Crystal Doors #3: Sky Realm (No. 3) (20 page)

“Ouch! Like birds hitting a window,” Vic said.

On his massive sea serpent, King Barak shook his sea-urchin scepter. The merlon king reminded Vic of a capering chimpanzee, only much uglier and covered with scales.

Unharmed and dripping, Azric climbed onto his sea serpent’s gleaming head, raised a hand into the air, and shouted. Answering his summons, a particularly large terodax swerved and dipped low to pluck Azric from the sea serpent and lift him into the air again.

The first few merlons climbed onto the deck of the war galley. Vic brought the carpet to land at the prow of the ship, so he, Lyssandra, and Tiaret could fight side by side to defend Ven Rubicas and the sages who were casting spells. Tiaret slammed a merlon on its tympanic membrane with the heavy end of her staff. The merlon stumbled back over the side and splashed into the water.

Continued explosions resounded in the sky. Standing near Ven Rubicas, Sage Snigmythya stumbled her way through a spell scroll and said “
S’ibah!
” A puff of greenish-black poison smoke appeared, spreading out in front of three aeglors, who flew directly into it, then reeled away, gasping and coughing. Obviously receiving a fatal dose of the poison, one turned gray and dropped like a stone into the water.

Though Rubicas’s shield spell hovered up in the sky, the flying armies swiftly found ways around it and plunged down to the warships.

Vic, Tiaret, and Lyssandra kept fighting.

SHARIF AND GWEN SAT ON his carpet, defending one side of the
Bright Warrior
from attacking merlons.

With wind blowing in her face, Gwen shot her arrowpult and struck a merlon on its tympanic membrane. Howling and hissing, the scaled warrior slid back down into the ocean. Around them on the lead war galley, armed Elantyan soldiers slashed at the merlon attackers with swords.

With wind blowing in their faces at the war galley’s prow, Virs Helassa and Parsimanias joined in reading intricate passages from a scroll to cast a hurricane spell. At the head of the flock of terodax, Azric was buffeted backward by the unexpected storm, but he drew the flying predators back together with magic and forced them onward.

Bradsinoreus shouted for his soldiers to stand firm and keep fighting. He was muscular and bearded, dressed in a crimson Elantyan cape and polished armor. Drumbeats urged the fighters to greater effort.

From her vantage point, Gwen saw a flash of thick, armored tentacles in the water below the galley. Something was down there — something much worse than the hideous sea serpents. In this incredible attack from both sea and sky, Barak commanded his huge force of merlons as Azric controlled the flying armies.

Admiral Bradsinoreus directed the defenders of Elantya, never shrinking from the two-pronged attack. The defense looked hopeless, even with the war galleys and the sages, but the commander remained strong. “We must hold them here at the crystal door!”

Gwen would not give up hope either.

Sharif moved the carpet closer to the hull and slashed at the stray merlons with his curved sword as they tried to climb onto the ship. He looked longingly at the open shimmering portal. Irrakesh was on the other side, along with all of his enslaved people. But though he was Sultan of the flying city, Sharif had to deal with the greater danger, even though it pained him.

On a third war galley, Master Polup stood in his armored suit, clanking across the deck. The anemonite sage called for the oarsmen to turn the craft sideways, aiming the large cannon he’d installed.

Barak radiated confidence from his high sea serpent. With King Raathun and his aeglors, with the terodax, with his full merlon army, and with Azric commanding them all, Barak seemed much braver.

Gwen watched where the cannon was pointing.

With a loud
boom,
the cannon launched a large projectile that hit Barak’s sea serpent squarely in the throat and killed it. Although the explosion missed the merlon king, he fell backward off the sea monster with a roar of dismay and humiliation.

Sharif had a grim smile on his face. Elantyan soldiers cheered just as they had when seeing Azric knocked out of the sky. But Barak was not indestructible like the dark sage. The merlon king recovered, swam, then dove beneath the waves as if to hide.

“That’s got to hurt their morale,” Gwen said.

