The tide of unmaking, p.43
The Tide of Unmaking, page 43
part #3 of Berinfell Prophesies Series
“And my mother knew you would try something of that nature. That’s why she pasted a false page into the back cover. It was all there, Asp, everything you did. My mother’s word against yours. So I made plans and I played the role. And here at last you unveiled your empty gambit. You called me daughter.
“Tell me, Asp, how long after I gave you Berinfell’s plans were you going to kill me?” Taeva smiled and looked at her fists. “You’d have had to kill me soon. It wouldn’t have taken me very long to figure out that the claws that came from my fist were just a Dark Arts parlor trick.”
Asp groaned, leaned up on one elbow, and said, “You are right, Taeva. I would not have waited very long to kill you. But this way is so much better. This way, I will have to torture you to get the information I need.”
“You won’t touch me,” Taeva hissed. “I studied Drefid anatomy, and I knew just where to hit you. My dagger found the coil of your heart, Asp. You are minutes from death.”
And Asp began to laugh. They were more like wet, heaving breaths, but nonetheless, he laughed.
“Did you…did you think you could kill me?” Asp asked. “Just like that? Amusing little wench.” Keeping his eyes on Taeva, Asp tilted his head a little and called out, “Jett, heal me!”
“NO, Jett,” a voice came, seemingly from nowhere. “Don’t heal Asp! Not yet!”
Tommy’s cry echoed throughout the hall. Every head moved to look in his direction, but saw only empty space. The Six had already snuck within twenty paces behind Taeva, Asp and Jett.
Jett had already moved to within arm’s length of Asp, but he froze when he heard the voice.
Asp’s two left arms came up. There was a flash of red light and a flurry of red embers, like in a fireplace after a smoldering hunk of wood snaps in half.
Tommy looked down, shocked. The embers danced all around him. His arms were rapidly reappearing. The red embers continued to swirl until he was fully visible. He looked back over his shoulder. The other Lords stood there, completely uncloaked.
“Jett!” Asp commanded. “Heal me!”
Jett took another step.
“Don’t!” Tommy ordered. In a blink, he had an arrow nocked and pointed at Jett. “Not an inch farther, Jett. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will. And you know I will not miss.”
“Tommy!” Kat exclaimed.
“What are yu doin’, mate?” Jimmy asked.
“Put the bow down!” Kiri Lee said. “Please.”
“Jett!” Asp called. “I command you to heal me!”
Jett looked from Asp, back to Tommy and the razor-tipped arrow. His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t get any closer to Asp.
“Asp!” Tommy yelled. “Your life hangs in the balance!”
“As does yours,” Asp said weakly. He gestured dismissively with his hand.
Tommy saw from his peripheral vision that the many hundreds of troops had formed an uneven circle around them. And they were slowly moving forward. It was like the tightening of a noose.
“More have come back,” Bengfist said.
“How many more?” Jast asked.
“What I saw,” he said, “on this moniterd, I saw two, perhaps three dozen. Maybe more. It was crowded. I cannot say for sure. But mostly my derelict kinsmen and Saer. I saw only two Drefids.”
“Saw them, I too, and more from the outside,” Migmar explained. “Be here, the enemy, all too soon.”
As if on cue, the trio heard muffled screams, grunts and shrieks from the other side of the chamber door that Johnny had welded shut.
“What will we do?” Jast asked.
“Hope we that the door holds,” Migmar replied.
Bengfist grunted. “Or we die drenched in enemy blood.”
“Guys!” Tommy called out. “I need time.”
“Got it!” Johnny said. He stepped out to Tommy’s left and held out his hands, palms up. Fire danced immediately. “Come any closer, and you burn!” he told the Gwar.
Kiri Lee leaped into the air, climbed until she was high over the enemy, and nocked an arrow of her own.
Jimmy missed his claymore but he made a decent show with the twin bladed staff he’d taken from a Saer on Liberty Island.
Autumn drew two daggers. In a blur, she sped back and forth in front of the enemy line. She smacked each one of them on the jaw with the handle of her blades. “Next time,” she said, “it will be the blade. And, next time, it will be your neck.”
