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.
Aside from hand-to-hand combat, azure bolts crisscrossed the battle scene, killing hundreds at a time. Explosion after explosion rocked the valley, sending dark smoke hundreds of meters into the air. Endowed archers from either side launched so many shafts that sometimes the sky went nearly black with them, each one invariably finding an enemy soldier by way of the craft.
And with the death of so many craft mystics, there soon arrived the stunning atmospheric phenomena always associated with passing of their blood and the forestallments that that blood carried. Lightning ripped across the sky and the wind howled violently, threatening to overturn Tristan and Hoshi’s barge. Tristan had seen these phenomena before, but never with such fury as this.
Wondering when his fellow Eutracians might join the fight, Tristan looked toward the southern end of the valley. To his surprise, theTammerland and theEphyra had arrived and were soaring northward, low over the valley floor. The ships must have flown over the legions guarding the southern pass, Tristan reasoned.
Even from this distance he could see his mystics’ azure bolts streaming down from the ships and tearing into the swarming legions, and he could imagine Tyranny prowling the topside of theTammerland, anxiously shouting out orders. Then he watched the ships suddenly come to a stop and hover over the green pastures south of his and Hoshi’s position. As ever more azure bolts streamed down from the Black Ships’ decks, Tristan saw his Minion phalanxes take flight to attack the nearest legionnaires. He smiled grimly as he realized that Vespasian’s troops were about to confront a new and more ruthless foe than they had ever seen before.
As the battle raged and lightning continued to tear across the heavens, Hoshi saw something that made her breath catch in her lungs. Not far from where her and Tristan’s barge hung in the sky, a host of legionnaires were running furiously toward the Bedeviler pens. Thousands of the enchanted beasts were being held there, waiting their turns to haul the stolen gold. Screaming and pawing the ground, the monsters clearly wanted to be unleashed against the flood of attacking katsugai. Hoshi knew all too well that the pens were craft constructs, their glowing azure bars impervious to even the massive Bedevilers. Only the legionnaire mystics could release the beasts, and it would happen in moments.
Hoshi again pointed downward. “There!” she shouted. “That is where you must strike next! Kill the Vagaries monsters before they can be freed!”
Without hesitation Tristan raised one hand and called down another azure meteor. With a thunderous crash it landed squarely in the center of the Bedeviler holding area. The beasts and the frantic legionnaires trying to free them simply disappeared in an eruption of earth and smoke, never to be seen again.
At Hoshi’s renewed insistence, Tristan again refrained from using his gifts. With their hearts in their throats, they anxiously waited and watched.
“DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME!” VESPASIAN SCREAMED ATPersephone. “The battle is lost! You must go while you still can!”
As the fighting raged all around them, Vespasian gripped his wife’s arms and glared into her eyes, trying to make her understand. Lucius stood faithfully beside him, he too refusing to go until his emperor did the same.
Vespasian’s legions were fighting back valiantly, and for a time he believed that they might be able to vanquish the attacking Shashidans. Even when he learned that his forces had been surrounded and that the north and south valley entrances had been breached, he clung to the hope that his legions might somehow hold out. But when he saw the first azure meteor rush down from the heavens, he knew that it could have been summoned by only one living being other than he. After quickly conferring with Lucius and Gracchus, Vespasian decided to abandon the Vallesis Majestatis and retreat homeward.
Although taking Ryoto and killing theInkai would remain dreams for another day, Vespasian had stolen enough Shashidan gold to finance the War of Attrition for centuries, perhaps longer. From the start of the campaign, the legionnaires had had standing orders that should their leaders need to flee, they would defend the portals at all costs while sending as many soldiers home to Ellistium as they could. Only when the situation was completely hopeless would they close the portals, so as to keep the hated katsugai from surging through them and invading Ellistium. Many legionnaires would die while defending the portals. Many more would die once the portals were withdrawn, their fates sealed to the seething katsugai. But to save the emperor and to ensure the safety of Ellistium, there was no other way.
Julia Idaeus and thePon Q’tar had already entered one of the azure portals, and by now they would have safely reached Ellistium. In a supreme effort of the craft, Gracchus and the otherPon Q’tar members had managed to force the entire Oraculum Tempitatium into the portal ahead of them. It had been only the will of the fates that the Rustannican hierarchy had all been away from their tents supervising the transfer of yet more stolen gold when the first of Tristan’s meteors devastated the Rustannican war compound.
Vespasian was desperate to learn Tristan’s position and respond in kind, but in the confusion not one of his legionnaires could say from where theJin’Sai was unleashing his powers. Immediately after the Rustannican rulers made their decision to flee, the gold transfers were stopped and they entered the portals. But when Vespasian told Persephone to go without him, she staunchly refused.
