Magic Stars (Universe on Fire Book 3), page 19
“One of the benefits of the bond. You have the eyes of my kind now,” a voice said inside his head, and he startled.
“Did you just say that inside my mind?” Kane whispered.
“Yes, we have a telepathic bond now. We can speak no matter how far away we are from each other.”
Kane frowned. He didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind, can’t see anything that you don’t want me to see.”
He relaxed as he heard that. “How do I do it?”
“Just focus and think at me,” Arsagor said.
Kane tried it, and saw the dragon chuckle.
“You sent a bit more than just words, but you will get better at it.”
Kane shook his head and stood up. He didn’t have any clothes on, and he saw that his spellscripts were gone. Suddenly he felt very much naked, in a deeper way than just without his clothes. He didn’t have anything to defend himself with. He could feel power, but he didn’t know how to use it.
He looked at the dragon and said as much.
“Don’t worry. I will teach you the proper ways of using magic, in time. For now, you have me.”
“How long was I asleep for?” Kane asked, speaking out loud since he didn’t yet know how to really speak with his mind.
“A few hours, perhaps,” Arsagor said.
“We need to go! It’s already been too long—the city could’ve fallen by now,” Kane said.
“Very well,” Arsagor said, and he stood up, his head rising to the ceiling.
Kane blinked at just how massive he was, but then shook his head and looked at his naked body. “If only I could find some clothes on the way…but I guess being alive and naked beats being dead and clothed.”
“Oh, you want clothes?”Arsagor said, then leaned down, Kane felt a surge of magic and then clothes materialized around him.
He was startled and then amazed at seeing the black robes appear around him. They resembled something a martial artist would wear. He glanced at the dragon in wonder. “How did you do that?” He hadn’t thought that magic could accomplish such things.
“Hah! There is much you don’t know about magic, but you will learn in time. Now, come on—jump up and let us go,” Arsagor told him, leaning his head down on the floor.
“You want me to climb on your head? Why not your back?” Kane asked.
“Better there than anywhere else,” Arsagor said. “You can grab hold of my horns. On my back, you might slip off.”
Kane tried to find a reason as to why that was a good idea, but realized that everything he knew about riding on top of a dragon came from fiction. He climbed up on the dragon’s snout and then up until he reached the top of the head. He turned around and sat on top of it, grabbing hold of two of four horns that curved backward from the top of his head.
“Good. Now we need to find a way out of here,” Arsagor mused.
* * *
It was several hours later that they found a way that led up to the surface, time during which Kane had been practicing talking mind to mind.
“I hear water that way,” Kane sent. “It will lead us to the surface.”
“Yes, yes, I hear it too,” Arsagor replied.
Another side effect seemed to be better-than-average hearing, far better than average. Kane wondered just what else was different about him now. They were walking through the massive tunnels that allowed Arsagor to pass through without needing to crouch too much, but still, it wasn’t easy going. There were twists and turns, and cliff climbing as well as jumping over chasms.
Then eventually the sound of rushing water started to get louder and louder, until they finally found it. They came in through a tunnel that had an opening into another, much larger tunnel that held a rushing river flowing down into the earth. They were above the water line and to their right Kane could see light.
“There is the exit,” Kane said, and then wondered how they were going to get there—but Arsagor just jumped into the water, startling him. “Are you insane?” Kane asked, worried that they were going to get carried away. They didn’t, though, and the dragon stood in the river calmly, his long neck above the water level.
“Don’t worry. I know what I am doing,” Arsagor said, and then he started walking against the current and toward the light.
Kane was shocked by his strength, but perhaps he shouldn’t have been. They reached the top and saw the canyon and the river rushing in front of them. Arsagor seemingly didn’t want to risk the full power of the river, so he turned around and stabbed his front claws into the walls of the canyon. Kane struggled to keep his hold as the dragon pulled himself up from the water and started climbing the canyon walls.
Kane looked behind them and saw the entire length of the dragon rise out of the water, then him shaking his wings to dry them. They climbed slowly but surely, and in a few minutes they had reached the top. Arsagor climbed up onto the cliff and shook his body again.
“Where to now?” Arsagor asked.
Kane stood up on his head, looking around. He looked to the east, where he thought the city should be, and saw only the canyon stretching in the distance. He turned around and looked the other way, and saw the canyon part and open up into the ocean. For a moment he thought that he was seeing things; the ocean wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the city. He couldn’t have drifted so far, unless… Perhaps he had been unconscious for longer than he’d thought.
“So?” Arsagor asked.
“We are further away than I thought we would be. The city is to the east, but I don’t know how far away,” Kane said.
“Could you find it from the air?” Arsagor asked.
“It is built on top of the canyon,” Kane answered.
The dragon laughed out loud. “Then it will be easy to find! Settle in and hold on. You are about to learn what it feels like to fly as a dragon.”
