The Outskirts: The Sky Raiders (Jace x OC)

Part 45

As the autocoach came around the side of the little hill, I gripped my sword like a lifeline. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew it would be horrible. As Mira had made clear, this time we were running toward the danger.
I wasn't sure how to prepare myself. Was I going to jump at something that turned towns upside down and defeated regiments of trained soldiers? Maybe it would have a weak spot. At least I could help distract it while Mira figured out how to defeat it. With my Jumping Sword, I'd be hard to catch.
What if I got killed? I tried not to dwell on the possibility, but I couldn't resist. There was a very real chance that we were all about to die.
Nobody back home would care. My parents didn't remember me. There would be no mourning, no grave. It would be like I had never existed.
What would happen to Dalton, Jenna, and the others from my world? I supposed they couldn't blame me for not saving them if I got killed.
That was a pretty ironclad excuse.
Then again, if I did nothing, that wouldn't rescue them either. They might never know it, but I was doing my best to help them.
I was relieved Liam had come. His shaping might not be as strong here as at the Brink, but the guy could fly, and he was confident, and he certainly had useful skills. Hopefully, Liam would be able to lend Mira the kind of support she deserved.
"There," Jace said, pointing into the woods.
I squinted. In the distance, treetops swayed violently, as if something not much shorter than them was passing through.
"I see it," Mira replied from astride her mount.
"Bertram, can we go that way?"
"The forest is too thick for the autocoach," Bertram said. "Perhaps we can work our way around the perimeter of the woodlands."
"You better just stop and let us out," Mira replied. "Then try to work your way around.
Stay as close to us as possible. Flail, follow!"
I jumped down. Mira led the way into the forest on horseback, cantering through the trees, the flail jangling in her wake. Jace used his rope to slingshot himself from trunk to trunk. Twitch put on his ring and started hopping. I knifed forward, using the Jumping Sword to take long low leaps between the trees. Soon I was ahead of Mira.
There came a creaking moan, like a barn about to collapse or the hull of an old ship under stress. The hugeness of the sound made me pause. The great creaking repeated, somewhat lower and slower.
Mira kept loping forward, guiding her horse through the light undergrowth. Jace and Twitch continued to advance as well. Feeling a little jealous of the legionnaire sleeping back in the autocoach, I kept jumping.
After a few more jumps, I saw Jace stop at the edge of a meadow. Twitch came to a halt beside him. Their backs to me, the two just stared. I heard the enormous creaking again, massive groans of tortured wood.
My next leap brought me to the boys. As I stood next to Jace, I looked out to the meadow and caught my first sight of Carnag.
The towering creature was made of tree stumps, dirt, rock, shrubs, part of a chimney, wooden beams, some crumbling battlements, bricks of varied shapes and sizes, half a wagon, a section of cobblestone street, a damaged rowboat, and three iron cages. It balanced on two
asymmetrical legs and had a pair of long arms, but it was only vaguely humanoid, like a haphazard scarecrow. The misshapen head displayed a crude imitation of a face.
The scale of the monstrosity was astonishing. I stood no taller than its ankle. Only the loftiest trees in the forest overtopped it. The moaning creak hadn't come from the mouth, it was the sound of Carnag taking steps. With a grating of stone against stone and a crackling of timbers, the giant bent over. It gripped a good-size tree with one hand and yanked it out of the ground with an earthy rending of roots and soil.
"Woah." I muttered.
"That, is a monster." Jace said. Twitch nodded in agreement.
I vaguely realized Cole had came up beside us. I was too focused on the monster. How would we defeat that thing? It's massive!
Tree in hand like a club, Carnag turned to face
us from the far side of the clearing. The colossus roared, the bellow blending the howl of a jet engine with the deep rumble of an earthquake. The cacophonous cry reverberated for a long time, echoing strangely, the volume surging unpredictably.
The roar shook me to my core. I felt like I had awakened on railroad tracks to find a train bearing down on me.
"Get out of here!"
"Run for it!"
"Go for help!"
As overlapping voices shouted desperate advice, I realized that the cages making up part of Carnag's body were occupied. One cage served as most of its right shoulder, another was embedded in the left side of its chest, and the third took up much of one hip. The people inside, many in legionnaire uniforms, waved and yelled.
