Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (53 page)

"Yes," Maeve answered, "but it is difficult. Orthain fought many, but killed only two. Even their own bodies do not remain after death, so we could never discover any frailty–"

A shriek and a wide bolt of red laser sliced up from the ravine, cutting Maeve off. The Nihilists remaining on the surface were either fleeing in horror at the carnage below or flinging themselves over the edge of the ravine, arms spread wide to embrace their death. Those below who tried to run were not getting very far. The Devourers were fast and efficient and… Logan squinted. Led by Xartasia, the Arcadian Nihilists were cutting off their coreworlder fellows and spurring them back toward the dark, grim melee.

Logan turned away. The Raptor hunkered a hundred yards away, cleaned of snow by the rain. He released Maeve's shoulder and ran toward it. Three Nihilists surrounded the ship, shouting and pulling at something underneath.

"The end's come!" laughed a man with black spots on his face. "Time to go!"

Logan's shot took him in the shoulder from behind. The other two cultists – a scarred Hadrian and a Mirran man with a crippled arm – turned toward him and brandished their weapons. With a sing-song cry, Maeve fell on them from above like an avenging angel. Her glass spear-point slid into the neck of the Hadrian as her feet came down on the Mirran beside him. The force of her landing drove the Nihilist to his knees. She pulled her spear free of the Hadrian and leapt into the air once more. As Maeve landed, she spun and slashed her spear through the kneeling Mirran's throat.

Even injured and drugged, Maeve moved with swift grace. Logan felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. She was small, but so fierce. The fairy made something inside Logan blaze like the Waygate, and it was no less dangerous. It was confusing, but he could not afford to be confused right now.

"What took you so long?" growled someone from beneath the Raptor.

Logan brought his Talon up and Maeve leveled her spear. Gruth crawled out from underneath the ship, dragging his blood-smeared leg behind.

Duaal ran to join them and held out his hand. "What happened up here?" the mage asked.

"Up here? What the hells is going on down there? What's all that noise?" Gruth snarled and spat on one of the Nihilist corpses. "Where's Tiberius? He was supposed to come get this ugly thing!"

Logan ignored the mechanic. He climbed up onto the metal wing and pried open the cockpit. The printlock was not working. Logan jumped down into the pilot's chair.

"What are you doing?" Duaal asked.

"Taking off. Get out of the way," Logan said.

He pulled a row of switches and the engines began cycling up. There was no time for a full pre-flight check, but he made sure that Gruth's tinkering had not taken down any of the Raptor's weapons. Logan would need those.

Gruth was trying to rise on his wounded leg. Duaal helped him stand and pointed to one of the police vans. "Let's get you in there, with Panna and Xia. They can help you. Once you're in, radio down to the Pylos police. Tell them what's going on here and then get off the mountain!"

Maeve was watching Logan. He grabbed the interior handle of the canopy and yanked it down, sealing the cockpit. He pulled up on the stick and the Raptor rose steeply. The mountain fell away beneath him, acceleration pressing him back into the seat. Logan yanked on the Long Wings release handle and the Raptor surged into the sky as the weight of the extra engines fell away. The pod slammed into the rocky ground below and crumpled like a fizz can. At the peak of his climb, Logan rolled the Raptor over and let the nose fall.

The ravine looked like it was burning. Black smoke crawled unnaturally along the broken stone. Coldhand tightened his fingers on the triggers. Lasers swept the mouth of the small canyon, raking the smoke and whatever it concealed. The lasers flashed as they hit something below. They sparked off of solid metal. The smoke was pulling inwards, darkening and thickening. And then the laserfire burned through whatever it was and the black clouds drifted apart like real smoke. Whatever these Devourers were, Maeve was right. They were tough, but not invincible.

Logan dropped the Raptor into the ravine. He had to see what he was shooting. Proximity indicators lit up a warning orange as the fighter slipped between the narrow fissure walls. Coldhand yawed the ship to one side to avoid an outcropping of stone and then pulled back hard as he grazed the floor of the ravine and came to a hovering stop.

