Cory Herndon - The Fifth Dawn

They could not, so that was a futile train of thought. Raksha crouched and leaped from the lookout tower to the worn path atop the wall and landed silently next to his cousin. The top of the wall was a flurry of leonin warriors and a few goblin soldiers scrambling to ready the siege defenses.

“What did you see, my Kha?” Yshkar asked. “How long before they’re over the wall?”

“At the rate they’re piling up, we have no more than a few hours,” Raksha sighed. “We had to see it for ourselves. The scouts are right. There really is no end to them.”

“What of the construct armies?” Yshkar asked. “Why have we not seen them?”

“Aerophins circle on the horizon,” Raksha replied. “The levelers-”

Raksha was cut short by a crash of thunder that shook the wall beneath his feet. He grabbed the edge to steady himself, and caught Yshkar’s arm before his cousin tumbled onto the nim below. The two of them pulled themselves over the lip of the wall to see where the explosion had come from.

Thick black smoke stung his disbelieving eyes. Three gargantuan six-legged silver constructs had emerged from beneath the infinite carpet of nim that covered the Glimmervoid all around them. Each construct’s central body consisted of a huge globular power source that glowed an eerie blue through the haze. Their “heads” were massive cylinders, one of which was belching a misty blue fog.

Yshkar gasped, military formality lost in shock. “What in the name of Dakan are those?”

“Something new,” Raksha snarled. “It appears that only one has fired. We must expect another volley.”

“My Kha, you should let me take command of the defenses and get to the throne room.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Yshkar,” Raksha said. “You’ve been listening to that elf girl too much. Our place is here with you. If we are to die we shall do it as the Kha, and our enemies shall regret the day they-”

Another cannon-construct fired at that moment, sending a house-sized ball of blazing blue energy into the wall below them. Before Raksha could react, a whole section of Taj Nar crumbled beneath his feet and gave way.

“My Kha!” Yshkar bellowed.

Raksha plummeted into the pit that had just opened beneath him.

The Kha barely heard his cousin. He dropped through floor after floor as an entire section of Taj Nar gave way, but fortunately he collided with several outcroppings on the way down that slowed his fall. Raksha landed with a crack of broken armor on a rough metal floor, and after a few seconds managed to scramble to cover beneath a stable block of rubble that had once formed part of the lookout tower upon which he’d recently stood.

The cave in continued for almost a minute, forcing Raksha to cover his ears as several tons of metal crashed down all around him. Only the overhanging block he’d chosen as cover kept the leonin from being crushed as the rain of debris poured in.

Raksha wiped iron dust from his eyes and took stock. He’d fallen all the way to a basement sublevel, which until recently served as the royal army but had been converted to temporary barracks only a week before. The main wall still stood, down here at least, and he could see sky far above. Light streamed into the dusty air above through two large holes that had been blasted through its side, but otherwise the main exterior wall had held almost all the way to top. The interior of Taj Nar was less well protected, and too many supports had been destroyed to hold up the weight where Raksha had been standing. He was extremely lucky.

Damnably lucky, for he feared he was about to see the end of his people. If Taj Nar fell, where else could they go? Krark-Home?

Raksha crawled out from his refuge and searched vainly for some path through the wreckage, a way to get out of this hole. As the haze cleared, the outlines of over a dozen leonin bodies littered the ground all around him, and he offered a bitter prayer for the dead.

From the corner of his eye, the leonin spotted movement in the rubble.

“Raksha!” Lyese called. “My leg’s pinned. Can you help me?”

“Don’t move!” he shouted. “We’re on our way!” Maybe he hadn’t been able to save Glissa from Memnarch. Maybe this really was the end of Taj Nar. But as long as he lived, so would Glissa’s sister-he owed his lost friend that much. With as much caution as Raksha could spare, he navigated the maze of debris and death to the elf girl’s side.

Lyese’s leg was stuck beneath a rectangular chunk of inner wall and tangled in a mess of support cables. The elf girl sat upright, her back pressed up against a round hunk of debris that looked like something that might have been left over from the old armory. Her face bore a few minor cuts, but Lyese appeared more or less unharmed. Raksha dropped to one knee to get a closer look at her leg.

“It does not appear broken. Are you bleeding?” Raksha asked.

“I don’t think so,” the elf girl gasped. “I think it’s … ow … I think it’s just stuck. If you could pull on it-gently-I think I might be able to wriggle free.”

“Of course,” Raksha said. He dropped onto his belly, draping himself uncomfortably across the elf girl’s body, and reached in to take hold of Lyese’s leg. “Let us know when you’re ready, and we will pull together.”

“Ready,” Lyese said, and brought the knee of her free leg up into Raksha’s belly.

He gasped as the air left his lungs and his ribs cracked. The leonin brought himself up to all fours with an agonizing effort and fought back his gorge.

“What in the name of-?” Raksha coughed.

Lyese easily slipped her leg free of the cabling and leaped to her feet. She followed with a sharp-toed boot to Raksha’s gut. He spat up silvery red blood and flopped onto his side, clutching his belly, and was unable to avoid yet another kick that caught him behind the ear. The sky above spun lazily, and the leonin fought the urge to pass out.

“Raksha, Raksha, Raksha …” Lyese said, driving a boot into his side with each repitition. “You’re not supposed to be here. You were supposed to die up there, with Yshkar. You really should have done that.”

“What are you talking about?” Raksha croaked. “What are you doing?”

“My job, your Kha-ness,” Lyese replied. Keeping one eye on the leonin, she backed over to the metal ball she’d been leaning against when she was “trapped” and crouched over the strange object, which Raksha could now see bore ancient carvings that looked vedalken. Two blue crystals mounted on top of the artifact began to glow and a low hum struck the leonin’s sensitive ears. “Sorry you had to find me,” the elf added. “You’re not going to be as easy to cow as that fool Dwugget, or as easy to seduce as your idiot cousin. And you know what that means, my Kha. I get to kill you personally.”

“Lyese, why?” Raksha whispered. “Glissa would-”

Lyese laughed, a cold, tinny sound unlike anything Raksha had ever heard. When next she spoke, her voice changed. The tones of the young elf girl he knew were underlaid with a low, masculine baritone that filled the air all around the leonin’s head.

“Who are you?” Raksha whispered.

“Ah, he figured it out,” the Lyese-thing sneered, and gave him another kick. “You should have gone along with the Vulshok, cat-man. You’d still have your elf girl, and your precious palace would still be in one piece. Of course, you would still be dead, but what is the life of a Kha compared to those of his subjects?” The false Lyese tapped out a pattern on the glowing artifact and stood, apparently satisfied.

“Release the girl,” Raksha coughed. “Or I will kill you whoever you look like.”

“Idiot. Leonin, the girl is right here. She’s terrified, let me tell you. I’m going to enjoy consuming her mind when I move on.”