Carnag took a step toward us. Though the meadow was large, the giant was only three or four steps away.
"Split up," Jace advised, using his rope to launch himself to the left.
Twitch took off to the right.
I held my sword tightly. Carnag took another step in my direction, the ground trembling beneath its creaky weight.
Another step. The jolt to the ground made my teeth rattle. Carnag reached out its free hand, crouching toward me. One more step and the
hand would grab me. With a glance at Cole, I decided to gamble on a last-second jump between the legs.
Still on horseback, Mira emerged from the trees beside me and Cole. "Carnag!" she called. "We have to talk!"
Carnag froze, then drew up straight and tall, all attention now on Mira. "You!" Carnag said, the female voice deep and raspy. The word repeated like an echo in reverse, growing louder through the final rebound.
"What have you been doing?" Mira demanded.
I could not believe her boldness. For the moment, her courageous accusation seemed to have stalled the monster.
"I do as I please," Carnag finally responded, the words echoing backward again, the last reverberation the loudest.
"You belong to me," Mira said. "You were taken from me."
"I belong to myself," Carnag rasped.
"No!" Mira insisted. "You're part of me. You're not whole. Neither am I. We need each other."
A long pause followed. I began to wonder whether Carnag would respond. Then the words came. "I'm more now, not less. You were my prison, as was another. Come to me. I will not harm you."
"Come to you?" Mira asked.
"You will belong to me now," Carnag said, crouching and reaching for her.
Mira drew her sword and jumped from her horse, landing on a high limb in a tree. "I'm not yours!" she yelled. "You're mine! You come from me."
This prompted a slow laugh that resembled the unsettling sound a mine might make right before a cave-in. "I am much, much more than you."
The giant hand grasped for her again, and Mira jumped a great distance to land in another tree.
I noticed Jace casting out his rope. It lengthened more than I had ever seen, thickening as well, and wrapped three times around Carnag's shins.
As Carnag tried to take a step, the golden rope held, and the huge monster toppled forward, knees hitting first, then both hands. Jace immediately reeled in his rope. Mira sprang to another tree.
Carnag stood, tilted her head back, and roared at the sky. I covered my ears, but the punishing echoes of the cry pulsated through my body.
The leaves and brush around my trembled.
The branches of the tree where Mira perched suddenly closed around her, like a thousand fingers making a fist. The ground where Jace stood surged up on all sides, trapping him in a mound with only his head visible. Carnag whirled and stuck out an arm, catching Twitch in midair.
Twisting, Carnag faced me. As the ground
heaved up around me, I thrust my sword to the right, and shouted, "Away!"
I soared upward, soil brushing against my legs, but not quick enough to entrap me.
Cole had used his sword to jump up, still rocketing up when Carnag's rocky hand reached out and snatched him out of the air, shoving him roughly into the cage on her chest. Twitch was grabbed next, and flung into the same cage, followed by Jace.
I pointed my sword at Carnag and shouted the command, but I realized mid air I had made the same mistake as Cole. The hand grabbed me and slammed me into the cage.
The door clanged shut before I could react.
Jace, Cole, Twitch, and five legionnaires shared the cell with me, their uniforms torn and soiled.
Jace helped me to my feet. There was also a woman, and a child of maybe eight years.
"Welcome to your home away from home," one of the legionnaires said.
"You better hope it doesn't trip again," another added, rubbing his head.
"Do you hear me, Kendal?" Liam asked in my right ear. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," I said softly. "We're trapped, but not hurt."
"Looks like she's out to capture you rather than squash you," Liam said. "I'm going to hang back for now."
The back of the cage was the wood, stone, and dirt of Carnag. Thick metal bars composed one side and the front, including the hinged gate that allowed access. I went to the gate and tugged on it to no avail. I still had my Jumping Sword, but I wasn't sure what good it would do behind bars.
When Carnag turned and started moving again, I clung to the bars to avoid falling. Creaking and swaying, Carnag stepped toward the tree that still held Mira. Carnag reached for the tree, and the branches unfolded.
"Flail, attack!" Mira cried. The Shaper's Flail went for Carnag's hand, whirling wildly to bash away clods of dirt, fragments of stone, and chunks of wood. After flinching away from the initial onslaught, Carnag snatched the flail out of the air, like a person grabbing a bug, and kept her hand tightly closed.
