The magitech chronicles.., p.116
The Magitech Chronicles- Complete Series Box Set, page 116
part #1 of The Magitech Chronicles Series
“What is your specialty?” Aran asked. He probably should have figured that out on the flight here, but he’d been too busy planning his role in the war to spend much time working with Rhea. She’d seemed fine with the arrangement, and hadn’t really left her quarters much except to eat.
As her commander, though, he needed to be the one taking the initiative, and he made a note to do that, if they lived.
“Destruction.” Rhea’s armored form drifted over to the blue membrane, and she paused to face him. “The same as every Outrider that came after you. You mandated that we all learn true magic as well, which is why I know basic wards.”
“Sounds like future me is much better at this,” he muttered under his breath. Aran fed a bit of void to the suit, then drifted through the membrane, and up into the air over the Talon and the transports dispatched by the Ternus fleet.
Icy crystals covered the bone, a reminder of the cold that he, thankfully, couldn’t feel because of his spellarmor. The first time he’d been here he hadn’t been so lucky. Back then he’d been fodder.
Dozens of Marines in the same effective position he’d been in were rushing out and assuming defensive positions wherever they could find cover. Behind them came a line of hovertanks, and Aran felt a brief surge of hope until he realized none of them were Davidson’s. The Hunter had probably already reached Shaya by now, along with the rest of Ternus’s remaining conventional vessels, which was where Davidson should be.
A few moments later clusters of grey-clad techs sprinted out of the ships. The shuttles lifted off, and the bewildered techs looked around as if seeking escape. Aran knew exactly how they were feeling. Crewes hadn’t been wrong about a whole bunch of zeroes dying.
He fed air into his suit to amplify his voice, then rose over the ranks. “I want the hovertanks to flank our advance. Marines, find any cover you can and keep the enemy at range. If a tech demon advances, scatter. Force them to chase you into the tanks, or my mages, and we’ll peel them off you. Also, keep moving. The cold can be lethal if we’re out in it too long.”
The Marines started moving, and Aran noted that each had been fitted with cybernetic implants, just as the tech he’d spoken to earlier. That chilled him more than the temperature ever could. Who knew what those implants even did? Nothing good, he was sure.
“Movement, Captain,” Rhea’s confident voice came over the speakers in his suit. “I count at least twenty hostiles. Estimate eighty seconds to contact.”
“Get to cover!” Aran bellowed. “Armor, aim for clusters. Disrupt and slow. Don’t go for kills. We need to stagger their advance.”
Crewes cut into the channel. “Sir, got another bunch over the ridge at three o’clock.”
The pounding of booted feet on pallid stone grew louder, and echoed at them from multiple directions. There had to be hundreds of them out there. Countless silhouettes appeared against the glow in the distance.
The demons’ objective was clear. They were arrayed to prevent Aran’s forces from reaching the Catalyst. This was going to be a bloodbath.
29
So Much For Diplomacy
Aran realized immediately there was no way his limited forces were going to survive a push through the approaching demonic horde. Yorrak’s quick in and out raids suddenly made a lot of sense, because they happened before the locals had a chance to mobilize. A larger force was cumbersome and easily spotted, and that gave the demons all the time they needed to get into position to intercept.
“Sergeant,” Aran panted into his suit. “We’re going to double time it up to that ridge, and take the summit. I want to hold it just long enough to piss them off, and then we fall back to the LZ.”
“Copy that, sir. You heard the man, people.” Crewes’s thruster fired, and his armor soared up the ridge.
Rhea’s Mark XI rose smoothly in the sergeant’s wake, and Aran could feel the void magic she used, twin to his own. She stayed above and behind the sergeant, shadowing him in the way only a veteran would know to do. Again she seemed more skilled than anyone else in the company, himself included. And that was without tapping into any of the abilities being a Wyrm would give her.