Kane hurried down and grabbed the horns as Arsagor turned toward the canyon, crouched, and then jumped. His wings spread wide, more than a hundred meters of wingspan, and they beat down powerfully as Kane closed his eyes.
He felt the beats, felt them rising, and then he finally had the courage to open his eyes. He saw them over the canyon, rising into the air, flying.
All around them the world stretched, impossibly wide. He had seen worlds from orbit, but something about this felt more…just more everything. He couldn’t help but laugh in excitement. He couldn’t wait to tell Aiko about this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Remi sat in the command room of the MCV. Without her armor, she wasn’t as protected, so she decided to be where she could be more useful. She watched the feeds from her siblings and gave out orders from there. The bridge was a battlefield. The enemy had marched nearly to the wall, and the wall’s fixed defenses were firing bolts of yellowish energy. The attack on the dam had been intended to disable the power that supplied those weapons, as well as everything else that the city used magic on.
The defenders were slowing down the advance, but they wouldn’t be able to hold it off forever. The enemy just had too many troops, and that coupled with their ability to summon and raise disposable soldiers, it was an impossible battle to win. But the city had allies, and she was going to make sure that they held for as long as possible.
“Admiral,” she said as the satellite connected her to the base. “What’s our status?”
“The troops are on the march: five thousand soldiers, twenty old-world tanks and five artillery turrets. We expect them to reach you in a few days,” Admiral Villanueva answered.
Remi nodded. They’d arrive too late, but if they only managed to hold… She shook her head and spoke again. “And what about the launchers?”
“They are in position. We only need the targeting data,” the Admiral said.
Remi glanced at her feed, seeing the army hit the wall. They didn’t use siege equipment, but instead their summons, who were attempting to break through the doors, while their troops climbed on top of them and jumped over to the wall. She saw the army stretching across the bridge. She had asked the Archmage about blowing the bridge up before, and had been assured that it wasn’t possible. Remi thought that the Archmage underestimated the power of human weapons, but from what she had seen there were some powerful spells woven through it, and in the end she didn’t have a choice but to trust her.
“How many?” Remi asked.
“Twenty-two subsonic and five ballistic missiles, and more are on the way. They should reach our side by the end of the week,” the Admiral said.
She nodded, and then commed her siblings, asking them to get into the air and provide her with more precise targeting data for the army on the bridge. On a whim, she sent Emma to the northern wall to get the targeting data for the army that was still beyond the wall. They were sending more and more troops through the wall, but they didn’t seem to be in a rush. Better that they took care of them before they got into the city.
The Dragons acknowledged and started sending in data, and she relayed it to the Admiral. Then she watched and waited for the strike to come.
* * *
Dario D-006 floated in the air, his stealth spellscripts running as he was gathering and sending targeting data to the MCV. He knew that the missiles striking the enemy army had a chance of shattering the bridge, but the Archmage seemed unconcerned when they had informed her of what they planned to do. Dario remained a bit worried for his part, but there wasn’t much else that he could do. He and the rest of the Dragons stayed in their positions, invisible as everyone else fought.
Then they received a message from Remi. He already knew what to expect, but the people down there didn’t. The attack had been coordinated and timed so that the ballistic missiles and the subsonic ones arrived at the same time. The missiles they fired were from the old world, from before the Qash’vo’tar had arrived, and they weren’t the most powerful ones they had, as those had been ordered destroyed by the Qash’vo’tar—but the explosive power was still incredible.
Before long, the missiles dropped down onto the bridge. The enemy had time to notice them and raise shields over their heads, and Dario was interested to see if it was going to be enough. The missiles hit their shields and exploded, the barrage lasting for nearly twenty seconds as twenty-two missiles struck across the length of the bridge.
Out in the distance he could see the more powerful ballistic missiles falling down on the army in front of the walls. Everything was painted in orange light and, when the smoke cleared, Dario saw the destruction. The bridge held, surprisingly, but the enemy army on the bridge had been shattered. Some had managed to survive, their shields holding off the blasts, but those were few and far between. The rest were dead or injured. The shock was felt on both sides, but then Remi ordered their troops to fire, and the soldiers on the walls sent a hail of bullets into the front lines of the survivors. The mech-frames fired from across the city, and Dario and the rest of the Dragons added their fire from the sky.
The enemy tried to fight back, but they were disorganized and thrown into chaos. As the Archmage order her people to fire, the Rzan were forced to retreat, all the while they harried by the defenders. Dario turned back to stealth and watched them from the sky as they moved to their side of the city. Emma reported that the army outside the walls had fared a bit better, but Dario had suspected that they would, as they had been repeatedly targeted by the bombing runs and had set up countermeasures to keep themselves safe.
But for now, the attack had been halted.
