing us, they'd have done it already."
"Then why haven't they?"
"Might be they're counting on you to help them with their pest problem."
Ikharos grimaced. The Hive. "We'll see about that." He looked around, trying to peer past the smoke of artillery cannons, the lazy drift of falling snow and the fluttering wings of too many dragons to count, but he couldn't see anything. Anything besides more wyrms, anyways. "We've really kicked the hornet's nest. So where's this Harmony, anyways?"
Uren took a deep breath. "I think they'll find us in their own time."
"Now," Phelenos uttered.
"What are-? Oh, okay. Now then. Now's the time that suits them." Uren pointed. "There they are. Strife Seraphim."
Ikharos looked up. There - beyond the edge of the skirmish, high enough to trace over the mountain peaks, was the silvered form of a Harmonic warrior, metallic skin sheening in the bright light of the three-quarters moon. Six steel-feathered wings moved independently behind it, keeping it aloft with relative ease, and in its right hand it clutched a spear.
Like they'd use literally any other weapon.
A pack of dragons swarmed around the Singer, a myriad of forms both haunting and beautiful, exulting the proximity of the dark warrior. Its single receptacle eye glinted and drank in the sight below, the sight of them - watching the brutal farce of a siege with a mild sort of interest. It was... wrong. The proximity of the dragons, the beautiful ease with which the alien warrior hovered in the sky on its throne of magic and desire, the sheer distaste it betrayed in every rolling motion of its lax muscles - it annoyed him, it pissed him off something fierce, it drove Ikharos to raise his arm and unleash a vicious torrent of broiling Arc energy. The Chaos Reach tore through the air, bright enough to briefly banish the night's great darkness and reveal the true mass of the dragon swarm, and clawed the Harmony right out of the air. The winged warrior flailed and fell away, blue electricity scoring across its mighty frame, and it righted itself only a couple hundred feet down - and turned its recovering momentum their way, speeding forth on six beating wings right for their position.
The Harmony glided through the bursts of shrapnel and shrugged off the glancing beams of searing Solar, and it crashed down atop the Amarz Amalz to the panicked shouts and barked orders of Cabal soldiers - Psions gathering force, gathering weapons and thoughts to eradicate the newcomer. The winged warrior, for its part, stood up and pointed at Ikharos with its spear - and refrained from firing its white-hot plasma beam. "Himmenburthro!" it announced, singing from every facet of its chiseled alien form - a metallic statue cut into shape by the hand of some foreign deity. Inhuman, utterly, but splendid all the same. Terribly so when rendered by circumstance and choice into a Dark-hungry monster. "Eld vergarí abr könungar!" (Skyborn! Killer of kings!)
Uren shifted beside him. "Samil?"
The Harmony's horned head swiveled a fraction. "Uren eld stíga súndavr. Hvi eru ono hérna, maela einn? Eru ono... faedhír nosu?" (Uren Shadow-walker. Why are you here, quiet one? Are you... fighting us?)
A Psion swept by, shotgun in hand, and emptied a half-dozen rounds of hissing Arc up at the Harmony - just as a barrage of microrockets cracked against its skin. The giant, covering its eye with its free hand, whistled sharply and cut down the first shooter with a lazy swing of its glaive - separating the Psion into two meaty pieces, dropping wetly onto the platform below. Dragons surged, tearing through the gunfire and landing with a frenzied storm of teeth and claws around the metal creature, right up until it sang, "Nógr. Thornessa er midhli edtha un du himmenburthru. Nógr! Taka nosu húsa. Eitha nosu einan!" The winged Harmony shook its mighty head. (Enough. This is between me and the Skyborn. Enough! Make us room. Leave us alone!)
The last pair of furious demands - spells both - threw aside gunfire and bodies, slamming down a field of pressure, force and pure willpower. Gunfire diverted. Solar beams choked and died. Nothing got through - not a single damn thing.
Ikharos couldn't imagine anything was getting out, either. Which was quite possibly far from fine, given that he, Uren and Neiroc were caught right in the centre of it. The magic in the air thrummed against his Light, potent and incredible. The Harmony's strength was immense; more than even the greatest of elven spellcasters, approaching the ranks of the Witches of High Coven - or at least those of High Coven Ikharos knew of.
He gathered his Light, his will, his sheer determination to destroy the monstrous things before him without an iota of mercy or hesitation - and he hesitated all the same, as a foreign sensation of relief, of comfort, fell over him, caressing his aura, his presence, his very soul with all the tenderness of a lover. Heat suffused his limbs, gentle and the like, filling him with hope and reassurance, coaxing him into lowering his sword and releasing his hold on the Void despite his mental protestations.
It was trickery, he knew, but his muscles were overtaxed, his joints aching, his mouth dry - his body was screaming for release from all the rigours of constant combat, it was screaming for him to stop, just please stop. Beside him, Uren backed away and lowered his rifle, face shadowed with doubt and worry.
