The Crystal Sorcerers (27 page)

"You've never lost it."

Valdez
was silent, and Ikawa felt his throat tighten. He could understand the torment of this man. Through an unprecedented security breach, an enemy had stolen into the heart of Jartan's realm and opened the way for attack. The guilt was slowly killing the man.

"For the common good of us all, don't cause a breach between our people and Boreas."

Valdez
looked into Ikawa's eyes, and for the first time since coming to Haven, Ikawa could see confusion in the old warrior's face.

"We settle it later,"
Valdez growled, breaking free from Ikawa and looking back at Boreas.

The demigod merely nodded.

"Yet I still say that a frontal attack on Patrice's city is suicide,"
Valdez told the council. "She might believe that word has yet to reach us of the danger and it'll be several days before we can respond. But nevertheless her defenses will be deployed. Hours before we hit, she'll know we're moving in. In fact, she'll fully anticipate our arrival."

The room was silent for a moment.

"There is no other way," Leti said finally. "Perhaps with the Heart crystal we can cut our way in."

"The damn thing's a wonderful weapon," Boreas replied, "but cumbersome. It'll take my
strength,
and yours as well, just to move it. In an air battle it'll be next to useless, and we'll have to fight our way across twenty, maybe fifty miles, before we even reach the walls where the power of the Heart can be brought to bear in its full strength. Even if we breach the walls and knock out her heavy crystals, we'll still have to fight our way over and into the palace, cut our way through, and then finally smash the portal down--a position which will be swarming with Gorgon's denizens."

The room was silent again as everyone in the chamber considered his words.

"Then we'll have to try from another direction," Tulana said quietly.

"I figured we'd get around to this sooner or later, and I didn't feel like wasting my breath first," he went on. With a snap of his fingers, one of his sorcerers stepped forward and unrolled a chart on the table before the Heart Crystal.

"My forces are already moving. Just remember I'm the one who thought it up when it comes to reward time later."

"This is Red Team calling in,"
Walker said, breaking comm link silence. "I've got many, many bandits coming up at twelve o'clock."

"Fifty at least," Kraut shouted, winging up alongside
Walker. "No, make that seventy-five plus."

"Seventy-five plus,"
Walker repeated into his crystal.

"What are bandits?" a voice crackled through the interference that Patrice's defensive teams were putting down.

Walker
looked over at Kraut and shook his head.

"The guys in the black hats.
The enemy!"

"Acknowledged," came the curt reply.

"They're coming up through the cloud layer," Kraut shouted, pointing forward and below.

Several miles ahead,
Walker could clearly see the first specks, flying in a loose weaving formation. More and more appeared, coming up on an intersect path with Walker, Kraut, and their thirty companions.

"Christ, will you look at those demons,"
Walker yelled.

Behind the first wave of enemy sorcerers, half a hundred forms appeared, black and red against the early morning clouds, their mighty wings slashing through the air.

"Magic users all, I bet,"
Walker said coldly.

"White or Black leader?" the comm link asked.

"Negative on that,"
Walker replied. There was no sign yet of either Patrice or Gorgon, at least.

The two groups continued to close.

"I'm sensing more coming up out of the city," Kraut announced.
"Maybe fifty--more like sixty, at
least.
"

"They must have picked up the main van of our attack group,"
Walker shouted. Looking back over his shoulder, he tried to pick out where Leti and the other one hundred and fifty sorcerers were keeping to the upper cloud bank ten thousand feet above him. He focused his attention for a moment, scanning. There--he could barely sense them. Leti was cloaking the group well, but at this range they might be noticed.

"Let's keep acting like the bait that we are,"
Walker said, avoiding the comm link. The enemy would know that this small formation was a forward recon and bait--thirty sorcerers approaching Patrice's city could be nothing else. The trick was to make the bait so enticing that they'd make a stab nevertheless, and then get jumped from above.

"They're breaking into two groups." Kraut pointed forward.

