Robert Newcomb: Rise of the Blood Royal

Faegan nodded. “No matter how many times I witness it, I remain amazed.”

“As do I,” the princess replied.

No sooner had she spoken than lightning streaked across the sky, accompanied by thunder so loud she thought her eardrums might burst. On and on the display continued as Khristos’ many forestallments left his blood to go and find their way back into the Well of Forestallments. The wind howled, the trees shook, and the gentle waves that had once hidden Khristos and his Blood Vipers turned into swiftly moving whitecaps. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Shailiha placed one hand on Faegan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

Saying nothing, Faegan grasped her hand and nodded.

AS TRISTAN AND HOSHI’S BARGE PLUMMETED DOWNWARD, at first theJin’Sai could see nothing but snow as it rushed toward him. Soon the snowfall became so dense that it became difficult to see Hoshi, even though she stood at his side.

For a few terrifying moments Tristan wondered how the katsugai officer piloting the barge could possibly see through the blizzard, then he remembered that the warrior was a Shashidan mystic. The wind was bitter cold, and had Tristan not been so intent on wanting the barge to clear the blizzard, he would have realized that his body was trembling and his teeth chattering.

Although he couldn’t see them, Tristan knew that thousands more tataki fune were flying down the mountain slopes from every direction. Thousands more would be unloading their katsugai divisions at the north and south valley entrances to claw their way through Vespasian’s legions.

Just then the barge burst from the squall to reveal the lush valley that the Shashidans called the Tani Kinkiro. The valley was so spectacularly beautiful that Tristan forgot his fear. The rolling pastures were lush and green, the river running through the valley’s center majestic and swift. Even from such a great altitude Tristan could see gold veins glinting in the mountainsides and nuggets twinkling in the riverbed. Then he got his first glimpse of the Rustannican legions, and he gasped.

Rustannican soldiers blanketed the valley floor. Even now they were hurriedly gathering up all the gold they could steal. Vespasian’s war tents stretched for leagues toward each end of the valley. Great herds of exotic beasts could be seen hauling the purloined gold toward hundreds of whirling azure vortices. Tristan couldn’t begin to imagine how much plunder Vespasian had sent to Ellistium.

Nor could he guess why the legions had yet to notice the thousands of katsugai-laden barges that were streaking down the mountainsides, until he grasped how silent was their approach and how intently the Rustannicans toiled at their labors. But that would soon change, he knew, and he would be the catalyst of that change.

On Hoshi’s command, their pilot leveled the barge, then caused it to stop and hover about two hundred meters above the valley floor. None of the other barges was stopping, but Tristan expected this. His first salvo of the craft was to come straightaway. The goal was for Tristan to cause as much devastation to the Rustannicans as possible from above, before Vespasian guessed what was happening and responded in kind. When Tristan unleashed the first of his new powers, the Rustannicans would immediately realize that they were embroiled in a battle of unprecedented ferocity.

Hoshi turned to look at theJin’Sai and pointed toward a group of canvas tents about four hundred meters away, their tops adorned with bright red battle flags.

“There!” she shouted. “That is Vespasian’s compound! Strike there, Jin’Sai, and with all your power!”

Although Tristan knew that he must do this thing, he couldn’t escape the feeling that he was committing murder. How many unsuspecting people would die during his first attack alone? he wondered. Then another concern gripped him.

“What if Julia Idaeus is killed?” he shouted.

“That is a risk we must take!” Hoshi shouted back. “She knows the time of the attack and she promised to be near one of the hundreds of Rustannican portals when it starts! You must attack, Jin’Sai! The time is now, before they see us!”

Tristan closed his eyes, raised his arms, and called the craft. Just as Mashiro had foretold, the craft obeyed him effortlessly, and he felt its power rise in his veins. Soon hundreds of elegant spell calculations came roaring into his mind’s eye. Singling out the one that Hoshi and theInkai wished him to employ, he caused the others to vanish. Concentrating fully on the lone spell, Tristan opened his eyes and loosed the first of his wondrous gifts.

Twin beams shot from his hands, their brilliance nearly blinding. Some Rustannican legionnaires immediately noticed the bolts streaking across the heavens, and they started shouting urgent warnings to their officers. But it was already too late. Concentrating harder, Tristan called forth the second part of the spell.

Subtle matter exists everywhere, Mashiro had taught him. Like the energy of the craft, it can be gathered. But while the uses of azure beams are limited, subtle matter’s applications are many. Use it in the name of the Vigors, Jin’Sai, for only you can do so. Reclaim the Tani Kinkiro and send Vespasian’s invading legions fleeing back to Rustannica.

Despite Mashiro’s careful instruction, when Tristan looked to the sky he could scarcely believe what he saw. Near where his beams streamed, dozens of great meteors were forming from subtle matter collected by his spell. Bright azure in color and burning and revolving with the immense power of the craft, each meteor was easily one hundred meters across. As they grew in size and their surging power begged to be unleashed, Tristan quickly pointed one arm downward, sending the first of them plummeting straight toward Vespasian’s command post.

The monstrous ball landed with a great crash, destroying everything within its sphere. Tents, legionnaires, horses, gold, great mounds of earth, all went flying hundreds of meters into the air and were vaporized. When the smoke cleared, nothing remained where the meteor landed save for a great smoldering crater.

With Tristan’s first attack the entire valley came alive. Hundreds of thousands of legionnaires stopped working and quickly formed military ranks. Bugles were urgently blown and war drums beaten. This instinctive assembly of Vespasian’s legions was just what theInkai had hoped for. As soon as the forming legions presented more compact targets, Tristan caused another meteor to come barreling down out of the sky.

The second one landed directly in their midst. Tens of thousands of legionnaires were killed on the spot, the body parts of those not instantaneously vaporized flying through the air like so many dried leaves on a stiff wind. Like the time before, when the smoke cleared there was nothing to show for the many brave soldiers who had once assembled there, save for another great crater and a quickly growing odor of burning flesh.

Tristan was about to send another meteor crashing down when Hoshi grabbed his arm, stopping him. “Wait!” she ordered. Then she pointed toward the valley floor. “Look!”

As Tristan gazed down into the valley he quickly grasped why Hoshi had ordered him to desist. Had he sent another meteor plummeting down, it would have killed as many attacking katsugai as Rustannican legionnaires. From now on his targets would be fewer because the battlefield was changing by the second, breathtaking in its vast scale and terrible in its quickening ferocity.

The thousands of Shashidan war barges had landed on the valley floor to discharge their katsugai. Screaming madly, the Shashidan warriors flooded against the still-forming Rustannican legions in mighty clashes of muscle, armor, and steel. Mystic officers on each side of the struggle soon began using the craft against each other, and the resulting carnage was stupefying.