Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 26
Then the fleshmasker grabbed her arm. Theo cried out and cast a full spread of bolts, but could only watch them be knocked aside as the Authority smashed Krikree to the ground. The impact stunned her and her weapons went flying in all directions... then he stepped on her back and used the pressure to tear off her arm.
Krikree screeched and emitted an incoherent pheromone of pain. Theo automatically stepped toward her, only to barely dodge away from another air-sundering slice.
"Did you need this for something?" The fleshmasker tossed the limb onto Krikree contemptuously. "Slescan bodies are so boring."
"Get away from her!" Theo put as much anger into his voice as he could, and it didn't take much faking. He wanted to throw himself at his opponent and rescue Krikree, but that would be falling directly into the trap. Worse, he had felt a strange surge of cantae within the fleshmasker's body and the injuries Krikree dealt seemed to be healing. If so...
Theo cast an inverted gravitational field directly above Krikree. Not a neutralizing field, or a simple doubling to pin weak opponents: he used the full extent of his power to create a single field that multiplied gravity many times. The fleshmasker actually looked shocked for a moment as he fell into the sky.
But he didn't fall so far before his Authority instincts took over and he surrounded himself with cantae. It took more energy to hover within Theo's field, but not as much as Theo exerted casting it. Concerned that his opponent would drop down onto Krikree, Theo rose into the air opposite him.
"Shielding wall?" The fleshmasker tilted his head to the side and frowned. "No, you're no Authority. You have an interesting trick, but you're a fool if you think you can stop me."
"Do I have a choice?" Theo built up cantae in both hands, mainly trying to draw his opponent's attention. Below, he could feel the young healer darting out of the barrier - brave, but stupid. In the time it took her to pull Krikree into the barrier, the fight would have already begun.
The fleshmasker flew directly toward him, as if to test his aerial ability. Theo knew he shouldn't compete there, so he remained in place and hurled several more torsion bolts from his right hand. Most were deflected, but one got past the flashing sword, nearly clipping his opponent's shoulder. His opponent only grinned and kept charging in.
Theo had his left hand at his side, working on a small singularity. He thrust it forward, directly into his opponent's chest. It caught the fleshmasker and tore into him... but Theo dropped his gravity and plummeted anyway.
An instant later, the air where he'd floated exploded in an enormous cutting technique. The fleshmasker finally stopped smiling, instead staring down at him. Though he had a significant chunk torn from his chest, the wound was already healing. That meant it was just as Theo had feared: his opponent's body was unnatural and couldn't be killed so easily.
His only hope was to drain his opponent's cantae. Fighting an Authority like that was a bad bet in the best of times. Fleeing would be the best choice, but he couldn't: the local healer had only just pulled Krikree into the barrier and begun healing her. Theo needed to keep the fleshmasker out long enough for backup to arrive.
"It's just a matter of timing." The fleshmasker grinned and raised his sword. "I'll kill you first, then wear your skin while I kill everyone inside."
There was no point answering. Theo only took a deep breath and prepared for the fight to begin in earnest.
~ ~ ~
Cloaked within her stealth technique, and agile enough to avoid most attacks, Fiyu was one of the most secure people on the battlefield. This was its own torture. As she moved around the edge of the fighting, she saw scene after scene that she was unable to change.
It wasn't simply the Strongholds fighting one another overhead. She saw a Fithan man who could have been from any House desperately crawling away from the fleshmasker and Slescan who were fighting over who would kill him. Associate Janne fought a defensive action against an Authority and multiple Rulers, trying to defend retreating Blacksilver forces. An Asplundat woman missing a leg sat clutching it and staring at the chaos of the battle.
Fiyu could have entered any of those situations and done some good. She very nearly did assist Associate Janne. But the unfortunate truth was that she only had enough strength to impact the battlefield one or two more times. Saving a few people was less important than potentially finding the demonic artifact and ending the battle early.