"Samil," he said again, sounding surprised. "You're not supposed to be here."
The Harmony, Samil, was looking at Ikharos only. Perhaps sensing his resistance, it bade him, "Ach néiat faedhír, Himmenburthro. Thar er né vanta wiol sem. Eka kuasta aíran eom thorta." (Do not fight, Skyborn. There is no need for that. I come only to speak.)
Then, in perfect English, "I come only to offer you a warning."
Diplomacy. The damned thing wanted to engage in diplomacy. "Call off your dragons," Ikharos snarled.
Samil raised an arm. All at once, the great swarms of drakes and wyrms ceased their mindless assault and returned to the sides of the valley to perch, slither, float, prowl and otherwise watch in disarming, disturbing silence. A number darted ahead, down to the valley floor before the Land Tank, and they were each sizable enough that the crew within the Amarz Amalz's bridge were forced to bring the great machine to a grinding halt. Only two dragons remained, both flanking Samil a few human paces behind, both formless masses of flesh, bone, chitin, cartilage, steel and rock.
The battle abated. The metaconcert rippled in wary confusion. Cabal warspeech barked through the air from a dozen radios - and a dozen more ragged throats, of Psions wounded or perplexed, searching for aid and orders. No one knew what to do. Ikharos was just the same. Well, he knew killing the Harmony first and the dragons next was probably in order, but...
Probably difficult, that.
"The hell do you want?" he heatedly demanded.
Samil peered about, as if looking for something. "What a curious contraption. A castle readied to hunt... And what a force to man its battlements! Slender, malleable, focused and familial - oh, if you would only offer yourselves into my service, I would form you into the most splendid of courtiers, children of the mind." It, he maybe?, turned back to Ikharos. "Skyborn. I am here to inform you that our hospitality is not yet readied for you; you must wait your turn while we prepare your quarters. Our realm is not yet open to visitors."
Ikharos fumed. "The Hive came this way," he growled. "They're our prey. Get out of our way."
"The Hive? Ah, the Airan." Samil nodded sagely, shaking his silvered horns in the air. "Soul-drinkers. Now they need little in the form of creature comforts. They bay for blood and roar for battle, and they want for little else. We'll entertain for a while - but worry not, you'll meet with them soon enough. Ineloquent things, those beasts. Not like us, yes?"
"Why are you here, Samil?" Uren asked quickly, voice thick with anxiousness. "Why have you left-"
"The vrangrälfya will ride on," Samil informed him. The word broke upon Ikharos's ears as the term 'nomad elves' or 'unfounded elves'. "They always have, and they always will. Elegant and dreaded; they are the best of the sweet-voiced children Tirahn reared into life. Don't you agree, Shadow-walker?"
"He's stalling," Ikharos murmured. "Neuroc-"
"Samil's close to Dervales," Uren hissed back. "Who's close to Nezarec. He's... don't. Don't do this."
"We're getting through, one way or another."
"I cannot fight with you. I'm sorry."
Ikharos ignored him. "Harmony," he called out. "I'll say this once: take your dragons and royally piss off."
"Royally?" the winged warrior echoed with evident amusement. "I suppose you, if any, are entitled to such monarchical decrees oh slayer of faulty kings, though I must inform you that the Lady Ezyrax has bid me to bar the way - this way. I cannot not let you pass, human. I will not. You must wait; the Consort of Nezarec is not to be disturbed prematurely. This is her decree. You will not cross it."
"And if I do?"
Samil leered forward, crystal eye glinting in the moonlight. The platform creaked under his feet. "Then I will be forced to cut you down - as many times as need be until you learn your place."
Ikharos tightened his hold on Néhvaët. At that moment, at that exact moment, the metaconcert flared to life and filled Ikharos's brain with a single domineering command, rattling around the inside of his skull and slamming against the surface of his nullscape.
KILL. HIM. NOW.
Invoctol, riding at the helm of a hundred piercing minds - his baleful eye directed solely on the silver giant who dared board his - his - Imperial Land Tank.
Samil whistled loudly, discordantly, laughing in melodious song. He swept out his grand arms and declared, "Do so; I welcome it. Here, listen!" He raised his spear, directing his voice throughout the valley - to all the listening Cabal and dragons. "If this warrior - or any warrior, I am not so petty to steal away your drive for glory, oh war-children - slay me in truth, let them pass. Let them pass. Am I heard? Am I obeyed?"
A shrill, unnatural cacophony of shrieks and yaps echoed from the mountains - mindless, shackled dragons baying unthinkingly, without any real thought towards the matter. Slave-beasts, little better than moving corpses left with nothing but malice and the leftover instinct of gluttony unending. Most of them were small enough for Ahamkara - young and poorly-nourished, driven wild with soulful captivity.
Ikharos almost felt sorry for them.
