The Irispire Portal Page 28

  Tamon's finished off the one that threw him against the wall. He managed to chop off its leg and head. I see it lying on the floor, and Tamon is already tumbling towards another ogre. That ogre fires desperately trying to hit Tamon, but Tamon is too quick and nimble. He can launch himself with any limb, and with equal amounts of power. He does so, leaping from side to side, backward, and then forward into another aerial somersault with his battleaxe ready. This time he goes directly for the legs, swiping one off. I shoot the torso of the ogre with a pulse blast, throwing it ten feet back with the impact, and Tamon finishes the job by slicing its head clean off.

  More bullets spray from behind us. I turn around. Lev has found cover behind some rubble and is providing covering fire. Good job, Lev. There are four of them left, each one firing their pulse cannons at us. They hit Kyle with a clean shot, but as it hits, a pulse of blue light absorbs the cannon blast, and Kyle fires back with a white streak of ice that hits the ogre right in the face. While its face is frozen, I shoot a pulse blast at its chest. The blast explodes, and bits of ogre flesh flies off its torso, but it remains standing. Then Kyle finishes it off by cutting off its frozen head with a silvered katana. Four down.

  An ogre slams my back. A shock goes up my spine and spreads throughout the rest of my body. I am flung five feet into the wall, and my head crashes, my teeth clacking against the stone. My head is swimming. One hit from an ogre is all it takes to make me punch drunk. But I'm sure if I hadn't conditioned my body for the last five hundred years, I would have been unconscious by now. I turn around to see the ogre about to shoot his cannon at me. I hear the womp as the energy projectile is released. I duck down. Or fall, more like. I manage to avoid the blast, and it crashes into the wall behind me, sending out an explosion of rock.

  Lev fires off a few more AR-15 rounds at the ogre. It roars and takes its attention off of me. Everything is out of focus. Once in a while, I would see blurred muzzle flashes. Roars and grunts are echoing throughout the chamber. Up in the air, streaks of white and orange lasers flash on and off as Kyle and Lara use their magic. And a swinging, apelike Tamon tumbles here and there, the silvered steel of his battleaxe flashing.

  The ogre that almost knocked me out is taking fire from Lev, but it's still standing. It roars and charges away from me.

  "Lev!"

  I stagger to a standing position. I dropped both the pulse cannon and The Destroying Angel. In my hazy view, the Damascus steel longsword is the closest, and I pick it up while I am mid-run towards the ogre charging at Lev. Lev unloads more silvered steel at the ogre, and my legs are stumbling over each other. I am losing my footing. I trip on a rock and fall forward. I keep my head up, and the bottom of my chin crashes on the floor.

  "Lev," I say, and try to get up.

  When I get to one knee, I see the ogre fall. The ogre lands on its back, and Lev is standing on top of it like an action hero, with smoke rising from the muzzle of his assault rifle. Then he drops the empty fifty round mag and loads in another.

  I roll over on my back. My brain is starting to straighten itself out. I am no longer on the verge of unconsciousness. The hazy world is coming into focus, and Lara's beautiful face is the first thing I see clearly.

  "Are you all right?" Lara asks. Her voice sounds like I hear it from underwater.

  "Yeah,” I say. “Are they all gone?"

  "Yes," she says. "But it is far from over. Can you fight?"

  "Uh..."

  "Come on, get up, lad.” Tamon’s big burly arms pick me up from the ground.

  "Let me at em, put em up, put em up," I say.

  "He is fine," says Kyle. "Here."

  Kyle gathers yellow energy and a spinning yellow crystal forms and hovers above his outstretched palm. Then he places his hand on my shoulder, and healing energy fills my body, rejuvenating me.

  "I don't have much left,” says Kyle, “so do try to take care of yourself. And please remember, you are not the Bearer anymore. Be more like Levinson, and recognize your limits."

  "Limits, my ass," I say.

  "Are you children done," says Tamon, picking up the duffel bag of weapons. "Let's not waste any more time. King Hurdalin's warriors are dying up there!"

