Chapter 38
Reaching the Pinnacle
Bianca locked the Ævatar into its current position and brought herself mentally back to the operational sphere. “Lilly?”
“Here,” said Lilly, almost immediately. A crystal flared into life with her face. “Just had it dimmed to avoid being a distraction. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” said Bianca. “Considering.” She flexed her real-body muscles to be sure. She was uninjured, but there was some memory of pain. “I feel like I should be a bloody mess, given what the Ævatar went through.”
Another crystal lit up. “Well played,” said Jesca.
“We're not done yet,” said Bianca.
“We were worried at the start,” said Jesca, “But then you got your feet under you.”
“It's hard to explain,” said Bianca.
“Yes,” said Lilly. “I couldn't think of how to put it across.”
“Of course, Coral is still having kiniptions over your fighting form with sword and shield,” said Jesca, with a dry smile.
“He can climb in the next Ævatar we build,” said Bianca.
“I'll tell him that,” said Jesca. “Right now I've sent him out with the scouts to Oak Grove Hill to find Sky Father.”
“He's probably having the Water Bearer lick his wounds,” said Bianca.
“Sorry about that,” said Lilly. “Devonshire wasn't close enough to throw in a mana shield. I think if you can get him down, and then we surround him with an anmanic field, nothing will get in or out and you'll be able to finish him for good.”
“Otherwise we're going to have to kill him a lot,” said Bianca. “Let me know the phrases. To wrap a god you'll probably need the Ævatar to cast it.”
“The scouts are reporting they are hunkered down in the sacred grove on the summit of Oak Grove Hill,” said Jesca. “After that retreat, they probably are going to let you come to them this time.”
Bianca grunted. “Where's Grave Keeper?”
“We're not sure,” said Jesca.
“He's here somewhere,” said Lilly. “The mana flow indicates so.”
“I don't like having an enemy at my back,” said Bianca. “I can't look all ways at once.”
“We've got the army deployed throughout the city,” said Jesca. “Their job is your perimeter guard.”
“It will have to do,” said Bianca.
Jesca looked about her. “The weather is kicking up again,” she said.
“That can't be good,” said Bianca. “I'd better...”
She was abruptly cut off. A complex wave a feelings ran over her. Physically her real body felt her being tossed about. Her weak link to her Ævatar body felt alternately burnt and battered. But she also felt a wave a pleasure, like being immersed in warm bath water.
Tentatively, Bianca resynchronized with the Ævatar. She found herself flat on her back looking up at tortured clouds in the sky. She shook smoking masonry from her and the pain quickly receded. She realized the warmth she was feeling was from her mana reservoir. Well, not her mana reservoir, but the Ævatar's mana reservoir.
“Lighting,” said Lilly, through the link. “Sky Father struck you with lightning.”
“Are they on the move?” asked Bianca, righting herself.
“No,” said Jesca. “You were just standing on the highest point around with a glowing shield held up.”
“I guess I was a pretty obvious target,” said Bianca.
“And a very embarrassing one as well,” said Jesca.
“Time to go,” said Bianca. The crystals flickered out and she shifted her vision fully to the Ævatar.
Bianca retrieved her shield, which was still warm from the energy it adsorbed. With luck, they hadn't worked out that the shield could do that. The more she could adsorb, the less she needed from the strategic reserve. Not only that, the Ævatar seemed to have much more of a spring in its step and had healed itself autonomously. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
She stuck her head around the side of the building to orientate herself with where the hill was. After a moment, her vision seemed to zoom in towards the crest. She saw Sky Father there, standing amongst the oaks, watching her. She pulled back, and then quickly jumped across the gap.
It wasn't quite like dodging through a forest, but it was pretty similar. But instead of ducking behind bushes and trees, it was buildings and promontories. She would duck, dive and roll from street to street. Going against her was that most streets either went directly towards the summit, or around the contour of the hill.
At one point there was nothing to do but to sprint up a stretch of road in plain sight. Right at the end of her dash the lighting struck. She had the wisdom to keep the shield deployed and it did little harm. But she had to leap to the side to keep up the ruse.
She paused to recover, and then peeked up over the townhouse she was using for cover. She wasn't that far from the top now and it was easy to see Sky Father and Water Bearer. They seemed to be having a heated exchange. Quickly though it seemed settled. Sky Father retreated further into the grove and Water Bearer started making expansive gestures. The prickling in her skin spoke of the mana surge and she moved back under the cover of the townhouse.
As she did so her eye caught something at a much closer focus. There was a young man, maybe even a boy, standing on the balcony staring at her, hands clenching the railing in a death grip. There was probably a wonderful view of the city from this high up. She understood the morbid curiosity that probably drew him out here to watch instead of being sensible and cowering in the basement. She could empathize with wishing to meet one's fate eye to eye.