“Our lives are all at stake,” Tommy said to them all. “But Asp, hear me out. We didn’t come here to fight you. I will let Jett heal you. But you must listen.”
“Let Jett heal me?” Asp snarled. “You are deluded.” He coughed up more blood. “But still, I am curious. Speak, Elf! I grow weary.”
Tommy chose his words carefully but explained to Asp the damage the cross-world portals had caused. He spoke of the Tide of Unmaking ravaging both worlds and of the desperate need to get all Allyrans out of Earth for good. Tommy finished speaking and found himself panting from exertion. He still had the arrow nocked, the bowstring drawn back to his ear. The muscles in his back felt close to knotting up. Sweat dribbled down his forehead and threatened to drain into his eye. He had to finish this quickly.
“We will allow Jett to heal you,” he said. “We will allow you to return to Allyra without interference from us. You can regroup, attack Berinfell, try to finish this…but only on Allyran soil. You have to make certain that every last one of your soldiers departs Earth.”
Asp coughed, and pressed both right hands to the still leaking wound. “Let me be certain…that I understand,” he said. “You believe that I…that Drefid-kind has, by using Dark Arts portals over the ages, caused a tearing of the veil between worlds. And that in so doing, we have unleashed the Tide of Unmaking, a kind of wall of energy that will utterly consume both Earth and Allyra. Is this correct?”
Tommy nodded, blinking away sweat. Back, shoulder, arm, hand—all burned from keeping that bowstring back, keeping it still. “If you don’t believe us,” he said, “check the news broadcasts here. There are visuals already…Russia, Japan and—”
“I have seen the moving pictures,” Asp said. “But until now, I had no idea what the wave of destructive energy was. I feared it was some new Elven weapon, something you would use against me. And to think I expended so much energy to woo young Taeva…for information the Lords of Berinfell themselves would so freely give. So many things now become clear.”
Tommy swallowed. He was beginning to lose sensation in his fingertips. “So you’ll do it then? You’ll depart Earth? There isn’t much time. It has to—”
“You are Felheart Silvertree, are you not?” Asp asked. “Your family line is ancient, all the way back to the beginning of the Allyra. Did you know?”
Tommy shook his head. Sweat stung his eyes.
“Yes, one of the oldest Lordly lines. But did you know there are other ancient bloodlines? Powerful bloodlines not connected to the Lords of Berinfell whatsoever? Yes, in the pages of the sacred Vulrid, I have learned much of my own family line. I am Asp-Anthruel the Sixth, beloved of Vulridian and destined to do many great deeds.”
He coughed again. Blood dribbled between the fingers of the hands covering his wound. “You see, Taeva was right. I was the one who brought the Dark Arts to the Spider King. I used the Dark Arts to twist his mind toward vengeance. He became my puppet, even imprisoning and poisoning the Elf maiden he so deeply loved. Oh, yes, I was the one who fanned the Spider King’s hatred of Berinfell to an inferno. Pity he could not finish the job. But, he did keep his side of the bargain to me. Or at least his corpse did. The venom fermented…matured within him until, at last, I found him in the wreckage of Vesper Crag. That venom now flows in my veins.”
“Enough!” Tommy yelled. He could barely hold the bowstring any longer. “Will you take your armies and leave Earth, or not?”
“No,” Asp replied. “Ignorant Elf! You do not understand me. You have never understood. We will not leave Earth! In fact, as soon as Jett heals me, I will command my soldiers under penalty of death NEVER to leave Earth! I will open new portals and shuttle human slaves to Allyra by the thousands. Let the Tide of Unmaking hasten! According to the word of Vulridian, let the world—both worlds—be soaked in blood!”
“Wrong!” Tommy barked. “Jett will not heal you. We won’t let him.”
“So be it,” Asp said, laughing. “Then I will enjoy my last sights, watching you murder the one you once called brother in arms. And I will die knowing that I have done as Vulridian asks, and for my service, I will reap reward beyond reckoning! My soldiers, KILL THE ELVES!! Jett, heal your master, NOW!”
Jett lunged toward Asp.