  Without waiting for a reply, Tamon tumbles left, right, then up to the second level.

  Lev and I follow on foot, sprinting up the steps, while Kyle and Lara launch themselves into the air, and follow Tamon through the tunnel that the ogres came out of.

  Forty-Seven

  We emerge in the middle of a foundry. The smelters are all still on, but the tools and work stations have been abandoned. There are half constructed pieces of armor, and weaponry lying around. On the walls are empty weapon racks. These guys have been busy.

  "I think they've been planning this for a while," Lev says. "There is no way this place has only been active for a week."

  We are closer to the sounds of battle now. We can hear demonic roars coming from outside, accompanied by stampeding footsteps. We weave our way through the foundry, then through what looks to be an armory, before making our way out to the city streets.

  We are in Laksona's old industrial district, which is where we wanted to emerge. Above us is a swirling purple sky. The portal Marchosias opened, from this vantage point, looks to be a mile in diameter. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. When I look into it, I see a hazy vision of galactic stars and shifting energies. Ineffable colors mingle and dance as spirits flow out from it. As the spirits pull farther from the portal, a Field created physical shell encases them. They take the form of minotaurs, ogres, goblins, grunds, winged screaming demons, et cetera, depending on the strength of the spirit. As soon as they enter our plane of existence, they head north towards the fighting.

  "Well, what are we waiting for," growls Tamon.

  Tamon rushes out to the open streets of the Laksona ruins. He jumps off the wall of one building, bounces off the wall of another, and ends up on Laksona's rooftops. Lara and Kyle, once again launch themselves into the air, Lara unsheathing her shortsword, and Kyle dual-wielding his katanas. Both of them prepare some spell crystals in front of them. Lara prepares a spinning orange crystal, while Kyle gathers Field energy into a spinning white crystal with frosty air swirling around it.

  Levinson and I are the ground troops, with Tamon on the rooftops guiding us. We're also the least exposed. We weave in and out of street corners and blind alleys. The Laksona industrial district has buildings that are thirty feet tall, and we can run in and out within its shadows. Up top, the purple glow of the rip in The Field Eternal lights our way. Once in a while, I see streaks of orange and white coming from Lara and Kyle's respective crystals as they take on flying monsters. The flying demons go after brother and sister, only to be outmatched by the siblings' aerial sword-fighting prowess. It's something to watch the two of them slice and dice their opponents with the kind of choreography that can only be developed with two people who've trained together in the same household. I even catch a smile on both their faces as they fight together.

  "Watch out!" yells Tamon.

  A minotaur crashes through the walls of a building twenty feet ahead of us. With the head of a bull and the body of a giant, these things stand twelve feet tall and are solid bulks of Field energy muscle. They are demons borne of avaricious and wrathful Field energies, and they are mean as hell. I charge it with the Destroying Angel held in a window guard, with the hilt and the blade level with my eyes, and positioned to the side of my head. I hear Lev pull on the charging handle of his AR-15.

  Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!

  The silvered bullets hit the minotaur giving off little flashes of electricity upon impact. It gets to ten feet in front of us before the bullets take effect and parts of its physical shell are sloughing off. When I get to within striking distance, I step to the side and deliver a helicopter cut to its oblique as it throws its fists up to smash down on me. Lev continues to shoot it in the face. Tamon leaps from the rooftop of a nearby building with his batt
leaxe above his head, ready to swipe down. I take my cue and run up along a building wall, jump off, and plunge my sword down through its back, while Tamon comes down slicing it down the shoulder. Lev keeps shooting, and the minotaur’s physical shell melts away, leaving a puddle of yellowy brown ooze. A ball of demonic energy flies out of the dead minotaur shell, off to find the next host to occupy.

  Lev's rifle clicks empty. He looks through his ammo bag. "I'm out.”

  Tamon lands beside us and opens the duffel bag. "Take what you need, lad.”

  Kyle fills up his ammo bag and loads his rifle.

  The siblings are fighting well up top until Kyle gets caught in the talons of a flying demon and is flung to the ground in front of us. Lara flies down to protect, as more winged demons fly down to finish the job.