For most of her life, Fiyu had soulcrafted for the joy of it, because it was the path she wanted to walk. Since meeting her new companions, she had realized that she needed power to make a difference.
So far there had been no sign of the artifact or suspicious activity within the dust storms. A few fights had spilled below, but Fiyu could easily make out all those involved. But the Order of the Deepest Blue, when trying to steal the artifact, had fled straight northwest, so Fiyu was hopeful that her searches in that direction would prove more fruitful.
She needed to stop and take cover as cantae exploded from overhead and arcs of power seared across the battlefield. It seemed that Adversary Wiltur had overplayed his hand, and he struggled against the Asplundat Stronghold and their new golem. Deep within the heart of the bloodcrete, Fiyu could sense a soulcrafter writhing in agony, yet choosing to continue attacking with each moment.
What troubled her was that she had no sign of Relative Guchiro. She would not believe that he could possibly have been killed, even by the twisted Deuxan Stronghold. Now that the opponent had gone, why wasn't he able to find her?
Adversary Wiltur erupted in a globe of crimson cantae that sent his opponents falling back, but only briefly. She could feel his diaphragm struggling to draw enough breath as his body was pushed too far. A shard of stone pierced his leg and pinned him in place, and the golem charged to strike him.
Too late, Fiyu realized that it would charge through the Blacksilver defensive circle. All of the innocent Fithans who had wanted none of this war would be crushed under its enormous foot. Her senses could just identify Friend Theo as well, struggling against a fleshmasker opponent.
She automatically started to move in that direction, even though she was much too far away. And then a column of light burned inside the defensive circle.
An Authority rose from within it: not a member of any House, but one of the independent Fithans. He burned not just with his own power, but with the cantae of hundreds of others around him. Farmers and guards and other local soulcrafters, completely ignored up to that point, all gathered together their strength into a single storm that erupted from their position.
It tore through the golem's leg so violently that it threw the stone in the opposite direction. The bloodcrete mass tipped, too heavy to flail for momentum, and crashed in the opposite direction. Part of the battlefield was flattened... and Wiltur recovered, bombarding his fallen opponent with renewed strength.
Then the battle would last a little longer. It seemed that the local Authority was exhausted, but they had Friend Theo to protect them. Fiyu hurried onward to assist where she could.
Finally her senses slid over something unusual: a group of soulcrafters in the dust that appeared to be Deepest Blue soulcrafters. Fiyu flipped from her plateau to approach, making sure that her sphere didn't create a disturbance in the storm that might reveal her. It seemed that the group was arguing with itself, so she crept closer to their position.
"Where is it?" A large man entirely wrapped in some sort of sublime cloth was gesturing to the others demandingly.
"We were split up... the Asplundats knew exactly where we were, somehow."
"I'll track them down. Bombard the others."
At the wrapped figure's command, the others scurried to withdraw objects from their soulhomes. Fiyu tested the figure gingerly, wondering if it could be the leader of the Order, but her senses couldn't pierce the cloth. Well, her new senses were powerful enough to do so, but pressing any further might reveal her presence to them.
Meanwhile, the others had assembled a weapon of some sort. It appeared to be centered around a cylinder of glass, very similar to the demonic artifact. This one started empty, but the others began to feed glowing blue rocks into the cylinder. Judging from the cantae, Fiyu suspected that they intended to fire a weapon into the main battlefield.
Based on their conversation, they had lost track of the demonic artifact, so she should move on. Yet... whatever their target, the Order of the Deepest Blue did not mean well. Fiyu drew her stealth technique tight to her body and crept closer, careful to avoid their movements.
When they started to move away from the cylinder, Fiyu took the final steps with a dark blade of cantae around her hand. She cut through the glass in a clean sweep and leapt away, just before the sublime materials within exploded. Many of the Order members were sent tumbling and they began running and shouting, looking straight past her for their attackers.