Bord and Kezia sprinted up the ridgeline behind Crewes and Rhea, but they wouldn’t reach the ridge more than a few moments after them. Aran glanced at the Marines below, then toggled his external speakers. “In a few moments we’re going to kick a hornets’ nest. Those hornets are going to come swarming down those ridges, and when they do they’re going to be pissed off. Do everything you can to slow them, and to channel them into a kill zone that the capital ships can concentrate their fire on.”
Aran flipped off his speakers, and poured void into his armor. He zipped along the ridge, quickly eating up the gap between him and Crewes. Fire worked for flight, but air or void both did it better. He willed open his void pocket, and withdrew his spellrifle.
They’d need to kite these demons, as letting them get into melee range meant a swift death. It would be too easy for the demons to physically overpower them through weight of numbers, and while their magic might delay that, eventually it would run out.
Once he’d reached the sergeant’s position, Aran jetted up high enough that he nearly brushed the top of the ocular cavity. It afforded a better view of the bleached fields stretching into the distance, and beyond them he caught sight of the familiar icy glow of the Catalyst itself, the purple light filling the cavity where a human’s brain would be.
Columns of demons trotted across the bleached plain, all making for the ridge where his company was assembling. Most demons carried either a spellblade or spellrifle, but there were plenty of spellcannons dotting their ranks. Odds were good they’d use void exclusively, and that did make them somewhat predictable. Unfortunately, being able to predict a hail of void bolts didn’t mean they’d survive it.
“Crewes, Rhea, start dishing big spells to the group closest to us,” Aran ordered. He zipped back down toward the squad, and wasn’t surprised when a chorus of void bolts rose from the demons.
The dark spells hissed past him, and he twisted and rolled to avoid the barrage. He continued his evasive maneuvers until he was low enough to drop into cover behind a bony outcrop. A final void bolt hissed into the rock above him, echoed by angry cries from the demonic ranks.
“Bord.” Aran risked a quick glance around the right side of the boulder, then ducked back as a void bolt slammed into the rock. “Get ready with the strongest ward you can manage. Kezia, the first demon to make it around those boulders gets a hammer to the face. Keep them off the ranged, and don’t get lured out of cover.”
Crewes and Rhea were already moving. The sergeant darted around the right side of the boulder, and aimed his cannon at a trio of demons who’d broken ahead of the main body and were sprinting in their direction.
“Aran,” Nara gave a frantic call from where she’d crouched near the base of a boulder. “What about me?”
Aran smiled grimly as he peeked over a boulder at the onrushing demons. The front rank was a little over a hundred meters out. “I want you to create an illusion of a second group of tech mages cresting the ridge forty meters to our right, and then immediately after I want one on the left. We’re trying to get them to waste magic. Even demons have limits and every bolt that hits an illusion isn’t hitting a Marine.”
Crewes’s cannon bucked, and a ball of superheated flame arced into the air. It detonated over the trio of demons, and coated them in superheated napalm.
“Most demons are all but impervious to flame,” Rhea called as she sprinted into cover about ten meters from Crewes. She popped out of cover and cored a demon through the heart with a level three void bolt. The creature continued running for a few steps, then tumbled to the ground and didn’t rise.
“I ain’t trying to burn ‘em.” Crewes was already firing a second time, but this time the ball that burst from his spellcannon was a pure blob of icy blue. The water magic followed the same course the fire had, and when it slammed into the trio of demons, the cold washed over their superheated bodies.
Cracks formed in their carapaces, and it exposed purplish magic underneath. The lead demon took a step, and its leg shattered. The others collapsed as well, their bodies unable to resist the extreme shift in temperature.
Roars sounded from the ridge to the right, and then a moment later to the left. Dozens of illusionary tech mages came flooding over the ridge, all copies of someone in the company, and the demonic host responded in kind. They peppered the illusions with void bolts, but Nara had apparently accounted for that when she’d cast her illusion.
Each tech mage dove out of the way, or cast a shimmering ward, or did some plausible thing to explain why the spell hadn’t affected them. If anything, it convinced the demons that the groups were both alive and more of a threat than the real company. Another barrage of void bolts swept out of the demon ranks, with no more effect than the first.