Helassa and Parsimanias stood together chanting, raising their voices in perfect unison. The glowing aja letters on the scroll became bright and the winds picked up in a much greater storm than the bursts of wind they had previously created. The angry terodax back-flapped their wings, reminding Gwen of kites in a hurricane struggling to maintain their position, but the furious hurricane pushed them backward like an invisible hammer.

Clinging to his winged creature, Azric struggled in vain to keep the attack moving forward. His hair and robe fluttered backward as if they were about to be stripped away, and he barely kept his grip on the flying creature. He shouted, trying to form the words of a spell, but the sounds were snatched away in the roar. The flying army was being driven back!

SEEING THE AEGLORS AND terodax pushed toward the crystal door opening, Vic called to Sage Rubicas at the prow of the ship, “Can you move your shield, help push the aeglors and the terodax out of here? Use it like a battering ram to shove them back through the crystal door!”

The old man cracked his knuckles. “Of course, Viccus!”

Though the invisible shield wasn’t large enough to cover the battleships in the Elantyan navy, it served well enough as a barricade, herding them along. The winds continued to shove the flying creatures back through the crystal door into the empty skies near Irrakesh.

“It is not enough just to push them through,” Lyssandra said, kicking away a merlon. “We must close the door!”

The three friends looked with dismay at the crystal door leading to the barren deserts of Irrakesh. The sea serpent was still beached on the sand dunes on the other side of the portal, keeping the crystal door open. It lay gasping and covered with sand, obviously dying.

Suddenly, more merlons emerged in the water all around them, riding large whales that breached the surface. Tiaret pointed. “Ulbar!”

Vic whistled. “The cavalry has arrived!”

The rebel merlons clashed against the other aquatic warriors and splashing mayhem ensued. Ulbar guided his large black whale to where the sea serpent’s tail hung in the water on their side of the crystal door. Another whale joined him, and the two opened their yawning mouths and bit down on the twitching snakelike tail without breaking the skin. They began to swim backward with all their strength. Though it was caught on the dry grasping sands, the sea serpent began to be dragged back into the water again.

Vic shouted to Tiaret. “Once they clear the doorway, slam it shut!”

The girl from Afirik was already standing at the prow of the ship, facing the door. The sea serpent left a long gouge in the sand dunes. It thrashed and twitched, but Vic figured it would welcome the possibility of being pulled back into the ocean.

The enormous windstorm created by the two Virs had pushed most of the aeglors and terodax back through into the other world. Though Azric struggled, wearing an expression of extreme vexation, he too succumbed and finally slipped backward through the crystal door.

ADMIRAL BRADSINOREUS CALLED FOR the fighters on the decks of the war galleys to battle their opponents with renewed vigor.

King Barak rose from the water riding a powerful sea serpent beside Goldskin, his vicious female general. Snarling, he issued commands, and even Goldskin seemed afraid to see what the merlon leader was doing.

From Sharif’s carpet above the
Bright Warrior,
Gwen saw something dark and dangerous rising through the water. One huge tentacle slipped above the waves, snapping like a whip. Spikes and beaten armor were strapped to the suckered appendage. Another tentacle rose, then another, until she lost count. An enormous bulbous head broke the surface like a swollen bag of wet leather. She had seen one of these horrible creatures before.

A battle kraken.

This one, unlike the one that had caused so much havoc in the Elantyan harbor, was riderless and guided directly by merlon commands. In one swift action, all of the tentacles wrapped around the
Bright Warrior.
Vir Helassa tried to shout a spell, while Parsimanias ducked.

“Watch out!” Sharif said, knocking Gwen to the carpet as a huge terodax swept past, raking at them with its talons. They shot at the creature with their arrowpults until, injured, it retreated. Fortunately, neither of the friends got more than a few scratches.

Below, like thrashing snakes, the tentacles snatched the mast and snapped it, bringing the heavy wooden pole down with a crash that splintered the rails.

Admiral Bradsinoreus stood on the aftcastle, bellowing orders to the archers and spearmen. Elantyans peppered the monster with long bronze-tipped spears and sharp arrows — to no effect.

