Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 27
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Homez leapt at her, and she realized too late that it wasn't really an attack. One stone foot slammed into the ground, creating an explosion of stone that scattered over her, and then he reversed direction toward the artifact. This time he shielded it with his body, so Nauda had no choice but to leap after him.
She tried to hook the artifact with her staff as she passed, but Homez reached out and grasped the end. Nauda grunted as she tumbled down and her weapon was wrenched from her hands. Instead of trying to recover it, she grasped the artifact with one hand and grabbed Homez's arm with the other, attempting to throw him off balance.
He held. Not just because of his armor, but because he was stronger than her in every respect. Nauda realized the difference between them: she might have redesigned an excellent blueprint, but it hadn't been bathed in the cantae of two ascensions. She could never be as strong as a Ruler who had been pursuing an effective design from the beginning.
Stone armor headbutted her in the face the next moment, and even her bondsfungi couldn't protect her from that impact. Nauda lost her grip on the artifact as she tumbled to the ground, and when she could see again Homez stood at a distance with the artifact firmly under one arm, receding into his armor.
"I wish we could have found this together," Homez said slowly. "If we had, I truly believe that all of this could have been avoided."
"Wait." Nauda drew herself up to her knees. There was blood trickling down her face and she wasn't sure how quickly she could stand, but she might not need to. "Destroy it. That's what I was trying to do."
Homez paused and his armor stared emotionlessly toward her.
"You saw how many demons it summoned. All the Strongholds, on all sides, fought one another while it nearly caused untold damage. Do you really believe that your superiors will resist using it against their enemies?"
"I need to take it back to be examined," Homez said.
"Isn't there proof enough? Everyone saw what it did, and that proves that the Order of the Deepest Blue was wrong. This was the source of the demons. And when they had a chance to destroy it, they tried to capture it instead. So did this new army pretending to be Fithans. Games are being played with lives on both sides, and we have to stop those games."
The armor stared at her for many long heartbeats, then Homez leapt away.
Nauda knew that there was no way she could follow him. She painfully pulled herself to her feet and went to retrieve her staff. The heart throbbing within her heartoak was beginning to restore her, but it probably wouldn't matter. All she could do was limp back toward the battle and do what little she could.
~ ~ ~
A defensive column glowed within the dust storms, not to keep opponents out but to contain a battle within. Fiyu desperately flitted from one wall to another, evading the attacks flooding the air from all sides. The Order of the Deepest Blue was well-coordinated, never striking one another and slowly closing their net. One of their strongest Authorities stalked within, ready for the slightest resonance. Surrounded by so many, Fiyu could not even attempt to strike one of them.
His ward was making the correct decisions.
The circular barrier shattered as Guchiro plunged through the wall. Cantae blades took two of the Order members in the back, killing them before they were even aware he had arrived. Guchiro raised his hands and released a storm of light, knowing that his ward would leap above it.
Those who leapt with her survived. A few who stood on the other side of the barrier and thought it would protect them were torn apart. All that remained were two Rulers who had raised defensive techniques, five Archcrafters who had been swift or lucky, and the Authority. The bands around his body glowed a hot blue, but they absorbed the burst of light.
"Step away from my ward," Guchiro said as he straightened.
"Ichili." The Authority sneered at him. "This is not your fight. You should leave before you get involved with something you don't understand."
Ward Fiyu dropped her stealth technique and thrust a dark blade in his direction. "You have said untrue things about my companions," she said. "You must apologize."
Guchiro would have suppressed his smile, had it not been beneath his mask. He was proud of all the progress his ward had made, but perhaps he could have spent more time explaining communication on other worlds. Even her strange words made the Order hesitate, given the context.
Then the Authority struck. He pretended to punch for Guchiro's chest, but though it was a real attack, his true aim was to throw a fragment of blue metal to the ground. Guchiro dodged aside from both and struck out with a lance of darkness that splintered off his opponent's defenses. Another punch, another metal fragment.
Finally his opponent laid his trap: the fragments generated another field, this one binding Guchiro in place. His next punch was surrounded by an aura of cantae, aiming to take off his head. Guchiro could have broken through the bindings, but instead he reached up and caught his opponent's arm with both hands.
The Deepest Blue Authority tried to pull back, only to realize that Guchiro was at least as strong as him. Instead he pressed forward, trying to drive the cantae around his fist into his face. Guchiro held firm and met his gaze.
"Target him!" the Authority commanded. Around the battlefield, the remaining survivors forced themselves into action to bombard him with cantae and assist their leader.
Ward Fiyu moved between them like a wraith, cutting down each before they could release their techniques. They realized that she was among them and began firing, and she wove between them so that some even fired upon one another. She moved so subtly that even Guchiro's senses could only identify her in the brief moments when she connected with an opponent. All he could see of his ward were glimpses, and he was deeply proud of those glimpses.
"Fine, she's stronger than I thought." The Authority opposite him took another step, driving his fist closer and redoubling the cantae around it. "But you can't resist me for much longer."
"I wasn't trying to." Ordinarily Guchiro would not have spoken, but he knew Ward Fiyu would be listening.
