Chapter 52 – Power Differential

  The soldiers had been born in a Lewis Field. Grown up in it. Presumably they had classes and enhancement metrics of their own, because Cole felt abilities being burned all around him as he pushed forward. But it just wasn’t enough. Bricker had said Earth humans were just built different when it came to Lewis Fields and Cole was seeing that disparity with the rank and file Vaelians. He shot a shield-wielding soldier in the leg, dropping him to the ramparts and then kicking him backwards to trip the next soldier. That gave him enough time to drop his spent magazine and fit in a new one.

  The remaining soldiers, having witnessed Cole taking out so many of their number on the battlements, broke and ran, or jumped down into the courtyard—probably thinking a broken leg was preferable to remaining up there with him. Let them go. Cole wasn’t here for them.

  He advanced on Leon and the Vaelian Spellcaster. Leon had his sword out ahead of him but clearly didn’t know how to use one any better than Cole by the way it wavered in his shaking hands. The spellcaster moved forward, chanting something as a sigil began to glow at the end of her fingertips.

  “Nope,” said Cole as he snapped his rifle upright. His shot hit an energy shell in front of the woman, which didn’t break. But she stopped her chant and put a hand to her head with a pained expression. Looked like a shield to stop hand cannons. So, he did what a hand cannon couldn’t and fired several more times in quick succession. The rounds hammered into the shield, spreading flashing cracks through the barrier. But the woman broke before her spell did. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed on the floorboards.

  Leon backed away, sword still held out. “Stay back, man! I’m warning you! I can blow shit up with this thing!”

  Cole stepped up. “Leon Jacobs?” he called, “From Jacksonville?”

  The boy hesitated, eyes wide behind the lenses of his gas mask. “Yeah?”

  “I’m Sergeant Colton with the Department of Otherworld Rescue. Ready to go home?”

  Leon dropped his sword point to the ground. “Fuck yeah, man. Get me out of here!”

  Cole lowered his weapon and started to move forward. But before he reached Leon, he felt a charge being burned down below that felt different, more potent, somehow. An armored figure crested the rampart and slammed down between the two of them. The armored knight knocked Cole back with a concussion wave that sent him sprawling across the planks, feeling like every inch of him had been worked with Kali sticks. That was his ability! Or one as close to it as no matter. He groaned, pushing back further with his feet as he angled his rifle between his knees and fired as he felt the knight burn another charge.

  The bullets stopped short of striking the man’s plate armor, vibrating in the air an inch or two away from his body before falling to the deck.

  What the hell? Cole knew he couldn’t do that. Moriarty had wanted him to distract the knights specifically because they were incredibly dangerous, and now one was leveling a spear at him and preparing to charge. Cole scrambled to his feet and groped for his own spear, barely getting it extended in time to deflect the knight’s thrust—which punched clean through the stone brick crenelation. He definitely couldn’t do that! What level was this guy?

  Trying to seize the initiative, he counter-thrusted at the knight’s face, but the knight knocked his spearhead away with almost contemptuous ease, twisting it around and nearly wrenching it completely out of Cole’s hands. His wrists ached with the strain the riposte had put on them and Cole gave ground to avoid the follow-up attack that no doubt would have split his chest plate like an old ceiling tile.

  “I know not why you side with the Scarred Ones,” said the knight, “But if it’s Hell you seek, I’ll be happy to send you with a message for the devils: The boy is ours. And he is your doom. He is—hughlk”

  A sword point erupted from the knight’s belly, punching easily through the thick breastplate. The sword still blazed with red energy and it drained into the knight, staining his flesh red. He dropped the spear and raised his fingertips, feeling the sword as he coughed a spray of blood into the air. Leon peeked out from behind, hands wrapped around the hilt.

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  “Oh shit, oh shit! I didn’t know it would go through!” the kid said.

  The high-level knight stumbled, then twisted to face Leon, ripping the hilt from his hands in the process. He advanced on the boy, hands raised, his flesh bubbling as though it couldn’t contain all the energy.

  “You little bastard!” he spat. “Traitorous scum!”

  Cole rushed forward, gripping the sword with both hands and wrenching it back out of the man who seized and howled in pain. Then, he angled it slightly higher and drove it all the way to the hilt, piercing the knight’s heart. The armored knight sank to his knees with a thump and keeled over, sliding off the blade. The cold flash of a level-up washed over him, almost making him drop to a knee as well.

