Брайан Макклеллан - Wrath of Empire

Her attention was pulled away by the sight of a group coming up from Yellow Creek. She didn’t have to sniff powder to pick out the people in attendance: Taniel, Olem, Burt, Prime Lektor, and Julene, accompanied by several of Flerring’s assistants. They joined Vlora and Flerring within a few minutes, and it quickly became clear that they’d been arguing for some time.

“It won’t work,” Prime Lektor said with a huff. “The powder of the combined Predeii couldn’t crack one of those things two thousand years ago. Some damned gelled explosive won’t do it, either.”

Julene stood beside him, looking sullen and uninterested. She waved one of her bronze hands under Prime’s nose. “Four of you together couldn’t kill me, either. Then along came Kresimir and cut off my hands without breaking a sweat.”

“That’s different,” Prime insisted. “That’s powerful sorcery – the same kind of sorcery that’s involved here. It only proves my point.”

“And you’ve missed hers entirely,” Taniel said quietly, rolling his eyes, “which is that nothing can be taken for granted.”

Prime turned on Taniel, sizing him up for a moment in undignified silence. If anything, Taniel himself was living proof of that very statement. Vlora could see Prime swallow a pithy reply, and took more than a little amusement by the fact that Taniel could keep someone like Prime in check. “ You think this is going to work?”

“I have no idea,” Taniel replied. “I can certainly hope.”

“Hope is worth nothing. We must plan –”

“We’ve planned,” Vlora finally cut in, “as much as we possibly can. All we need is for you to do your part if the moment calls for it. Can we trust you to do so?”

Prime drew himself up. “I will do my part.”

“The same way you stood up to Kresimir after he returned?” Julene scoffed.

Burt circled around the group and came up to Vlora’s side, giving the others a skeptical look. “You’re sure these are ancient sorcerers?” he asked quietly.

“I’m sure,” Vlora replied.

“They’ve been complaining and squabbling like children since the moment I met them.”

“They’re just like that,” Taniel said, turning his back on Prime and Julene. “The more you get to know the most powerful people in the world, the more you realize they’re just that – powerful people . If it makes you feel any better, Kresimir was worse than either of them.”

“No,” Burt said. “That does not make me feel better.”

Flerring continued to scratch her arms, looking more and more perplexed. “It’s going to work,” she repeated, with somewhat less confidence than before. She stared at Prime and Julene while she talked, clearly more uncomfortable with their presence than with even the obelisk she planned on destroying. “We’re going to turn that thing to dust, then we’re going to hightail it out of this city before the Dynize can catch up.”

Vlora put a hand on Flerring’s shoulder. “Just tell us when to watch.”

“Just a few more minutes, it looks like,” Flerring said. “My boys are triple-checking the detonators, and we’ll be ready to go.”

Vlora couldn’t help the thumping of her heart and hoped that her anxiety didn’t show on her face. What if Prime was right? What if it proved impossible to move the stone, and then he fled instead of hiding the stone from the Dynize? If the stone fell into Dynize hands, they would have possession of two of the three. She didn’t know exactly how bad that would be, but there was a dark fear in the pit of her stomach that told her it would be catastrophic.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Flerring suddenly growing very still, staring across the valley, then waving back at someone. “We’re ready,” she announced.

Prime and Julene immediately ceased their bickering, and the group fell out into a line, watching curiously, until Flerring motioned to them. “You, uh, should probably all get behind those rocks,” she told them.

“We’re awfully far away,” Taniel said doubtfully.

Burt was already following Flerring toward some boulders, and Vlora and Olem were right behind her. “Trust me,” Vlora told him. “If Flerring says to duck, then we duck.”

Within a few moments they were all situated under the cover of a pair of boulders, peeking out cautiously toward the godstone. Vlora turned her attention toward two of Flerring’s assistants, who were still within throwing distance of the stone. They were, she realized, following a long cord down to the outlet of the valley before taking refuge clear around the other side of the rock faces that guarded the entrance to the vale. Vlora took a small hit of powder, watching carefully for a few tense moments before a bright flash suddenly flared from the assistants’ hiding spot.

The flash whipped along the ground with astonishing speed, following the cord up toward the godstone. It sped across the valley, then up the path. The explosions were nothing like the eruption of gunpowder. Instead of a boom followed by inky smoke, there was an ear-shattering crack. As Flerring had warned, there were seven distinct explosions. They happened so closely to one another that even Vlora’s sorcery-enhanced senses could barely tell them apart. Dust was sent in every direction, allowing Vlora to follow the force of the explosion across the valley as rocks scattered and leaves were blown off trees. She grabbed Olem and pulled him down with her, hiding behind the boulder while the entire side of the valley was peppered with stones thrown over a half mile away. A rock the size of her head struck just a few yards behind them, smoking from the blast.

“Holy shit,” Burt said.

Vlora lifted her head to peer through the haze, trying to see what had happened to the godstone. As the air began to clear, she felt her heart fall. “Nothing happened,” she said.

Beside her, Taniel was also squinting toward the godstone. He shook his head and suddenly lifted himself up and over the boulder, taking off at a run. Vlora was about to let him go when she saw what he must have seen – something had happened. Without a word to the others, she took off after him.

The whole group was gathered around the stone within ten minutes. Vlora walked around and around it, unable to stop grinning like an idiot.

The obelisk had been shattered into three distinct pieces. The smallest was the cap – a pyramid-shaped stone around four feet in diameter. The rest of the stone had broken in half, lengthwise, and the pieces now rested with about a two-inch gap between them.

Flerring slapped her hand victoriously on the capstone. “Ancient sorcery, meet modern science.”

Prime Lektor stood back about twenty paces, staring at the godstone with a mix of fascination and horror, as if expecting the stone to reassemble itself at any moment. He seemed at a loss for words until Flerring spoke, to which he replied, “It’s not exactly dust.”

“It cracked along the seams,” Flerring said, tracing her fingers along the break between the two halves of the main obelisk. “Just as planned. There were two deep grooves cut along fault lines in the rock, and we focused most of the explosion there.” She tapped a section of the capstone where a large area of writing had been replaced by a spiraling fracture, much like glass in a window that had been shattered without falling from the pane. “It’s true, all that oil should have turned this thing to dust. But considering how you were talking about that sorcery, I think we did pretty good.”

Slowly, Vlora felt her smile fade. She took a step toward the stone and gently laid a hand on the surface. She felt a pulse, like the beating of a heart, touching her from the Else. It was an unpleasant feeling and she immediately wanted to wipe her hand off and leave this place at once. She forced calm. “I can still sense the sorcery of the thing.”