City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) (52 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-S
EVEN
:

W
AR
IN
THE
C
ITY
OF
L
IGHT

The battle began only an hour later.

Simon and the other four Valinhall Travelers waited in the Violet District of Enosh, crouched in a house that was painted a blinding purple. According to Alin, the house had elements that would hide them from opposing Lirial scouts, but the hiding and waiting portion of the battle was almost over.

He knew the fight had begun when the earth shook beneath them, setting the house rattling so that it felt like it would collapse at any second.

“Let’s hope that was the King exploding,” Andra muttered.

Kathrin held her Dragon’s Fang to one side and threw the door open, glancing up and down the street in sheer defiance of her orders to keep hidden. “The first one to attack will be Endross,” she said. “He’ll head straight for the Elysian Incarnation, and you can believe that.” She banished and summoned her Dragon’s Fang, then did it again, in what seemed like a nervous tic. “Can’t believe they attacked Valinhall…show them what it means to break into
my
House…” Her voice dissolved into angry mutters.

Denner sighed.

“I hope Endross does come alone,” Simon said. “We can take him down together. But we need to wait for Leah’s signal.”

“The Queen,” Erastes corrected. “Show her some respect.”

Caela giggled.
Yeah, Simon. You should learn to speak respectfully, like me.

I could have chosen Angeline,
Simon sent.

Chosen? We decided that I should go with you because I know you best, and I could help you work through Kai and Otoku’s death. Even Angeline agreed.

Simon was about to respond, but a silver-white crystal spun into the room, flashing and screaming.

“THIS IS THE SIGNAL,” the crystal yelled. “THIS IS THE SIGNAL. THIS IS THE SIGNAL.”

All five Valinhall Travelers hurried out of the violet house, as much to escape the shouting crystal as anything. “Somebody shut that thing up,” Kathrin said.

“Not me,” Andra said. “I got the last one.”

Jogging down the street, headed into a fight, was a different kind of anticipation than Simon had ever experienced. Sure, he’d run toward fights before, but he was usually forced into them by circumstances. When the options were fight or die, he had little trouble making up his mind. But this time, he was running into an open battle against a superior force, and anything that went wrong would—to one degree or another—be his responsibility.

It was similar to the normal thrill of fear he felt when headed into a fight, combined with the dread of speaking in front of the entire village. He couldn’t decide if he liked the feeling or not.

He glanced up, where Alin hovered over the city, glowing with red and orange light, hurling balls of golden force at the walls. Or at the rubble that had once been a wall. That explained the earth-shattering explosion earlier: the opposing Incarnations must have knocked down the city’s walls as their opening move.

Alin glowed like a sun, shouting battle cries with superhumanly strong lungs, and generally drawing all the enemy’s attention toward himself. He waved a golden blade, his armor shining in the sunlight, occasionally throwing a blast of power at the assembled enemy. In short, he made an obvious target.

That was the heart of the plan, and it looked like he was holding up his end.

It was time for Simon to uphold his.

“Spread out underneath Alin,” Simon said. “If any Incarnations show up, split them up, try to get them alone. I’m going up to support him.”

“Why?” Kathrin asked. “We have a specialist right here.”

Without slowing, she clapped Denner on the shoulder.
 

The Endross Incarnation, as expected, blasted straight toward Alin on wings of cloud and lightning. He laughed with a sound like thunder, hurling a bolt at Alin that shattered on a shield of green light.

Simon didn’t have time to argue about this. “Denner, can you take down Endross?”

Denner looked up and sighed, but he nodded.

“Then you support Alin, and I’ll stay below.”

Without another word, Denner leaped on top of the nearest building, banishing his Dragon’s Fang and summoning a spear from the armory.

As planned, the four remaining Valinhall Travelers took up positions beneath Alin, each standing at one corner of the block. Simon could see Andra on his right, and Kathrin around the corner to his left. This was the Red District, and everything seemed to be organized in perfect squares, which helped when he needed to keep an eye on two streets at once.

At first he was surprised that the streets had been so empty. They hadn’t seen anyone or anything between the Violet District and the Red.

