Screams broke out as the first of the Crown’s loyalists launched attack spells. Cheyenne saw a bull’s head sewn onto the shoulder of the closest orc’s shirt as he hurled a ball of searing green flames into the crowd. “Shit.”
She reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out the activator, and slapped it on behind her ear. By the time she’d refocused her vision with the advanced technology’s extra kick, Persh’al, Byrd, and Lumil had jumped into action. They ran toward the loyalists spilling through the open portals, tossing attack spells at them.
Maleshi vanished in a flash of silver light and darted across the clearing. Loyalists choked and cried out, dropping left and right as she took out those closest to the crowd of innocent magicals too terrified to fight back.
A whirring buzz filled the air and dozens of small, black metal orbs whizzed through the portals, unleashing yellow sparks on the crowd. They lit up in Cheyenne’s vision like flares, and the activator locked onto one after the other as she shot rounds of purple sparks at the flying machines, blasting them from the air.
“Over here!” Corian gestured toward the huge portal he’d summoned where the Nimlothar illusion had stood. “Into the portal!”
He lunged forward and slashed his elongated claws into the throat of a snarling skaxen leaping at him.
Lumil and Byrd took up the cry, waving for the crowd to run toward Corian’s portal as they fought the loyalists tearing after them. The red, spiraling magic around Lumil’s fists buried itself in chests and heads, sending snarling loyalists flying.
Magicals ran in every direction, screaming and shouting and trying not to get hit in the crossfire. Cheyenne focused on the flying machines, launching attack after attack at them as fast as she could.
One of them darted away from her magic at the last second and swooped toward Ember. The halfling spun around and saw her friend leaning forward, oblivious. Cheyenne blasted the machine, sending shattered fragments all over Ember’s back and the top of her head. “Em, what’s—”
A huge body slammed into her from the side and knocked her to the ground. Grunting, Cheyenne rolled onto her back as the stumbling orc loyalist sneered at her and raised two hands filled with black light dripping some foul sludge into the grass. She reached out with both hands, and her black lashing tendrils whipped toward him. They coiled around his wrists before she jerked her arms sideways and sent him reeling into Byrd’s back. The goblin turned with a roar and pummeled the orc with fists and flaring bursts of orange light.
Scrambling to her feet, Cheyenne scanned the clearing for more of the flying machines. Only one more remained, and she hurled a hissing arc of purple sparks at it. Green flames streaked in front of her toward the terrified magicals darting across the clearing, and she raised two shields between the innocent bystanders and the barrage of crackling attacks. She recognized Marsil, who glanced at her with wide eyes before ushering Dr. Boseley toward Corian’s open portal.
Gúrdu bellowed on the other side of the clearing, pummeling through attacking loyalists with his fists and sending them flying like startled birds. Persh’al’s green whip crackled and sparked, and Maleshi streaked back and forth across the clearing in a silver-and-black blur.
A low, ominous rumble came from Cheyenne’s right. She spun that way and scanned the open loyalist portals. The ground rumbled with an oncoming war machine seconds before her activator located the thing coming from the farthest portal. It was as tall as she was, covered in thick metal spikes as it rolled through the portal like a miniature tank. Flashing blue lights blinked around the perimeter of what looked like a swiveling head. A window opened and unleashed a red burst of magic into the center of the clearing that tore into the ground, scattering grass and clods of dirt and magicals from both sides.
Cheyenne scanned the data scrolling across her vision. The machine’s swiveling head turned its blinking lights toward her and fired again. She threw up a shield with both hands, and the red attack blasted it, shoving her back across the ground as it roared against the dark light of her shield.
“Take it down!” Persh’al shouted, dodging a snarling skaxen before lashing the creature in the back with his whip.
Lumil and Byrd ran toward the war machine, but it opened fire with smaller windows on its sides and sprayed crackling red light like bullets.
Weak points. Find the weak points.
Cheyenne stared at the war machine rumbling across the grass, immune to the magical attacks her friends unleashed. A blinking yellow light lit up at the base of the machine, and she summoned a sphere of her crackling black energy. An ogre lumbered toward her, letting out a fierce battle cry, and she sent the orb into his face instead. Her other hand launched another sphere at the machine, which lit up with purple and black sparks before fading again, to no effect.
That’s not gonna work.
The halfling sent snaking black tendrils at a grotesquely scarred goblin racing after the last of the innocent onlookers hobbling toward Corian’s portal. They wound around his throat and jerked him back, and the goblin croaked and slammed into the ground as the last terrified troll woman ran past Corian and through his portal to safety. The nightstalker closed the portal, nodded at Cheyenne, and darted across the clearing in a flash of silver light.
The O’gúl war tank fired again, hitting more loyalists than Cheyenne’s friends. She focused her activator-enhanced vision on the scrolling data and the machine’s moving parts. Another command blinked at her, and she cocked her head. Or I could just take it apart.
Without having to think about it, the halfling
