Crystal Doors #3: Sky Realm (No. 3) (24 page)

With powerful strokes of his feathered wings, he plunged. Sharif sat up and took up his curved sword. Raathun swung his club, which Sharif ducked. The sword slashed down, but Sharif met it with his own. The weapons of the two flying monarchs clashed. Attempting to control the rug while defending himself, Sharif made it dodge to one side, then the other, racing away from the edge of Irrakesh and out to the open sea.

Sky fireworks erupted all around them as Lyssandra’s father shot his casks of explosive powder into the air. When the aeglor king flew down, swinging his sword again, Sharif timed his counterstroke just right and struck backward, hitting Raathun’s wrist with the curved blade. In surprise, the flying warrior dropped his blade. Blood ran down the aeglor’s forearm and his sword spun, glittering like a silver ribbon as it tumbled far, far below to where the merlons were fighting in the sea.

Furious, Raathun flapped his wings and put on a burst of speed that even the flying carpet couldn’t match. Using his injured hand and his momentum, he grabbed Sharif by the shoulder and yanked him off of his carpet. Sharif struggled to raise his sword arm, but before he could, the big muscled aeglor gave a mighty heave and hurled Sharif out into the open air with a long, long fall below.

Sharif gasped, unable to cry out. He fell, the cold wind ripping past him. The churning battle below among sharks, merlons, remaining sea serpents, and Elantyans was frightening. Even more terrifying was the knowledge that, from this height, the impact of his fall to the ocean would kill him. Piri soared in, a streak of light in female form that crackled with angry lightning. When Raathun laughed in triumph, holding his club high with his bleeding hand, Piri unleashed a wave of power. Flaring like lightning bolts, bursts of electricity burned off Raathun’s feathers, snapped his wings, and left the big warrior to tumble out of the sky, crying out in fury and shock. He fell like a stone.

Sharif was still falling, too. Piri kept pace with him, but he knew that as a ball of energy, she was too insubstantial to catch him. He had something he could do, however. Using the summoning rune embroidered into his carpet, he called it to him. As he fell through the air, getting closer to the waves each second, he hoped his carpet could react swiftly enough.

Raathun tumbled and spun, falling as fast as Sharif. Piri streaked away. Sharif reached out a hand toward her, but she was gone. The waves were coming up fast. He saw Barak’s merlons and creatures clashing against the rebel merlons. No one seemed to have noticed them falling from the skies. Knowing he was going to hit, Sharif braced himself, though he knew it could do no good.

With a swiftness it had never before demonstrated, the flying carpet zoomed under him, with Piri at the helm. Matching his speed, the rug caught him like a soft, cradling hand and whisked him along, low to the surface of the waves at first, then gradually gaining height. Sharif panted, barely able to believe he was still alive, saved by his carpet and Piri.

A second later, Raathun splashed down on his back in the water, the impact slightly broken by his burned wings.

Looking back, Sharif saw that, though stunned, Raathun was not dead. He had, however, landed in the midst of the blood-maddened sharks the merlons had brought to the battlefield. The aeglor thrashed in the water, trying to straighten his wings and remain afloat. From his flying carpet, Sharif saw the sharks circle in. Raathun noticed them as well and shouted to the merlon king, demanding help.

No one listened.

The sharks, unable to distinguish between friend or foe, thinking only of gorging themselves in a feast, dove in and tore at the winged man. Sharif caught a last glimpse of the king of the aeglors, still thrashing, sinking beneath the waves in a cloud of red water.

32

THE LAST OF THE flying piranhas had been driven away or killed. The
Thunder Shield
had barely survived, its sails in tatters, its hull and deck damaged. But Vir Questas ordered the fleet forward on their attack. Several of the dripping, rotten ghost ships had been returned to their watery graves. Gwen had seen Vic and Tiaret open a new crystal door that swallowed up the largest of the attacking merlon creatures, but the fanatical King Barak did not retreat. He screamed for his merlons to fight to the death for their cause, though he himself hung back on his towering sea serpent next to an increasingly agitated Goldskin.