The bottom of the canyon was choked by black mist. It smoldered in a dozen of individual clouds, roiling and churning, but never dispersing. The Devourers had noticed the Raptor and were forming up into ranks. The Waygate rose above the sea of black fog, shining brightly in comparison. The lambent stones of the ring pulsed with angry red light in time with the voice ringing off of the ravine's walls.

"Szo ghemma b'ho leng. Hotek mev khavvna tek vommen."

Where were the bodies? There had been more than a hundred people down there! The Raptor's floodlight illuminated a Devourer tearing apart a body in the remains of a blue uniform with a pair of barbed hooks. A badge winked in the fragile light before it, too, was consumed.
Captain Cerro
.

A red laser thrust up from one of the deep black clouds surrounding a towering Devourer and struck the underside of the Raptor. Logan rolled the fighter away before it could burn through the armor. When the Raptor leveled out, he flipped the safeties on the missiles up and jabbed his thumb down on the button. A flock of missiles sped from the launch racks like angry falcons. The warheads fanned out and detonated at the foot of the Waygate. The concussion rebounded from the walls of the canyon, buffeting the Raptor. Logan held the fighter steady and launched another volley of missiles.

The Devourer's strange shrouds contracted into smaller black bubbles as the missiles exploded. Columns of true smoke began to rise from the cratered ravine floor. Lasers flashed up to answer him. Logan held down the trigger of the Raptor's lasers and raked them across the Devourers below. The fighter shook as it reached the side of the ravine and the wing impacted the rocky wall.

Logan ignored the Raptor's shrill instrument warnings and centered the targeting reticule on the Waygate. If he could destroy the Waygate, he could stop the Devourers from coming through. The missile launchers were nearly empty, but he intended to put the Waygate's invulnerability to the test.

________

Maeve covered Duaal as he helped Gruth down the steep slope toward the van. The rain and fog were closing in again, turning the mountain into a nightmare island, floating high over Prianus. Arcadians moved through the mist like ghosts, silent now. Maeve thought she saw Xartasia and called out, but the indistinct shape paid no attention and slid away, out of sight.

"Do you think Coldhand can destroy the Devourers and the Waygate?" Duaal asked.

"No," Maeve said. The gates were millions of years old and had weathered the ages without a mark. She doubted that even coreworld weapons could do much to the great monument.

Duaal's lower lip trembled, but he nodded resolutely. "Fine. So what can we do?"

"Logan will fight fiercely." Maeve gripped her spear so hard that her fingers were trembling. Her hunter was down there with the Devourers. "I must take advantage of the time that his greater weaponry will buy us. I must take control of the Waygate and close it."

"Hurry, Maeve," Duaal said.

Something cracked and boomed down in the ravine. Lasers whined and then Maeve heard the deeper, harder impacts of larger weapons. She ran to the edge of the ravine and jumped, spreading her wings and diving down. Her tattered clothes flapped against her cold, wet skin. Not for the first time, Maeve was grateful for Xia's medicines. There would be time for pain later, if anyone survived this.

________

The Raptor shook again and sheered to the side, away from the wall. Something impacted hard on one of the wings. A long-limbed Devourer clung to the fibersteel, climbing up the wing toward the cockpit. Logan could not make out the alien's face… only more swirling, stormy black smoke. He fought to keep the Raptor level.

The cloud swelled and an arm-like pseudopod rose up. The smoke condensed into a dark metal axe and crashed down onto the canopy. Logan threw his cybernetic arm up to shield his face as the glassteel cracked. The Devourer punched another hole into the canopy and yanked, tearing the whole thing away.

Coldhand pulled his Talon-9 from his holster and fired at the thing's head. The cloud did its armoring trick again, presenting a solid shield. Logan's laser threw sparks from the black as it burned. He tried shooting around the edge of the hardened darkness, but the solidified cloud followed his fire.

It reacted to everything Logan did, anticipating his attacks and responding. The Devourer's black smoke had to be some kind of nanomachinery. Like cleaning nanites swarming over a fresh stain, the cloud was always moving toward the next problem, the next threat.