He broke out into a rapid charge - one split up between a series of Blinks - and finally teleported in the air before Samil, plunging his longsword down in a savage impaling strike through the Harmony's shoulder. Samil, for his part, didn't budge. Didn't even move to defend himself.
Just stood there, took the blade inside his ribcage and died within seconds, too many vital organs shredded apart by the Void-edged sword to continue on. He fell back, down against the platform, and the spells he'd cast fell away, cracking into drifting spools of once-living energy. He was dead.
He was dead.
And then, just as the Harmony's silvered body began to disintegrate into a fine steely dust, Ikharos realized what that meant - why Samil hadn't bothered to defend himself in the first place.
Oh, he was clever. Arrogant too, but now - that was clever.
It looked like Oryx had taught the Strife something after all. Something beyond senseless slaughter, anyways.
000
Even tucked away as they were, bundled up in habitation chambers with a few small artificially grown gardens to keep their interest, Formora could feel the warped magic and shaking violence unfolding around the Land Tank all too keenly - and when she looked around and met the eyes of her kin, she knew they could feel it too.
"What-" Lord Däthedr began to ask, but Formora didn't - couldn't - answer. She dropped the length of half-woven cloth she'd been working over with the companionable pair Beraskes and Ästrith. The latter was still, to some degree, recovering from a wound scored against her leg by the 'living trees' of the Mourning Grove, and the three of them had been threading together a ritual shawl of sorts - one blending elements of Eliksni tradition and elven artisanship. Others were similarly taking to menial endeavours to distract themselves from the battle apparent overhead, and others just stood by, clutching weapons.
The noise that fell upon her ears... the wild forces drumming against her magic... it was strange. Draconic - but different to what she knew. Ahamkara, that much was clear, but subdued and... yearning for something. Release of some kind. The moment the Land Tank ground to a halt, she was up and moving towards the open door before she even realized what she was doing - and by then it was too late. Formora grasped at the nearest weapon on instinct - imagining it to be her specialized firearm, the one broken by the Hive creature, and then discovering it was instead the modded wire rifle that had once been Melkris's property in life.
And hers in death.
Formora paused. She glanced back and met Javek's eyes - who was watching her curiously, guardedly, expectantly. As she lifted the wire rifle and looped its strap over her shoulder, his outer pair of eyes closed halfway. Approval, then. He stood and made to join her, but she raised a hand. "No."
"I have magic," he hissed.
"That's why we're in here," Formora reminded him. "I'm going to speak with the Primus, nothing more. Stay, please. Watch over... them." She indicated towards what elves and Eliksni were present, and to those scattered around the rest of the small habitation deck. Saying little else, Formora turned, donned her dark helmet, stepped out of the door into the hallway beyond, and said to one of the Legionaries on guard, "Take me to the bridge."
They were only just nearing the command deck when the Land Tank around them shuddered and tilted - seemingly abruptly lifting up at one end. One of the Uluru pair fell and skidded back, his armour clanking as he hit the wall, but she and the remaining Legionary were able to keep their balance. The angle wasn't impossible to traverse, but given the sheer size and weight of the Amarz Amalz... Formora had difficulty believing that any single living creature had that sort of strength. Even great Belgabad would have failed in the task.
That thought propelled her on, darting up the new slope of the Amarz Amalz's inner compartments and towards the bridge. The guards ahead were hanging on to handholds by the entrance, looking remarkably out of place and not a little bewildered besides, and one of them slammed a fist against the door's controls at her approach, having recognized her. The doors slid open on invisible rails, prompted by ingenious mechanical systems she could only guess at. In the absence of an airtight enclosure, the shouting and crashing within the bridge spilled out into the corridors beyond - most of it incomprehensible Ulurant, the rest the mere humming of interconnected minds greater than her own. Invoctol was within, at his esteemed platform rising above the chaos of rest of the bridge, and with him was the battle-readied form of Zhonoch - clad in alien armour and bearing a number of weapons across a half-dozen holsters.
One of the far viewports of the bridge crashed open, and something thin and active slipped through. It drilled through the armour of one Uluru soldier, emerging from their back with a spray of blood and oil, and darted towards the next. Formora, instinctively, made to pursue the thing, but it paused in its flight and levitated up before Invoctol - who glared at the wriggling, twisting beast with honest hate and, with his very thoughts, swiftly crushed it into a gruesome paste.
More were crawling outside, though, and making for the sudden hole bored into the bridge. Formora snapped "Thrysta vindr," and watched with some satisfaction as a barricade of solid, compressed air filled in for the broken glass. More surprisingly, she felt a pressure fall around her mind - the metaconcert, she realized, and raised her nullscape to fend it off, but the psionic collective only made to empower her with borrowed strength, to fuel the spell with their own limitless power. Grateful, if a touch wary, Formora passed over ownership of the incantation to their able hands - leaving it up to them to reinforce it at their leisure.
She didn't intend to sit by only to hold together a cracked window. There were other things she could have been doing - and more effectively too.