They’re all fighting at the walls,
Caela reminded him.
 

What’s headed our way?
Simon asked.

Surprisingly…not much,
she sent.

He supposed he should be grateful. No one coming meant that he could go longer without calling on his Valinhall powers, and his chains would stay where they were. But he couldn’t escape the thought that he was playing right into someone else’s plans.

Correction: we’ve got a few pets on the way,
Caela sent.
A pack of dogs from Naraka, headed straight for us. Kathrin should get them.

“Kathrin, on your left!” Simon called. He couldn’t be sure whether she heard him; she did wave in his direction, but she didn’t turn her attention from the battle overhead. Simon didn’t bother to look up, though the flashes of light and sudden sounds made it difficult. Between Denner and Alin, they should have no trouble with Endross.

Six ash-gray hounds with manes of smoldering flame burst around the corner, lunging at Kathrin.

She didn’t take her eyes off the battle in the sky. With her short-bladed Dragon’s Fang held in both hands, she jabbed one dog through the throat as it lunged, spun and gutted the second, shattered the third’s spine with a reversed stroke, kicked the fourth through a nearby window, crushed the fifth hound’s skull beneath her boot, and impaled the last one through the ribs.

Kathrin covered her mouth as she yawned, wiping her blade absently on a dog’s gray coat. She still seemed more interested in Denner’s fight than her own. “Don’t tell me I got out of bed for this,” she called over.

Simon didn’t say a word.

Andra!
Caela called, and Simon summoned Mithra. An Endross serpent appeared next to the blond girl in a flash of lightning, coiling up to strike. Andra didn’t back down; she pulled her own Dragon’s Fang back to cut the snake’s head off.

 
A streak of white light flashed past Simon, singeing his arm. It blasted a smoking hole through the giant snake, sending the monster’s body to the ground, where it twitched and sent off sparks.

Simon looked back to where the light had come from, only to see Kathrin standing six feet behind him, looking over his shoulder. She banished the same huge steel bow that Valin had used against him in the graveyard, already walking back to her corner. Her eyes were already on Denner and Alin. “That’s seven for me,” she yelled back to him. “You’re going to make Mithra cry.”

The Endross Incarnation’s body hit the street next to Simon an instant before its head, which rolled almost to Simon’s feet. Its eyes were nothing more than smoking sockets.

He looked up to see Alin and Denner. The Incarnation was still shouting battle cries and hurling bolts of gold, while Denner sat on the roof nearby, panting and emptying a waterskin over a burn on his right arm.

Nothing else happened.

Simon could hear the distant battle over by the walls, and Alin was obviously shooting at
something
, but where were the Incarnations? Their primary objective was to eliminate Alin and, if possible, Elysia. So why weren’t they going for it? Was the trap that obvious, or had something gone wrong?

Leah still hadn’t ordered him elsewhere, but Simon called steel and hopped up to a second-story window ledge, and from there to the top of a two-story house.

He couldn’t see much of the battle: a group of soldiers, supported by red gnomes from Elysia, engaged a handful of Ornheim Travelers a few streets over. Other than that, mostly all he could see were wheeling birds, bolts of lightning, and flashes of colored light.

Caela, where are the Incarnations?

Don’t rush me,
she snapped.
There are a few thousand bodies down there, and it’s not as easy as you think to tell them apart. Truly, only someone as skilled and talented as I would even bother to try…

After a few more seconds, she gave him the mental equivalent of a frustrated sigh.
They’re not there,
she said.
I’d bet a thousand hours on it. The only Incarnation on this battlefield was Endross.

So the King
had
anticipated them and set them up. The thought almost made Simon feel more comfortable—he wasn’t sure what he’d do if a plan went exactly as he expected it to. Die of shock, probably.

Simon shouted some quick orders to Andra and then hopped to a nearby rooftop. “Lead me to Leah,” he said.

You’re talking out loud again,
Caela reminded him, but she still gave him directions.