“What are you going to do?” Persephone screamed at Vespasian. Just then the second of Tristan’s meteors had slammed into Vespasian’s assembled legions, killing tens of thousands more.
Despite the carnage all around him, Vespasian was determined to face theJin’Sai. He had no death wish, but theJin’Sai was here in this valley slaughtering his troops with abandon. Another chance to kill him such as this one might never come again. After Vespasian had seen to it that his advisors and Persephone had been safely sent home, he was determined to do what no one else could. He would remain behind for as long as possible and attack theJin’Sai in kind. Knowing that he had little time, he turned to look at Lucius.
“You are my most trusted friend!” he shouted. “Trust me one more time and do as I order you! Take my wife and go!”
Lucius looked into Vespasian’s eyes with a mixture of respect and fear for his old friend. After shaking his head angrily, he finally relented.
“Very well!” he shouted. “Do what you must, but you cannot allow yourself to fall into Shashidan hands!”
Vespasian heartily slapped his forearm against Lucius’ and grasped it not as an emperor to a tribune, but as one legionnaire to another.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
He then turned to look at his wife. “My love, forgive me,” he said.
The swift blow that Vespasian delivered to Persephone’s chin was enough to render her unconscious, but not so powerful as to do her permanent harm. As she crumpled, Vespasian caught her in his arms. He could have used the craft to subdue her, he realized, but she would surely have fought him in kind, wasting valuable time. After kissing her on the cheek, he handed her over to Lucius.
“Go!” he commanded.
Knowing that he had no other choice, with Persephone in his arms Lucius turned and ran as fast as he could toward one of the hugely swirling portals. After turning to give his emperor a final look, he stepped into the portal, and he and Persephone were gone.
Vespasian immediately ran to where his chariot stood waiting. Snatching the reins from his horse handler, he slapped them across the stallions’ rumps and headed straight for the worst of the fighting. If he was to find theJin’Sai he must reach his legion scouts, for only they might know from where Tristan was launching his powers.
Charging his careening chariot into the heart of the carnage, Vespasian offered a silent prayer to the Vagaries flame on behalf of Lucius and Persephone.
AS TRISTAN WATCHED THE GROTESQUE BATTLE RAGE ON, he remained stunned by the wanton loss of life. The death-dealing was extreme and without mercy. Hundreds of thousands were dying on either side, and the green valley floor was becoming littered with corpses, dead horses and Bedevilers, and smashed wagons and chariots. Although the vast gold deposits had been the reason for all this carnage, they had no meaning now. Nothing did, save for staying alive.
More than once it seemed that the Shashidans were about to rule the day, only to have the Rustannican legions regroup and attack again with renewed fury. Even so, Tristan came to realize that the advantage belonged to the katsugai. By and large, Hoshi’s plan had worked, and the legions were surrounded, their valiant soldiers corralled near the valley’s center.
Just then Tristan saw a shadow loom over the valley floor, not far from where their barge hovered. Looking up at the sky, he saw a huge, very dark cloud forming in the sky. It hovered higher than their barge and lay about one hundred meters west of them. It would not have seemed unusual had it not been so much larger and darker than the others. He mentioned the strange-looking cloud to Hoshi. As she lifted her war mask to take a better look, the blood suddenly drained from her face.
Knowing that there was no time to warn her barge pilot, Hoshi immediately called the craft and wrested control from him. At once she caused the barge to lunge forward and heel over hard on her starboard side.
But even Hoshi’s quick actions hadn’t been enough to avoid disaster altogether. As the first of Vespasian’s conjured lightning bolts loosed from the dark cloud that he had created, it streaked toward the tataki fune and struck a thunderous glancing blow to its starboard stern quarter.
The corner of the barge exploded into matchsticks and its bow tilted skyward as the craft careened through the air. Hundreds of katsugai were instantaneously burned to cinders by the lightning bolt and hundreds more tumbled through the partly destroyed wall to fall end over end toward certain death. Holding on to the front wall of the barge for dear life, Tristan and Hoshi struggled to remain standing while Hoshi fought to regain control of the pitching craft.
Finally she righted the barge. After desperately searching the valley floor, she turned back toward Tristan.
“Only Vespasian could have done that!” she shouted. “The emperor lives! Worse, he has found our position, but we do not know his!”
Before Tristan could answer, more terrible lightning ripped free of the ominous black cloud. Hoshi again did her best to maneuver the barge out of its path, this time barely succeeding. Tristan watched in awe as the lightning narrowly missed the leading edge of the barge. It passed so near that everyone aboard felt its heat and heard it crackle with energy as it plummeted earthward.
