with tremendous force into the ground near Tiet’s paralyzed body. Without warning, the soldier picked him up, almost as if Tiet’s body had levitated onto the man’s back. Then they were off and running. He heard a voice as the scenery changed before his paralyzed eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here, brother.”
It couldn’t be. Kale? But he was in detention at Baeth Periege. And suddenly, with the realization, Tiet felt no anger, only relief that somehow and for some reason his brother was here to save his life.
He heard Kale as he called for a retreat of their soldiers to behind the defense wall. “Abandon your posts and return to the city immediately, by order of the King!” Tiet was glad Kale was taking charge. His men were getting slaughtered and Tiet would have called the retreat himself had he been able. Hopefully, the remaining civilian population had been able to get behind Wynn’s ten mile front by now. They had been nearly out by the time the defense cannons were set to auto-track and left running.
Kale joined other soldiers who were now in full retreat from the advancing Baruk. They had to reach the access portals quickly to get inside the wall before the enemy caught up with them. Fortunately it appeared that the hurutai were still busy feeding, leaving only the Baruk warriors on their trail.
Baruk weapons could be heard all around, pounding the surrounding buildings, taking down more Castillian soldiers attempting to retreat behind the defense wall. Of five hundred elite warriors, which had come to the battlefield with their king, fewer than a hundred remained standing.
Kale tried to put as many structures between himself and the advancing Baruk as he could to block the storm of weapon’s fire around them. It was difficult to evade all the gunfire with his brother hanging limp across his back. He was supporting the majority of Tiet’s weight with his mental power, but his movements were still cumbersome.
Some of the other soldiers had already reached the wall and accessed one of the portals leading through. One of the soldiers stood at the doorway, waving warriors inside. Kale followed them through the passageway that took them beyond the defense wall into the city. Several of the soldiers guarded the portal until they could see no other Castillian soldiers. Then they followed the others through, sealing the doorway behind them.
The Baruk were locked outside of the city now. As Kale came out into the open, he spotted a place where a med station had been set up and left for anyone that might be wounded in the battle. The other soldiers were congregating around several of these stations.
Kale laid his brother down and examined him. He passed a med-scanner across his paralyzed body, determining that he was alive, despite the neurotoxin from the hurutai. He took one of the needle leads from the scanner and pushed it into Tiet’s deltoid muscle. It may have hurt him, but Kale had to do a neuro-muscular scan in order to determine how best to treat the poison. The scanner ran through a series of tests over several minutes. When it had finished, instructions came across the screen instructing Kale on what medication combination would be effective in reversing the paralytic effect of the hurutai neurotoxin.
The gunfire beyond the wall was quieting down now. This disturbed him. They’re up to something. He rummaged through the med-box in the station tent, looking for the prescribed drugs. Only two were needed, but the dosage had to be precise. He located more supplies to mix the concoction and went to work. Tiet remained seemingly lifeless on the ground.
Beyond the med-station tents, something was happening. The men were yelling. Kale heard the screeching of the hurutai. He went to the tent door to look out, just as a spray of hurutai spines pierced the flaps. Kale jumped back, finding several spines in his body.
He had the injection in his hand, called for by the med scanner. He immediately jammed it into a vein in his arm and pushed it systemically. Kale quickly began to get dizzy. However, within moments, the effects of the neurotoxin subsided. He went to work mixing another dose for Tiet.
Kale heard more than the just the hurutai outside now. He fixed his mental senses on the area around them and found the Baruk warriors coming through the hurutai tunnels into the city. Gunfire erupted again as the remaining Castillian warriors tried to defend themselves against the steady stream of Baruk warriors pouring through the worm tunnels.
Kale worked fast to get the mixture prepared. When he had it, he injected the medication into a vein in Tiet’s arm. Kale now sensed the Baruk closing on their tent. He didn’t have time to wait for the paralysis to be reversed on his brother. Kale lifted him up using the Way and crossed to the rear of the tent where he sliced down the cloth wall with a kemstick and plowed on through to the outside.
The battle was raging again, but there were hardly any of the other soldiers left alive. Kale ran for cover toward the large buildings ahead, but the Baruk were closing on him fast. He felt Tiet shifting on his back as the paralysis wore off.
Ahead in their path, a hurutai worm erupted through the surface, leaving the two brothers with nowhere to go. Kale dropped them to the ground like a stone as the reflexive launch of toxic spines sprayed away from the beast and sailed over their heads. Tiet was moving on the ground now, trying to regain his muscle control. Kale drew his blade to defend him as best he could.
A flash of light appeared between the hurutai and the buildings behind. Kale saw what appeared to be a huge energized portal materialize with men coming through it into the city. Kale recognized them as Horva warriors. General Grod was leading them through.
They each wore a metal glove with wires trailing along the length of their arms to a small pack across their backs. The gloves were held before them as they ran into the city. The hurutai was alerted to their presence. Streams of plasma energy shot forth from the gloves like lightning hitting the hurutai. The creature screeched in pain. Within seconds it fell over dead like a burnt sausage.
The Horva ran toward Kale and Tiet. Kale raised his blade, preparing to fight the Horva coming at them. More streams of plasma energy issued forth like lightning from their fingertips, but the attack passed them altogether and hit the advancing Baruk head on. Kale stood dumbfounded as the Horva warriors ignored them completely in order to fight the Baruk behind him.
General Grod came up to the pair of warriors as they stood there exhausted from the fight they had already faced.
“Come with me. We must get you to safety,” he said, speaking directly to Tiet.
Tiet responded, appearing to realize more of what had just happened than Kale did.
“I knew it, Grod,” he said weakly as he tried to catch his breath. “I knew you were a man of honor.”
Tiet could still barely stand. Grod helped Kale support the young man as they made their way back toward the energy portal.
“My warriors!” Grod shouted. “Return to the transgate!”
Grod, Kale and Tiet ran through the portal, coming into Grod’s fortress at Nagon-Toth hundreds of miles away.
ALLIES
“Sir, we’ve been unable to confirm how many Baruk soldiers have off-loaded inside the city since the other transports began landing,” said Sergeant Corbin.
“What about the power?” asked Wynn. “Have you had any success getting to the main supply conduits?”
“No, sir. The Baruk are still fortifying that area very heavily. We can’t get through.”
“It’s been two hours now and nothing from Tiet or anyone from the preliminary team.”
“With all due respect, sir, it seems clear that no one survived. And the Baruk have the city now. How could they possibly have made it?”
“I understand the circumstances, Corbin, but I don’t want to give up hope. And don’t start that rumor among the men. It would hurt morale, and our fight is far from over. Now get the units mobilized. Those Baruk aren’t going to remain in Thalidi for long.”
It was a fact. The Baruk were mobilizing their ground forces for the inevitable push toward Baeth Periege. For an hour they had seen Baruk troop carriers coming down from space into Thalidi. The defense wall was still in place and the Baruk were sitting safely behind it for now.
Somehow they had gotten into the city without disabling it and had apparently decimated the entire team which Tiet had taken to ambush their army. It looked like Kale had failed to protect his brother. Considering the
