Victor of Tucson-Chapter 43Book 12: : Impending Dread

43 – Impending Dread

Arona poured more Energy into her Solar Shield as she passed through the densest fighting. The legions were doing well, their momentum strong as they drove through the hordes of undead. She supposed it was to be expected; their lives depended on it, after all. The analytical part of her mind saw fit to correct her: most of their lives depend on it. There were those among the soldiers who would be able to avoid death in the impending cataclysm. Some could fly to great heights, some could teleport, and others were sturdy enough to weather the disaster.

Nonetheless, Arona was determined to see all of her soldiers survive. To that end, she’d flown forth, aiming to help Ronkerz and his Big Ones put an end to the last two undead kings. The fact that they hadn’t yet was both surprising and worrisome. Their battle, dragging on for hours, had carried them far afield from the citadel, but it wasn’t difficult to find them—the concussions rolled over the fields, and the blooms of Energy blasts lit up the sky to the southeast.

A flock of spectral ghouls emerged from the dark cloud cover, streaking toward her, and Arona held her left hand toward them, casting Dawn’s Bright Greeting. The spell tugged a flood of solar Energy from her Core and then a fan of brilliant white-yellow light poured out of her palm. There was no dodging a spell like that; the fan-shaped beam splashed through the spirits the very instant the spell took shape.

The spectral creatures broke apart, blasted into motes of dust as the beam carried through them, piercing the dark clouds and tearing a hole through the storm. For just a moment, the night sky was visible through the breach, then the gusting winds closed the gap. A great roar brought her attention back to the matter at hand, and she looked to see Ronkerz, bloodied and battered, pounding his chest as he roared, his simian fangs exposed in a grimace of pain and triumph—Draugr the undead giant-king was crawling through the mud at his feet.

The Great Master was great no more; his golden armor was torn, dented, and missing half a dozen plates. His limbs were missing—all but one arm, with which he attempted to wriggle away from Ronkerz. The mighty simian watched him for a moment, his chest heaving with the ragged breaths of toil well-done. As Arona flew closer, though, perhaps it spurred him into action. He reached down, grasped Draugr by the back of his neck, and then proceeded to pound him, left and right, against the muddy ground.

Each impact shook the ground and echoed over the field—deep, wet crunches that shook the air like thunder. Arona watched for perhaps a minute until it was clear Draugr was done; his body was crumbling to shreds and Ronkerz had cast something with his crackling red Energy that surrounded the failing vessel. Arona had no doubt that he’d capture any spirit that attempted to flee.

Satisfied, she flew further east, toward bright flares of Energy that illuminated the skyline. Before long, she saw Arcus and the feathered veil walker, Lira Stormwalker. They were caught in a furious exchange of Energy attacks with the last of the undead kings, Acheron Dysios. Watching for just a moment, Arona began to understand why the Big Ones had struggled so: Acheron was truly a master of the void. He sent disks of spinning nothingness at Lira, keeping her at bay, and all of Arcus’s blasts were swallowed by shields of the same dark emptiness.

Meanwhile, he wielded whips of crackling void Energy that tore the air, dissolved the rain, and would have torn Arcus to shreds, but somehow, his abyssal tentacle arm seemed to be immune and it fended off the attacks almost as though it had a will of its own. Arona wondered where the other Big Ones were. Had they died? Had they fallen off, wounded? Perhaps they’d left, battling elsewhere and leaving this king to Arcus and Lira.

She quieted the voices in her mind, always curious, always asking more questions than she could find answers to, and gathered her Energy. She had a spell in mind, but first she firmly solidified her belief that the two Big Ones were her friends; it was essential she do so before casting her spell. Then, she turned her stony stare down to the void-wielding veil walker, and she cast Solar Storm.