Fiyu was about to make her escape when she ran into an invisible barrier. She spotted a ring of blue metal on the ground, emanating a field, and attempted to step around it. But her impact had generated attention, and suddenly the wrapped figure was lunging in her direction. He couldn't see her, but he attacked the air wildly in the region where she'd touched the barrier.
"Close the area!"
All around her, Fiyu felt the other Deepest Blue soulcrafters raise similar barriers. She tried to slip through, but they formed a complete circle before she could escape. So far none of them showed any signs of being able to see her, but some of them were throwing sublime materials onto the ground, trying to trap her. How had they deduced her form of attack so quickly?
Then the heavily wrapped soulcrafter tore away the cloth surrounding him, and Fiyu realized that she had been mistaken. It was the Authority wrapped in blue bands, his presence cloaked by the sublime cloth. Though he still bore a few minor injuries, the cloth seemed to have mostly rejuvenated him, and he unleashed a wave of cantae over the canyon floor.
Fiyu jumped over that one, but she held her breath for the next.
Chapter 26
All of his torsion bolts were deflected. His opponent burned enough cantae to completely resist all gravitational fields. His disorientation technique had no visible effect, perhaps because the fleshmasker's strange body was immune.
Just evading his opponent was wearing Theo down. If he hadn't spent so much time refining all of his enhancement chambers, he would have become physically exhausted and probably died. His opponent primarily used his sword, so he was constantly closing the distance and forcing Theo to dodge and retreat.
When he got far enough away, the fleshmasker Authority would swing his sword through the air and deliver another slicing technique. It definitely cost him more of his cantae, so Theo tried to incite it as much as possible, but that could easily be the end of him. One dislocated cut had caught the tip of his coat and cut off so much that it still hadn't repaired itself.
Theo retreated to a safer distance. Instead of following, the fleshmasker raised his sword toward the barrier and all of its inhabitants. A useful threat if Theo had been trying to flee, but he just needed a good vantage point.
In the distance the Strongholds were still fighting along with the bloodcrete golem, trading blows that would have killed Theo or his opponent. Though the golem still fought ferociously, much of its body had broken apart. The blood-like liquid oozed out to cover the holes, but Theo didn't care about that: what mattered was that the impacts had knocked fragments of bloodcrete all over the battlefield.
He raised both hands, more to distract his opponent than because he needed the gesture to cast more fields. Theo used a single field to lift all of the bloodcrete fragments into the air... and then cast mass and anti-mass points simultaneously. Their combined force sent one shard of bloodcrete directly into his opponent's shoulder.
The fleshmasker snarled and tore out the fragment: not just the stone, but part of his body as well. Theo thought he saw a glimpse of Deuxan clothes underneath the flesh, only for the hole to heal a moment later. Before his opponent could recover, Theo began doing the same to more shards.
Of course, the fleshmasker easily deflected the second and dodged aside from the third. But Theo was using fields and points of mass recklessly now, not aiming so much as creating a storm of bloodcrete. The overall system produced such chaotic results that even the Authority began to struggle to deflect all the pieces. As he kept casting, Theo dropped to one knee, then to his hands and knees, as if struggling to maintain all of the effects simultaneously.
Seeing it, the fleshmasker thrust his sword directly into the ground. A shockwave of cantae exploded from him, not only sweeping away all of the bloodcrete fragments but also rushing toward Theo.
Who promptly dropped his pretense and shot into the sky. His opponent glowered at him, but it was too late: the fleshmasker had used up a significant portion of his cantae healing from the bloodcrete and then eliminating all the rest with the shockwave. The Deuxan man still looked contemptuous, but his amusement had turned to irritation.
"No more weapons for you to use, and no allies in sight." The fleshmasker swept his sword over the empty field. "What do you have left?"
Theo cast two cantae bolts: one at his opponent's face and one at the plateau in front of him. The first was effortlessly deflected, but the second dug into the stone, throwing up rocks as it spun.
A quick application of mass and anti-mass sent several of those fragments directly into his opponent's eyes.
