Chapter Thirty-One
Ōbhin shoved Fingers to his left before diving beneath the punch himself. The air howled over his head. The automaton shifted its stance while Ōbhin rolled from the trap he’d cut in the black ground. Fingers cursed and stumbled. Ōbhin gained his feet and took off at a run. The crystalman marched after him.
“Come on! Over here!” Miguil shouted from Ōbhin’s left. He threw a rock that crashed into a different crystalman, bouncing off the hulk without marring its surface. Miguil picked up another stone. “I’m right here! Come on!”
He hit it in the head.
Ōbhin glanced at the one chasing him while Miguil took off running, leading his away. In short sprints, Ōbhin could open up the distance between them. The crystalman had only one speed: inevitable. Eventually, a human—Ōbhin—would tire out. The mechanisms powering the crystalmen had functioned for three thousand years.
A large mound of debris cut short his flight. He whirled and judged there was enough room for him to make his trap. He attacked the ground. He drove his sword deep into the black stone and sliced his first line. He tried not to focus on the amethyst behemoth marching at him. The ground shook with its every step. The first done, he slashed the second one deep into the ground.
“Ōbhin!” Dajouth shouted. “Watch out!”
“I’m fine!” Ōbhin called, hating this part. If he retreated, the automaton might miss stepping on his trap. He focused on the crystalman plodding at him. Its eyebeams blinded Ōbhin. He almost couldn’t see anything else now.
“No, no, from your left!” Dajouth shouted.
Left?
He glanced over. Through the shining glare of the diamond beams falling on his face, he made out a shadowy shape. The fourth crystalman had followed him, too. It came at him from another direction. It had flanked him with its diamonds off.
Now, it was right on top of him.
*
Avena followed the whispers.
“How are you reading that?” Dualayn asked as she tapped the glowing letters hovering before her. They had a tactile presence, like touching something spun of spider silk. Delicate. Too much pressure, and they would shatter.
“I’m not,” she said, hitting the next option, knowing she was working through a menu even if she didn’t understand it.
She had to go faster. Two were cornering Ōbhin. He was in danger of being killed. She couldn’t let that happen. But it wasn’t easy as just turning off a switch. The power came from a sealed basement that was held behind a heavy, locked door. It transmitted a higher amplitude of tonal energy through the world without any wires. The power was broadcasted like her thoughts were from her brain in the chest back at their camp. Nor could she damage the artificial mind with any tool she had on hand. Diamond surrounded the mind. She could shatter brittle obsidian, but not reach it.
She had to deactivate it, and that meant inputting codes. They sang in her mind. She shouldn’t have access to them, but the mind was broadcasting too much information. More than it should. She swayed, her hands moving on their own, almost directed by the words whispering through her thoughts.
Her body felt alien. A puppet.
“Avena,” whispered Dualayn in awe.
“Hush,” she said and closed her eyes. Her mind interfaced with sounds. Her fingers acted, mere devices. An extension of a mechanism responding to her inputs. Her breathing slowed. Her heartbeat dwindled. The feel of her body faded, her connection tenuous. Too deep, and she’d lose all control of her body.
So much to do, and death was coming for Ōbhin. She could see him from two different angles. Two different crystalmen closing in for the kill. The artificial mind had lured her lover into a trap. Ōbhin had fixated on one automaton, thinking no will directed them as a unit.
That it couldn’t learn from his first trap and thus would blunder into his second.
She couldn’t do it in time. He’d boxed himself in. He was turning as the flanking crystalman’s fist fell. It hurtled in, too fast for Ōbhin to dodge clear.
“No!” Avena shouted.
*
Ōbhin saw death coming for him.
Understanding fell upon him in that instant of clarity, as time seemed to stop before the fist crushed his head. He’d let himself get cornered. The crystalmen had set an ambush of their own using the first as a distraction, keeping him half-blinded with the lights. Even now, it was flanking around the trap to cut off Ōbhin’s retreat. He shouldn’t have stopped by the rubble pile.
He pivoted anyways, attempting to flee. He had to escape. For Avena. He didn’t want to lose her. He was prepared to die to save her, but in that desperate moment facing his end, he realized he’d rather live and save her. To survive with her. She shone with diamond hope. The energy surged through his limbs as his body moved.
Too slow. He felt trapped, like there was heavy snow around him, an avalanche that had swept over him and pinned him in place. The amethyst fist plunged at his head. Avena’s smiling face appeared in his mind, her hair in a long braid, her irises adorned with those flecks of gold.
A blur streaked before him. Something moving too fast. A figure. Slender. The amethyst fist crashed into the figure’s skull instead of hitting Ōbhin. The loud crack of bone snapping resounded. The head snapped to the right, spittle flying from a mouth.
Bran’s mouth.
The youth caught the wrist of the automaton even as the force of the blow pushed him back into Ōbhin. Confusion rippled through Ōbhin as he stumbled towards the other crystalmen circling around his trap. He scrambled to stand.
Bran shouted, a deep and primal roar. A bellow, full of fury. His head had twisted around too far not to snap his neck. The skin around his throat