The sky above the trio lit up like daylight as a dimensional aperture appeared there—a gateway to the nearest sun. The light was one thing—harsh enough to instantly evaporate the water from the mud, burn flesh and—in most cases—slay the undead, but that was only the start. Globes of solar Energy fell from the aperture like fist-sized raindrops. It was a marvelous spell, one that Arona had earned when she’d achieved her ninety-ninth level. The globes it manifested would do one of two things: burn her foes or heal her allies.

The aspect of the spell that made it perfect in this application was that it persisted for nearly a minute and, in that time, it would deliver a thousand globes—randomly as far as Arona could tell. At first, the undead king was unbothered. He threw up his discs of void Energy, dissolving the first five or ten, but they kept coming, and he soon became overwhelmed. He tried to move, but the aperture was mobile and focused on him, not the ground. The veil walker was quick, no doubt, but the solar aperture was every bit as fast as light itself. Arcus and Lira saw their opportunity and capitalized.

The former Pyromancer screamed something shrill and raised his hands, summoning a dozen fiery missiles that fell from the heavens—miniature versions of the rock that had passed through the sky earlier. As they came down, Lira spread her arms, screamed an avian war-cry and then threw her arms down and back. Simultaneously, a hundred spikes of gleaming metal erupted from the ground—ten foot spears of solid metal, each one aimed straight for Acheron.

The undead king knew he was over-matched. He couldn’t defend against so many attacks—either he lacked the ability or his Energy was drawing low. Arona knew he’d try to flee, and she’d made her preparations. After casting Solar Storm, she’d formed the pattern for Web of the Noontime Glare. With the last of her Energy, a net of interlocking solar threads burst into being around the undead Void Master. It wasn’t just a physical barrier, though; it cut through veils and pierced the stuff between nearby dimensions.

When Acheron threw his arm wide and ripped a hole in the universe, Arona’s solar netting was visible through that black aperture. He screamed in frustration, but it was too late—Arcus’s fireballs and Lira’s spears found their marks, and he was torn to shreds. His spirit, black and jagged, difficult to focus on, lifted from his shattered corpse, only for Arona’s globes of solar Energy to explode against it, annihilating the Death Caster’s dark mechanisms for resurrection.

Arona drifted down out of the sky, utterly drained, and Lira and Arcus watched her approach. The avian saluted with her great, curved saber, and Arcus waved his tentacle in an almost obscene gesture. When she touched down, Arona said, “He was formidable.”

Lira nodded, lowering her blade. “Your intervention was timely. That was clever work with your web of light.”

Arona nodded. Though she recognized the appropriateness of a smile, she couldn’t muster one, and the self-imposed awkwardness frustrated her, drawing her brows down. “I am well acquainted with the arts employed by adepts of death.”

“Yeah…” Arcus cleared his throat, looking toward the citadel. “How’s Ronkerz? I sense he lives, but…” He trailed off, turning back to Arona.

“He won his battle with the giant-king Draugr, but the danger’s not over. We need to help clear a path for the soldiers—a world-ending calamity approaches.”

Lira nodded. “Aye, I sense it in the metal bones of this planet.” She clapped Arcus on the shoulder. “We must gather up our kin.”

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He narrowed his eyes, panning his gaze across the horizon. “Arona, we’ll aid with the evacuation after we collect the rest of the Big Ones. Some of them are…” He shook his head. “They’re near death, but I still sense them.”

Arona straightened her robes, looking inward. Her Core had recovered enough for her to renew her flight. “I’ll look for you at the citadel, then. It’s time these masterless, undead vermin felt the heat of the sun.”

###

Victor fed on the volcano’s wrath, and it fed on his. Xelhuan might have stored away a million souls-worth of death-attuned Energy in that buried mountain, but he’d made the grave error of assuming Victor was limited to gaining Energy from the existing flows. The nascent realm lacked the currents of Energy that sustained magic throughout their home universe, but there was at least as much magma buried under that mountain as there was death.