A few were aimed in Aran’s direction, and he ducked behind cover again. He’d gotten their attention. Just one more jab, and he’d pull them right where he wanted them.
He kicked off the ground and shot up into the air. A pair of void bolts passed perilously close to his leg, but he twisted around them, and gained altitude. Aran snapped his rifle to his shoulder, and sighted down the scope at the rear of the demon ranks. As expected, a tall demon stood behind the others, and was bellowing something in an unfamiliar language as it pointed furiously at Crewes and Rhea.
“Let’s just remove that organization, shall we.” Aran settled the crosshairs over the demon’s neck, just under the chin. The armor it wore ended there, and there was a thin, relatively unprotected patch between the helmet and the breastplate. Just enough of an opening for the spell he had in mind.
Back on New Texas, Aran had been particularly impressed by the explosive rounds used by the Ternus defenders. They packed a lot of destruction into a single shot, and he was fairly certain he could accomplish the same thing magically.
Aran summoned a core of brittle earth, several dense fragments. He added a core of liquid fire, volatile and eager to expand and destroy. Over the top he wrapped a layer of void, in case the armor got in the way.
The rifle bucked and the spell streaked into its target. The demon didn’t even attempt to dodge, and its eyes widened comically as it spotted the spell at the last moment. The spell sliced through its neck, and disappeared inside its massive body.
Fire exploded out its ears, mouth, nose, and eyes. The commander sagged to its knees, then toppled face first to the bleached bone. The demons closest to it seemed unsure how to respond, though those closer to the front were still charging. Perfect.
“Fall back!” Aran roared. His voice echoed through the canyons and even with the spellcannon fire he had no doubt the demons heard it.
He flew back over the ridge’s lip, and out of the demons’ sight. The rest of the company wasn’t far behind, and bounded down the bleached rock as quickly as the reduced gravity allowed.
Aran fed a bit of fire to his suit, and triggered a missive to Kerr’s vessel, the flagship. As promised, it and two other black ships were entering through the membrane separating the ocular cavity from the vacuum outside. The foreboding wedges hovered low above the bleached plains, fifty or sixty meters from where the Talon was parked. Hopefully that meant the demons wouldn’t see them until they made the ridge.
“Steady!” Aran roared over the external speakers as he whirled and sought a target on the ridge.
A moment later a tide of black forms swarmed over the lip. As soon as the first rank appeared they began to realize they’d been tricked by Nara’s illusion.
By that point it was far too late.
Eighteen hovertanks kicked almost as one as they launched an explosive volley that cratered nearly a quarter of the ridge. That seemed to undam the flow of death, and the Marines added their automatic weapons fire, peppered with the occasional grenade. All of that just softened up the demons though.
The real threat came from the trio of capital ships, and Aran could feel something sinking in the pit of his stomach as their spellcannons powered up. He zipped behind cover, and spun to observe the ships. It was the first time he’d seen them fire, and as they might one day be firing at him he wanted to know as much as he could about their capabilities.
Each vessel extended a tendril of negative energy quite unlike a standard void bolt. This more resembled the liquid fire the sergeant used in that it flowed toward its target like an eel. That energy swept over a pack of demons, and cold sweat beaded Aran’s brow when he realized what he was seeing.
The demons dissolved as if disintegrated, but that wasn’t what was happening. Not at all. The beam of energy vacuumed up their essence, the magic, and possibly the soul, and delivered them back up the stream as a pulse of shining, black energy that disappeared inside the ships.
Dozens of demons died in seconds, some from the unholy barrage, and others from the Marines and their tanks. A few managed to cast, but only one found a target. The Marine had leaned a bit too far from cover, and a void bolt separated his arm and shoulder from his torso. He tumbled back with a cry, while Bord sprinted to his side, his armored hands already blazing a brilliant white as he brought his life magic to bear.
Elation lived for a fraction of a moment, but then Aran felt it. Tremendous, incredible, divine power. The kind he’d felt on Marid when he’d met Drakkon. The kind that any sane mage ran from.