From the algae-covered prow of the
Golden Walrus,
the hideously disfigured Orpheon cast spells and ordered the launch of more deadly lavaja projectiles. Gwen wondered how many he could possibly still have in the cargo hold of the once-sunken ship. Ulbar and his merlon rebels continued to fight. Orcas engaged the sharks that were goaded by Barak and his followers.

Skimming the waves on wide-winged jhantas, Ulbar and several others did battle with the nearest plesiosaur, tossing their horn-tipped spears into the monster’s curved neck. Having seen djinnis overhead and the decimation of the enemy merlon soldiers below, Gwen hoped the tide of battle was indeed turning in their favor.

Another group of allies appeared and joined Ulbar and his rebels. Gwen looked down to see dozens of small bubletts, domed undersea craft that carried anemonites who had been freed from Barak’s weapons labs. Waves of other anemonites also arrived riding giant lobsterlike kraega steeds. Though much smaller than any merlon, the anemonites and their kraegas were formidable in their numbers. They carried small weapons like tiny javelins, and quickly took on the remaining merlons, killing many. Scattering as the merlons fought back, the anemonites reconverged and continued to press against their aquatic enemies.

Questas ordered their galley forward, intent on ramming the
Golden Walrus,
but Gwen had another idea. “Do we still have some of Sage Groxas’s sky fireworks aboard?”

“Yes, Gwenya, two casks.”

“I think we should try launching them at the
Walrus,
strike its hull.”

“Very well. It should cause some damage,” Vir Questas agreed, quickly sending a neosage to fetch the small barrels filled with the special chemicals Groxas had created.

But Gwen was confident. “I think it’ll cause more than just a little damage. Remember, Orpheon’s got dozens of lavaja bombs in there.”

“Ah.” The Vir’s eyes brightened.

“And if we ignite one of them, we ignite them all,” Gwen finished.

Questas nodded. “Yes, that is much preferable to ramming the wreck.”

Orpheon stood gesticulating wildly, summoning up spells, rallying the merlons who accompanied him aboard the ghost ship. One more lavaja projectile spat into the air, arcing high and sweeping downward until it smashed into a storehouse on Elantya, exploded, and brought the building down, setting it on fire.

“Hurry!” Gwen said. “We have little time.”

She and the neosage worked with the launcher, and changed the aim point so that the cask would fly directly toward the
Golden Walrus.
When Questas gave them a nod, they activated the ignition rune painted on the small barrel. As smoke and sparks began to sizzle, they launched the canister. It flew in a perfect arc toward the
Golden Walrus.

Orpheon saw it hurtling toward the side of his ship, down by the cargo hold. Even from their distance, Gwen thought she could see the waxy, lumpy skin around his eyes stretch outward in astonishment. His mouth formed an O, before the canister struck and exploded.

For the briefest of instants, all that happened was some splintering of wet wood. Then the real detonations began. The lavaja bombs split open and, in a surge of violently released heat and light, triggered other explosions. And more . . . and more. The
Golden Walrus
erupted in an incredible burst of flame. At the last instant, Gwen saw the misshapen Orpheon alter his appearance, transform his body.

She remembered how, when they had pursued him on Elantya, Rubicas’s traitorous assistant had reached a cliff and transformed into the shape of a merlon before diving off the rocks into the crashing waves below. Now his body sprouted wings — stunted batlike appendages, but strong enough to lift him off the deck. He flapped furiously, rising into the air as the
Golden Walrus
continued to explode and burn.

“He’s flying to Irrakesh. He’ll get away.” Gwen bit the edge of her lower lip. “Then again, if falling into deep lavaja wasn’t enough to kill him, an exploding ship couldn’t have done it.” She watched the shape-shifter work his way up toward the city with his stunted wings.

Seeing the last of his enormous ghost ships destroyed, having watched three battle krakens and many of his sea serpents vanish through a crystal door, King Barak was livid, practically foaming at the mouth as he screamed to his merlons to continue fighting. “Fight together. I am your
king.
I command you to destroy these land-dwellers.”

