The Fate of Ten

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

IT HAPPENS FAST. AS REAL AS THE DREAMWORLD felt, it didn’t do justice to the physical weight of actually having a body. Shoved unceremoniously back where I belong, all the sensations hit me anew. The heat from the fires, the choking dust, my aching muscles. My knees go weak from the impact of it all. I was unconscious for a moment there and my body went limp as a result. I can’t entirely stop myself from falling over.

I crash right into Setrákus Ra as he stumbles, too. The big bastard is as disoriented as I am. I hear a thump at my feet and realize Setrákus Ra has lost his grip on Adam’s sword.

With a scream, I shove him away from me with as much force as I can muster. I scrape my hands on the overlapping metal plates of his armor.

Come on, Six. Come on!

I regain my balance before Setrákus Ra does. It only gives me a second or two of advantage, but that’s all I need. I somersault forward, grab Adam’s sword and am swinging it for Setrákus Ra’s head the instant I pop back to my feet.

At the last second, Setrákus Ra gets his forearm up. The blade sinks into his armor with a metallic shriek. Dark blood spurts out as I pull the sword back. I hoped to at least lop off his arm, but the armor was too strong and I’ve only cut him. Even so, Setrákus Ra’s eyes are wide—I think he knows how close he came. He forces a smile, though, his balance regained, eyes locked onto mine.

“Too slow, girl,” he growls. “Now let’s see if you can really do what you promised.”

I grit my teeth in response and swing with all my might. Setrákus Ra easily deflects the blade aside with one of his armored fists, avoiding the blade’s edge this time, and then kicks me right in the stomach. The wind goes out of me and I’m knocked clear off my feet, landing hard in the dirt. I roll to the side immediately to dodge his follow-up stomp, which probably would’ve caved my whole face in.

The blade gets caught underneath me as I roll, making a shallow slice in my upper thigh. I never really trained with swords before, never saw the point. Definitely wish I had now. Without my Legacies, it’s the only weapon I have against Setrákus Ra. He’s stronger than me and just as fast. I’m starting to think that I should’ve listened to Marina.

Speaking of Marina, as I come back to my feet with a few yards between me and Setrákus Ra, I glance around for her. There she is—dragging Adam’s unconscious body up the far side of the crater. As I watch, blaster fire bites into the dirt around her and she’s forced to take cover behind a pile of limestone bricks right on the crater’s lip. From the direction of the shooting, it seems like the Mogs have regrouped around the entrance ramp to the Anubis. The massive warship still hovers over us, its gunmetal underbelly our new sky.

I backpedal as Setrákus Ra comes at me, dodging a couple of big overhand strikes from his metal-plated fists. When I dance out of range of his strikes, he uses telekinesis to fling a few loose pieces of brick at me. I bat them away with my sword, hands sweating on the grip.

“Where is your bravado now, child?” he asks. “Why do you run?”

Let him go on thinking that I’m retreating. I mean, I am retreating. It’s just not all that I’m doing. My real goal is to draw Setrákus Ra as far away from Marina’s side of the crater as possible. Once she’s out of his Legacy-canceling radius and can successfully heal Adam, we might be able to turn the tide.

As I duck under another rock, I see Marina cradle Adam’s head and press her hands against his face. Her Legacies must be working! Now I just need to keep playing cat-and-mouse until—

Oof.

The backs of my feet hit an object and I fall over backwards. My landing is cushioned by something soft and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s Ella’s body I’ve tripped over. She’s pale, completely still, and there’s a coagulated trail of black ooze leaking from both her nostrils. She still looks very much dead. I don’t have time to check for a pulse. Setrákus Ra stands right over me.

He actually pauses. Ella’s body has thrown him off his game. I’m not good at reading that wrinkled face and empty black eyes, but if I had to guess I’d say Setrákus Ra is feeling some creepy mixture of remorse and disappointment. He cared about his granddaughter in the grossest way possible, wanting to turn her into a monster just like him. I hope it eats him up inside to know how badly he failed.

“She hated everything about you,” I say, then bring the sword up point-first for Setrákus Ra’s groin.

Setrákus Ra tries to pivot away. The blade grazes across the armored cup he’s wearing, but then I get lucky. The sword’s point grinds to the side, finds a gap in the armor plates and digs deep into the inside of his upper thigh. Setrákus Ra barks in pain as I gash him, viscous black blood spraying down his leg.

“You little bitch!” he bellows. In response, I grab a handful of dirt and sling it into his eyes.