The range had closed to less than two miles, and
Walker could now see that the demons were spiraling upward in tight circles, going for the upper cloud bank, while sixty sorcerers were banking out in a wide circle, holding the same altitude as the "bait."

One of Jartan's elderly sorcerers came up to hover by
Walker's side, giving him a nervous glance.
Walker smiled. "Let's get closer in."

The sorcerer said nothing, but it was obvious that he wasn't happy.

"Come on,"
Walker shouted. "It's gonna be a good scrimmage!"

Judging carefully, he watched as the sixty sorcerers continued a wide banking turn, positioning
themselves
to come in on
Walker's right, while the demons continued to spiral up.

"Something on our left--they're coming straight up from the ground below," Kraut yelled.

Walker
looked down. A quarter mile below, he saw scores of demons breaking through the scattering of clouds and ground fog.

"Imada, how you doing?"
Walker looked at the boy beside him. He would have preferred if the lad had stayed with Ikawa, but he had insisted upon being in the front of the action, and Ikawa had finally relented.

Imada said nothing, but his eyes were cold, as if eager for contact. There was something about him that gave
Walker the chills.

He looked forward again. A couple more seconds, just a couple more, and then break and head straight back out, pulling the attackers in under Leti, who could hit them from above.

"Contact--we have contact!"

Stunned,
Walker looked back over his shoulder.

A ripple of fire slashed through the clouds above.

"Damn it, they were in the clouds, shielded and waiting for us," the voice over the comm link screamed. "We're getting hit on..." The channel went dead.

Several bodies
came
tumbling out of the clouds, trailing fire and smoke.

"Break, left and down!"
Walker screamed. Winging over, he started into a near vertical dive. When he looked back, the rest of the group was following, and Kraut was closing in alongside. Farther back he could see the demons
who
had been spiraling up now cutting over, knifing through the air, while the group that had been circling to the right started to dive as well, coming in behind them.

"Stick to me like glue,"
Walker shouted to his group.

Damn them, if only his own people were around him, he wouldn't be so worried, but there was only Kraut, Imada, and the rest were aging warriors from Jartan's and Storm's courts. The outlanders had introduced a whole new level to aerial warfare here on Haven, flying in tight formation, jumping, slashing through, and then pulling out as a team. They had won Allic and his warriors over to this system, but few others understood the tactics, and he feared that once combat was joined they'd follow their old instinct to break apart and engage in individual combat.

"Don't mix it up. Hit them,
then
go for the clouds and fog bank!"

The range closed with frightening speed.
Walker lined up his shot on a demon who, roaring with battle lust, was winging up to meet him.

A ripple of bolts shot up from the enemy, several striking
Walker's shielding so it glowed white-hot.

Damn, they've got power,
he thought grimly. Snapping through two hundred yards, he continued his dive straight at the enemy. Half of the demons were already jackknifing over, building up their own speed to cut in alongside
Walker's group as they cut through.

Walker
lined up his foe and slashed out with a bolt. Kraut hit the same demon as well, loading his shield.
Walker fired again, diving so close that he could have touched the demon as he dived past. The demon's shielding exploded, and his wings went up in flame. Trailing oily black smoke, he tumbled out of the sky.

They cut through the group, a number of demons swinging in to race alongside, trading blow for blow.

Walker
jinked left, sparing a glance back. The
swarm of enemy were
streaking in from behind. To his horror he saw four of his companions twisting to engage in single combat.

"Stick to me!"
Walker screamed.

A white-haired sorcerer scored a killing shot, knocking his demon over with a blinding flash. At the same moment his shielding snapped, hit by three bolts from above, and the man disappeared in an explosion of fire and smoke. The other three, helplessly caught, were swarmed under as the groups closing in from behind cut through them, hitting with half a hundred bolts.

"Keep moving--don't stop!"
Walker shouted. The rest of his group, with an almost equal number of demons dogging their flanks, raced downward. The low clouds and fog seemed to race upward with terrifying speed. He hit the cool blanket of mist but continued his dive. The trick now was to out fly the enemy. The plan had been blown. Leti and her strike group were going to have to be on their own for the moment. But at least
Walker could tie up six or seven times his own number, trying to kill as many of Patrice's allies as possible without losing any more of his own sorcerers.