“Aran,” Nara’s voice came over the comm. “What the depths is that?”
“Shit, even I feel it,” Crewes interjected. “And I do not want to meet whatever that is.”
Aran guided his armor out of cover, and zipped as high as he could, twisting to avoid more void bolts as he tried to catch sight of this new threat. It took several moments to gain enough elevation to see over the ridge, and several more to sort the chaos of battle. Beyond lay rank upon rank of demons that were clearly waiting to enter that combat. Not hundreds. Thousands.
Only one area of the plain was clear. An area just wide enough for a single person to walk. The sea of demons parted, allowing a comparatively short woman to pass. When she emerged from the demonic ranks Aran tightened his grip on his rifle. She was beautiful, and terrible.
Long, white horns curved up over her head, like a second set of ears. Leathery wings extended over her shoulders, and a long tail flicked lazily back and forth behind her. Her eyes were what drew his attention though. They were the same dark fires that Kheross had borne, but where Kheross had felt alien…this magic felt familiar. There was an undeniable kinship between them.
“Hello, Aran. Hello, Nara.” The demonic queen, if that’s what she was, folded her arms. “The pair of you may approach. The rest I will allow to scurry back to your vessels, but only if they do so quickly.”
“We don’t want a war,” Aran quickly explained, and drifted a bit closer. He raised his faceplate so she could look him in the eye. “I think we share a common enemy. We—”
The awful feeling in the pit of his stomach came again, and he glanced over his shoulder. “Goddess, no.” All three wedge-shaped ships were moving to attack. The first fired its unholy tendril, and the beam writhed toward the demonic queen like a living thing.
So much for diplomacy.
30
Dark Bargain
Aran winced as the terrible black beam snaked from the Inuran ship toward the demon’s leader. Having seen what happened to the smaller demons, he wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone, demon or no.
The dark monarch merely smiled.
She stepped forward with a flourish, and whipped a slender spellblade from a void pocket so quickly Aran wasn’t positive he’d even seen it. The pocket flashed open, then closed, and then she was flowing into an offensive form. A form he knew well.
The tip of her blade touched the tendril. Magic surged—cold, but somehow urgent and overwhelming. Void pulsed from her blade, and the weapon plunged deep into the tendril. The magic struggled to free itself, wriggling like a living thing, but the demon leapt into the air and flared bat-like wings behind her. She kept pace with the tendril, and adopted a look of concentration.
Enormous power washed out of her again, this time sinking directly into the tendril. A pulse of bright black moved up, as it had whenever the tendril had absorbed a demon. When the pulse hit the ship the vessel gave an almost living groan.
The pulse reversed course, and was quickly joined by several more.
“My gods,” Aran whispered into the comm. “I think she’s draining the ship, the same thing they were trying to do to her.”
“Sir, it ain’t too late to bug out.” The sergeant sprinted over to stand near Kezia, who’d covered Bord while he tended to the wounded. “Ain’t no way we’re going to survive against something like that. Looks like she’s just getting warmed up.”
The groan became a metallic shriek, and the vessel abruptly entered free fall. A final, weak pulse of light flowed out of it, and the inert ship tumbled end over end…toward the Marines below. “Nara, I need all the gravity you’ve got. Now. Let’s move that thing.”
Aran poured void into his armor to increase his mass and streaked up and under the doomed vessel. He slammed into the side of it, and poured more void into his armor, until he was heavy enough to make a difference. The ship reluctantly began to budge, then jerked hard as Nara added her own magic. It crashed to the ground in a spray of bone fragments, which the Marines were thankfully armored against, then toppled toward the demonic ranks, crushing dozens in a spray of rock and debris.
“That could have been a lot worse, and she’s got two more targets to hit us with,” Nara said. “I know I don’t get a vote, but if I did I’d be with the sergeant. We need to get out of here. I’m betting that at her age that demon knows true magic too. Those ships aren’t going to do anything but slow her down for a few seconds. We need to go.”