I’m already on my feet, running again, looking for more gaps in his armor. The spots are mostly around his joints to allow for flexibility—his elbows, his knees and of course, his head and scarred neck. That’s where I have to aim for.

“This has gone on long enough!” Setrákus Ra yells, and I don’t think he just means this fight right now. Hunting us for years has frustrated the old man, and now we’re trying to thwart his carefully laid invasion plans. He’s losing his temper. I can use that. It makes him fight stupid.

Setrákus Ra grows. In the space of a few seconds, he goes from an eight-foot-tall behemoth to a twenty-foot-tall giant who completely towers over me. The thing is, his armor grows with him, and that just makes those gaps at his joints look like bigger targets.

Now, I only have to avoid getting crushed to death. No big deal.

I can’t run from him anymore. He can cover way too much ground. I turn to face him as he comes barreling in, trying to stay light on the balls of my feet. My plan is to dodge his strike, maybe run under his legs and slice out the back of his knees.

Setrákus Ra’s fist is the size of a cinder block. It sails down at me. I’m not sure I can make this dodge.

I don’t have to. At the last second, Setrákus Ra recoils and grabs at his face, howling in pain. A lion with the head of an eagle, razor-sharp claws and beautiful feathered wings just flew by and slashed the hell out of him. A griffin. A griffin just came to my rescue.

Bernie Kosar. God bless BK.

Setrákus Ra wheels around to face the Chimæra, who’s a much closer match to him in size. Bernie Kosar roars and slashes at Setrákus Ra with his talons. Strong as he is, Setrákus Ra is stronger. He clenches BK’s talon in one hand, then pulls him forward, wrestling him into a headlock. Bernie Kosar yelps, obviously in pain. With a feral yell, as much animal as Bernie Kosar if not more so, Setrákus Ra tries to snap the Chimæra’s neck.

I don’t let that happen. With all my might, I jam the sword into the soft tissue at the back of Setrákus Ra’s knee. It slides in easily and he howls with pain, loses his grip on BK and stumbles forward. The sword gets yanked right out of my grasp. He kicks backwards and even though I try to dive out of the way, his big boot glances against my side. I can feel ribs break as a result.

“Get him, BK!” I scream as I land hard in the dirt.

Bernie Kosar’s about to pounce when a sharp gasp from behind us catches our attention.

Ella sits up. She takes in another breath that sounds raw and painful. Her eyes are mostly back to normal, except there are still sparks of Loric energy popping out from the corners. That black goop continues to ooze from her nose and she spits some out of her mouth.

Setrákus Ra pulls the sword from the back of his leg like it’s a thorn. The weapon looks comically small in his huge hand. He hurls it towards Bernie Kosar, propelling it with his telekinesis. BK manages to dart out of the way at the last second, but the blade still carves a bloody gash in his side. He’s hurt and his powerful griffin form begins to revert back to normal. BK whips his head back and forth, snarling, fighting to maintain his form and stay in the battle.

“Granddaughter!” Setrákus Ra bellows, his voice thunderous in his huge form. He limps towards Ella. He actually sounds relieved. “I’m coming for you.”

In response, Ella pukes more black soup into the dirt. She’s out of it. However, whatever crap Setrákus Ra injected into her, it sure seems like her body is rejecting it now. I can’t let him get hold of her again.

“Bernie Kosar!” I shout. “Get her out of here!”

The wounded Chimæra glances at me with his sharp eagle eyes, but doesn’t hesitate. He swoops towards Ella just ahead of Setrákus Ra, gently scoops her up in his talons and flies her towards the jungle.

“No!” Setrákus Ra screams. “She’s mine!”

Setrákus Ra gives chase. He pulls at Bernie Kosar with his telekinesis, managing to slow the Chimæra down. Setrákus Ra almost has him when a jackhammer-sized icicle flies down from the crater’s rim, gouging the side of Setrákus Ra’s face and ripping off a piece of his ear.

Marina. She stands at the crater’s edge, already developing another wicked ice projectile to hurl at Setrákus Ra. Next to her, Adam is on his feet. He stomps and a teeth-clattering wave of seismic energy rolls down the side of the crater, loose bricks and broken ship parts descending with it. If I wasn’t already on the ground, the seismic blast would’ve put me there. Setrákus Ra, with his already wounded legs, goes down hard. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but I think he shrinks a little bit when he’s knocked off his feet. We’ve messed with his concentration enough that he’s struggling to maintain all his Legacies. I try to use my telekinesis to fling some debris at him, but I’m still too close.

