Michael Stackpole - The New World

Phoyn Jatan laughed with that dry rattle so common among the ancient. “Has my lord never understood that looks can be deceiving?”

“How am I deceived? You are three. I have many. You might think me deceived, but I have no fear of your killing me.”

My master, small and shrunken, shook his head. “You are not deceived, for I did not come to kill you.” He pointed his staff at the wooden gyanrigot. “I came to kill them.”

I reached his side. “Master, you don’t need to do this.”

He looked up and his hat slipped back. He smiled, his eyes youthful despite his craggy face. “Will you tell me to obey my master?”

“You have none, Phoyn Jatan.”

“But I acknowledge one. You denied me a chance to fight for our empress long ago. Will you do so now?”

A lump caught in my throat. I shook my head.

He unlaced his hat and handed it to me, then shrugged off his blanket. Beneath he wore brilliant golden robes with a coiled dragon in black. Below it rested the Imperial crown. A side from the gauntlets, however, he wore no armor, and he bore no swords.

“You cannot go into combat without arms and armor.”

He raised his voice, directing his comment at the enemy. “Were I fighting Men, I would be dressed as a warrior. These are wooden soldiers, thus I shall be a woodcutter.”

Count Vroan raised a hand, forestalling the gyanrigot advance. “You realize your valor will not save your student?”

“I have no fear for the welfare of my students.” Phoyn smiled at me. “Do you think this courtyard enough of a circle?”

“Yes, Master.” I backed away. A few of Vroan’s men likewise moved back. Word spread through the army, and they withdrew to the courtyard’s edge. They all wanted to watch a Mystic battle the war machines, but none wanted to be caught in the magic.

I handed the hat and blanket to Dunos. “Keep the women and children close. You’ll guide them to the bridge when the time comes.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“I’ll be right behind you, I promise.”

Phoyn Jatan kept the fountain at his back. One of the wooden mantises came forward to oppose him. My master did him the honor of assuming the fourth mantis position, raising the staff to shoulder height and grasping it in both hands.

The wooden machine dwarfed him, mandibles clacking. Its arms ended in the insect’s crushing claws. Limbs had been sharpened and festooned with spikes that could easily impale a man.

Phoyn Jatan remained undaunted. He bowed to his foe, took a mandible-clack as a suitable reply, and began slowly spinning the staff. The motion began clumsily, as one would expect of an old man with stiff joints and atrophied muscles, but as the staff moved more quickly, the motion became fluid. The golden-hued staff blurred into a circle. The air hummed. A golden nimbus surrounded my master. Jaedun surged.

The mantis drew back a half step, almost crushing a hapless Ixunite, then stabbed a claw forward. Phoyn shifted the spin, angling the staff up, as if to parry. The idea that he could succeed defied logic-the staff was a twig deflecting a battering ram. Staff struck claw with a terrible crack. Splinters flew. Two huge chunks of claw bounced past me. My master stood unaffected as the small sawdust cloud settled in a open circle around him.

The mantis pulled back and examined its arm. The ragged stump gave the warrior pause for a heartbeat, then it struck again. It raised the stump as a club and swung hard, intending to pound my master into paste.

Cobblestones shattered under the assault. Count Vroan fell. I went to a knee. Master Jatan did not falter. He leaped forward. The staff whirled left, then shot out to its full length. The knob hit the mantis’ elbow.

Gold fire surged. The limb exploded like a lightning-struck tree. Ixunite warriors reeled away, bristling with splinters. The forearm bounced free, crushing two others.

Master Jatan stepped forward, moving almost too swiftly. Golden flame wreathed him. The staff lashed out to the right, then left. The mantis’ legs disintegrated. More lethal splinters flew.

The mantis, unbalanced and broken, flopped onto its belly. The impact knocked me flying. Its left arm flicked out, crushing the fountain’s basin. Water gushed like blood.

Master Jatan whirled and raised his staff for an overhand blow. He smashed the stick down, catching the mantis at the base of its spine.

The crack came as crisp as that of a well-seasoned log caught beneath a woodsman’s ax. The wood parted just as easily, splitting from pelvis to crown. What had previously been a seamless wooden construct collapsed into a collection of boards and pegs.

And somewhere within its midst, the warrior who had piloted it was crushed by the weight.

The second mantis darted forward, snatching Phoyn Jatan up in its right claw, plucking the staff away with the left. Contemptuously, it snapped the staff, then raised my master toward the sky. The claw contracted, all but cutting Phoyn Jatan in two.

Even his death did not matter. The fire of jaedun gushed down along the wooden arm. It splashed over the body. Droplets spattered thighs and feet. The wooden war machine smoldered for a moment, then exploded in fire. It burned brilliantly for a heartbeat, then imploded into a cloud of fine black ash that choked the courtyard.

And, swords bared, I strode into that cloud.

Keles backed away from the monster. “You expect me to serve a man who condones my mother’s murder?”

“You’re a grown man. You’re well rid of your mother.” The monster smiled. “You will be compensated.”

Keles’ eyes blazed. “You murdered my mother! How could anything compensate for her death?”

“Get away from him, Keles!” Tyressa burst through the tzaden vines and drove at the monster. Her spear whirled in a great arc. The monster tried to parry, but she slipped the head beneath his sheathed sword and brought it up in a slice. The blade quivered and carved metal from its pelvis. Had the monster been anything but a living skeleton, that single blow would have left him kneeling in his own intestines.

The monster’s tentacles lashed out. She ducked one, but the other caught her right ankle. The monster yanked, pulling her down before the spearhead swept through the tentacle. It parted with a ping. Metal rings flew. Tyressa leaped back, kicking the tentacle from her ankle.

The monster bared both of his swords and bore in on her. Tyressa dodged right and left, letting the swords strike sparks from statuary and paving stones. She lunged, snapping a rib, then ducked beneath a tentacle. She favored her right ankle, but moved quickly enough that the monster couldn’t touch her.

“Keles, go. Flee.”

“No, Tyressa, get away from him.” Keles’ flesh had already begun to tingle from the magic pouring from them. He focused on that, working past the shock of his mother’s death. “Go! I will save you.”

The monster’s tentacle snaked out and snapped against Tyressa’s left thigh. It dented the armor plates and knocked her back. She planted her right foot to steady herself, but her ankle broke. The Keru went down awkwardly, her right ankle twisted beneath her. Her spear came up to bat away one sword.

But the other blade passed beneath her desperate parry. Nelesquin’s monster stabbed straight down, piercing the breastplate and punching out past her spine. The blow drove her back hard against the ground and the blade sank to a third of its length in the earth.

“Tyressa!” Keles crashed to his knees. He couldn’t breathe. Tyressa writhed around the sword and pain twisted through his guts. She can’t die. She can’t.

The monster turned, his face a snarl. “No more games, Keles Anturasi, you’re coming with me.”

The black cloud parted. I stood above Count Linel Vroan. The family crest had bubbled and peeled off his armor. The same thing had happened with much of his face. The fire had blinded him, but he didn’t need eyes to know who I was.