No sooner did he start to cross the plane of the tunnel exit than his blood started tingling wildly, signaling the rising of his unique gift. This time he followed Aeolus’ advice and he did not question it.
Leaping from the tunnel, he curled his body into a tight ball, presenting a smaller target. As he hit the sand he heard a deafening explosion. With his blood telling him that it was kill or be killed, he somersaulted twice across the beach, then came up swinging.
The bolt that Khristos sent raging from his staff had been meant to tear Tristan in half. Instead it missed him by mere inches, singeing his hair and skin. Unfazed, the bolt narrowly missed Khristos’ vipers that lay in wait on the tunnel’s other side, then went crashing into the curved rock wall surrounding the beach to send tons of rock shards crashing down.
Swinging his dreggan at the first viper he saw, Tristan sent the tip of the blade slicing across the monster’s throat. The thing’s head partly separated from its body and the viper crashed to the sand, its tail snaking about wildly before the beast died. But there was no time for Tristan to revel in his victory, for not only was Khristos again raising his silver staff, but several more vipers were charging him at once.
Turning on his heels, he let hisK’Shari take over again and quickly positioned himself so that the onrushing vipers were directly between him and the unknown being who so powerfully commanded the craft. Suddenly a shocking realization went through him.
No wonder our Night Witch patrols could not find the vipers! They were here waiting for us! But how…why…
Suddenly Khristos’ silver staff loosed another bolt. Employing his gift again, Tristan quickly fell to the sand. The bolt soared over the beach to crash into the vipers before him, then shot across the sea to finally fall into the waves, sending plumes of seawater and steam rocketing skyward. The three monsters facing Tristan exploded in a cacophony of blood, bone, and skin.
Tristan quickly came to his feet to find that he was covered with bloody offal, the grisly sight nearly causing him to vomit. Determined to stay alive, he hacked down one viper after another. But given the huge number of servants at Khristos’ command, he knew that his death would not be long in coming.
Cursing his luck as he crouched by the rock wall, Khristos saw Minion warriors leaping from the tunnel to land on the sandy beach at an alarming rate. He then saw the other Conclave members exit the tunnel, surrounded by even more ranks of warriors. In moments the beach became a riotous madhouse of death-dealing.
At first the valiant Minions were killed with deadly precision by Khristos’ bolts and the vipers’ flashing talons and sharp teeth the moment they left the tunnel. But then some of the charging Minion ranks began fighting back. As their numbers grew, so did their chances of survival. Soon a huge battle raged from which neither side could expect any retreat or quarter, as countless more warriors and vipers swarmed from the many tunnels to join their fellows.
In the midst of the melee, Khristos quickly looked around to try to find Tristan and the Black Ships. But theJin’Sai had become lost to him among the struggling multitudes, and the Black Ships were nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the Viper Lord’s eyes caught something floating high above the Azure Sea. When he raised his face skyward he was stunned by what he saw.
“Wigg…” he breathed.
The hated Vigors wizard looked older than Khristos remembered, but there could be no forgetting Wigg’s craggy face or his highly arched widow’s peak. Wigg hovered high in the air some distance out over the ocean. A female craft practitioner hovered beside him-another Conclave member, Khristos guessed. The two cowards were looking down on the battle, refusing to engage. But then Khristos saw something else, and he immediately understood. A flood of emotions ran through him as he realized that Wigg might already have bested him.
Wigg held a wooden crate in his arms, as did the woman hovering by his side. Before Khristos could act, the First Wizard and Jessamay called the craft and set the crates free onto the air. As the crates flew farther out over the waves, Khristos realized what they contained, and he immediately raised his silver staff to destroy them.
But Wigg and Jessamay had seen the Viper Lord. Just as Khristos pointed his staff at the first of the hovering crates, Wigg and Jessamay raised their arms. The twin bolts that they sent streaking down at Khristos were met head-on by one the Viper Lord sent upward. The three azure beams collided in a great explosion over the Azure Sea, about half the distance to the hovering crates.
