Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone (18 page)

The darkness thundered to life. Fists flew into the air, blasters were raised, roaring and riotous pushing ensued in comradery with the fantoms by their sides. The Zohr held out a clawed hand and the silence returned.

"Our enemy will be perished for their crimes!" the Zohr cried, animated and full of hate, stirring the roars of his soldiers. His vigour grew, shouting with all of his greatness, speaking evil as much with his eyes as he did with his tongue. "The sound of death will be heard across Enterra one last time. Destroy everything!"

The fantoms' cries cut through Calyx's body like a million poisonous needles jabbing through his eardrums. He was frozen to the spot. The words which the Zohr so eloquently spoke were a blur to Calyx, his mind numbed with the sights and sounds of the fantom army. This was it, he thought; the battle for the power was here.

The Zohr calmed from his passionate speech, finishing with a softer touch. "Go—have fun my children!"

A moment of digestion for the beginning of war dominoed through the minds of the fantoms with the sound waves of the Zohr's final words. They turned and ran. Trees rushed past the army. The soldiers trod through the underbrush of thickets as if they were nothing more than the silk of a web. A short distance away, and all too unaware, the city of Enterra slept in a peaceful dream while its darkest nightmares approached.

Calyx regained his composure. "Oreaus, you will lose this fight!" he vowed, moving in front of the Zohr.

"I have nothing to lose, young prince," the Zohr told him. "But your father does!" he said, with a slowing scornfulness.

Calyx lunged to feel his hands grip the throat of the black-cloaked monster. Mutus moved quickly, holding him back before he got close. Calyx shook off Mutus's hands and composed himself.

"Join us, Calyx, take Willow for your heart!" the Zohr offered, with genuine meaning.

Calyx struggled between confusion, anger and questions in his mind. Would the Zohr and his slave army overcome his people as they intended? Would his father destroy them with the stone, or would the Elementis fall into the grand Maven's hands? The offer of a new life for Calyx was gifted to him here and now by the most powerful man in existence next to his father. How could he accept? He stayed silent.

The Zohr drove deep into the boys thoughts. "You cannot resist me forever. Join us and once this war is won you will live on while the people that abandoned you burn with the stars."

Calyx looked back at the stampeding migration of the soldiers; their numbers were so great. Had his father really abandoned him? he asked himself. The king had a new son now. Maybe he no longer needed Calyx. An entire life dedicated to one task and he was forgotten about in a heartbeat. He kept his silence. His soul was empty. He didn't know what he wanted anymore.

"Think about it while your father falls at my feet," the Zohr said, with a curt lip as Mutus handed Calyx to two fantoms who began to drag the boy away.

Not knowing what else he could do, Calyx closed his eyes, recalling the image of millions of dust-stirring fantoms and he spoke to his brother for the first time. "Jonas! Jonas!" he called out with his mind, finishing his first transmission to his brother with just four words, "the battle has begun!"

Calyx's vision travelled out from where he stood, through space and time and darkness and light, and in the flash of a synapse his words and images filled Jonas with a chill so cold that his heart stopped beating and his lungs stopped breathing. His eyes shot open from his deep sleep on the branch of his tree bed. "Calyx!" he screamed, in a missed breath. "Father!" he said, as his thoughts absorbed the reality of the visions.

His eyes trembled with the same fear that his brother had felt when he had seen the soldiers in the flesh. Jonas swung down to a lower branch, falling gracefully through the tree until he planted his feet on the ground. His adrenaline carried his legs back across the meadow and into the trees and through a stream that tried to suck his leg in, wetting and filling his boots with a clay-like mud. The heaviness of the muddy water only spurred him to run faster.

The fantoms drilled their way through the forest of Andawan, pressing closer to war with every pacing footstep. The metal hearts of the dydrid beat in rhythm with their marching run. The rising building tops of Enterra came into view and the soldiers powered up their internal targeting screens beneath their anonymous red visors.

Jonas ran on, faster and faster to return to the academy. He dodged through fields of fungus-shrooms twice his size that snapped at him with sticky-lizard tongues. He leaped over water holes dotted around the swampy floor, gliding through the air as if he were flying, his feet barely touching the ground.

