Guardians Inc.:Thundersword (Guardians Incorporated #2) (43 page)

His hand still held the sword.

The dragon raced toward him, and he needed a way to fight back. To strengthen his broken arm.

Alstara's blade shortened as it flowed over his arm, forming a rigid armband. Thomas felt his bones being pushed in by the metal, but he couldn't scream. The dragon was almost upon him. He braced himself and lashed out with the shortened blade at the head of the beast that was lunging for him.

He cut a good half of the snout away and the dragon pulled back.

There was no blood coming out from the wound, only an oily substance, and Thomas saw the glisten of metal underneath the skin of the dragon.

The dragon was a machine. A robot like the hijackers.

It took the dragon a second to react, and it struck at Thomas with its broken snout. Thomas braced himself and took a thrust—Alstara embedded itself into the dragon’s neck. Thomas grabbed onto the neck with his arm, and one of the neck ridges sliced into his armpit.

Thomas stabbed the dragon again as the robot tried to shake him off. The dragon then tried to pry him free with a claw, but Thomas cut the leg as the claws reached for him. The dragon reared and Thomas let go—as the body of the robot came down at him, he thrust it with his sword. Blue tendrils of electricity coursed through the dragon’s body as it jerked away and fell back, its body twitching like a broken machine.

Thomas struck down where he had damaged the dragon’s neck, and the head of the robot rolled free from its body.

He had slayed the dragon. He had saved the damsel in distress.

Thomas heard a distant shout and looked up. Something else had gone right—on the edge of the caldera, Tony and the Guardians were dropping ropes, getting ready to rappel down as fauns climbed effortlessly down the rock wall.

Ignoring the pain in his broken arm, he allowed himself a smile.

“I know you, human,” Mar-Safi said from behind. Thomas turned to see her; the faun was unscathed. “You were at the Halls of Remembrance. You're the one that took Mneme away from me.”

“You are welcome,” he said sarcastically as the rest of Alstara flowed to reinforce the armband. Somehow, the glyphs still showed on the surface.

“You took the last of my duties away from me!” Mar-Safi yelled.

“I just saved your life!” Thomas yelled back at her. He couldn't believe she was angry at him after his rescue.

“There's no reason for me to live on!” Mar-Safi kept yelling. “I'm the last one of my clan.”

“There's no reason for that either,” Thomas said. “Your anchors are safe and thriving. There should be more of you.”

“Like pets in a zoo!” she spat and turned her back to him. “What kind of life will my clanmates expect?” she murmured.

Four red dots appeared on her back.

Thomas turned around. The dragon’s tail curved like that of a scorpion. Four laser pointers had sprouted around the tip of the tail and it was aiming at Mar-Safi.

As the tip of the tail was fired, Thomas jumped in front of Mar-Safi, pushing her to the ground. He wished for a shield, and Alstara procured one, but it was too small, no more than a buckler over his arm.

It was enough though, and the spear hit the shield and rebounded beside Thomas’s neck. He felt a sting as the barbed tail nicked his neck.

A hail of bullets came from the wall as Tony and the other Guardians began unloading their weapons at the dragon. The headless robot stood on all four and ran toward the lava lake, jumping inside.

Thomas felt Mar-Safi's arms behind him. “Human?” she asked as he felt his knees beginning to buckle and a wet, hot stream flowing under his shirt down his side and chest.

He touched his neck and felt a sticky substance. 

Blood.

“Human!” Mar Safi tried to hold onto him as he fell to his knees.

“The sacrifice...” he murmured as Mar-Safi knelt beside him and applied pressure to his neck, trying to stem the blood flow.

There was a strong tremor, and then Thomas saw a bubble forming on the lava lake. The molten rock overflowed the rim and cracked the walls holding it back. He had seen videos like this before, weapons tested underwater and deep underground. “A bomb...” he said as the bubble broke the surface of the lake and the walls gave way. A wave of molten lava ran toward them.

He had saved Mar-Safi from the dragon only to have her die by fire at his side.

His vision began to fade, but he saw the symbols on his armband glowing blue. The words of power etched on the sword by the Aesir danced before his eyes.

With the last of his strength, he wished for the sword and the buckler responded. He finally understood the gift of the Aesir in all its magnitude. He thrusted Alstara on the ground and uttered a word.