Using the craft to augment her sight, Hoshi searched desperately for Vespasian’s well-known gilded chariot and white stallions. She knew that she had little time to search him out before another lightning bolt struck. Suddenly she spied the chariot and the tall blond figure commanding it.
“There!” she shouted to Tristan. “Near where the river bends, there are three azure portals lying side by side! Do you see? Vespasian is there!”
Tristan found the bend in the river, and he could just make out the three azure portals. But because he could not call the craft in ways that Hoshi might, he did not see Vespasian.
“I see the portals!” Tristan shouted.
“Send one of your meteors there!” Hoshi shouted. “If you do it quickly, even he will not be able to escape it in time!”
Just as Tristan was about to act, to his horror he saw another dark shadow forming across the valley floor. Much as the first one had done, it too started to move.
Vespasian has called forth another cloud! Tristan realized. If the emperor simultaneously launched two lightning bolts from different directions, even Hoshi’s gifts wouldn’t be able to save them and they would be obliterated. Raising his hands, Tristan quickly launched another azure meteor. But even as he saw the meteor start plummeting earthward, he realized that another of Vespasian’s lightning bolts had been loosed.
Hoshi swung the barge over hard again, but this time the blow was far more direct. Striking the barge amidships, the lightning bolt blasted much of the craft to bits. Blown head over heels, Tristan, Hoshi, and thousands of katsugai tumbled toward the ground.
Because his use of the craft had been affected by the exploding barge, Tristan’s meteor plummeted crazily toward the valley floor. Careening madly, it headed in Vespasian’s general direction, then veered north before it hit the ground. Tens of thousands of legionnaires and katsugai were vaporized instantly. The resulting concussion reached Vespasian, throwing him from his chariot.
As Tristan fell earthward he caught a quick glimpse of Hoshi to see that she had used the craft to stop her descent, but she had apparently been unable to do the same for him. Over and over he went, his lungs gasping for air and his limbs flailing wildly. Hoshi acted again, this time sending down an azure bolt to try to catch him. But she missed widely, the bolt streaking by him.
Suddenly Tristan felt a jolt so great that he thought his back might break. The wind was quickly knocked out of him and he felt his left shoulder dislocate. As he slipped from consciousness, he turned to see Ox’s eyes looking into his.
That’s why there were two lightning bolts coming at us at once, he realized. The second shadow didn’t come from another of Vespasian’s clouds…it came from the Tammerland.
Finally losing consciousness, theJin’Sai dangled limply in Ox’s arms as the faithful Minion warrior reversed direction and soared upward.
LYING PRONE ON THE GROUND, VESPASIAN GASPED AS HEtried to gather his senses. His chariot was wrecked and his stallions had run away. Screaming fighters still hacked viciously at one another all around him, and azure bolts from both sides wildly crisscrossed the battlefield. Coming to his feet, Vespasian called the craft to stem his growing nausea, then tried to assess the situation.
Screaming katsugai were attacking his forces on all sides. While he had been trying to kill theJin’Sai, the Shashidans had closed their circle even more, forcing the legions into a compact group near the valley’s center. Although Vespasian found himself at the center of that group, the end would come soon, he realized.
He turned to see three azure vortices nearby. One gallant tribune had taken charge of them, deciding that the time had come to save as many legionnaires as he could by ordering them home to Ellistium. As legionnaires swarmed into the vortices, the situation was becoming hopeless, chaotic. Soon Vespasian was engulfed by soldiers begging him to issue new orders.
Ignoring them, he turned and ran toward the three vortices. As the raging katsugai continued to press his forces from all sides, Vespasian was forced to make a fateful decision.
He turned to look at the senior tribune who had taken charge of the three portals. Although admitting defeat was abhorrent to the legions, the tribune was following his orders to the letter. Still dazed and wobbly, Vespasian staggered toward him and gripped the man’s forearm with his own.
“You know your orders!” Vespasian shouted as yet another azure bolt tore through the air just above their heads. “Save as many as you can, then close the portals forever, and see to it that the same is done with all the others!”
Standing tall, the tribune gave his emperor a perfect salute.
“It shall be done!” he shouted. “I speak for all of us left behind when I say that it has been a pleasure to serve with you!”
At first Vespasian could find no words. “If you wish to surrender to the katsugai, I will attach no shame to it!” he finally shouted back. “They do not kill their prisoners! I will return to this land and free those of you who live, I swear it!”
“You must go now, my liege!” the tribune shouted. “The time grows short!”
Despite the insane fighting closing in on them, for several moments the two men looked each other in the eye with the unique brand of understanding that only years of service in the legions could provide. Vespasian did not know this man, nor would he ever get the chance to do so. Even so, he would never forget this stalwart soldier who sacrificed his own life for that of his emperor.
Vespasian ran into the depths of the whirling portal and vanished.