Invoctol's presence in the metaconcert made itself known as a simple murmuring regard stirring through the collective's pooled power - a request, if she'd ever seen one. Formora glanced back at the glass, where more cracks were spiderwebbing across the viewports as another couple of Ahamkara slammed bodily against it, and bounded up to the Primus's command platform.
"Harmony," the Psion droned as soon as she was in earshot. "A Harmony did this."
"Where?" she demanded hotly, glaring through the viewports in hopes of spotting the cretinous creature - but between the bright lights ahead and pack of many-limbed wish-dragons in the way, she couldn't see a thing.
"Dead," Zhonoch informed her, though he didn't sound pleased. He hung to the railing of the platform tightly, his accompanying shrug barely managing to move his taut arms. "To some degree."
"Merida-X8 slew it," Invoctol continued. He activated the holotable to which he was bracing against. A live image of the Land Tank was displayed, sparking out at irregular intervals, and the front of it was indeed held in the air by... something. The nose of the Amarz Amalz was gone. Not destroyed, just... gone. As if the inbuilt sensors couldn't detect where it was in the first place. "The Harmony everted its demise into realspace. We have taken damage - perhaps irreparable. Its soul is taking root ahead of us, carving a new sub-realm. We are now becoming a part of that very realm."
"The warrior was Ascendant." Zhonoch growled viciously and gestured up, as if towards the battle that had once raged above - which had gone eerily silent. "Used its death like a bomb. We're its plaything now. Can't go forward, can't get back - it has us in its claws."
"Where's Ikharos?" Formora began to say more, hesitated, and decided that yes, she still had to, even if he was a hateful person. "And Uren?"
Zhonoch again gestured up. "Middle of the blast-zone, last we saw. Surveillance equipment's shorted out; almost all systems are glitching out. We're barely holding onto life-support as is. The Harmony's draining our power - eating our converted fuel reserves. We'll be down to plain oil soon enough."
Invoctol stiffened. Both of them looked at him. The Primus said nothing, did nothing, didn't even breathe - and then, finally, after a few seconds of tense silence he cried out and shouted, "Back, back, back, he's eating our minds, he's devouring our thoughts!"
The metaconcert fell apart around them into a hundred retracting fragments, each of them an individual Psion, and Invoctol limply fell against the railing, muttering something about "radical ontomorphic viral-scapes."
"Brainstain," Zhonoch muttered. He reached towards Invoctol and steadied the Primus, dragging him in front of the holotable to lean against it without exhausting himself. When he finished, the Uluru turned to Formora and murmured, "Eversive breach event, common war tactic amongst Ascendant Hive units. Protocol dictates that a kill team destroys the Ascendant to revert the inter-planar rupture, lest the enemy found a new stronghold and dictate the movements of troops against the laws of physics."
"We need to kill it," Formora surmised. She activated her radio. "Ikharos? Where-"
Only static greeted her. Static, and an echoing cry of some inhuman creature.
"Ascendant ruptures jam conventional communication equipment. They disrupt signals," Zhonoch informed her. He glanced towards Invoctol. "I'd warn you against telepathic communication as well, elf. There's a brainstain thought-virus in effect. We need to quarantine immediately."
"A what?"
"The Harmony's consciousness will violate your mind and infect your thoughts at any perceived weakness. Keep your mental blocks up."
Ah. That made more sense. In part, anyways. "My people-"
"I'll send a runner to warn them," Zhonoch said with a nod. He barked something in explosive Ulurant to one of the guards by the door.
Cabal were quick when they wanted to be. They weren't lumbering brutes - though they did lumber in their spare time and they were brutish creatures in truth - and the call to war dragged them out of their mechanical stupor to act with savage eagerness. They were a warlike people, the Uluru, but different to how Formora had previously imagined the term. Urgals were warlike too, simply because they liked it. Alternatively, Cabal were warlike not just because they liked it, but because they were very, very good at it. Their immense strength, apparent fearlessness and rigid military discipline was enhanced by a keen, pointed intelligence - they were clever when it came to getting what they wanted. Formora climbed through the halls and decks of the Land Tank to reach the top, Beraskes and Lord Bellaen accompanying her along with another Marauder pair and a half-dozen fleet-footed archers of Du Weldenvarden, and behind them Shu'av and Zhonoch led a strike force of Uluru armed to the teeth, easily keeping up with the elves and Eliksni by virtue of their jump-packs. It did not take them long at all to emerge onto the gun-platform atop the Land Tank, where Psion sharpshooters fended off a couple of stray dragons who flew too close.
The first thing Formora noticed was the distinctive lack of swarming shapsehifters - and it did not take her long at all to discover where'd they gone. Along the mountains on either side lurked beasts of all shapes and sizes, pacing and watching, quiet and alert. Hungry, so hungry - salivating from jaws full of fangs, hidden behind torturous mandibles and other savage implements.