“Ice.”

The Will of the Aesir

A bubble formed on the center of the lake and exploded outward. The fauns and Guardians froze on the side of the caldera as the lake walls collapsed and the center of the lake began to bubble hot magma.

Thomas was half-awake as the volcano began to erupt, but he saw Tony, the fauns, and the Guardians beginning to pull up their ropes. Some fauns even went as far as to help the humans outrun the eruption that was sure to happen. It could only mean that his ruse had paid off and seeing the Guardians in armor and firing their weapons meant that the fauns had not only liberated them, but returned their weapons in a show of gallantry. Tony yelled and stopped on the side of the mountain, looking down at Thomas and Mar-Safi as the wave of lava headed their way. Chief Gratsat was by his side arguing with Tony, but Thomas was too far away to hear anything and the rumble from the approaching lava grew deafening.

A blue light emanated from Thomas’s hand.

As soon as he had buried Alstara in the ground and uttered the power word a blue sphere of energy had begun to grow from it, expanding and covering the ground with ice. The wave of ice ran from Thomas, and met the onrushing lava with a thunderous boom, cooling it instantly, the hardened rock cracked and spurts of lava broke through, but they too were hardened immediately and resembled arms and tendrils made of rock reaching out from the new wall that was being formed.

The sphere of energy expanded inside the volcano caldera, up the walls toward Tony, and Thomas saw him and Chief Gratsat become covered in frost as the rest of the volcano. For a second he was afraid for them, but he saw their breath turning into ice droplets as soon as it left their bodies and he knew they would survive his power.

On the ground, the magical energy overcame the lava, sucking out all heat and turning it instantaneously into hard rock. Wave after wave of lava crashed against the new walls formed by Alstara's power. The jets of pressurised lava that made cracks on the wall were also cooled down as soon as the broke through and the walls took the appearance of a spiked crown.  In the center of the lava lake a tower of hardened rock formed higher and higher, as the magical energy closed the canter of the lake. The tower took the appearance of a huge candle, the hardened lava dripping from holes on the tower wall and hardening into stalactites on its sides.  With a final spurt at the top the  magma  solidified and the energy was sucked in from the hardened lake. The sphere of magical energy shrunk and then became a vortex that shot up from the volcano’s caldera forming thick clouds over Mount Nyiragongo.

Thomas had somehow stopped the volcanic eruption and soon after, and for the first time, it began to snow in the Congo.

The Raven

Thomas felt his strength fading away and his heart beating slower and slower. Mar-Safi held him in her lap and tightened her grip on his wound. Alstara became the armband again, and Thomas noticed how the symbol with the word
ice
stopped glowing.

Its power was spent.

Each glyph could be called upon only once.

“We are safe, human,” Mar-Safi told him. “Hold on.” Fauns were gathering around them, and some even knelt before him. Thomas felt strangely at peace. His arm hurt more than the wound on his neck.

The wound that was sure to kill him.

“Let me through!” Tony yelled as he raced toward him.

“Stop him!” Mar-Safi yelled back, and a couple of fauns held Tony. The other Guardians that had reached the floor of the caldera raised their guns, and the fauns unsheathed their weapons and readied their claws, ready to begin the battle Thomas had stopped.

“Lower you guns!” Tony yelled, then pleaded, “let me try to save him.”

“He gave his life to save me,” Mar-Safi told him, “and so my life belongs to him.” She turned to Thomas. “And I will repay that debt.”

Thomas was barely aware as Mar-Safi grabbed one of her beautiful, curved horns and broke it at the base. “Let the strength of my people bring you back, human.” She placed the base of her horn on his wound. The horn began to glow, the light extending from his neck down his body.

“You will become more than human,” Mar Safi said, “more than faun, and now I truly believe you hold the destiny of both in your hands.”

Thomas felt the memory of the Belethi Clan coursing through him. He glimpsed the lives of all the Oryx Fauns that had disappeared—their names and families, their strengths and weaknesses, their triumphs and unfulfilled desires. Their hopes and their despair as humans encroached on their world. The sadness of seeing their loved ones disappear one by one as their anchors died by human hands.