What was more, the mountain’s spirit was there—pinned down, tortured and diminished for millennia. Now, Victor had fed it enough Energy to break its shackles, and that potent rage was steaming off the stony shoulders, a red vapor to Victor’s veil walker’s senses that permeated the atmosphere. Magma and rage and the echoes of fear and terror from the countless sacrifices made in that place—all kindred Energies that Victor could do much with.

He soared through the ash clouds, making only cursory efforts to avoid the pyroclastic ejections above the angry mountain; they didn’t bother him much at all, engorged and inflamed as he was by his Volcanic Fury. Xelhuan had yet to make a reappearance. He wasn’t dead; Victor could feel that much. Whatever lies the ancient Quinametzin had told, it seemed he’d been truthful about his immortality in that realm. Still, the death-attuned Energy was thinning. The rage, fire, and magma filling the air were driving it back, burning away the miasma. Perhaps Xelhuan’s rebirth would be slower.

Victor had plenty to keep him busy in the meantime. As a veil walker, he drew the compatible Energies into his Core effortlessly as he flew in wide, swooping circles. By the time he set foot on the steaming soil five miles from the volcano, his Core was full to bursting again. The ground shook and rumbled under his feet, and hot ash fell all around him, but he wasn’t satisfied—not remotely. He gathered his Energy, arched his back, screamed into the gray sky, and smashed his foot against the ground again, unleashing another half a million points of Energy into Wake the Earth.

The ground split as if a deity’s axe had struck the ground at his feet. The rock and soil rippled away from the chasm, a quake that would have leveled a city if one had been there. Another million tons of rock melted into magma, and as the earth heaved, it sprayed forth as lava—gouts and geysers overflowing a thousand tributary rifts.

Victor roared his dark amusement, launching himself into the air to glide through the waves of rage- and magma-attuned Energies once again. He circled the furious mountain—his brother in fury—feeding off it, just as the mountain fed on his spells. He glided through hot smoke, and he would have been stained black with the ash in the air if not for the fiery waves of fury roiling off his skin. The world was a crimson haze, and all he could think of was how he’d make it redder.

The mountain was awash with rivers of lava, and the surrounding ground was spider-webbed with chasms of fire for dozens of miles. Victor glided past those canyons, landed, and unleashed another massively overcharged Wake the Earth. Again, the ground split, millions of tons of stone liquefied, and terrible tremors shook Xelhuan’s seedling of a world.

When he flew aloft again, Victor couldn’t detect any death-attuned energy in the air. It was positively thick with affinities that he could harvest, though. He didn’t have to try to maintain his Volcanic Fury; the air itself fueled his rage. Murderous thoughts threatened to rob him of all reason, but his will was mighty, and he forced his anger toward a single-minded pursuit of one goal: destroy the world.

By the time he’d circled his hellscape again, his Core was full to bursting. He flew to the edge of the destruction again and descended. He drifted downward, ready to unleash his Energy again, when Xelhuan’s voice drifted out of the wind, hissing with impotent rage, “Small-minded fool. A leap into the abyss, then? We’ll see. We’ll see…”

Victor’s only response was to laugh and slam into the ground like a fiery missile, casting Wake the Earth as the ground exploded under his feet.

###

Cora stood atop Arona’s command tower, watching the mind-numbing show taking place outside the citadel. Tes had insisted she join them in the tower after she’d recovered, and Cora hadn’t wanted to argue. The truth was that the war was far less frightening when she wasn’t alone to wonder at the sounds and flashes outside her window. Even with Arona having joined the fight, there were people to talk to up in the tower. Arona had a dozen messengers, just as many aides, and then there were the other heroes.

She glanced at the sad-looking woman sitting in the map room’s corner. The woman had done nothing and had hardly spoken, but Cora knew she was a veil walker from listening to Victor talk to Arona and the other commanders. She wanted to ask her why she wasn’t helping. If she hated Xelhuan so much, why not join in the battle against his forces? But the look in her eyes kept Cora at bay; there was something in there that she couldn’t comprehend—a loneliness or…

She gave up trying to guess and moved out onto the parapet where she’d seen the tentacle-armed wizard. He was frightening in a way, but his eyes seemed kind, even if he was lean and hungry, and despite the rough, dark beard that hid his expression. As she approached, he looked away from the distant battle he’d been watching and nodded. “I was wondering if you’d recognize me.”