The next thing to catch her eye, tearing her focus from the army of shapeshifters, was the very thing holding the Land Tank - where the ground, the air, the very light warped into unnatural shapes and colours, taking on the form of some hellish nightmare-scape. Formora approached of her own accord, helpless before her curiosity - her burning need to know. Farther and farther she climbed, passing Psions injured and dead, some quiet and hiding and others blathering in their own tongue, broken at their core.
These were some of the greatest soldiers in the world - perhaps even the universe at large.
It was demoralizing to see them brought so low.
Uren stood near the summit, staring off into the kaleidoscope of alien architecture and unnatural life. He turned as they approached, stepping aside as Shu'av and another Uluru Colossus stomped to the edge to aim with their spinning cannons, and he visibly winced as they briefly fired into the mass of cursed magic.
"That won't work," the Risen quietly advised them, stepping away. Shu'av growled, twirled around and snarled something in his own native tongue.
"Where is Ikharos?" she asked.
Uren weakly gestured forward. "He chased Samil, one of the Strife. Scylla and Charybdis chased him. They're... in there." Perhaps reading the next question in Formora's displeased advance, he pre-emptively answered. "Dragons, old dragons, wish-eaters and desire-thirsters - their heart-of-hearts held in Samil's grasp, amongst countless others."
Formora's blood ran cold. Eldunarí, he was saying. Eldunarí - of Ahamkara and, perhaps, more. Eldunarí in the grasp of a Harmony oppressor. She gazed through the miasma of chaotic energies and only caught rare glimpses of movement, too far and miniscule to know if they were yet more dragons or their silver-skinned master or even Ikharos.
The Amarz Amalz trembled. Formora caught herself before falling, and a quick glance around informed her that the others had done much the same - with varying level of difficulty. "The Land Tank won't hold," Zhonoch muttered. "All structural integrity will be warped into spare matter and new soul-domain."
Formora nodded, eager to agree, eager to set in for the hunt - to strike out, to strike now. She was eager for vengeance of her own. The issue was…
How?
The tank rumbled again - and this time the valley with it. The maelstrom of energy ahead pulsed, thrummed, rippled, and in one yawning stroke it expanded. Its influence caught on air and physical surfaces like an enchanted fire, infecting the very matter into... something else. A deep, inhuman groan emanated from the land itself - growing teeth, tendrils, fangs and so many plants that defied belief, defied any explanation. A clawed tree bearing gnarled hands, a bush ripe with unblinking eyes, a grove of gnashing flowers bearing jagged fangs and ripping claws - and then there were dragons, picking through it all with crazed delight, larger than their fellows perched across the mountain and vibrant with colour. They delighted in the perverse new order of reality, found common accord with the architect at its centre and gleefully played along.
Groaning, bellowing - the din of it all never once ceased, leaving Formora's ears ringing. Parts of the rocky valley floor below snagged on some invisible force, rising through the air, twisting about and forming aerial islands arrayed in a sprawling anarchic archipelago. Formora, spotting an opportunity and thinking of little else in her haste to end the madness, end it as quickly as possible and spare both the world and her sanity from suffering it any longer - she braced her legs, folded her knees and sprang out. The same force that had caught the rocks soon caught her, and in tandem with a muttered spell meant to give her more momentum and keep her from falling, her fingers curled around the edge of one such island. Formora pulled herself up, found her footing and crouched low - looking to and fro for a hunting Ahamkara, or even another boulder set on a collision course.
Oh, this would have been so much easier if she'd had the will to see her long-seated desire through - to groom wings into fruition with magic. But then, there hadn't been any ample time for it, had there?
An impact sent her rock rolling. Formora hung on tightly as Zhonoch and Shu'av steadied their not-inconsiderable weight on the same platform, and when she spotted the chance, she leapt right onto the next - missing, genuinely overshooting and only just catching herself on another. Gravity had all but abandoned them - terrified in its own right of what was happening, of the wound scored between the borders of reality and willpower.
She sprang between island and obstacle, slinging her rifle over her back and her blade by her waist so she could hang on when gravity worked against her and climb when it did not. Soon enough the Amarz Amalz was left behind - and she was followed in turn by Bellaen and Beraskes, leaping themselves, and Zhonoch who led his sizable Uluru contingent to boost between the larger islets and scour the space before them with tracers and thermal detectors. Ships, a pack of nervous Threshers, paced around the outside of the veritable vortex of pure paracausal power while the Land Tanks cannons picked at the infernal wound in reality in vain.
Then, inexplicably, a new sort of roar emanated from overhead and overrode the abyssal moan of the Harmony's soul. The new sound was primal, furious, and accentuated with the tectonic slams of stone on stone. Beyond it were other calls - firstly the sleek, insidious hiss of something else, something equally monstrous, and then... screaming. Crying. Shrieks of ecstasy and misery both. Formora looked down on instinct, towards the valley floor - and very much wished she hadn't.
