The Lodestone Trilogy (Limited Edition) (The Lodestone Series) (144 page)

Then she saw it: a huge mound of shaggy grey fur shambling towards her. She caught sight of another out of the corner of her eye, and then another just behind it. Shann had described her encounter with them, although Keris was not at all sure that she understood the explanation. ‘Rime Slayers’—that was the colloquial name given to these hoary monstrosities. She said that they were drawn to heat. She also mentioned that they conserved heat by forming ice crystals within their sinews, giving their bodies the consistency of iron.

Shann had escaped using lodestone grenades that Rael had cobbled together from items he found inside the ancient tower. Keris had no grenades; she had nothing but her diamond-bladed staff. It would have to suffice.

The foremost creature shuffled towards her. She scanned for lodestone, felt a pressure off to her left, flared her upper lodestone layer, and pushed off it, leaping to her right. The murghal slowed, moved left and right, opened a tooth-filled maw, and made a guttural sound. Suddenly, it dawned on her—the beast had lost her heat scent.
Try to keep airborne.

She reached the apex of her trajectory and flared her cloak once more, pushing off another deposit behind her.
Where did I go?
Nimbly, she dropped to the ground behind the leading creature and thrust the staff at its back with every ounce of strength she could muster. To her utter amazement, her blade scarcely penetrated the ice-matted fur, and the impact sent a jarring shock wave up her arm.

The murghal whirled around, thin prehensile arms whipping towards her. She jumped back instinctively. Shann had told her that one of the creatures had touched her arm and the flesh had frozen instantly. It was probably the method they used to disable their prey.
Don’t let them touch you.

Several more creatures appeared and started to outflank her. She extended her cloak and vaulted vertically once more. She could only keep them occupied for so long. It might be possible to bait them—lead them away from the others—but that would mean that she would not make it to the tower. The hu-mans could not be allowed to prevail. She needed another option.

As gravity slowed her ascent, her hand moved instinctively to her neck control. She recalled Shann’s warning that extending both upper and lodestone layers together, without the intervening bronze, could rip apart the cloak mechanism. Carefully, she extended the bronze and lower lodestone layers together. She reached the top of her leap... and stopped.

It was an odd sensation. Below her, the murghal were milling around in apparent confusion, but for her, suspended high above the pure-white mountain slopes, it was as if time itself had ceased. It felt like a loss of control; she fought the urge to flail about like a stranded fish. She began to drift lower and to her right. Gingerly, she tweaked the cloak’s lower lodestone layer and twisted her body, seeking a stabilising push from any other nearby deposits. Coordinating the three layers as well as her own movements was growing increasingly difficult, and she could feel herself losing the battle. Inexorably, she began sinking towards the jostling pack of murghal like a punctured balloon.

Just then, twin bolts of lightning sizzled across the ground and struck two of the nightmarish creatures, who promptly howled in protest. She followed the beams to their source and saw their two guides, wedged in the narrow crevice, drach weapons pointed squarely at the murghal horde. She could not make out their shouts, but their beckoning gestures were clear enough. Gradually, she retracted lower lodestone and bronze, accelerating her rate of descent until her boots struck the snow. She pushed off again immediately, flying straight for the gap in the cliff.

“C’mon... C’mon,” Yonach, the older one, yelled. She landed in front of them and they lunged forward, grabbing her by the arms and manhandling her through the gap. She tumbled out on the far side, got to her feet, and her mouth fell open. Just ahead, rising far above her, was an ancient tower. Aside from the rime that clung to its dull grey stone and the banks of snow that had drifted against its base, it looked identical to the Tower of Akalon, the tower on the Eastern Plains that was now a charred ruin, and the tower at Dagmar.

Yonach and Yaron emerged from the cleft in the rock, grabbed both of her arms once more, and urged her forward. “The beams don’t ’urt ’em,” Yonach said. “The ’eat from the electrical discharge jus’ confuses their senses. Blinds ’em. It don’ last long neither. We gotta get goin’.”

Patris was waiting just inside the open doorway. “Are you all right?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “I’m fine. Let’s keep moving.” Outside, the roars of the murghal were getting louder. She spotted an empty cabinet and grabbed it, pulling it over onto its side so that it partially blocked the entrance.

“That won’t ’old ’em,” Yonach declared.

“Maybe not,” she rasped. “But it might delay them a little.” She led the way to the stairwell.

“You think those things can climb stairs?” Patris asked with a slight tremor in his voice.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’m not waiting here to find out.”

~

They climbed in silence through the dusky tower, breath condensing in the frigid air.

Boom.
The tower shuddered slightly. Patris whirled around, but there was no sign of pursuit.

“I don’t think that was the murghal,” Keris said grimly. “Come on. We’re nearly there.”

At the level just before the roof exit, she turned aside, making for the counterpart of the room that Shann had discovered at Akalon. She felt for the panel just inside the door and pressed it.

A light came on in the ceiling. It flickered and buzzed, angry that someone had dared awaken it from its long slumber. She ignored it and located the pedestal at the far end of the room. The indentation on its upper surface was the familiar shape of a scalene triangle.

With a practised hand, she drew out the access module and fitted it into the recess. The module glowed with a gentle amber light, which suddenly turned red. She retrieved the module and rejoined the others, who had been watching from the room’s entrance. “This way.”