Blaster fire comes from the Anubis aimed at Marina and Adam, but it’s answered in kind by Mark and Sarah as the two of them race along the edge of the crater. Between their cover fire and the broken rocks of the Sanctuary, we’ve actually inadvertently managed to cut Setrákus Ra off from the rest of his forces.

At a glance, I see Mark is bleeding from a cut on the top of his head and Sarah has some pretty nasty blaster burns up and down one arm. Otherwise, they look just fine.

They look better, in fact, than Setrákus Ra. His face slashed, ear missing, legs carved up. He struggles onto his knees.

We’ve got him. We’ve really got him.

Marina slings another icicle towards Setrákus Ra. He thrusts a fist forward and shatters it in midair.

“I am not dying at the hands of children,” he rumbles. But you know what? He doesn’t sound so sure.

Sore as all hell and wheezing, I push myself back to my feet and sprint towards the opposite side of the crater from Marina and Adam. If we can stay separated then there’s no way Setrákus Ra can catch us all in the radius of his Legacy-canceling field. We can bombard him from a distance.

Mark and Sarah see me coming, even though they’re exchanging fire with the Mogs. They stop running along the edge of the crater about halfway between me and Marina and Adam’s position. I see them exchange a few words, and then Sarah doubles back towards me while Mark presses on toward the others.

“You look like you could use a hand!” Sarah says, coming a few steps into the crater to help me the rest of the way up.

“Thanks. You all right?”

“Hanging in,” she replies. I can tell she’s trying not to look at the blistered burns on her arm.

I’ve got a much better visual of our situation from up here. The Mogs still holding position in front of the Anubis are surprisingly few. The others must have killed a whole lot of them while I was fighting Setrákus Ra. Even while I’m watching, Mark dusts one of them with a head shot. There’s only a handful left.

Setrákus Ra doesn’t have any reinforcements.

He isn’t going down easy, though. The Mogadorian overlord, still way oversized, clambers up the side of the crater towards Marina and Adam. With his wounded legs, he has to scramble up on his hands. Smartly, the others don’t let him get close. Adam keeps unleashing seismic currents that cause Setrákus Ra to stumble backwards. Meanwhile, Marina alternates between freezing the ground beneath his feet and hurling chunks of ice at him. Setrákus Ra is able to absorb most of her volleys with his armor, but it has to be taking a toll. He isn’t talking smack anymore. Instead, the Mogadorian leader is looking kind of desperate.

“You covering me?” I ask Sarah.

“You know it.”

I nod and shout across the crater to Marina and Adam. “This is it! Throw everything you’ve got at him!”

I sense the ground shake as Adam amps up his earthquake and Marina redoubles her ice-chucking. Sarah and Mark keep firing steadily at the Mogs on the Anubis’s walkway, killing some and keeping the others at bay. I reach up, concentrating on the weather above, and start conjuring the biggest storm I can manage. The atmosphere around us gets heavy and humid as I pull the clouds low, even with the hovering Anubis. Pretty soon, the warship is wreathed in thickening fog.

“Whoa,” I hear Sarah say. It’s not every day you see storm clouds gathering so close to the ground.

Before I can finish, I hear a metallic tearing sound. Setrákus Ra’s given up on climbing out of the crater and getting at Marina and Adam. He was overconfident and bloodthirsty before. Now, he’s acting smart. With his telekinesis, he tears what’s left of his pipeline loose from the Anubis. The massive piece of machinery floats in the air for a second before he hurls it at the others.

“Look out!” Mark screams. He and Adam dive one way, Marina dives the other. The pipeline crashes to the ground in between them. None of them are hurt, but without them peppering him with Legacies, Setrákus Ra is able to start climbing out of the crater, his huge strides covering a lot of ground.

It’s my turn to keep him down there.

I twist my hands through the air, conducting the weather. The wind picks up, whipping around debris and dirt. My face gets stung by little rocks and my eyes burn from the dust. I power through. I’m creating a tornado, right on top of Setrákus Ra.

“Die, you son of a—!”

My back explodes in pain. A blaster shot, right between the shoulder blades. I fall forward onto my hands and knees, almost tumbling into the crater. My concentration is shot along with me, the wind immediately beginning to die down.

“Six!” Sarah cries out. She grabs me around the waist and together we roll behind a pile of rubble, just ahead of more blaster fire.

The shooting didn’t come from the Anubis. It came from the jungle.