It made sense… The armor did look for all the worlds like smoke and one hundred years ago, the Arcadians of the White Kingdom had no knowledge of the tiny machines. They would have had no idea what they were fighting.

The shiny black nanite cloud was capable of much more than protection. The Devourer created a long tentacle, tipped in a sharp blade that rippled with oily, barely visible color up and down its length. Just like Hallax's nanosword.

The tentacle slithered into the cockpit and Logan tried to dodge out of the way, but the harness held him in place. The Devourer slashed his shoulder and then buried itself deep in the seat back. The blade dissolved into a cloud and retreated, only to be replaced by another, poised to strike. The Raptor was listing dangerously to the side, grinding the left wing hard against the ravine wall. Logan held down the trigger of his Talon-9, hoping a sustained burn could overwhelm the nanite cloud. The sharpened arm rose and aimed at Logan's heart.

A white-winged shape dove into the ravine and pounced on the Devourer. The inky cloud of nanites had drawn forward to deal with Logan and the Raptor, leaving the back only thinly protected. Maeve thrust her glass spear into the Devourer. Very recognizable red blood splashed the wing of the Raptor and the Devourer turned to face the Arcadian, bladed armor coiled to strike.

Logan slammed the control stick to the side and rolled the Raptor sharply. Maeve and the Devourer slid along the wing and toppled down into the ravine. The Devourer plummeted fifty feet to the ground and was swallowed by the black clouds of the others as they spread out from the steps of the Waygate.

Maeve tumbled head over heels and Logan's breath caught. Then her wings unfurled and she swooped up from the cloud, chased by barbed black hooks and searing lasers. Logan piloted the Raptor beneath Maeve as she shot past, interposing himself between the princess and the Devourers. They ripped into the fighter's armor plating and the instrument panels began to flicker red. One of the engines exploded. He fought to keep the Raptor aloft, but he was sinking beak-first toward the rocks.

Logan pulled the ejection handle. This low and in the narrow confines of the ravine, he would probably bounce off the walls and kill himself, but it was better than just letting himself fall into the nebulous black hands of the monsters below. The explosive bolts fired, but the Devourer had done too much damage. The seat whined and would not budge.

The Raptor continued its downward spiral, trembling as the Devourers fired into it again and again. Logan ripped the harness open and climbed laboriously to his feet. What now?

"Logan!"

The bounty hunter looked up at the sound of his name. Maeve dove at the Raptor again. Her spear was gone and her arms were open. The fairy touched down briefly on the edge of the cockpit, wrapped her arms around Logan's waist and then jumped.

________

Xia's medicine was not
that
good. Maeve groaned as she struggled to rise. Logan was laying on one of her wings. The bounty hunter was heavy, even for a human, and his metal hand dug into the sensitive skin of her back.

They had landed to one side of the Waygate, just a wingspan away from the ravine's wall. The Raptor had crashed to the ground on the other side of the Waygate. The fighter was a crumpled, torn pile of smoldering wreckage. Two Devourers jumped over the twisted metal and loped toward Maeve and Logan in long, easy strides.

Maeve shoved at Logan, but the bounty hunter's blond hair was streaked in blood and his eyes were closed. He had struck his head, but was still breathing.

"Logan! Wake up!" she cried. "I need you!"

The Prian's eyes fluttered and then snapped open. They jumped to their feet as the Devourers stalked closer.

"I must close the Waygate," Maeve said. She looked up at Logan. "It will take all of my concentration."

"I'll cover you," the hunter promised. He wiped the blood out of his eyes.

Logan found his Talon on the ground and grabbed it. He dashed with Maeve for the stairs of the Waygate. The steps vibrated under their feet as they climbed. The warning voice of the gate here was so loud that Maeve's ears ached.

"Szo ghemma b'ho leng. Hotek mev khavvna tek vommen."

Behind them, the Devourers broke into a run. Maeve's legs were heavy and tired. They were shorter than Logan's, too, and she tripped as she struggled to keep up. The hunter hooked his arm around her waist and helped her scale the oversized stairs, but the Devourers were closing quickly. They were tall enough to climb the stairs easily. Logan shoved Maeve away.