But Ulbar and his rebels now significantly outnumbered Barak’s fighters. Goldskin, his last general, was with the king, but they had few armies left to command. The female merlon general surveyed the rebels and the fighting Elantyans. She seemed unimpressed by Barak’s management of his forces or by the supposed power of Azric in the sky overhead. Knowing Goldskin’s bloodthirsty temperament, Gwen kept an eye on the vicious merlon general. She and Tiaret had fought her in a demonstration of weapons prowess underneath the sea.

Gwen also knew that Goldskin was ambitious and would have no particular loyalty to Barak, especially when his great schemes were failing. Barak practically shrieked now, so furious that his words were incomprehensible. Goldskin lifted her pointed trident and let her sea serpent drop back slightly from the crazed king’s. Gwen gasped. Barak suspected nothing.

Thrusting her trident forward, Goldskin skewered the maddened king from behind and lifted the shaft of her trident, holding the squirming Barak up in the air. “I have killed the one who corrupted us,” she shouted, her words directed mainly toward Ulbar and his rebels. “I have saved us — we need no longer continue this useless fighting.”

The leopard-spotted sea serpent, now free of the relentless goading of the merlon king, twisted its long neck around and opened its jaws to snap at its tormentor. Goldskin was only too happy to oblige. While Barak still twitched and cursed, she thrust her trident, along with its squirming victim, into the sea serpent’s yawning mouth. The serpent snapped its jaws shut, disposing of the trident shaft and Barak all in one gulp. It tossed its head, opening its gullet, and a large lump made its way down the scaly throat.

Goldskin cried out to all the merlons, “I am now the leader of Barak’s army. The fighting is over.”

The rebel merlons circled the confused attackers, who had endured enormous losses, seen their titanic monsters defeated, and then watched the assassination of their king. They didn’t know what to do. Ulbar’s rebels surrounded and disarmed them. Within moments, all the fighting in the ocean was over.

Gwen crossed her arms and said, “I don’t believe Goldskin has really had a change of heart, but she does understand how to survive. In other words, she saw which way the wind was blowing and decided this was her best chance to live until the end of the day. Still, I’m not about to complain.” She found she couldn’t stop grinning.

Vir Questas turned the war galley and they headed toward the harbor, where a triumphant Vic, Tiaret, and Lyssandra were waiting.

33

BY THE TIME THE five companions came together again with the merlons entirely defeated and the terodax and aeglors nearly wiped out, they knew it was up to them to fight Azric. Ven Rubicas, the surviving Virs, and Dr. Pierce rushed down to the harbor to help the injured and assess the damage. On a hill overlooking the harbor, Vic quickly described their adventures to Gwen and Sharif, complimenting Tiaret and Lyssandra. The girl from Afirik agreed that they had all fought bravely. Knowing that time was short, the friends discussed their ideas on how to defeat Azric.

Looking up at Irrakesh, Sharif was the first to point out that it was moving. “Azric is pushing the city forward.”

Piri streaked around them, glowing orange with agitation. As Irrakesh glided through the air, it seemed to rumble. Vic half expected to hear powerful thrumming engines driving the mountainous island along. Irrakesh glided the rest of the way through the crystal door. The rear fringe of its rocky perimeter passed out into the sky so that the uprooted metropolis cast a shadow over all of Elantya.

“I don’t like this at all,” Gwen said.

“Sheesh, that’s an understatement,” Vic agreed.

Sharif unrolled his flying carpet. “I believe Azric is about to do something terrible. We must stop him.”

“With Orpheon at his side again, he will be more confident,” Lyssandra said.

“And ruthless,” Tiaret added.

Vic didn’t want to imagine what would be worse than the terrible damage the dark sage had already inflicted upon the island, but he knew Azric would come up with something. Sharif jumped onto his purple carpet.

Vic spread out the larger carpet that had belonged to the Sultan. “We’re in this together. If you’re going to fight Azric and Orpheon, I’m coming with you.”

Gwen climbed on beside Sharif. “We all have to.”

“We are the Ring of Might for a reason,” Tiaret said, joining Vic on the larger carpet. “We are the five. We must fight together and find new ways to use our powers, as Lyssandra said.”