Kastori Revelations (The Kastori Chronicles Book 1) (31 page)

“I’ve always wondered what Calypsius meat tastes like,” Pagus said with no fear in his voice. “I’ve been waiting far too long for this. You in, Cyrus?”

“Only if we slow-cook it. I don’t want flash marks on it and a pink inside.”

Pagus laughed and patted him on the shoulder.

“My man, you and I are going to set up a restaurant here when it’s all said and done. And think about it! There’s no competition!”

“Where will you get your inspiration from?” Cyrus asked, holding his rifle up and lining up the enemy.

“Oh, I don’t know. Monda had a few good ideas. I could use some of those.”

“Hah, right?”

Cyrus watched the monster suddenly fly in faster. Calypsius would overwhelm the Kastori in a matter of seconds. Cyrus strummed his index finger over the trigger in preparation for the opening salvo.

“Pagus, get ready,” Cyrus said.

“Affirmative!”

Cyrus eyeballed his target and decided to fire a second before the monster would hit the Kastori.
Three…

Two…

Celeste. Pops.

One.

Cyrus pulled the trigger a half second after
Omega One
unleashed its payload on the beast as an immense energy coursed through his body, endowing the bullets with sparks.

55

A massive explosion from the missiles blinded Crystil as she put a hand up to her face. She heard the thud of the monster crashing but thankfully did not hear the screams of any Kastori. She looked to Erda, who did not seem to be mourning, and confirmed all of the Kastori had survived.
Good start.

She unbuckled her belt and observed the damage once the fire had disappeared, replaced by black smoke. The monster laid on the ground as bullets continued to salvo it from afar, with sparks and ice shards exploding upon impact. The Kastori, a few dozen feet away from the wounded monster, ran over quickly, putting their hands up to stop the bullets. The creature groaned, though Crystil thought it didn’t sound like a dying cry.

“What are they doing?” Crystil said, annoyed.

Pulverize Calypsius. We can’t be careful.

She looked over at Erda, still in her mask and robes, and did not like that the Kastori chief remained in her outfit.

“They are going to kill the creature themselves. In doing so, they will absorb its power. We can use that to defend ourselves against any future attacks.”

Crystil didn’t like that idea. One powerful being could do more damage than ten semi-strong soldiers.

“Why don’t you go and take that power? Or why not just let one of the Kastori claim victory?”

“I saw what too much power can do when Typhos killed much of the council. As much faith as I have in my Kastori, I do not even trust myself with that much power.”

Crystil shrugged, deciding it was not her battle to command. She sat back down, preparing to drop the ship to the ground.

A loud thud and a furious growl shook the ship.

Startled, Crystil leaped up to see a Kastori screaming under the weight of Calypsius’ right hand, and another one already dead, impaled by the monster’s other right arm. Calypsius’ face bore into Crystil’s soul, as it bared its teeth and brandished its fire, breathing at
Omega One.
Crystil suddenly found herself frozen by the horrible sight, as the predatory face of Calypsius brought back the nakar that ate Eve.

“Crystil!” a voice said from afar.

The ship lurched backward, and two more missiles fired, knocking the monster back down. Yanked out of her head, Crystil could not understand what had just happened—the ship could not have flown in reverse.

“Fly!” Erda yelled, and Crystil, realizing who had controlled the ship, had an even greater respect for the chief’s power.

Before she could even buckle up, Crystil throttled the engines up and ahead, dropping two more missiles on Calypsius as the ship rose to safety. She flew south, away from the forest, but noticed that the monster had not yet given chase. She used the opportunity to catch her breath and refocus.

“Did that thing recover already?”

“No,” Erda said. “I suspect we rattled it, but it did not feel pain. We need to kill it within fifteen minutes before the healing process begins.”

Crystil had Cortanus display a timer of thirteen minutes on one of her screens as she looped the ship back around, noticing the monster still had not gone to the skies after them. Why would it have not chased them?

Erda cried out in horror before the ship’s turn had finished. Crystil saw why.

The monster seemed more intent on hunting down the Kastori than swatting the ship out of the air. Its two sharp limbs instantly killed Kastori, and it breathed fire toward those running away. Crystil had no idea how many casualties they had already suffered, but more would come unless they did something.

But what? Try and get it to follow us?

As much as Crystil wanted to believe the Kastori were expendable before, seeing how much pain Erda experienced reminded her of her own suffering, and she could not bear the thought of anyone else dying—most especially Celeste and Cyrus. If she could get Calypsius to follow them, it wouldn’t kill anyone.

“Get that thing on us,” Erda said. “The more of my people it kills, the more power it absorbs. You’re fighting a creature that gets stronger as the battle goes on.”

“Strap in tight. We’re about to see how well this ship flies.”

She fired four more missiles, straight at Calypsius’ back, and nailed it perfectly, knocking the creature to the ground. She swept over the monster and banked right, parallel to the forest. This time, though, the visual display showed the creature chasing the ship with frightening progress. Crystil could not win a speed race, so she would have to win the strategic game. Just as the creature got close enough to destroy the engines, Crystil banked hard to the right, creating severe whiplash for her and Erda. Calypsius scraped the hull of
Omega One
as it banked right but produced no significant damage.

But much to Crystil’s chagrin, Calypsius, too, banked hard right, moving far swifter in the air than she’d imagined a creature of that size doing.

“This is going to get a lot worse, Erda,” Crystil said.

No longer able to hold her bullets for damaging the enemy, she instead concentrated her firepower toward giving her space. Crystil glanced over at Erda, who seemed deep in thought, and she trusted that the Kastori was doing something to aid their cause. She saw the beast making progress, albeit slower progress, with a look of singular determination on its face.