  Lev opens fire on our swooping enemies, providing Lara with some covering fire.

  "Take care of this will you, lad," Tamon says, leaving the duffel bag with Lev.

  Tamon picks me up with one of his strong arms and helps me navigate some lintels and protruding arches so I can get to the roof of a building. He then leaps across the street onto the rooftop of the building parallel to the one I'm standing on, and we hack and slash at every demon we see.

  Horrific wails and arcing Field energies flash all around us as his silvered ax, and The Destroying Angel cut down demon after demon, but every time we do, some other surviving demon gets stronger.

  "This is not working!" says Tamon.

  "I know!" I yell back.

  Then two ogres — real conjured ogres, not fake manufactured ogres — land on the rooftop I am on. I take a deep breath and charge. I don't want to hesitate or wait for them to make the first move. If it's two-on-one, better to be the aggressor, it's unexpected and capitalizes on their overconfidence. They charge. I duck, spinning on my knee and deliver a gash on one ogre's thigh. The other one goes to punch down on me, but I somersault to avoid and roll to a standing position behind them. The one I gashed across the leg is slower, and the uninjured one attacks me again. They're both ten feet tall, and I dance away from the uninjured one's huge fist coming down on me. Its fist collapses the roof, and it loses its balance. At that moment, I swipe down at its forearm. The thing roars as its severed limb falls to the floor of the building below, turning into a yellowy brown puddle. Then I deliver a horizontal cut across its throat, and the spirit leaves the dying physical shell. The second ogre charges at me, limping, but I see Lara fly up from behind it and plunge her shortsword down through the top of its head.

  "This is taking far too long!" Lara says. "We need to get up there fast!"

  She points up at the Irispire. Looking up at it makes me want to throw up. The sheer immensity of the mile high stalagmite looms over the city. I have never seen a free-standing structure as big.

  Lara gathers Field energy into a gray crystal and sticks it on the small of my back. Magical energy enters my spine and spreads out through my body.

  Lev soars up into the air, carrying the duffel bag, and firing his assault rifle at anything demonic he sees. Kyle flies up with an arcane blue shield shining from his left forearm. He’s sheathed one silvered katana behind his back, and the other he wields with his right hand.

  "Let's go, Nyyx!" Lara says.

  Lara launches herself into the air, and I follow, flying up with The Destroying Angel. The first flying demon I see, I slice with a rising cut, the unbreakable blade going through it like a hot knife, splitting the physical shell made up of Field energies, and releasing the spirit within.

  Lara's and Kyle's blades are not quite so powerful. One slice one kill is not possible for them. Their sword fighting has to be done with more tact, and more maneuvers. I can kill more, but I don't know whether that's a good thing. Already I see our enemies growing larger and larger the more we kill.

  The Irispire is a half a mile ahead of us, and we rise toward it at a forty-five-degree angle, fighting as many demons as we can along the way.

  "Where's Tamon?" I ask Lara.

  "He's down there! He told us not to worry about him!"

  "What? That's insane!" I yell as I swat a flying horned demon with a horizontal cut, slicing it clean across the waist.

  "I'm going to come back for him!" I say.

  "Nyyx NO!"

  But even before Lara can finish her protestation, I command the flying crystal stuck to my back to swoop down. I don't get too far, however, because I see Tamon leaping from rooftop to rooftop, swinging his battleaxe. One opponent; one swipe. That is it. He's not aiming to kill them. He wants to slow them down enough so he can escape from them — a good tactic.

  "Lara, look!" I say.

  Lara looks down at Tamon, then we both look at each other, understanding. I fly up to where she is, and the next demons we see, we twist in the air and use our swords to clip off a wing, making them wail. They may be spirits, but their physical shells still follow the laws of physics. The ones whose wings we clipped spiral down, clawing the air.

  "Lev!" I shout out, but he can't hear me through his explosive gunfire, and the screaming of winged demons.

  "Go!" says Lara.