Calyx was thrown back into his quarters. He rushed to his balcony, clamping his eyes on the distant silhouetted buildings of Enterra that glistened in the early morning light. His eyes moved towards a wave of shadows creeping towards the city under the cover of the trees. Calyx was helpless, he hoped his father was ready to defend the city. The Elementis would be called upon this day; the Zohr must not win this war. Calyx heard thunder above him. Looking up, his mirrored eyes reflected an army in the skies. The jagged wings of the shadow-walkers, dwarfed by the heavy bodies of mammoth bombers blocked out the fresh blue sky of Aquilla. The sound rumbled through his feet. The air around him shook with the power of the crafts which flew towards the unknowing city of Enterra. Calyx only hoped that Jonas had received his message. He heard nothing in return, but if his vision had been received then Jonas would at least be able to warn the king. They would then be prepared for what was coming; they would be lining the walls of Enterra with heavy defences and the Guard might just stand a chance fighting against the strength of the fantoms.

The infantry of the dydrid frontline stretched the entire width of the ill-fated city, standing thousands of soldiers deep. Now, only a few hundred paces from the embankments of Enterra, the Zohr commanded by thought that every fantom take a knee. He issued a command for complete silence. Millions of soldiers crouched and waited in the darkness of the trees as the animals of the forest called and screeched with morning songs, waking to greet the rising day.

*

Witakker lay in his bed. His chest rose and fell with breaths as peaceful as a lapping shore. The bristles of his beard warmed his face against the softness of his pillow and his dreams curled his lips into a smile as he slept. His eyes shot open, adjusting to the dim dawn light that filtered through a set of old brown curtains. He sat up and listened to the still air. A faint hum made its way into his ears, he listened on. The hum became a buzz. The buzz became a roar. Witakker placed his hands on the mattress of his bed as the vibrations tickled his palms. The roar grew. Witakker stepped out of his bed and felt his body shake with the room around him.

King Uly felt the shaking too. He propped himself up in his bed knowing exactly what was causing the ruckus. Hawk and Wingrise ran into his quarters. "What orders, Uly?" said Hawk, with a pressing urgency.

The king looked at his commanding protector with blood rushing through his puffy blue eyes. "Finish this war—we fight to the death!" he said with passion oozing from his words.

"It's about time we had some action around here!" Wingrise delighted, with an impatient wanting to face the dydrid.

Hawk smiled at the king, the directness of the order gave him comfort and faith in his leader. For such a long time now the Guard have wanted a proper fight, the Zohr had been too quiet for too long. The waiting was over.

Sirens sounded across every Guard station in Enterra. The soldiers hurried into their armour suits, raiding the armoury and rushing to their posts high in the defensive walls of Enterra and throughout the city.

The Zohr held his head up looking towards the sky. The sight of his air force swarming through the clouds above him warmed his corrosive metal soul. The under carriages of the nimble shadow-walkers revealed themselves in between fleeting breaks in the foliage above.

It began. Enterra erupted in mountainous flames. Dydrid bombs tore through glass buildings, blasting holes into the ground as deep as the foundations of the city. The laser cannons of the low-flying shadows rained stings of plasma across the streets. People burned and screamed as they fled from the black evil in the skies. Waves of bombs fell. The dekapod protection was too weak to stem the attack. Deployment was too slow, with the swarming shadows taking on the cytherean fighters at a dozen to one and leaving the bombers to reign freely, pouring their bombs into the heart of the city. The dydrid air force moved deeper into the skies of Enterra. The palace was half fallen, the giant glass dome of the headquarters was partly shattered and smoke rose from the fresh wounds of war all across the city.

General Mutus stood beside the Zohr, and the fantoms knelt beside their master in silence, listening to the soft, satisfying whine of every firing laser and feeling the power of every ground-shattering explosion.

Mutus sent his thoughts to the only one he held dear, or as close to dear as he knew how to feel, "Did you escape, Willow?" he asked his daughter.

Willow weaved her way through a line of fantoms hearing the voice penetrate her skull. "Yes Father, I'm returning to Mercron."

"Be safe my child," Mutus said, looking across to the Zohr who awaited affirmation of Willow's escape. Mutus nodded once to confirm.