Crystil banked left and put her piloting skills to test. She dipped in and over the valleys, at one point even flying through a tight curve by banking the ship on its side for a sharper turn. She swooped around Mount Ardor with the same skill and headed toward the plains.

She had barely gained any distance on Calypsius, which it made up for moments later when the guns temporarily stopped, overheated. Crystil cursed and launched a single missile at the beast. It hit the monster and prevented it from gaining ground, but nothing short of total annihilation could stop Calypsius from its goal now.

She looked at her display. She had used up over a third of her bullets and too many of her missiles, weapons which she would never get back. Erda couldn’t seem to stop the monster, and her firepower, if it was working, provided no visual indication of progress.

Crystil begged the Kastori and her comrades to come up with an idea, because at the moment, she had none and was running out of ammo.

56

Celeste dropped numerous profanities as Calypsius rose up and chased Crystil, the fight taken away from her and the Kastori. She had no idea how much damage they had inflicted, but Celeste had noticed the creature’s right wing had suffered significant damage. With perhaps a bit more destruction, it would become useless. But she couldn’t do a thing about it if Crystil dragged the beast away from them.

She looked at her gun and noted she’d used up about half her ammo. She briefly dropped it from the firing position to look at Reya, who had the same resigned look.
She doesn’t think we can win. You can’t rely on her.

“What are we going to do? We need to immobilize it.”

“Agreed,” Reya said, but Celeste felt the Kastori agreed because she didn’t have the energy to disagree.

“Your ice is making the wings brittle, so you need to keep doing that,” Celeste said as the sounds of
Omega One’s
gunfire and explosions surrounded them.

Reya nodded quietly. Celeste looked out on the battlefield. By her count, eight Kastori lay dead, and she didn’t want to know how many others had perished out of sight. Just the thought of it sickened her. This was war—bloodied bodies, ugly terrors, and a sense of hopelessness. She had thought she knew war from watching her father on Monda, but this was an entirely different monstrosity. She didn’t like it and was determined to end it here so they would never experience it again.

But to end the battle required strong communication, and no amount of shouting or signaling could get the Kastori in line.

But magic…

“Reya! Can you speak to the Kastori?”

Reya slowly shook her head.

“I am not trained in that kind of magic. Only a Kastori with red robes can communicate.”

“Could they communicate to all Kastori?” she said as the sounds of the battle became distant.

“Yes. But I do not know where one is.”

“Can you try?” Celeste asked, becoming desperate.

“It would be futile,” she said. “Only someone who can sense what others cannot can reach those pathways to communicate. I have never been able to detect such things.”

Celeste didn’t hear Reya’s last sentence. Instead, the phrase “sense what others cannot” struck a deep chord with Celeste. It resonated with her in a way that suggested she might, impossibly, somehow, have the magical skill.

Celeste saw no way the idea could work. She’d always called her ability to sense things her gut, a gift of powerful perception. But with
Omega One
and Calypsius approaching once more, and needing a cohesive battle plan that everyone could execute, she was willing to try anything.

She closed her eyes, silenced the world around her, and sensed for those around her. When she felt like she had a sense of something—other people’s thoughts, their fears, their emotions—she “projected” her command as best as she could.

Bring the ship to the field. Attack the wings. Bring it to the ground, and our fight becomes much easier.

She opened her eyes and looked at Reya, who seemed unmoved. She looked down at the Kastori, who did not move either. Celeste sighed, feeling stupid for believing that she actually had magical skills, and cocked her rifle on her shoulder, determined to fire every last bullet in the Nakar 17.

57

“This thing just doesn’t wanna die!” Cyrus yelled in frustration after Calypsius flew over him in dogged pursuit of
Omega One
.

He’d unloaded as many bullets as he could into the creature, aiming for everything from the neck to the wings to the head. He could see blood pouring out, but the creature did not care at all. Cyrus began to realize what he’d heard in passing earlier. It didn’t feel pain.

“Pagus, dude, I hope you have some ideas.”

“If I did, I would’ve said them by now,” Pagus said, whipping off his mask. “By the way, it gets hot under here, I’ll take every chance I can to get this mask off. I don’t know how the rest do it. Anyways, in our previous battles, dude, we tried everything. Freezing it. Burning it. Choking it. Nothing works on it because it has magical powers too. You can’t beat that thing with magic. That thing eats magic for breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, midnight—”

“I get it,” Cyrus said. “But still. The missiles and bullets knocked it down.”

“Yeah, you can injure it, but it won’t care,” Pagus said as the sound of the ship’s engines slowly came back. “You have to kill it, that’s the only way to stop it.”

Cyrus tried to think of anything that could work. Could Amira’s red magic work on the monster in a way the elemental spells did not? That seemed unlikely, given that Pagus had mentioned choking it—though Pagus said a lot of things, and it was difficult to figure out what he meant and what he said in passing.

Cyrus thought destroying the head would take out the beast, but instead, it didn’t even flinch. He had specifically remembered one of his bullets hitting the creature in the left eye, but it barely blinked. If that were any other animal, it would be shrieking in pain on the ground.

Not with Calypsius.

The question kept running through Cyrus’ mind.
How can we overwhelm it? Omega One has to be the answer. Like we started this battle.

A single word came to him, one he had not thought, in a voice different from his own. He could not identify anything about the voice, whether male or female, old or young. In fact, Cyrus couldn’t even say if he had heard it, or if he’d just now stumbled upon it. But the word told him everything he needed to do.