“Recognize?” Cora licked her lips, glancing to the side, but no one was nearby to rescue her from the faux pas. Had she met him before?

“Little Cora, right? Loyle’s girl? I saw you a hundred times traipsing in his shadow around my father’s estate.”

“Your f-father? Oh, my gods! Arcus?”

He laughed, nodding. “Victor didn’t mention me to you?”

She shook her head, suddenly finding her tongue reluctant to listen to her brain. Arcus had teased her mercilessly, and she really didn’t have any desire to stand there speaking to him. They were in the middle of a war, with hundreds of thousands of strangers around, yet she’d somehow managed to find the—

“Hey, relax.” He chuckled, leaning back on one elbow. “I know I was a prick before, but I had a lot of that, uh, beaten out of me.” He lifted his tentacle arm. “I’m not that same guy anymore. Did Victor at least mention Ronkerz?” When Cora nodded, he smiled. “I’m one of Ronkerz’s Big Ones. That ring a bell?”

“You are? So you’re a steel seeker now?”

“Yeah, barely.” He shrugged. “Still a hell of a lot tougher than those dandies I used to run around Sojourn with, though.” He stretched the black, undulating tentacle toward her slightly, and Cora leaned back, recoiling despite herself. Her body got away from her, but she managed to keep her expression neutral, at least.

Arcus grabbed the tentacle with his other hand, yanking it back into line. “Sorry about that. I’m not trying to touch you. Sometimes this thing acts out. It senses your affinity: blood, right?”

Cora nodded, resting her hand on the head of her magical hatchet. She wished she had her new axe, but it was on another world, waiting for her to take delivery.

“Certain affinities are, well, kind of kindred to the abyssal Energy in my limb. I could probably help you refine some of your spells if you want—”

“Um, thanks, Arcus, but I’m studying under Victor and…” Cora trailed off, but Arcus smiled and shrugged.

“Sure, I understand. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do to earn your trust. Hopefully, we won’t die on this backwater world, and I’ll get the chance to work on that.”

Cora was saved from having to respond when she saw Arona streaking toward the tower like a beam of sunlight. She pointed. “Arona’s returning!”

Arcus nodded, turning to lean on the parapet again. “I sensed her.”

As Cora watched, Arona flew to the central courtyard and, for the second time that day, Cora saw the soldiers rush to open the gates. A moment later, Arona flashed through the air and landed on the parapet near her. As her aides and messengers hurried forward, she announced, “The hordes are breaking! Tes and Ronkerz have led a charge to the south. Bryn’s legion is advancing, and her vanguard should come through the gates soon.”

Arcus walked closer to her, his tentacle and arm folded over his chest. “That’s good, but I don’t think you should abandon this place.”

Arona raised an eyebrow—a significant display of emotion from her. “Pardon me?”

“Victor’s out there.” He waved his tentacle toward the muddy seabed. “He’s fighting some kind of battle we can only guess about. I’m not saying he’ll need us, but I feel like we should hold this citadel just in case.”

“You’re aware there’s a wave that could wash away a mountain range coming our way?”

“Sure, but these walls are strong. The foundation’s a mile deep, right? There are Elementalists in your army, not to mention veil walkers with enough power, surely, to steer the bulk of that wave past us.”

Arona scowled at him for a moment, but Cora could tell she was thinking, not angry. After a moment, the Solar Caster turned to her attendants and said, “Ready the evacuation route. And send word to my commanders—they are to assemble here immediately. We’ll plan how to hold this citadel against the coming cataclysm. I see no reason Lord Victor should return to a world abandoned.”