NOVEL NEXT Book 3: Chapter 65
"There," Morningstar hissed, pointing beyond a finger of rough scrub and ragged trees.
I narrowed my eyes, unable to see anything.
Racquel said, "I don't see anything?"
Ravyn said, "What's your SIGHT at?"
Racquel said, "It's um… it hasn't got to two yet."
Morningstar said, "Two's when you can penetrate with your vision."
That was news to me. My SIGHT had reached 2.0 and still I couldn't… I tried then, not to see far, but to peer through, and just like that the finger of vegetation seemed to become translucent. Beyond it, I could see a figure moving near the sheer face of rock. I couldn't see her in detail, more vague suggestions, like a blurry x-ray. What a power to have and not even know about. The possibilities…
We moved closer, branching out, hoping to encircle her. The cover was far from ideal. Rosegold seemed to have made the mountain her lair. My new penetrating vision showed the suggestion of a cave mouth or recess in the sheer rock wall behind her. There were croppings of pine and rough growth all around, but a large open space stretched around her.
We broke contact with each other as we tried to maximize our advantage in numbers. The one true strength we had was the ability to surround her. As strong as she was, her back would have to be to some of us at any given moment if she was pressing an attack on someone else.
I crept as carefully as I could to my designated angle. I didn't feel good about this. I hadn't had long enough to consider what we were doing. She was breaking down and we were here to murder her. A long history of grid-suits told me that there was no other way, but it felt vicious, cruel. If a grid-lord lived long enough, the day would come when they would choose to retire and leave the suit, or let madness take them. Complete and irreversible. Julia Rosegold had been unwilling to give up the suit, like so many before her and so many yet to come.
As I reached my angle, I could see her more clearly. She was pacing and twitching near the entrance of a deep recess in the mountain. I suppose it was a cave, more like a large hollow.
My eyes focused on the corpses. Not people. Fiends. But not any fiends, either. I could see the remains of at least three monstrous beasts on the ground between us and her. Fiend flesh rots fast, the unnatural meat not holding together long once the creatures perish. I could only guess that these things had been dead for days, maybe weeks. They must have been among the most awesome of monsters before they'd met Julia. I wondered what the odds were that such rare terrors would come upon her here. What were the odds of her meeting one, let alone many…
I hissed in my mind for the voice, wanting to question it, Enki…
But nothing came back to me. Enki was probably with one of the others, probably Morningstar, getting its own dirty fingers in on the plan.
Julia was muttering to herself, gesturing at the wall before her. I could see she had been marking the rock face. Gouges had been cut there and… had she been writing in paint? No, not paint, blood. I looked harder and could see the entire surface of the stony face was a mess of scribbles and drawings. I shuddered. She'd have been disturbing without all the power she wielded.
Suddenly she stopped, rigid like a statue, hunched over, mid-twitch, mid-ramble. Her head snapped out, peering away from the rock face and towards… us.
My eyes caught movement and I turned my head to the left. Morningstar had stepped out of the undergrowth. My heart started to hammer. A rustle of leaves— to my right Ravyn had produced herself, axe in hand, that strange long handle and disproportionately massive bladed axe head. I braced myself. This was it. It was starting.
I stepped out, seeing Lucius and Racquel producing themselves as well. We'd discussed this. This was not about reasoning. This was euthanasia. Of a god. We all stalked forward, cutting off lines of escape for her. For us, there would be no lines of escape if this went wrong.
Julia's head jerked from one to the other to the other. Her helm was up, I couldn't see her face, and yet I had the sense that the intelligence that remained there was barely recognizable as human.
She barked, loud and wild, "You sent them? You sent them, didn't you? You think you can decide my time is up? Doesn't suit you any longer that I live, is that it? Don't like my truths, Enki?"
We tightened the circle, each of us stalking forward, weapons ready, bodies tensed for the outbreak of action.
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She wheeled on us, feral, bestial, her bladed hands held away from her body, the fingers tense and twisted into claws by the tension in her body.
It was to us she screamed next, "Serving the voice dooms you! You're doomed! Hear me? Answer ME! Doomed by my hand or Enki's, you can't do its dirty work and come away clean!"
None of us responded. I felt pity and shame joining the cocktail of fear and anticipation. It felt wrong.
We were all within twenty yards of her. I could practically feel the aura of power around her. I suppressed a shudder, thinking back to the last time I had faced her, how fucking strong she had been. She'd swept me before her like a storm. Only Enki had saved me by breaking her. I had the impression that wouldn't be an option today.