* * *
Remi walked into the room that the Emerith leaders used for their planning, and watched as the Archmage and her council mages looked over the table that was covered in maps. She almost smiled at the simplicity, but she had been spoiled by the holo maps and full 3D imagery. She waited in the corner until after they were finished. The Crystal Mage and the Ward Mage bowed to the Archmage and left, and on their way they inclined their heads to her and left the room, leaving only Ilariarin and Vilariarin Varseer in the room. The Archmage motioned for her to approach, and Remi walked over.
“Dragon,” Archmage greeted her respectfully by her title, and Remi did the same in return.
“Archmage,” she said.
“Your people’s attack today has prevented a full assault on the walls. I must thank you again for that,” the Archmage said.
“There is no need. We have put our lot with your people, and we will do all in our power to help you defend your city.”
“Is there a chance for you to do it again?”
“In a few days,” Remi said. “It takes time to move things across our world, especially since most of our war machinery had been stored in isolated places.”
“The result of your world’s occupation?” Vilariarin asked.
“Yes. We were forced to limit our forces, and to destroy our most destructive weapons. What we have left is less effective, but it will do the job here, if we hold on long enough for it to arrive,” Remi said.
“You said that your people had already sent an army to help us?” Archmage asked.
“Yes, and they should arrive in a few days. There are not many of them, but each are equipped with the same weapons that the soldiers already here have. In addition, they are sending a few more war machines that will aid us greatly.”
“Your people have helped us greatly already. We would’ve lost the city if it wasn’t for you and your weapons,” the Archmage said. “You’ve done more than anyone else would’ve, and I do not think that what you’ve asked from us in return is enough to show our gratitude.”
“It is a small thing for you, perhaps, but to us it could mean everything. As powerful as our technology is, there are worlds out there whose technology is far more advanced. If we could learn more about magic, find better ways to integrate it with our technology, it would give us an edge that the others wouldn’t be able to reach easily.”
The Archmage met Remi’s eyes. “You will have everything that you’ve asked of us, and more, if only we survive this.”
With that, the Archmage dismissed them, and Remi followed Vilariarin out of the room.
“How are you feeling?” Vilariarin asked. “The fight in the dam…”
Remi shrugged. “I’m fine. A bit annoyed that my armor was destroyed, but fine otherwise.”
“I still can’t believe what I saw. How can someone contain so much power without destroying their body…” Vilariarin said, but she could tell that he was more wondering to himself than asking.
“My body has been enhanced, augmented since birth,” she answered for him. “I can handle a lot more than an ordinary human can.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“I don’t think that you have an understanding of genetics, but let us say that I underwent treatment to improve everything about me. After that, I had my bones strengthened with our technology. I have metal grafted onto them so that they are far harder to break, my muscles have strengthening nets inside of them, and I have spellscripts engraved on my bones to strengthen them further. And then there are these.” She raised an arm and showed him her spellscripts.
Vilariarin looked at her with a strange expression on his face. “I could feel that you had many spellscripts, but to see you exposed like that… It was incredible.”
The corner of Remi’s mouth quirked upward and she raised an eyebrow. “Incredible, huh?”
Vilariarin blinked, and then she saw him blush. “No, I didn’t mean it like that!”
She laughed at his discomfort.
They walked in silence for a little while. The enemy hadn’t attacked again after the bombardment, and the day was slowly ending. They would probably wait until the next day.
“Still no sign of your captain?” Vilariarin asked.
Remi felt a pang in her chest that she had never before experienced, but she could recognize it as what it was: sadness. “No. There is no sign of him.”
She had Orion and Artemis looking again, hoping to catch his beacon, but they didn’t find anything. She knew that the most likely answer was that he’d died, but she couldn’t bring herself to quite believe that. She felt as if…as if she would’ve felt something more if he was gone. She had grown up on books—in her free time that was all that she did, read stories, and in those stories people always knew when their family had died. She knew that the two of them hadn’t really been family, that Kane Reinhart was her father only in the biological sense, but that didn’t stop her from feeling close to him. The other Dragons didn’t feel the same way, but then again she was the one who had spent the most time with him.
Somehow the possibility that he was dead made her feel as if somehow she had missed a chance. The Dragons had agreed not to tell their parents who they were, and she had agreed with that decision, but now…now she could only think about missing that opportunity. The Dragons knew many things, had been trained in many things, but perhaps they needed more—to experience a connection to the people that they came from.
“I am sorry to hear that,” Vilariarin asked. “The two of you were close, weren’t you?”
She opened her mouth to speak, but then stopped herself. They hadn’t been, not really, yet she felt like she had been close to him. They had spent time talking about things unrelated to their mission, and there was a sense of kinship there. She thought that perhaps he felt a part of it as well, but she wasn’t sure. “We were,” she said, even if it wasn’t true.
“I am sorry for your loss, then. Were you…ah, I do not know about your customs or labels, but you were more than friends?”
Remi blinked, and then her mind caught up to what he said. She burst out laughing.