“NO!” Tommy screamed. The moment came. That terrible question. Jett was two seconds from Asp. But Tommy couldn’t do it. He couldn’t release the arrow and kill his friend. He started to let the bowstring relax when—
THWANG!
The bowstring left his fingertips. The arrow flew. “NO!” Tommy cried out again. He hadn’t meant to let the arrow go. But his fingertips were numb. The arrow was gone. And Tommy knew it would fly true, pierce Jett’s eye, and sink into his brain, killing him instantly.
The arrow was gone. There was no bringing it back, Tommy knew, and at this close range, there was no hope of changing its course. I’ve killed him, Tommy thought hopelessly. I’ve killed Jett.
Tommy shut his eyes.
But Autumn didn’t. She’d seen Tommy struggling to hold the bowstring. She’d already made up her mind what she would do, if it came to it. But she’d relaxed for just a moment, simply exhaling, when the arrow flew. Her speed, her reflexes, and her reactions were all superhuman—even ten times the speed of the nimble Elves. In a blink, even as the arrow began its single heartbeat journey, Autumn was off.
She flashed toward Jett to intercept the arrow, but she knew. She knew she’d left a split-second too late and at the wrong angle. Still, she forced every ounce of speed from her legs, leaned forward, and dove in front of Jett.
Autumn struck something, stumbled and hit the ground hard. She rolled and felt a sharp pain in her shoulder. For a moment, as her body finally tumbled to a halt, Autumn thought she’d succeeded. But she reached up to her shoulder and felt her flesh slick with blood. But no arrow shaft. She closed her eyes. She’d failed.
But Kiri Lee hadn’t.
Kiri Lee also had been watching Tommy draw back the bowstring with the deadly shaft pointed at Jett. She’d seen the anguish in Tommy’s expression, the strain in his neck and forearms as the confrontation with Asp went on. Kiri Lee had been patrolling the air above it all.
But when she saw Tommy falter, she launched into a swift descent. Not just falling, but propelling herself downward by pushing off the air. And still, she feared it would not be fast enough.
Something struck her foot, and she felt herself twisting. At the same time, a burst of agony radiated outward from her gut like a corona of flame. She landed on her side and skidded to a stop.
Major General Anton Velashzny had never seen orders like these, not since the training exercises many years before. That and a recurring nightmare shared by most senior officers of the Russian Strategic Missile Command.
Anton swiveled in his chair and said, “Chekov, did you…can this be right?”
Chekov—whose eyes were barely visible under two dark, caterpillar eyebrows—replied, “The security codes are accurate and they are today’s.”
“But…but, you know what this will do,” Anton said. “This will start—”
“World War III has already begun, Anton,” he said. “Have you not heard? Have you not seen pictures of Petropavolvsk?”
“But the Americans? Intelligence would have briefed us if the Americans had developed a new weapon.”
“Who else could it be?” Chekov asked. “The Americans are the only ones capable, technologically speaking. We have lost the race.”
“And when we do this,” Anton said, “the world will lose.”
Chekov nodded and removed a key chain from his breast pocket. He consulted a leatherbound logbook. “Insert key,” he said. “Execute one quarter turn to the left.”
The two senior Commanders inserted their keys and gave their fist turn.
“Proceed three-quarters turn right.”
Each Commander did so. And each action elicited the same response: a four-inch door slid open just inches above the Commander’s key hand. A chrome half-sphere rose up from the panel and its cap popped open to reveal a small red button.
“Three times, Anton,” Chekov said. “Are you ready?”
Anton swallowed. His face felt numb. He tried to swallow, but it felt like a fist-full of screws had lodged in his throat. Sweat pouring down his brow, tears from his eyes, Anton nodded.
Together, they pressed their red buttons. Once. Twice. After a pause, the third time.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. Silo hatch doors began to open. The red light on the control room’s ceiling began to spin. Anton turned to his friend and said, “May God forgive us for what we have unleashed.”
“Just following orders,” Chekov replied, lighting a cigarette.
“I wonder,” Anton replied, “if perhaps, hell is most populated by men who were just following orders.”