  I leave Lara's side and fly on over to Lev, who is about forty feet to our right. Kyle is flying twenty feet above him, slicing and dicing as he does so, and defending with his arcane shield.

  Ten rounds impact a flying demon, distracting it enough so that Kyle can decapitate it. The demonic shell crumbles and dissolves into a glob of yellowy brown ooze before splatting against the side of the Irispire. The demonic spirit flies out of the dead body and is absorbed by another, making it grow larger and more powerful.

  "Lev!" I say.

  "What!"

  "Aim for the wings!" I say. "We don't want to kill them!"

  Lev gives me the thumbs up and opens fire again, this time, making sure to clip the wings of several flying demons. I get in front and start hacking and slashing at what's left of their wings.

  We are a quarter of the way up The Irispire. From far away, its sides look smooth. Up close, it looks like a mountain with various ledges and outcropping of rock sticking out. I fly up to check on Kyle. As I do, he gathers energy into a maroon crystal in front of him. Then he warps reality around the crystal, magnifying it by accessing the Field directly, and sends out a bubble of force which plows through tens of demons like a bowling ball, before it dissipates fifty feet away.

  "How are you feeling?" I ask Kyle.

  He turns to me, with blood trickling down his nose. This is not good.

  "I'll be fine," he says.

  As he says so, the world goes dark, and we are covered by an immense shadow.

  Forty-Eight

  Kyle and I stop dead in our tracks. We hover in place looking up at the giant, winged, demon wolf flying above us. The infernal beast is eighty feet long from snout to tail, sixty feet wide from wingtip to wingtip, and is looking down on us with big yellow eyes. The wolf's lips retreat, and it barks at us, snapping its jaws. It bends down to us, and we see its rider. On the back of the giant canine, right where the shoulders meet the neck, rides a ten foot tall Marchosias. Her billowing hair of fire glows brightly, rivaling the brilliance of the magma flows that has engulfed half of the ruined city of Laksona three-quarters of a mile below. She holds her black sword in her hand, with veins of red magma running up and down the blade.

  She points her sword down at us, and a swarm of winged demons flies down from behind her, all with teeth flashing and malice in their eyes.

  "We have to keep moving!" yells Tamon.

  Tamon has caught up to us, scaling The Irispire as easily as we fly in the air.

  I look to our left at Lara. She's busy cutting the wings off of more demons. Then she looks up. A momentary paralysis shocks her body, and she hovers motionless. Then her face rises with an angry determination, and she flies up toward Marchosias

  Kyle and I smile at each other. He wipes the blood from his nostrils.

  "Roxxanda is up there," Kyle says. Then he le
ts out a battle cry and flies up, mirroring his sister.

  I fly after him.

  Lev fires several volleys to the approaching demons, weakening them, before Kyle and I get to them. We employ the same strategy as before, deftly maneuvering to get at the demonic wings of this horde coming at us. We are successful, though I take some hits. Claws rip through my elven armor. One of the demons manages to gash me along the face. I don't know how bad the cut is, but my face is burning.

  Tamon is climbing fast. Once in a while he jumps off of The Irispire onto a demon, takes out its wings, either with his battleaxe or his bare hands. Then he lilypads to another demon, then another, before climbing back onto the Irispire and continuing his upward momentum.

  Demons fall from all around us, but up ahead there are thousands more of them. I fall to Lev's level.

  "We need grenades!" I say.

  Lev stops shooting and looks in the duffel bag.

  "Here," he says.

  I fly up to Kyle, grenade in hand.

  "Lookie what I found," I say. "You think you could do that force bubble thing once more?"

  Kyle smiles at me.

  I pull the pin on a single grenade and toss it in front of us. Kyle then gathers Field energy into a maroon crystal, creates a bubble of force around the grenade and sends it up into the oncoming horde. The force bubble knocks them out of their flight patterns. Then Kyle dispels the bubble as the grenade explodes with iron and silver shrapnel. The winged demons are set afire with the incendiary blast. They are thrown hither and thither, screaming in pain. Some, however, die, and their spirits absorb into the demon wolf above.