21. N #5
An Old One had died. Behind it a wall of fury began to rise, that Rock severed the connection to her thoughts before his anger burned through her mind. There will be war.
It was his memory, not hers, of both a great and gentle creature who managed on three legs in this world and as a vast spirit in the Otherspace where Rock’s kind dwelt.
Ancient beyond ancient, now destroyed by the elves’ weapons.
The last traces of Rock’s mind touching hers were infused with his loss and fury.
“Let’s get you out of here, friend,” she said, putting a hand on Rock’s side, and trying to project the urgency she now felt.
A weapon That one fellow warned me about a dangerous weapon that a flying thing was carrying.
That must have been one of those weapons.
Rock has to get far away before they set off another one.
Rock whirled in place back towards her, faster than anything that big should be able to move.
She dodged out of the way as he came past, as implacable as an avalanche.
Pseudopods emerged from his front, a dozen, then two, then more.
He moved past her and out into the light.
She quickly followed, then stopped to take in the devastation.
The grassy area and hillslope up towards the front of the estate had been burned black, and mostly blown away.
Haldeen’s Tower, and her landmark, leaned drunkenly to one side.
She suspected it would go over soon, blown off its center by whatever had happened outside.
What had Lord Shitter called the weapon?
An actinic. That had killed an Old One and done this to the city.
She looked back at Rock, who headed straight for the outer wall.
The pseudopods began clutching at the walls, opening and closing like jaws as they chewed into the stone.
Triana saw they would make short work of the wall.
Rock began flinging stone to either side, making room for himself to pass through as he dug into the wall.
She made it a point to stay directly out of direction he threw, though occasionally a rock or two went astray.
“Where will we go?” she asked him. He had, in a minute or so, chewed through an arm’s length of wall. He would be completely through within a few minutes. She turned around to look for more guards, but the weapon appeared to have overthrown the defenses as much as it did the monsters.
Rock pulled more material out of the wall.
This seemed softer, perhaps a rubble core.
Triana had heard her cousin Kyrtian talk about that once.
Walls with soft centers absorbed more blows better than rigid solid ones.
She had no idea where that memory came from, but she was proud she remembered it, nonetheless.
She felt Rock’s mind brush hers once again and memories called up.
Different voices, different words from different events in her past.
Rock’s way of talking, but real talking.
She couldn’t quite recall when he had made that adjustment, and stopped using mind pictures.
Faces and voices rippled through her mind, one after another.
You go home now, little one. Do there what needs to be done.
She felt the tears flow. “I want to stay here. Stay with you.”
Your place is with your people, as the Old One said.
Rock shifted forward, and more rubble piled out.
The wall had been two full strides thick, thicker at the bottom, but Rock continued to bore through.
Once the hole is cut, and I am out, others will come in.
I can hold them for a time, but you must go.
She ran forward, heedless of the flying rubble, and hugged Rock, aware this had the same effect as hugging a house. Nonetheless, she felt a gentle pressure on her back from a single pseudopod. She hugged it. After a few moments it grew warm, then hot. She let go. It pointed up the hill. Go now.
She followed the direction he pointed, and up the switchback hill emerging onto the backside of the residential block where she had first been held.
She came around that and into the courtyard, and stopped cold.
The side furthest from the city wall had burned to ash, and was covered in dead bodies and burned debris.
A few people still moved, emerging from rooms and offices near Haldeen’s.
All of the windows on that side had been blown in, making them into missiles for anyone inside.
She hoped fervently that Haldeen had been looking out one of those windows when this happened.
As she looked out across the courtyard, she realized she had no plan for what to do next.
She looked up at the drunkenly leaning tower, Haldeen’s Tower, and thought back to the day she had arrived, and the route they had taken when she had first been brought here.
Her nighttime explorations of the grounds had given her a working knowledge of the layout on this side of the estate, and she was fairly certain she knew which door she had been brought up.
Once there, she remembered a few turns, and she was pretty sure she could retrace her way to his lab.
Once there, she would find the Gate and get it working somehow.
She felt a sudden longing for home. Her home. Her estate. Once she was back, she would have to reclaim it or retake it. Falcion was hers.
She stepped over a dead elf. She knelt by his side, closed his eyes, then took his sword and scabbard.
Time to go home.