Meanwhile, above ground, smoke thrust upward from each silo, and heat emissions flash-melted snow into steam. One by one, the SS-25 Topol missiles rose slowly from their silos. Then, having cleared the opening by fifty feet, the first stage booster fell away, and the second stage ignited.
The first wave of nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles had begun their flight to North America.
Tommy opened his eyes and didn’t understand what he was looking at. Autumn and Kiri Lee were sprawled across the floor, and Jett was still standing. He had his hands on Asp’s shoulders. Then, Tommy saw the fletchings of the arrow he had fired. The arrow was deep in Kiri Lee’s stomach.
“No,” Tommy whispered, running toward her. “No, no, no!”
“Kiri Lee!” Kat and Jimmy cried out and raced to her side.
Johnny and Taeva, a combination of fire and lightning, burned up scores of enemy soldiers as they tried to bring aid to Asp.
“Don’t know how much longer we can keep them out!” Johnny yelled.
“Finish this!” Taeva cried out.
Tommy stopped, crouched to check on Kiri Lee. Her tunic was already dark with blood from the wound. It seemed to be seeping.
Kiri Lee’s eyes opened. She glanced at the wound and smiled. Then she looked at Jett.
Tommy stood. Wincing, he drew his sword. It wasn’t as strong as his Nightstalker blade, or even his rychesword, but it would do the job.
“How touching!” Asp said, blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. “She saved you, Jett. Did you see? Felheart—your friend—sent that arrow for a place in your brain.”
Jett’s eyes burned with violet fire. His fingers flexed upon the muscle of Asp’s neck.
“Don’t!” Tommy said, his voice cracking. “Don’t heal him, Jett.”
Asp let out a coughing laugh. “Of course, he will heal me,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Make this quick, Jett.”
“Don’t!” Tommy yelled.
“Don’t worry,” Jett said. And with a quick but powerful jerk of his hands, he broke Asp’s neck. Then he shoved the corpse aside.
An audible gasp went up through the entire hall. No one moved.
“Jett?” Tommy whispered. “Jett, do you know me?”
“Are yu, are yu yourself?” Jimmy asked.
“Some things are clear,” Jett said. “Some aren’t. But I know my friends, and I know that Ellos is my only Master.”
Feeling joy beyond his own understanding, Tommy spun on his heels. “Johnny, Taeva, hold on! Jimmy, Kat, we need to help them keep the enemy out!”
“But, Kiri Lee?” Kat said.
“We can’t help her,” Tommy said. “But Jett can.” He looked questioningly at Jett.
“You bet your trigger happy fingers I can,” Jett said.
“JETT’S BACK!” Autumn cried, raising her hands in the air with overwhelming glee.
Jett leaped over Asp’s body and rushed to Kiri Lee’s side. He reached his hand toward her wound.
“NO!” Kiri Lee exclaimed. “No you won’t. Not this time!”
Jett held his hand up. He shook his head, not comprehending.
“You took the poison for me, Jett,” she said. “Don’t you remember? You took what would have killed me and put yourself in a grave for seven years. I’ve spent all that time wishing you hadn’t. If I am to die, then I should die…not…not you.”
“Don’t worry,” Jett said, gently moving her hands away from the arrow’s shaft. “I’m stronger now. A lot stronger.”
“The door will not hold much longer!” Jast said, pacing with a sword in each hand.
Shrieks and howls continued just outside the chamber door. There was another muffled boom, and this time a seam of blue fire appeared on one edge of the door.
“Let them come!” Bengfist growled as he hefted his battle hammers. “If we must perish, then let us perish fighting for our friends!”
“Not fond, I am, of the whole perishing thing,” Migmar said. His head bobbed from monitor to monitor, and his fingers flew across the keyboard. Every few tip-taps on the keys, and the Gnome swiveled in his chair to look at the luminous globe. “Not fond at all,” he repeated.
Another explosion outside, and the seam of bright blue light tripled in size. The upper left-hand corner of the door warped and bent in. A thick Gwar hand reached in. With a running start, Bengfist slammed a hammer against the intruding hand.
The crunching sound was nearly as loud as the howl that followed.