"Don't slow down and hang on my tail!"
Walker broke through three hundred feet, then a hundred. Pulling out at the last possible second, flying through the heavy fog, he skimmed through the edge of an open field.

A horrifying scream rent the air. Sickened,
Walker looked back to see another of his sorcerers smashing into the ground at top speed. The demon who had been trailing him, too intent on his prey to notice, also slammed into the ground.

Twisting and dodging,
Walker flew full-out, cutting through the field. He spared a quick look back and saw Kraut and Imada and most of his surviving sorcerers still behind him. Directly ahead he could sense a forest. A demon cut out of the mist, trying to swing in front of him. They traded bolts; then
Walker sensed a narrow trail into the woods and raced straight at it. A grim laugh escaped his lips as the pursuing demon slammed into a tree.

"Hang on!"
Walker screamed as he swept down the path at top speed, sensing rather than seeing the twists and turns of the trail. Bolts of energy slammed through the forest, exploding the trees into balls of fire.

"Red Leader, Red Leader, situation?"
It was Leti.

"A little tight at the moment!"
Walker cried.

"Same here.
We need your support."

"I think it's the other way around!" he shouted.

His attention shifted for a moment as he looked up. His heart felt like it was surging into his throat as he jinked left at the last possible second, cutting so close to a towering pine that a shower of branches and needles exploded around him.

"Take care of yourself, Walker!" Leti cried.

He found himself laughing. "What else can I do?"

The path before him split into even narrower trails. There was no time to choose, so he cut left. If he dared to slow down, the demons,
who
were probably flying above the forest, would get ahead and into position to pounce whenever he and his group finally emerged from the woods.

"Green Leader, Green Leader, initiate now!" Leti's voice crackled, stunning
Walker with its intensity. She must have focused her strength through the Heart to send out such a strong signal, which could cut through any amount of jamming Patrice had put up.

"Good luck, Captain,"
Walker whispered. Suddenly the trail before him went dark, and he realized that he was flying straight into a cliff wal!
that
cut straight up out of the heart of the forest.

"My lady, we've just got a report. The Heart Crystal has been sighted in the group."

Patrice looked up to see the sorcerer in charge of battle communications standing before her.

Stunned, she came to her feet.
The Heart
Crystal--at her very doorstep.
Was Leti mad? Or was there a plan within the plan which could still be dangerous for her?

The comm link by her side crackled with battle reports and the booming shouts of triumph from the demons.

No battle discipline with those bastards, she thought darkly.

"It's hard to figure out exactly what is going on, though," the sorcerer ventured. "The demons keep blocking our communications crystals with their talk."

"They're exuberant, that's all," Patrice replied. The sorcerer hesitated, then went back to stand over the map. But she could sense his misgivings--and for that matter, the misgivings of all her people at the emergence of hundreds of Gorgon's demons.

No one of her realm had known of the plan, not even her most trusted battle advisors. When the first demons not needed to expand the gateway had at last come out of the porta!
rooms
, there had been cries of consternation. Two of her sorcerers had been killed in the corridors--along with several demons--when a fight had broken out. She suspected that more than one of her followers might consider turning against her, but before they could
marshall such a plan the battle would already be won.

Leti's attack, days before expected, at first had alarmed her, but now in retrospect Patrice thought it was the best possible thing, turning her people to a common defense, diverting them from what was no longer a secret: that Gorgon would break through to Haven before the day was out.

"Green Leader, Green Leader, initiate!" slashed through the comm link.

Patrice looked over at one of her battle advisors, who
was
flanked by Takgutha, fourth demon lord of Gorgon.

"White must refer to you," Takgutha growled, "black to my lord. We know there are two battle teams out there. Green must refer to yet another group."

Patrice did not respond, feeling a ripple of anger at Takgutha's impudence for speaking when not asked to, as if he were controlling the battle.