While they strained against one another, he had been sliding thin tendrils of darkness along his opponent's arm. Now he made them burst outward, shattering the bands around his bicep. Guchiro stepped around his fist and struck for his throat, but the Authority leapt away with fear in his eyes.
As soon as he landed, Ward Fiyu struck him with a storm of light. Wise, since she could test his defenses without risking herself. Her attacks began heating up the band around his stomach, much more than a Ruler would ordinarily be able to affect such a refined technique.
While the Authority looked on in shock, Guchiro reached out and pinned the surviving opponents with bands of darkness. He disliked everything about this Order, so they would need to be questioned later. Then he joined in the battle alongside his ward.
When the enemy unleashed a spinning ring of metal that tore through the ground, Ward Fiyu wisely evaded entirely and disappeared within her stealth technique again. That delayed the enemy Authority long enough for Guchiro to envelop him in another lightburst.
The leader of the enemy grimaced, but turned toward him, letting his bands absorb the cantae. He took a deep breath and began gathering everything that had been stored in the metal bands for a final blow. That could be a truly formidable technique.
Guchiro tightened his lightburst into a single stream focused on his opponent's stomach. The bands had already been hot blue, and now they exploded. Before the Authority had even stumbled two steps, Guchiro's blade thrust through his chest.
As the sounds of battle faded, the whistling winds again gained dominance. The fragments of the barrier had held back the dust storm for a time, and their rapid movements for a little longer, but now the dust closed around them. It impeded neither of them, and Ward Fiyu came to stand beside him, not quite able to contain the happiness in her steps.
"Oh..." Her senses picked up the change, not too long after it happened. "The Order members you captured... you didn't kill them, did you?"
"They appear to have directed their cantae inward." Guchiro bent down to examine one of the bodies. The woman's soulhome had been entirely devastated in her violent death, but most likely it had contained a self-termination room that had caused the damage he felt in her brain.
"Why would they enact suicide? Did they fear us that much?"
"They did fear us, but that wasn't the reason. These are zealots: they truly believe that they are saving the Nine Worlds from the threat of outsiders."
"It isn't true, is it? Everything they say..."
Guchiro didn't answer his ward's question as he felt the battle shift atop the plateaus. The bloodcrete golem fell like an avalanche and lay still. The soulcrafter who had controlled it lay dead within the stone, but the armor remained as a lethal threat. Either because of that defeat or another factor, the Asplundat Movement was retreating from the battlefield.
That left Wiltur alone, and Guchiro did not like what that meant for the outcomes. His ward appeared to have gained real affection for this Fithan city, but perhaps it was time to take her away for her own safety.
Chapter 27
As Theo slipped through the dust storm with his mass nearly neutralized, he realized that his best remaining defense was running out. Unless someone arrived soon, all he would have left was desperation.
Fighting in the dust storm had been an enormous advantage at first. His gravity senses might not be precise, but they had been more than enough to keep constant track of his opponent. Though Theo had struggled to land any bolts while his opponent was being so cautious, the fleshmasker had wasted a lot of cantae attempting his own stealth techniques or trying to blow away the dust.
None of that was happening anymore. It seemed like the Authority had realized his strategy and was conserving the rest of his cantae: a small fraction of what he had started with, but still enough to kill Theo if he connected at the right time. Soon he would stop trying to fight and hold someone hostage.
Before that happened, he needed to do something. And Theo didn't see what he could possibly do.
He had been smoothing and polishing the curved pieces for the corners of his soulhome, since those were the primary remaining flaws. If he could finally harness his singularity at full strength, that might be enough for him to last against an Authority in such an uneven fight. There was so much on the line... Theo needed his full discipline to prevent his fingers from trembling as he added a new reflective coating and placed the refined pieces.
No looking back. He didn't just place them, he bound them into place with the best sublime glue he had. If this didn't work, he was doomed anyway.
Theo took a deep breath and drew out his singularity's full power, ready for it to make his entire soulhome tremble... except it didn't. The cantae flooded out, but for the first time it naturally arced into a sphere that rushed through all three floors. Even as it resonated with all his sublime materials, it continued to naturally flow, leaving his mind free to deploy all that power.
Still not quite believing it was true, Theo experimentally directed cantae out of his primary entrance. His new door let it pass smoothly and it flowed through the gates of his shielding wall as well. If he had shaped that cantae into an actual gravitational field, it would have been the most powerful he'd ever cast.
Hovering within his soulhome, Theo laughed. It had all been worth it.
All the hours soulcrafting, hands bloody from knapping materials, fingers sore from the polishing. The windows formed from the Arbaian sand and crafted by Navim... the shadowmind from Fiyu... the new corners refining his design... if not for every design detail he'd wracked his brain to perfect, he never would have been able to control this much power.
Yet it would be completely wrong to ascend to Authority. His design worked perfectly, but trying to ascend prematurely would only ruin all the potential he had so carefully crafted. The twisted mass of flesh he'd received from the House of the Lost was actually too powerful. It would serve excellently for giving him raw power in the short term, but for his final blueprint, he might actually want to move it to another floor...