  Leon stared down at the body. “I’m sorry, man, I’m so sorry.”

  Cole tossed the sword aside, moved forward, and pulled the kid into him, clutching him tightly. “It’s not your fault Leon. None of this is your fault.”

  The kid’s face twisted behind the mask, and shudders wracked his body as he sobbed.

  Nona’s voice crackled in his ear. “Cole, demons are pushing through again. Whoever that guy was, he was basically plugging the hole himself.”

  And now that he was gone, the fortress would fall. Cole patted Leon’s back. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

  He leaned over and picked up the knight’s spear. It had to be better than the bark-bladed one—not that he had time to analyze it. He picked Leon up as well. “Hold on tight, kid.”

  The first demons were starting to top the walls, surprised to find no defenders waiting for them on the ramparts—but they saw Cole get a running start. He activated his sword’s once-per-day ability for another burst of speed and then burned both remaining ability charges.

  The pair of them took off like a rocket, climbing above the battlefield that now swam on both sides with a sea of red outlined enemies and just a handful of blue-tinged holdouts from where his team fought.

  “I’ve got Jacobs,” he shouted into his radio over the howl of the wind. “Break contact and fall back.”

  A chorus of acknowledgements sounded in his ear. He slammed into the ground behind Roxy and Besson, kicking up a wave of dust and mud.

  “Fuck me running!” shouted Roxy, half-turning at the impact. “Cole!” She had her shield angled up, and Cole felt her burn a charge as a barrage of hand-cannon shots from the fort ricocheted off her shield, blasting back at the attackers like a single, massive shotgun shell. “Keep going, I’ll cover you!”

  Rather than let Leon down, he continued to sprint with the kid held against his shoulder until he reached Besson’s position. Pressure started to mount in the back of his mind. Something was coming, something big. A bright red flash illuminated the ground and the underside of the cloud deck. Looking back a roiling cloud of flame cast the fort in sharp relief. Something had detonated, and Cole wasn’t sure if it was the excess energy in the sword, or the knight Leon had stabbed with it. But most of the fort was simply gone, and even over the distance they could hear the war cries of the demons overrunning the defenders.

  Cole sprinted until he reached the crater where they’d stashed their equipment. Besson was first to reach him, followed by Howie and then Roxy. Nona, he assumed, was here in spirit.

  “Leon, meet the rest of my team,” he said. “That’s Besson and Nutmeg, she’s Roxy, this lunatic is Howie. They’re going to help me get you back. You ready?”

  Leon nodded, barely able to respond. The kid was in shock. Cole pulled out his woobie and wrapped it around Leon’s shoulders. Nutmeg sniffed at his hand, then licked it, and he absentmindedly pet the enormous dog. Then Roxy picked him up like he was nothing so they could keep moving at their enhanced pace. They headed south, away from the hellish front. The tunnels were out of the question, but the fortifications to the south were too busy trying to keep things out to worry about a few rats scurrying behind the line. They reached the forest without further interdiction.

  Cole looked back as they covered ground. The knight was dead, and surely the Scarred wouldn’t leave that mage to her beauty rest. Two of the Vaelian’s powerful warriors and their hero, all lost in one night—plus a fort overrun in an undermanned area. It wasn’t lost on him that he might be looking at the beginning of the end for this world. That he might have catalyzed it. Guall was getting what he wanted, after a fashion: Vael without a hero to seal the tears that let the Scarred out of their ephemeral veil. Still, was it worth saving a world that would kidnap a child and put weapons of mass destruction in his hands? Cole had taken the spear, but he’d left whatever that crazy sword was. No one needed that kind of power—especially not a fourteen-year-old kid.

  They slowed their pace after a couple kilometers and then stopped to rest as the sun came up, filtered through even more soot and smoke than usual. Cole checked his watch and then keyed his radio.

  “Nona, you up on the net?”

  “Yeah,” she replied.

  “Think you can link back up with Moriarty’s team and fill them in?”

  “On my way,” she replied. “I’ll meet you at the vehicles.”

  Cole nodded, though she definitely wasn’t close enough to see it. He held a moment before radioing again. “Nice work with the callouts. Keep it up.”

  There was no reply.