The ossified remains of so many creatures, some recognizable to her and many more not, were warped together in a mesh of phantasmal essence and interlocked bone. There were other souls down there, or at least the illusions of such - and they resembled, more than anything else, the trophied remainder of the Harmony creature's every single victim. There were humans, dwarves, urgals, elves, what looked to be werecats and something similar but with canine features; there were Uluru and Psions and Erechaani and Hive; there were strangers with too many limbs to be even Eliksni, a pack of many-mouthed amphibians, a troop of long-armed simians with the crested heads of spiders and the tails of whip-scorpions. They were many, and they were dead - devoured life, death, spirit and all by their insidious killer.
"Merida!" Shu'av shouted. Formora's head darted up - and there, there he was, Ikharos tumbling across the cracking form of another island, larger than most others, with a massive humanoid shape trudging towards him. It looked like it was made from gravel and ash, its six empty eye-sockets glowing with a molten heat. It cracked off a piece from the edge of their platform as the islet skidded along the valley floor and crushed dozens of living corpses, and the mighty Ahamkara tossed the melting chunk of rock at him. Ikharos stumbled, jumped up and caught an eddy of air and confused gravity with a swish of Solar wings. But something else was chasing, leaping between the islets just like she had - a slim, slender thing of whipcord sinew, vaguely humanoid but with pinkish-grey skin stretched taut over its rigid frame. A long prehensile tail ending in a sleek, ridged blade trailed after it, and it tasted the air with a long barbed pink tongue resplendent with ivory thorns, darting out a conical mouth not unlike that of a lamprey - if flanked on either side by two beady black eyes.
It jumped after Ikharos unnoticed, and once in range it tackled him through the air, wrapped first its tail around the arm holding his sword, then its legs around his waist to hold him still, and finally its brutal tongue around his neck - and pulling tight. Ikharos flailed and panicked as it bit in, and his wings disappeared on the spot.
"Covering fire!" Zhonoch roared. Shu'av and his Colossus friend, as well as the rest of the accompanying Uluru soldiers, belted out a hailstorm of microrockets - most hitting the towering, bulky form of the gravel-creature, while a few others fired with a cautious sort of precision after the tumbling forms of Ikharos and his assailant.
"Beraskes!" Formora shouted, jumping again and giving chase. She heard the Marauder yell back in her own language - something about killing dragons, it sounded like. Which wasn't... it didn't matter. Not right then. Formora leapt to the next rock, and the next and the next, riding on eddies of distorted gravity and confusing wind currents, and she sprang out onto the intertwined pair of killers as they tumbled past. She tugged Vaeta out of its sheath, chopped it into the back of the sinuous Ahamkara, and grabbed at its neck in an attempt to pull it away from Ikharos. The creature shrieked shrilly, tongue slithering back into its circular maw, and it craned its neck around to nip at her. A hand, glowing with purple energy, shot out and tightened around the thing's snout, burning through with little issue. The dragon thrashed and died, losing its grip and falling away.
Formora turned her head away from the Voidsmoke, looped an arm around Ikharos, and caught her fingers on the sharpened edge of yet another twirling platform. The weight of them both slammed down on her, gravity briefly asserting itself in what was by far the wrong direction, and she dug the tips of her fingers into the jagged stone. The force just as quickly turned a different away, allowing her to drag them both over the lip of the dislodged mountain fragment. It was... easier than she'd anticipated; Ikharos weighed about as much as she would have expected of a fellow älfa, which was a touch disconcerting - because Risen he may have been, his basic physical form was still nearly identical with basic humans and they had greater muscle and bone density than the average elf.
Maybe that was just the abysmally lacking state of his armour tricking her, having lost most of its weighted plate to fire and blade - or maybe her worry wasn't misplaced.
Ikharos rolled onto his back, both hands - wreathed in gold as opposed to purple - at his ragged neck and mending the bloodied flesh. It was over in a second, and he coughed out a globule of blood from the shattered visor of his cracked helmet. He turned his head up, most of his face visible past the fractured glass and torn plasteel, dark splotches shadowing his skin; ugly bruises dotting all over him where his torn armour gave way, often accompanied by a myriad lacerations both measly shallow and alarmingly deep. The important thing, though, was that he was alive, conscious, moving - and utterly furious. The same fury abated the moment he beheld her.
Mostly abated, at least.
"The hell are you doing here?" he demanded heatedly, drawing rasping breaths in and out. He looked momentarily panicked, frightened - but there was an affectionate form of knowing exasperation in his eyes, and a reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his lips. It took Formora a moment to realize the question was largely rhetorical, that while he was certainly far from pleased he wasn't entirely surprised. "This is a bad place for a mortal to be."
"Looked bad for you too," Formora shot back, displeased herself.
"I had it under control."
"No you didn't."
"I might've. You don't know that."