Then Theo sensed cantae from outside his soul and realized that he was out of time.
The fleshmasker left the dust storm and headed directly for the barrier. He wasn't going to taunt this time, just go for the kill. Theo couldn't afford to let him go, since Krikree would be helpless, if she was still alive at all.
The thought of Krikree lying there forced Theo to suppress another surge of anger. Indulging in such emotions was irrational and wouldn't help him. He needed to ignore such things if he wanted... if he wanted...
Theo hesitated as he realized that his "rational" logic didn't actually make sense. The most coldly logical course of action would have been to abandon the fight and avoid so many other entanglements. But what he wanted, when he was honest with himself, came from his heart instead of his mind. The only purpose of logic could be to bring him to that point.
So Theo let the anger simmer, even as he accepted that it didn't help him. Soulcrafting breakthroughs didn't come from such emotions, and there would be no surge of power to help him. The fact was that his opponent was about to kill Krikree and the others. Yet he couldn't do nothing. Theo reluctantly cast a field to lift him out of the dust storm, hoping that his eyes would see something that gravity couldn't.
Being far from the main battle had been useful before that point, but now it left him with no support. In the distance, the bloodcrete golem lay still like a new plateau. Wiltur and the Asplundat Movement's Stronghold were still exchanging techniques, but their battle had drained their reserves as well.
"There you are." The fleshmasker said nothing more, simply leapt at him.
Theo dropped upward as fast as his body could bear, scattering torsion bolts after him. He didn't have many good ideas for tricks left, and his opponent intended to cut through all of them. It was a simple aerial battle, all maneuvering and ranged strikes. If his opponent hadn't been so exhausted and cautious, Theo couldn't have kept up, and he soon had no choice but to retreat to the ground.
A slash split the earth beside him, and this time Theo staggered. He tripped over Krikree's fallen spear, and that was all that saved him from the slash cutting through where his head had been. Theo glanced at the spear and felt another surge of cold anger before casting a gravitational field underneath himself and then using a second to keep him in the air.
He had expected another attack, but the fleshmasker had actually paused. It looked like he was watching the battle between Strongholds... and it didn't seem like he was bluffing.
The Asplundat Movement was retreating from the battlefield, no longer under attack by any forces of Norro Yorthin. Wiltur generated another of his spheres, but instead of releasing it after them, he dropped it onto the plateau where the remaining fleshmaskers struggled with the Slescan ants. He didn't destroy all of either army... and that hadn't been his intent.
"The battle is won!" Wiltur announced. He might not have looked as glorious as he had at the start of the battle, but he was the only Stronghold remaining on the field. "Reinforcements from House Crimson are on their way to eliminate the remaining invaders. Come to us and we will heal your wounds. All of Norro Yorthin must band together against such threats."
"Filth." Theo's opponent spat a piece of bloody flesh onto the ground. "Fithans can be more duplicitous than the Salebrante, when it comes to war."
"You didn't think he would turn on you?"
Before the fleshmasker could say anything else, the plateaus lit up with a new light as cantae erupted in a solid column. Theo smiled and began gathering his own between his hands. Far feebler than what flared into the sky, but in a way this was also his victory.
"House Blacksilver also extends the offer of help to all who need it." Dhan rose into the air, surrounded by the raw power of a new Stronghold. Finally. "Ruling Cities, Asplundat Movement, or Dustwind Plateaus, we need to survive together."
When Theo had negotiated with the House of Coin, he had known they wouldn't give him anything. But when he had proposed them investing materials into Dhan, they had been more receptive. Now the House of Coin's Stronghold in Norro Yorthin was supported by a second. With the balance restored, the whole house could remain in the city. There would be compromises in the future, no doubt, but for now Theo was just relieved.
The fleshmasker stared. "Just what is th-"
Theo cast his partial singularity at his opponent's chest. It pierced through the weary Authority and hovered on the other side, but his opponent wasn't weakened enough yet. Somehow the Deuxan stumbled forward, away from the new gravity. His body wasn't healing quite as quickly as before, showing glimpses of ragged Deuxan silk, but he still had enough for lethal techniques.
"This doesn't save you." The fleshmasker raised his sword and gathered his remaining cantae. "I can leave by weirkey any time I want. I'll do it with your skin in tow."
He unleashed another pair of slashes, but Theo dodged around them and retaliated with a partial singularity. It swerved aside from the sword and instead hovered just beside his opponent. The fleshmasker snarled and swung again, but Theo repeated the same maneuver. Even though his opponent tried to adapt, he managed it a third time. When the Authority lowered his arm, it hung limply.
"How are you still fighting? You should have been exhausted long ago!"
"I'm a thorough soulcrafter." Theo grinned like it was no big deal, but the truth was he had barely made it to this point. If he'd been lacking even one of the efficiency advantages he'd soulcrafted, he would have been dead already. Even now, he didn't see very many paths to victory, and they all carried great risks.
When his opponent charged, Theo didn't have the stamina to evade. Instead, he drew in all the partial singularities he had been leaving around the battlefield, gathering them all together into a single point.