“Protect the Beloved Leader!” screams Phiri Dun-Ra as she sprints into view, spraying blaster fire. She leads a small contingent of Mog warriors. They must have gone into the jungle, found and freed the trueborn and come around behind us. Seeing reinforcements, the Mogs on the Anubis get bolder. All of a sudden, we’re caught in a cross fire. Sarah tries to shoot back, but the blaster fire is too intense. She hunkers down next to me.

“Six, what do we do?”

I poke my head out just in time to see Setrákus Ra reach the top of the crater. He’s got Adam’s sword again and is using it almost like a cane.

Marina is right in his path.

“Marina! Get out of there!” I scream. She can’t hear me. I see it all play out.

Marina thrusts her hands forward, expecting ice to jut out in Setrákus Ra’s direction. Nothing happens. Her Legacies are turned off. Setrákus Ra raises a hand in the air and, even though she struggles, Marina’s plucked up from the ground. He’s got her in his telekinesis.

“Oh God,” Sarah says. “Oh no.”

Setrákus Ra slams her down against the ground. Picks her up. Slams her down again. I watch as Marina’s body goes limp. Each time, he raises her almost twenty feet in the air, then sends her plummeting back down to the hard ground. Over and over.

It’s Mark who saves her. He darts around the smashed-up pipeline and shoots Setrákus Ra right in the side of the face, scorching the bloody hole where his ear used to be. The Mogadorian screams in rage and new pain, then returns fire by sending Marina’s body hurtling in Mark’s direction. They collide and both of them go crashing to the ground. Mark’s still moving, though. He gets his arms around Marina and tries to pick her up.

Even at this distance, she looks broken.

I haven’t felt a new scar burn into my ankle. Not yet. She’s still alive.

Adam runs over to Mark and together they grab Marina’s body. Dodging blaster fire, they retreat into the jungle.

Phiri Dun-Ra and the other Mogs have reached Setrákus Ra. They surround him on all sides, although he refuses any help, viciously caving in the skull of one Mog bold enough to touch him. They escort him up the ramp. He’s almost back into the Anubis.

“Damn it, no,” I hiss, forcing myself to stand up despite the searing pain across my back.

“Six!” Sarah grabs for me. “Stop! It’s over!”

I don’t accept that. We were so damn close. He can’t just keep getting away like this.

I can still kill him. We can still win.

I step out from cover and throw my hands into the air, making the wind kick up again. Bricks from the Sanctuary, twisted metal from the exploded Skimmers, sharp chunks of glass—all of it swirls together in a deadly funnel. Phiri and her Mogs shoot at me. I feel a blaster burn light up my thigh, another on my shoulder. It doesn’t stop me.

“This is suicide!” Sarah yells in my ear. She’s at my side, returning fire on the Mogs.

“Get back,” I tell her. “Run for the jungle.”

“I’m not leaving you!” she replies, again trying to grab me. I shrug her off.

Setrákus Ra reaches the top of the ramp. I scream and push forward with all my might, combining my weather Legacy with a wild burst of telekinesis, throwing everything my whipping winds have picked up at Setrákus Ra.

Two of the surviving Mogs get dusted immediately, smashed by my bombardment of debris. Phiri Dun-Ra shrinks back, shielding her face. But, in the doorway to the Anubis, Setrákus Ra stands tall. He turns towards me, stones and shrapnel bouncing off his armor, and pushes back. His own telekinesis slams up against mine.

Objects fly in every direction. From the corner of my eye, I see Sarah’s blaster get ripped right out of her hands. The dislodged windshield of a Skimmer slices into the ground next to me like a guillotine blade. I’m hit—over and over again—by things I can’t even identify. Still, I stand my ground, heels digging into the dirt. I keep pushing.

It happens.

A metal pole with a Loralite symbol carved into it, a piece of Setrákus Ra’s destroyed pipeline, flies through the air. The end is sharp. Serrated.

It plunges right into Setrákus Ra’s chest. I watch him double over, stumble back from the impact. I can see Phiri Dun-Ra scream.

The force from his telekinesis dies down. I feel him weaken.

I did it.

Tears stream down my cheeks.

I did it.

Phiri Dun-Ra and the others drag Setrákus Ra onto the Anubis. The door slams shut behind him. The ramp retracts.

I fall onto my knees. He’s dead. He has to be dead. It has to have been worth it.

Sarah wraps her arms around me.

“Get up, Six,” she says, her voice strained. She coughs, sucks in a breath. She’s hurt. We both are. “We have to go!”

I place my hand on top of Sarah’s and turn us invisible. This way, I don’t have to see the blood.

So much blood. Too much.

I hope it was worth it.