"I watched the Ahamkara strangle you half-to-death."
"And what a bastard he was. She was. I don't know anymore." He looked past her. "You... you brought the Cabal?!"
"I didn't bring anyone. Zhonoch did."
"I see elves!"
"They followed me."
"And you didn't tell them to stay put?!"
"They're warriors, Ikharos," Formora firmly reminded him. "Fighting is what they're here for. They volunteered for this."
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure no one volunteered to step into an Ascendant realm," Ikharos grumbled. He looked away. "This guy's trying to keep us here, keep us from getting further. They're not ready for us, apparently. Not yet. He could be lying, just trying to get our hopes up or something but no one goes to all this effort for that. Well, most people don't. Can't imagine he would either, what with his immortal soul on the line..."
"The Harmony?" Formora asked. Ikharos nodded. "How do we kill it? Him?"
"By hitting him, usually. Lots of times, and really hard while we're at it. Or shooting him. The usual, you know? Murder, even the deific kind, isn't exactly rocket science."
"Ikharos."
"This guy's strong," he continued. "By all means he should be a minor Ascendant, but this is... minor Ascendants aren't usually prone to dragging their soul into realspace and unleashing a screamscape like this. I think he has-"
"Eldunarí," Formora finished. "Of Ahamkara."
"For Scylla and Charybdis, I know. You just met Scylla, by the way. They'll be on their way back."
"But I killed-"
"Formora," Ikharos interrupted, voice grim. He gave her a dire, meaningful look. "We've got the Sea of Screams seeping into realspace. The Ascendant plane; this guy's throne world. This, here? This is now where he rules as a god. Those dragons won't die until we break their hearts, and Samil's just going to remake their physical bodies over and over again unless we do. He has that power."
"Then we have to kill or cripple him," Formora decided. "Before he destroys the Amarz Amalz."
"That's putting it lightly. Look, he's not far in. Cocky bastard, rather full of himself; I reckon I can grab his attention, force a fight, but it might draw some dragons too. Can you cover me?"
"The Cabal-"
"I meant where Samil is concerned. Keep him on his toes, go for his eye if you can."
Formora nodded, slowly. "I can."
"Thank you." Ikharos's eyes took on a purple tint. He dragged himself over to the edge, Void traces dancing in the air around him. "Best get to it, then. Be careful. Don't get any closer. Promise me that."
"I can't-"
"This is serious, 'Mora."
"Just kill him quickly," Formora firmly told him. "Don't try to show off."
Ikharos grimaced past his dying smile. "My dear Lady Láerdhon, I never show off. I merely articulate my fantastic physical, intellectual and paracausal prowess when others are occasionally watching."
Formora blinked. "That's... Ikharos, that's the very definition of showing off."
"Is it? Then I have been terribly misinformed..." Ikharos's grin returned - strained, but there. "Go," he said, reaching for his shrouded rifle. "I'll try to keep him still for you."
"Don't die."
"Love you too." He pushed himself off with no regard for his own safety, violet Light encasing his form.
000
Kiphoris disembarked with a low huff, grunting as his feet hit seashore rock. His knees bent, braced against the impact of the fall, and his hands shot out to steady himself. The noise of the Skiff overhead was all-encompassing, a steady staccato hum riddled with smoky snarls and accompanied by a faint buzzing - the thrusters railed against the demeaning, demanding task of hovering in place, demanding momentum, yearning for the thrill of the chase. He felt much the same; oh, how he would have preferred the dangerous simplicity of the hunt, of tracking down his prey with unerring caution and dogged determination, running the murderer down and cornering them, advancing slowly, letting them see him approach and know were not long for the world.
Krayd, the cyber-mongrel coward, deserved that much - at least.
But no, Skiviks' warnings and decrees and gruff admittances destroyed all hope of simply hunting the errant Captain down. The former supporter of Krinok - once Kell, now lost, now they could all breath easy - had apparently holed up in the den once occupied by his master, supported by what few hardline Krinok-loyalists remained. Everyone else had cleared away to leave them their meagre room, radio chatter told him. The Barons did not yet know what to do. Most had no love for Krinok or his mob, that was easily apparent, but neither were they yet willing to cross the false-Kell's supporters - not when the very same Kell's fate was so... ambiguous. Kiphoris liked to imagine the tyrant was dead, but even he wasn't so sure.
If he had his way, though, they would all know soon enough.
Warriors dropped after him, Marauders and Vandals who'd remained loyal - or had been poached from the leaderless crews once sworn to service of both the late Tarrhis and Sundrass. What remained had been split between him, Palkra and the newly-promoted Nyreks.
And both of them were now sworn to him.
"It still stands," one of his warriors breathed, awed by what lay before them. Paltis, unruly and fierce, struck with wonder by the mere sight of the Monoliks-Syn.
It was a sentiment Kiphoris could get behind.