The fleshmasker roared in pain... and his sword swung up. Before Theo could dodge, a line of agonizing pain shot across his chest and he fell backward, trailing his own blood. Taking a blow from an Authority had nearly destroyed his defenses, and he was completely disoriented, but Theo cast gravitational fields blind to change the direction of his fall.
When he could see again, his opponent hovered in the sky, stabbing where he had been. He turned and swung again, but this time Theo was able to duck aside. The fleshmasker's eyes were bloody when he turned, yet by the time he had finished, the rock fragments fell away and the fleshmasker's eyes regenerated.
All of Theo's chest ached. If his coat hadn't borne the brunt of the impact, he might have been cut in half, and he still felt himself bleeding into his clothes. Another blow like that would finish him, so Theo retreated into the dust clouds. He was prepared to dodge while he generated his next technique, but his opponent didn't follow.
"Are you forgetting?" The fleshmasker gestured toward the Blacksilver barrier with his sword. "Do you have some advantage in there, and think you can lure me in?"
Theo didn't answer. Letting the dust cloud close around him, he gathered all his cantae between his hands.
"Or are you running away? I want your skin, but you don't think that will save them, do you? If you don't come out soon..." The sword slowly pulled back, cantae gathering along its edge. Soon another cut would slash across the barrier, and it couldn't resist for long.
So Theo pressed his hands together and tunneled his singularity directly into his opponent's body.
In the moment between his cantae appearing and the singularity truly moving, the fleshmasker leapt to the side - an Authority was simply too fast for a Ruler's cantae. But the singularity still caught his arm, brushing against part of his outer flesh. It tore away like a bloodless shroud, but the fleshmasker cried out in pain.
The next swing of the sword carried his full power behind it. An equal force would have been consumed, and Theo's singularity managed to resist for almost a second, but its cantae was simply less real than his opponent's. The Authority cut his technique in half and then turned for him, arm already regrowing.
"Fine then. I can hunt you down."
Theo slipped further into the dust storm and hoped that Fiyu or Nauda could arrive soon.
~ ~ ~
Nauda had thrown herself into chasing the fleshmasker who had stolen the artifact - it had caused too much suffering and it couldn't be allowed to escape. When she had pinned his corpse to the wall with her staff, she had been relieved. She had thought it was over.
Then she saw the demonic artifact lying between her and Homez, and she realized that it wasn't anything close.
"Surely we can negotiate this?" she said. When she stepped away from the body, Homez shifted his armor closer.
"I'm not sure we can. Not after the schemes of your tyrants have caused the loss of so many lives."
She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then leapt for the artifact. It should have worked, but Homez lurched forward faster than armor so heavy should have been able to move. He wasn't attempting to reach it - he ran at full speed and his rocky arm slammed into her face.
The impact flipped Nauda onto her back painfully, and if her bondsfungi hadn't defended her, she might have been unconscious. Homez had moved so fast he was actually further away from the artifact now... but the ground rumbled as he began to use another one of his techniques.
A shift in the earth knocked the artifact into the air, flipping back toward him. Nauda managed to jerk her staff arm up, just enough to pin it in place with her binding technique. Homez immediately reached to grasp the artifact, giving her no choice but to throw it to the side, toward the canyon wall.
If only that had destroyed it. But the artifact appeared undamaged, so Nauda struggled to pull herself back to her feet.
"I didn't know about that army," she said. "None of us did. Wiltur is a monster manipulating this for his own gain."
"I believe you, but does it matter?" Homez spoke sadly, but his armor revealed no emotion whatsoever. "That is the problem with the Ruling Cities: the choices of a few tyrants can lead to so much suffering, and they are accountable to no one. Let me take the artifact back. I promise you that we only want to discover the truth about it."
Nauda grimaced and raised her staff. "I don't think I can believe that. The Asplundat Movement is willing to use bloodcrete... or do you manufacture it? Your leaders might claim to be humble, but they can make all the same mistakes."