There was a great surge, both magical and physical, and a sheets of water gushed down over the hill. Instinctively Bianca thrust up the Ævatar's shield to cover both herself, and the balcony with its panicked observer. A moment later a blast of icy wind followed the deluge and froze everything, instantly. She still held the eyes of the boy, whose breath fogged the air. His expression, now, was one of astonishment. He looked at her, her shield, and the wave of frozen water. Some sense of self possession returned to him. He let go of the balcony and backed away, into the building. But before he disappeared from sight, he gave her a tentative salute.
Well, thought Bianca to herself. We've made at least one convert tonight.
Practically, however, her situation was much worse. The ice coated everything, and she found it impossible to stand up without bracing herself against the downslope buildings. She slung her shield and unlimbered the halberd. With a wide swing she embedded it in the terraced row above her. Using it as an anchor, she pulled herself up a street.
It was slow going. There was no mistaking where she was. And at this range Sky Father could fling concentrated blasts of sleet at her whenever she leaped a row of buildings. The small pellets didn't hurt much, but collectively they threw her off balance and knocked her back two whole terraces at one point.
Irritated, she pushed together some of the rubble from the wreckage she had made. A small touch of mana melted the water, and another refroze it. She hefted the congealed mass up, and then hurled it where she had last seen him. As she heard its distant crash, she leaped back up the slope to try to regain some ground.
The sleet blasts came less frequently after that. And Bianca choose random strategic times to hurl whatever she could find back at them. After a considerable effort, she ended up just beneath the point where the hill top flattened out. She stowed the halberd and switched back to her shield. Taking a measured amount of mana she had stored she let forth a blast of hell fire, blowing away the final buildings and topsoil between her and the edge of the grove. She charged into the smoking gap, drawing sword as she barreled through, holding her shield foremost.
She had barely emerged from the chaos when a blast of magical energy struck her. It barely checked her charge, though, as nearly its entirety was adsorbed into her shield. But as they saw her, she could see them, and now had a target. Sky Father was to the fore,
mace ready, a physical shield for Water Bearer, who was winding up another blast. She looked confused, and not quite sure why the first had not met its mark.
Bianca rammed into Sky Father with her body behind her shield. She followed up with a stab for his gut form the sword. A classic move of the Romitu army straight from her days in the shield wall. As he fell Water Bearer let loose with another blast, this time of eviscerating shards. The shield took it all again, but Bianca could see that Water Bearer was wise to it now and it wouldn't work again. So she blasted a good portion of it back, melting and then solidifying the stone of the ground around her feet. Bianca then lay into her with her sword until she dissolved into water. Bianca used the rest of the energy in an anmanic field to keep her put.
Sky Father was up again by now, healed of his wound. Bianca put a quick spell on the shield; to give it Animus to move and a seeking phrase to look for directed magic to interpose between. That should give Sky Father pause from blasting her. She dropped the sword and pulled the halberd out and advanced towards him.
Up here, shielded by the grove, Sky Father was not quite as forward as on the parade ground. He gave ground quickly, and used the great oaks as cover. Ironic, since it was the new magic that restored the grove with such stately trees as a sop to the priests of the city. His short mace was at an even greater disadvantage against the long pole arm. Bianca, however, lacked for speed. Although she could keep him at bay, she could not land a telling blow. She magically enhanced one stroke and chopped straight through a tree to gash him on the other side. But even a little blunted, the blow was not critical.
She switched to using the weapon mostly as a spear. It was faster to lunge forward with it than to swing, and the trees afforded less cover. After nearly putting his eye out, he retreated more rapidly until she had him on the brink of the steepest part of the hill. There he stood, cornered, with no cover. She thrust and slashed, trying to line up a debilitating shot and he dodged her with full concentration.
Then something in his eyes gave her pause. She hesitated, wondering if this was yet another feint, when a white hot pain lanced through her body. It cut out, moments later, but the echoes of it shook her. She grasped with clearing vision for the halberd she had dropped and found a great blade, emerging from her chest. A slightly curved blade sharpened on the inner side. A scythe.
She pushed herself off of it as she fumbled for healing patterns. Dimly she wondered that it had missed the operational sphere. But she pushed that thought from her mind. She could not afford to start disassociating with the Ævatar. She turned and it struck her again, opening a new wound as the other was closing. Blackness was before her and she was not sure if The Grave Keeper was cloaked in darkness or her eyes were failing. He struck at her a third time and she had nothing to block with except magic. She redirected her energy to a forceful push and found she was now draining the strategic mana reserve directly. Another field appeared before him, deflecting the force around either side of him. Bianca realized he had freed the Water Bearer. His blow struck and stabbed deep into her shoulder, forcing her to her knees.
A large hand closed around her neck from behind, and another around her leg. Sky Father had closed. She felt him lift her bodily from the ground and hold her high above his head. It was all she could do to pour the last of the reserve and maintain bodily integrity. With a great heave Sky Father flung the Ævatar off the promontory, across the city, and down into the slums.