"And will always stand," whispered the golden-eyed elika by his side. Paltis flinched; the others rippled with unease and new sort of awe. Witch, he heard them murmur. Dragon. Wish-beast. "So long," shell-and-flesh garbed Arke continued, "as you desire it so."
Kiphoris said nothing. She was fishing - for a desire, a want, a greed, but she would find none. Not yet. He shouldered his resurgent resolve and pushed forward, flicking his new-woven cloak back behind him. It had a heavier weight than his last, being thicker and longer than the mantle he'd borne as a Captain, and it had an inbuilt thermal-moderation system. His armour was much the same; upgraded if not swapped out altogether. His shield generator was improved, with deeper energy reserves and a farther-reaching Arc bubble, designed so with a larger Eliksni in mind. His biosuit was loosened with the same in mind, in preparation for the sporadic growth spurts spurred forth by his increased ether rations. Already he could feel the pains - of his bones lengthening, his muscles enlarging, his exoskeletal plates hardening and forming cracks with new plates pushing up from beneath. He ached all over for it - but the taste was good, like the gentle sweet-ether he'd only half-remembered tasting as a soft-shelled hatchling.
Other Skiffs swooped by, dropping off their complements of warriors and nobles and Splicers - all of them, all of Tarrhis's once-sworn, finally coming home. The Monoliks-Syn disgorged some small crowds of its own, mostly families come searching for the sight of kin. Kiphoris knew that the death tally had been sent ahead, that those who'd lost loved ones already knew, but he suspected a few widowed mates and orphaned children were still there, among the waiting Eliksni, hoping against all odds to see someone they hadn't yet given up on. A part of him did the same; imagined Sundrass marching out from under the shadow of Ketch and irritably shrugging off the inane chatter of persistent underlings, or the cheerful, stern bellows of Tarrhis trying to instill some semblance of order into the unruly masses. But neither of them did.
It was then that Kiphoris realized he was well and truly alone. Those that had welcomed him into the Scars were dead. All he had left was the oaths of his own crews, the strained acquaintance with his Captain-vassals, and strange, wild, exotic presence of the dragon walking beside him - clad in the form of an elika with pleasant features, strange eyes and the fur-collared faded-purple robes of a long lost Rain prophetess.
And Inelziks the Poet, who soon joined him in his stiff march towards their docked home - her crew mingling with his, she herself falling in place at his other side, opposite from Arke.
She looked him over and offered him a polite, "Velask, Kiphoris-Mrelliks pak Drakkir."
"Vel," he replied with all the goodwill he could muster, "Inelziks-Veskirisk pak Triskva."
"Are you relieved?"
"Relieved?"
"To return." Inelziks gestured towards the Ketch. "To be among your own kind once more."
Kiphoris glanced at her, dubious. "Nama. No more than I was anywhere else."
"You have been gone for some time."
"I have been fighting for some time. Planning. Hunting. For the betterment of our people. There is nowhere else I would rather be."
"So duty is your home?" Inzeliks surmised. It appeared as if the notion amused her. "In truth, I can see it. Wolves are always moving, yes? Always acting. Do you not hunger for respite?"
Kiphoris snorted. "I found respite enough. The humans... they ever-seek paradise. Some of those I negotiated with attempted to share with us what luxuries, meagre or otherwise, they found for themselves."
"Peace is a treasured commodity," Inelziks murmured. "Have you any to spare?"
"You speak as if it has not been stolen from me."
Inelziks winced. "I... did not mean to drive our conversation down this route, Drakkir."
Kiphoris ignored her. "Krayd will die," he quietly vowed, "and all our enemies will be laid low. Then - then - I will find mine-peace."
"War-talk will not endear you to many," Inelziks chided him. "The Barons are tired of Krinok's violence. Many want stability - and they will see you as nothing less than an overzealous upstart if you approach them like this."
Kiphoris shuttered his inner eyes and stifled his retort, kept himself from reprimanding her for daring to speak to him in so familiar a fashion. In theory he outranked her, but the truth was very, very different. Inelziks was too beloved by the Scars and too valued by the Barons; she was Mrelliks in all but name and stature. "I know how to moderate mine-words, Poet."
"I am aware, Dreamer, but I worry your grief hounds you yet. Grief makes the worst of us. It is the reason we are here at all, chasing a god that does not care."
He glanced at her, reproachfully. Inzelziks took it in stride.
"It would help to sing, as I do," she informed him, some fondness creeping into her voice. "I know you can sing, Gentle Weaver. Will you join me, to offer the dead their final lamentations?"
Kiphoris frowned and... hesitated. "When?"
"That is for the Barons to decide. Soon, I expect." Her tone dropped. "We have endured too many careless losses, and for too little gain. We must mark this calamity and learn from it."
"I will... think on it, Poet."
"Your consideration is all I can ask for," Inelziks replied, gratefully ducking her head.
AN: Big thanks to Nomad Blue for editing, the legend!