The storm winds began to falter as Helassa and Parsimanias tried to call upon a new defensive spell. Parsimanias screamed and grabbed the statuesque woman’s red sleeve as a gigantic tentacle crashed down upon them. The battle kraken’s blow shattered the prow of the war galley, crushing the two Virs.

Gwen could not believe what she had just seen. Two of the five members of the Pentumvirate were now dead!

The soldiers threw long harpoons and jagged spears, trying to do anything possible to drive away the gigantic undersea creature. Then more tentacles wrapped around the war galley like monstrously powerful pythons.

Gwen and Sharif might well be next. A tentacle quested upward toward his flying carpet. They shot at it, to no apparent effect.

Bradsinoreus took a harpoon himself, bent over the side of the wrecked galley, and hurled the thick spear into the soft, fleshy head of the sea monster. In reflex, one of the kraken’s tentacles twitched sideways and struck the military leader a blow powerful enough to smash his ribs and knock him overboard as easily as a maid sweeping up a bit of dust.

Sharif circled his carpet around the kraken and back toward the ship, but before the two could get there, the battle kraken completely crushed the war galley, splintering the long wooden keel and pulling the debris down into the churning water. Its tentacles wrapped around the galley and snapped the huge ship like a handful of twigs. Pieces flew in all directions. Oars shattered.

“We’ve got to help!” Gwen said, and Sharif took the carpet down and hovered it just above the water. They both caught a quick breath before plunging into the sea. The impact of the water made Gwen reel, and with a familiar choking inhalation, she filled her lungs with water and forced herself to breath through her gill slits.

Sharif, too, adapted to the water breathing, and the two of them swam downward, away from the giant tentacled monster. Sharp wooden shards from the wreckage swirled around them like floating daggers. Gwen and Sharif dodged the dangerous debris, swimming away from the sinking ship. She gestured wildly underwater, searching for any survivors.

Amongst the wreckage and the bodies of fallen soldiers, they encountered the drifting Admiral Bradsinoreus. Blood streamed from his mouth and from wounds in his sides, yet he still struggled feebly . . . and he was drowning.

Gwen and Sharif worked together to grab the man, stroking evenly to bring him to the surface. Pulling the military leader’s head out of the water, Gwen heard him cough and choke. “We’ll get you to safety,” she said.

“My ship! My soldiers . . .”

But he was in no condition to struggle.

While the battle kraken ripped apart what remained of the lead war galley, Gwen and Sharif pulled the admiral up onto the carpet. From above, she could hear Vic’s voice yelling wildly for her.

WITH THE SINKING OF the lead war galley and the death of the two Virs, a pall of shock seemed to hang over the watery battlefield.

Ulbar and his rebels finally succeeded in yanking the sea serpent free of the sand dunes, pulling it back to the ocean side of the crystal door. Ulbar hissed something in merlon.

Vic cried out, watching Gwen and Sharif approach with the injured Bradsinoreus. “The crystal door, Tiaret.”

Now that the magical winds had faded with the loss of Helassa and Parsimanias, a handful of terodax and aeglors from Azric’s flying army flew back through the door with renewed confidence.

There was a mere fraction of a second between a pair of aeglors when nothing was passing through the sparkling gateway — but it was enough for Tiaret.

She slammed the crystal door shut, leaving Azric and the rest of his army trapped with Irrakesh, just as she had done when the apprentices escaped from the flying city.

Vic felt sickened. “They’ll just break through again. There are lots of Keys in Irrakesh. They found a way to open it in the first place.”

Gwen and Sharif, with Bradsinoreus, landed on the deck of the
Thunder Shield.
Healers rushed to the wounded admiral.

SOMETHING FELL INTO PLACE in Sharif’s mind. A moment after watching Tiaret slam shut the crystal door on Azric and his flying armies, Sharif understood that he could seal this crystal door forever.
No one
would be able to break through. He also knew that his action would trap his people in Irrakesh. Still, he did what he had to do.