Predictably, Leah was standing behind a wall of golems and Travelers, giving orders. The fact that these soldiers weren’t Damascan probably hadn’t occurred to her, and they seemed to salute and obey her quickly enough. Even the gold-armored, winged warriors of Elysia listened to her, running where she pointed.

Simon hopped down from the house and released his steel as soon as possible: the chains were creeping up onto his neck, and he needed to delay as much as he could.

“The Incarnations aren’t here,” he said.

With her red eye, Leah scanned the nearby battle: a bunch of bird-men engaged against a giant blue jellyfish floating in the sky. It was odd to think that he was on the side of the jellyfish.

“I know,” she said. “We saw them before the battle, but they disappeared shortly before Endross attacked, presumably into a Territory. There’s no telling where they’ll come out.”

“Oh.” It was good to know that Leah was aware of the problem, but she didn’t seem as upset as he had expected. “What are we going to do about it?”

“That’s why I keep a bunch of Valinhall Travelers around,” Leah said, tapping a nearby golem on the shoulder and pointing toward the bird-men. The creature of living rock hefted a stone axe and turned its emerald eyes to the battlefield, lumbering slowly down the street.

“We will engage the Incarnations when we see them,” Simon said. “We’ll try to slow them down until you can get there.”

Leah nodded, her red-and-blue eyes still on Simon. “
Just
slow them,” she said seriously. “Don’t throw your life away for Alin’s. I’d rather have you back alive than him.”

Awww, how sweet,
Caela sent.

“I’m not sure how I can protect him without risking my life,” Simon said, but he owed her more than that. He met her eyes and gave a little smile. “Sorry. I’ll do my best.”

She returned the smile, and he left.

He was almost back to his corner of the fight, underneath Alin, when a swirling blue-edged Gate flashed into being right next to Kathrin.

Caela and Simon shouted a warning at the same time, but a torrent of force blasted out from the open Gate: lightning, stones, a spear, some sort of flashing crystals and jagged ice, and maybe a hundred other things bursting from the Territory with the force of a titan’s hammer.

The wrath of the Incarnations met ghost armor, and Kathrin was launched backwards, down the street, her Dragon’s Fang falling from her hand.

She’s alive,
Caela said hastily,
and she’ll be coming back. But that surely broke her ghost armor, so she’ll have to be careful.

The four remaining Incarnations piled out of the Endross Gate, along with a single Endross Traveler in loose-fitting white clothes. Now that the Endross Incarnation was gone, the remaining Incarnations could all Travel through Endross as a unified group.

King Zakareth, the patterns on his skin shining red and gold in the sunlight, held out a hand. The Lightning Spear smacked into his palm, and he raised it to throw.

Andra ran from the other side of the building, rounding the corner to come face-to-face with four Incarnations.

Helgard waved a hand in her direction, and the black ice sharpened into a jagged icicle pointed straight at Andra.

Lirial raised both hands toward the far side of the building, where Simon knew Erastes waited. The old soldier only had the steel; he couldn’t stop a bolt from an Incarnation.

Ornheim stepped forward, raising a red-and-black sword in both hands. Simon felt like he’d seen that sword before, somewhere, but he couldn’t quite place it. The Incarnation thrust the blade into the air and began sawing slowly through the air.

A gatecrawler. While everyone else was distracted, the Incarnations had decided to cut their way into Elysia and bring down the City of Light behind Alin’s back.

All of this flashed through Simon’s mind in a single instant, but one thing rose above all the rest: Andra and Erastes were in danger. They were entirely outclassed…and for that matter, so was he.

He reached into his cloak pocket.

I have to,
he sent.

I know,
Caela said, sadly.
It’s what Valin would have done.
Mithra felt somehow both resigned and eager.

Simon put on the mask.

***

Only a few minutes since Alin and the brown-cloaked Traveler finished off the Endross Incarnation, the Silver Light alerted him to something down below. It felt like a Gate opening, and four impossibly bright individuals walking out.

He flew over, prepared to unleash Gold Light on them, when someone stuck a burning, jagged blade into his mind.

Gatecrawler,
the Silver Light whispered.