The explosion’s sound and fury were so massive and the resultant blacklash so great that Khristos was knocked off his feet and sent crashing against the rock wall, rendering him unconscious. Wigg and Jessamay were also affected when the echoing shock wave reached them and were thrown dozens of meters higher into the air as though they had suddenly being caught up in a hurricane.
Hovering weakly, his body and robe singed, Wigg desperately tried to regain his senses while the terrible battle raged on the distant shore. Jessamay was in still worse straits, but she remained airborne-at least for now. Knowing that Khristos would soon recover and attack again, Wigg summoned all the energy he had left, and he pointed at the nearest hovering crate.
Soon the crate turned azure and its leather belts slipped free of their brass buckles. But this time only one side of the crate lowered, while the other remained upright to reveal theEphyra. Again pointing his hand at the case, Wigg focused his energy on the small vial of subtle matter that had been fixed to the top of the crate’s upright side. He watched breathlessly as the vial stopper wriggled free, allowing the subtle matter to sprinkle with agonizing slowness down over theEphyra. The First Wizard then put the reverse forestallment into effect that would restore the Black Ship to her original size.
But before Wigg could turn his attention to the other case, he heard Jessamay moan. He turned to see her suddenly go unconscious and start tumbling through the air toward the sea. Wigg quickly sent a wizard’s warp toward her, catching her in midair. He saw her back arch violently, but there had been no other choice. She might have suffered a broken spine, but hopefully her life would be saved.
With Jessamay safe for the moment, Wigg turned his attention to the other crate and quickly duplicated the process he used on the first one. As the vicious battle seesawed back and forth on the bloody beach, he watched the two crates with wide eyes, desperately hoping that his and Faegan’s plan would work.
With a groaning heave theEphyra began expanding in midair. Soon she outgrew her crate, splitting it apart and sending it crashing to the sea. TheTammerland followed suit and also started growing, splintering its wooden crate into matchsticks. As the crate bits fell away, Wigg watched the craft do its amazing work.
Each ship agonizingly lengthened and grew taller, her spars, hull, sails, and masts groaning in exquisite pain like tortured souls being stretched on dungeon racks. On and on the spell went, continuing to enlarge the vessels until they regained their original size. Their huge bulk soon overshadowed the beach, the effect so mesmerizing that some of the desperate fighters paused for a moment to gawk up in abject wonder.
Although the ships had been enlarged, Jessamay dangled precariously some one hundred meters below Wigg, and the First Wizard’s plan was unraveling fast. Jessamay was to have empowered theEphyra and kept her aloft while Wigg did the same with theTammerland. But Wigg was still dazed, and the strain of simultaneously holding Jessamay and enacting the One’s spell had weakened him far too much for him to empower both ships.
He stole a few precious moments to look down at the battle. Even now, neither side had gained the upper hand. Explosive azure bolts streaked here and there among the fighting, but from so high up he couldn’t tell who was casting them. Nor could he learn whether Tristan or any of the other Conclave members had been killed. Knowing that there was little he could do to change the outcome, he concentrated what remained of his energy on saving Jessamay and the two Black Ships.
Just then the Ones’ spell ended, leaving Wigg’s rapidly dwindling gifts the only way to keep the ships airborne. To his horror, the massive vessels began plummeting toward the sea, listing crazily as they fell. With a monumental effort he empowered theTammerland on her way down, holding her steady in the air while she righted herself. With his other hand he lifted the warp holding Jessamay, then moved her toward theTammerland and let her fall onto the ship’s bow deck. But he had been too late to save theEphyra. As he watched her plummet toward the Azure Sea, he felt his heart rend in two.
I beg the Afterlife, he thought. What have I done?
Finally regaining consciousness, Khristos gathered himself up from the sandy beach to see that many of his vipers had surrounded him and were staving off the vicious Minions who wanted him dead. He quickly levitated into the air above the fray, then pointed his silver staff at the cluster of warriors ringing the vipers.
Khristos’ azure bolt launched straight into the warriors’ midst, sending blood, armor, and body parts flying. Landing in a blood-soaked clearing a few meters away, Khristos looked up just in time to see one massive Black