The Zohr had waited ten life times for this moment. It was all he had imagined since Valdoor had stolen the Elementis from his ownership all those years ago. His mind had been plagued for long enough by the time which had been lost and the power he had missed. He spoke to the minds of his fantoms, "My children—let the death begin!"

With the force of a rising ocean, the fantom army launched forward, powering through the trees and up the embankment to the stone-metal walls of their enemy's city. The heat of a million lasers melted through the defences before the army had reached the base of the wall, and the city was open for battle.

The Zohr and Mutus stood and gazed with unemotive eyes as every blood lusting soldier ran past them and into the grounds of Enterra. The very last line of soldiers ran past the figures of Mutus and his father, and they followed on after their army, stepping over the melted remains of the wall and into the city taking every step closer towards the king.

The Zohr's children had listened well. He watched on as they tore into every pore of the city's skin. The Guard held their positions, taking cover in towers and behind the remains of bombed walls and buildings. The bravest men stood out in open ground, their fingers shook, curled around the triggers of their blasters. The stress of hearing the battle come closer was too much for one soldier as the bile of his liver spouted into the transparent visor of his helmet. The fantoms invaded with venom, poisoning flesh and blood with shots of fire. Confusion took control of the Guard's. Shots as hot as starlight poured into the men. Necks were torn to one side, foreheads mutilated, skin burned with the near miss of a laser shot followed by the intense heat of fatal hits. Soldiers ran to help one another, joining the fast-growing pile of bodies that fell to the ground. Mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers fought amongst the slaughter. Wounded men stumbled, the sounds of shouting and explosions nothing but a faint dullness in their ear, from the shock of the massacre around them. Officers screamed tactics to their infantry, the tactics were useless, there was no hope against the number of fantoms that kept on coming. Calls for loved ones rang through the air as tears dropped for the last time down dying faces. What really warmed the eyes of the on looking Zohr were the cries of agony from those left half-alive, smoking from their burns and spurting blood from missing legs. For the men lying there dying, the world seemed to be alive in a different time, a time that moved much slower than real life. Their senses saw everything so clearly. Each remaining breath felt like a day. Every flash of fire that cannoned from the fantoms blasters moved through the air as fast as an autumn leaf drifted to the ground. Thoughts of happiness from their past lingered on in their mind as they savoured every last moment, and then the darkness came.

A squadron of Guard took cover behind an armoured tank, streaming helix fire into the fantoms hearts, holding the streams and burning through their armour until each fantom fell. It was clear to see from every dying soldiers fading eyes that the fantoms came quicker than they fell. The Guard's tank barricade was tossed aside by a giant of a fantom, his four arms a telling sign that a dydrified sanga dwelled beneath the black armour suit. The vulnerable men scrambled for their lives, taking laser fire to their backs and collapsing to the ground. Only three of the squadron remained alive. The approaching shadow of the dydrid-sanga, knocked them off their feet and sent them scurrying backwards, they kicked themselves along the ground in desperation to escape. A wall blocked their attempt to leave and their eyes stared at the approaching monster, waiting to be finished.

"Wait!" the Zohr commanded. "Bring them to me!"

The sanga de-energized his four sets of arm-lasers, retracting the cannons back into the gun holds on his forearms. He grabbed a hold of their necks and lifted the three men across to the Zohr, placing them on their feet in front of his master. Their bodies shivered, taking in the silver eyes of the monster before them. His long white hair added an unneeded air of evilness and his visible beating heart sent chills down the spines of the mortals standing before him.

The Zohr captured the eyes of one of the men. He didn't utter one word, and without even a thought the Zohr's very essence poured into the man's mind, filling every nerve ending with a soul of darkness. The Guard nodded once at the Zohr, and raising his gecko-blaster he pointed it at the man beside him and pulled the trigger, sending a steaming bolt into the side of his helmet and sending the man to the floor. The remaining soldier stumbled backwards, dazed with the sudden turning of his friend into enemy. The Guard assassin aimed his blaster and drove a shot into the chest plate of the soldiers armour. He fell to the floor, his face full of confusion and his heart racing with pain. Another shot flashed into his armour, and another, and another, until the Guard lying still on the floor was certainly dead. The gunman then lifted off his own helmet, pointed the barrel of the blaster between his ears and finished his life.