Another impact shook the tower. A faint droning was coming from somewhere outside. Yaron came to a halt and stared wide-eyed at the walls. “Wha’s ’appenin’?”

His elder brother came up from behind. “I dunno. But we gotta keep goin’.” Keris turned and led the way once more, picking up the pace.

The stairway terminated in the same heavy door that she remembered. She hesitated a moment, plagued by an irrational fear that it would not open, before pulling the latch down firmly. She heard a satisfying
clunk
and the door shifted a fraction. Pushing it all the way open, she stepped out into the suns’ light.

A high-pitched whine filled her ears. She recognised it immediately.
Avionic.
Two of the silver darts crossed in the sky ahead. Another off to her left was banking towards them. They had to be the same craft that attacked Kieroth. She had assumed that they had all returned to Helice, but somehow they must have found out that she and Patris planned to use the tower. And they were here to prevent it.

The great silver globe sat firmly in its clamps at the centre of the parapet; it seemed undamaged. “Stay here. Keep low,” she called over her shoulder before turning and sprinting across the roof, carmine cloak billowing behind her.

She counted six of the flying machines. They flashed between the jagged, snow-clad ar
tes and buzzed the tower like angry mannatars, waiting for the chance to sting.

The avionic to her left came in low, engines screaming. She turned to face it, feet planted squarely. A thunderbolt flashed from the front of the craft. Instantly, she took to the air, buoyed up by the refined lodestone set into the roof platform. Lightning seared the place where she had been standing, and the avionic passed directly over her head. She was momentarily caught in the downdraft from the immense fans and fought to regain control. She glanced over her shoulder. Patris and the two guides were cowering behind the parapet.
Stay right there.

As she drifted lower, she caught sight of two more avionics streaking towards her in formation. She was successfully drawing their fire, but as a result, she was now trapped. If she retreated to the roof exit, she would endanger the others and would be cut off from the globe. If she continued forward, then the globe might very well be hit, with disastrous consequences.

The two silver craft had her in their sights. She dialled back the upper lodestone layer, then extended it again, pushing higher. She fancied she could see the outlined figures of the pilots through the clear canopies. At the final moment, she slammed on bronze. Upper lodestone pushed bronze and bronze pulled lodestone—she dropped like a stone. Twin golden beams crossed directly above her and struck an abutment on the other side of the roof platform, sending up shards of masonry.

Immediately, she extended her lower lodestone layer in an effort to arrest her fall—a fraction too late. She slammed into the stone platform, twisting her right ankle.

Ignoring the pain, she cycled through various strategies suggested by the game of shassatan. She needed an escape route. That entailed using one of the distraction gambits, but she was currently the only ‘piece on the board’.

Her best chance seemed to be to get their two guides to break cover and bring their drach weapons to bear. She was quite certain that the electrical discharges from their hand-held devices would have no effect on the flying machines, even if by some miracle they managed to score a direct hit, but it might give her the time she needed to get to the globe and activate it. But then what? It took a few moments for the silver sphere to power up and lift itself above the tower, but in less time than that, the attacking aircraft could easily knock them out of the sky.

Two more avionics were coming in for a pass. Keris stared into the jaws of defeat. They would use up her resources, wear her down bit by bit, until she made the tiniest of mistakes and then it would all be over.

She readied herself to spring into the air on her good leg...and hesitated. Their attitude, their angle of approach, was all wrong.

She watched them, transfixed, then spun around as the sleek craft flashed past her on either side. Shading her eyes against the suns, she followed the avionics’ line of flight as they came together once more, glinting in the suns’ light, before shooting off in opposite directions.

Immediately, bursts of yellow fire erupted from the nose cones of the new arrivals, raking two of the former attackers. Smoke billowed from their fan housings and they began to lose height. One of the victorious avionics angled towards a second target; the second slowed and then shot vertically into the air.

Distantly, she became aware that Patris along with Yonach and Yaron were standing at her shoulder, watching the aerial battle. She thought of ordering them to take cover once more, but she had lost the power of speech. It felt as if they were witnessing a miracle.

The first newcomer locked onto the tail of an enemy craft; the second swooped like a bird of prey and then pulled up sharply so as to pass directly over the cockpit of another. Keris winced, certain that the two avionics were about to collide, but instead, the lower one was slammed down by an invisible force and began to spiral out of control. Lodestone. The second newcomer had activated his machine’s lodestone booster, effectively knocking his opponent out of the sky.

A wild roar assailed her ears and she realised that the others were cheering loudly.
You don’t even know who it is who is doing this,
she mused. Nevertheless there was something about the second pilot’s manoeuvres—something very familiar...

The first of the newcomers bore down on its chosen target. The enemy pilot twisted and turned in a desperate effort to shake off his tormentor, but he could not get free.

A brilliant sword lit up the sky and impacted the avionic’s tail fins. The stricken aircraft pitched and then swerved violently, spouting smoke and flame. The cheering died away and Keris felt a sickening dread as she suddenly realised that the machine was out of control.

And it was headed straight for them.

<><><><><>

Chapter 31

“Get down!”

The avionic filled her vision as it hurtled towards them; a creature of doom, trailing thick black smoke from its flaming snout. Yonach and Patris reacted instantly, diving face-first onto the stone platform, but Yaron simply stood, open-mouthed. Keris grabbed the boy unceremoniously by the collar, shoving him down and throwing herself on top of him.