She screamed louder, "You want me! Fine! I'll use your blood to solve the mystery!"
And she moved.
You could have missed it with a blink, she was so terrifyingly fast. I felt a surge of terror as I realized it was Racquel she speared towards. I drove forward, but it was Morningstar who met her. Her angle towards Racquel left her side exposed and he struck with the thunder of his CUT. Shit, was he strong. I felt the vibration of the impact through my feet, through the mountain.
The impact knocked her off her footing, setting her staggering for the fleetest and briefest of moments. We were all charging in now, trying to encircle her. Her rage was on Morningstar, claws flashing. For all his power, he was suddenly wheeling back, trying to defend himself, flailing, looking no more able for her power than I had been.
Racquel was closest; she darted in, her own claws flaring with the light of CUT, going low, raking Julia's legs, darting back out. Julia kept pressing her frenzy on Morningstar, unfazed, not even noticing. Lucius came in, arrow-fast, and slashed as well, aiming for the same point as Racquel, trying to break through the armor. Then I was at her other side. My CUT blazed. She was a blur, it was so hard to hit her even now with her attention on Morningstar.
A hiss of pain, the sizzle of heat, sparks from Morningstar and he was suddenly tumbling back at the same moment I hit her. He rolled over the rough ground like a rag doll as my CUT crushed down on her head. It glanced off, but her head rolled back from the impact before snapping to me.
"Oh shit!"
I leapt back from the first sweep of those blazing finger blades. I used CUT to counter the next overhead swipe and nearly lost my grip on my sword. So strong. So, so strong. This was the kind of strength that deleted armies single-handed.
BEAM pulsed from her fist, lancing past my guard, exploding me. The impact bloomed in my midriff, punching the air from my lungs with a sickening gasp, throwing me back. I kept my sword, raising it over me even as I hit the ground hard, my bones jarring.
She followed like a bird of prey, my weapon only barely saving my life as both claws raked down. Both hands went up again and I scrabbled, trying to make space.
A detonation of fire and heat exploded above me. Relief was tempered by panic. Ravyn was there, she'd used Arrow-break. The blaze of her attack was so like the blinding eruption of my own Axe-break. This was it. Our best chance.
Rosegold staggered back. She didn't fall, but her feet ran in a jumble as the force sent her reeling. Sparks jumped and smoke bloomed from a rift in her armor at the bottom of her rib cage.
But she didn't fall.
We were probably fucked.
The other four fell on her, seizing the opening. Axe, sword, and bladed hands flashed again and again, cracking with the power of CUT. I found my feet, my bones screaming in protest from the pain of her impact.
Lucius slashed, then disappeared as she lashed back. Ravyn hit her in the shoulder, turning her body. A moment later Ravyn became translucent as she phased, those deadly claws passing right through her neck. I twitched at the sight. Without phase she would have taken her head off, one of the strongest living Griidlords would be dead, and our odds would have been slashed.
Racquel seemed to blink out of existence. An eruption of sparks and slash marks seemed to just appear all over Julia's chest and front. It must have been Griid-step. Racquel had had a free moment, had paused, then unleashed everything she could. In the next heartbeat Racquel seemed to just pop back into being, her talons plunged into the break in the armor that Ravyn had made. Rosegold smashed her with an elbow. It seemed such a flippant gesture, an annoyed twitch. But armor crumpled and bones cracked, Racquel tumbled back, hitting the ground inert.
I wanted to go to her. I wanted to check her, save her, but there was nothing I could do to help her in that moment but try to close this out.
The boom of impact rang through the clearing and Lucius was flying up and away, his body sagging in the air. He smashed through the tops of the trees at the edge of the clearing and disappeared.
Shit, shit, shit this was going badly.
I was there again, slashing with CUT. Morningstar hit her, his sword brighter than usual, burning up some offensive skill of his to turn her body. It worked, she staggered to the side and Ravyn hit her with a savage downward chop. The head of her axe nearly bigger than Julia's whole body. This was it, I dared to lance in.
A flurry of chaos belched out. I couldn't even follow it, but a moment later Ravyn was staggering away, her hands clutching the face of her helm, smoke billowing, blood dripping from between her fingers.
Oh no.
Rosegold turned, both clawed hands raking down to take Morningstar.
He let the sword drop from his hand, and light glowed around him as his hands rose to meet hers.
What was he thinking? He was defenseless without his sword.
He was using his Titan skill. He caught her wrists, immediately trembling as even his doubled strength shook to contain her raw power.
For a frozen moment they were locked together, statues not people.
"Now, kid!"