He finally understood, like no other human before him, just how fragile and precious animal life was and what the word
extinction
really meant.

The strength of the Belethi brought him back, and he felt rejuvenated but old at the same time. So much was lost already, and it weighed down heavily on him. He promised he would not allow the Oryx's fate befall any other faun.

Mar Safi smiled at him. “You understand now,” she said. 

It wasn't a question.

He opened his eyes and grasped her hand, the light still flowing through his body.

“I do,” Thomas said. He didn't need to find the
Book of Concord
to save technology, or even humanity. He needed to find it to save all life.

“You're now a Belethi,” she told him. She took the horn from his wound, and a bright circle shone on his neck. She stood up and helped him up. “Brothers!” she yelled at the fauns. “This is my Clanmate! Our brother! Testify to his name.”

The light on his neck dimmed, leaving behind a dark scar, almost like a tattoo. The fauns peeked at Thomas's neck.

“I believe it should be Kaltha,” Chief Gratsat said after looking at the scar. The fauns closest to him agreed and repeated the name, and soon they were all yelling his Faun name.

Thomas looked at Mar-Safi. “Kaltha?” he whispered.

Mar-Safi passed her hand over his scar, tracing it with a finger. “A proud name. ” She told him with a smile. “In your tongue it means ‘Raven,’”

Battle Scars

Thomas had been the center of attention on their way down from Mount Nyragongo, surrounded by fauns, with Mar-Safi on his arm and escorted by Chief Gratsat and Tony. At first the Guardians and the fauns had walked separately, but midway through the descent they started to mingle, to talk and find common ground, a couple of jokes, an exchange of compliments and laughter, and then, by the time they’d arrived at the base, the two armies that had been ready for war had become a group of friends.

The forward base, set up originally as a combat and re-supply station, had lost its martial nature. It was now a place of celebration as humans and fauns reveled in the victory and rescue of Mar-Safi. The falling snow allowed good-natured snowball fights, and everyone was laughing and cheerful, as if it was Christmas.

“Kaltha…” Thomas said, repeating the name the fauns had given him. “Is that the name of the Raven clan?”

“Not the one I know,” Tony said. “It’s actually very different. “
Nn-chiwua
,” he said, extending the “n” sound. “I’ve been to their main settlement in Alaska, and they have another one in Germany. Same clan. I don’t know where Kaltha comes from.”

Thomas and Tony had retired momentarily from the celebration to check on his wounds. Thomas could still feel a thrumming in his arm and was afraid that under Alstara his broken bones still protruded from his skin. The fauns and Guardians were incredibly curious about it, and Thomas had noticed all eyes glancing at the weapon that had stopped the volcanic eruption.

Chief Gratsat, once adamant and even aggressive, was now one of his most fervent admirers, and the gorilla commanded the respect of all other fauns. He had nodded at Thomas and Tony when they left, but it appeared that he expected them to return to celebrate with the fauns.

“Your blizzard has caused quite a stir,” Bolswaithe’s voice came over Tony’s wristpadd. “Even Clicker is having problems finding experts who can attest to such a sudden meteorological phenomenon.”

“I’m sure he’ll find a ‘plausible explanation,’” Tony said, making the quotation sign with his hands. “He always does.”

“What we are really interested in is how you accomplished it,” Bolswaithe said.

Thomas ran his hand over Alstara; the armband felt warm to the touch. Its surface was completely flat except for the etchings. He could barely feel it—it had no weight at all—it was almost like it was a part of him.

“I’ll tell you all in the Mansion… I’m not really sure myself.” Thomas replayed his conversation with Lord Odin; the Aesir had given him all the clues, all the things he needed to accomplish before he could claim Alstara.

A roadmap.

And he had also stopped everyone from talking to him, including the girl who had hugged him. The Vikings in the Halls of Valhalla had called him, “Raven” as he entered. Hell, they had
cheered
his name.

They knew who he was. They had seen him before.

He had traveled through time and he was sure that the Norns were responsible for it.

“The scar really looks like a raven,” Tony said, bringing him back to reality.

“Does it?” Thomas hadn’t seen it himself. He looked around for a mirror, but the tent was a command post. All he found was a computer screen, so he turned it off to see if he could see his reflection in it, but it was too blurry.