Mira used the diversion to shout the command word and leap to the ground. When Carnag rounded on her, I felt like I was looking down at Mira from high on the wall of a cliff. Carnag crouched to reach for her, making the cell tilt forward.
I wanted to close my eyes. If Carnag caught Mira, this was basically over! We were all getting captured too easily. It would be up to Liam.
Mira wasn't pointing her sword to attempt another jump.
She glared up at the giant stoically. "No, Carnag!" Mira yelled. She put the tip of the jumping sword to her throat. "Back off, or I end us!"
Carnag stopped reaching. I wondered if Mira had planned to use this bluff, or if it had occurred to her out of desperation.
The giant stood up straight. "You really would," Carnag said, mildly puzzled. From where I sat, the mounting echoes soaked in from all directions. "I feel your resolve."
"You bet I will," Mira called. "Better that I die than you rampage around Sambria, hurting my friends."
"I haven't killed," Carnag said.
"I find that hard to believe," Mira replied.
"I don't kill," Carnag repeated. "I collect."
"Is that true?" Mira shouted.
"I haven't seen it kill anyone," one of the legionnaires in our cell called back.
"Me neither," a woman answered from below, probably in the cage at the hip. "But it isn't gentle."
"I collect," Carnag maintained.
"You can't collect people," Mira scolded. "That's no way to act. We belong together. Come back to me."
Carnag didn't respond.
"Do you hear that?" Twitch asked.
"What?" Jace wondered.
"A faint voice," Twitch said, moving toward the back of the cell.
"I've heard it too," one of the legionnaires said.
"Like it comes from inside this thing."
Twitch leaned up against the back wall of the cell and placed his ear against a wooden beam.
"Yeah," he said. "It's a woman. Her voice is muffled. I can't understand her. But she's talking a lot."
Carnag crouched and knelt on one knee, giving me a closer view of Mira. She kept the point of her sword at her throat.
A tendril snaked forward from Carnag, slithering over the ground toward Mira. She watched it with wide eyes. "I'll do it!" she warned.
"Talk first," Carnag said, the words reverse echoing strongly.
At the end of the tendril, the ground swelled up.
A perfect duplicate of Mira emerged, wearing the same clothes, holding a matching sword.
The tendril was lodged in the center of her back, tethering her to Carnag's foot.
"Hello," the fake Mira said.
"What is this?" Mira asked.
"We need to talk," fake Mira said calmly, her voice just like Mira's.
I didn't have to strain to hear.  It seemed like Liam must be using the clay earpieces to help broadcast the discussion.
"You're not me," Mira accused. "You're a semblance."
"I'm not you," fake Mira said. "I'm me. You can't beat me. You're the weak part. I could protect you."
"You're not anything!" Mira said angrily. "You're fake! You're made of stuff you found! Dirt and wood and junk!"
"I can be whatever I want," fake Mira said.
"Whatever I need to be. We all shape ourselves.
I'm just better at it."
"You were taken from me," Mira said. "Shaped away from me. I don't know how. Do you?"
A second tendril slithered forward. When it neared Mira, the ground bulged, and the tendril became attached to a man in fine clothes.
"I did it," he said.
"That isn't funny!" Mira spat. "No more puppet shows. You're not him! You're not my father!"
I scowled down at the well-dressed semblance.
From my current vantage point, it was hard to see all the details. But assuming the man had been shaped as accurately as the fake Mira, it was my first view of our enemy, the High King.
"Are you sure?" the false High Shaper said. "I'm close enough. This entity spent a great deal of time with me. Much more time than you did.
And much more time than it spent with you." Mira turned to her double. "You weren't part of him. You were his prisoner."
"She was part of me," the fake High King said.
"And she was my prisoner."
Mira stepped close to her semblance clone.
"Don't you see? He took you. My father stole you. But now you're free. We can be together again. We're supposed to be together."
There was no reaction from Carnag or the tethered semblances.
"I hear the talking again," Twitch said. "This is messed up. Someone is in there saying stuff."
"Can you make out any words?" Jace asked.
"No," Twitch said, frustrated.
"You want to own me like he owned me," fake Mira finally said. "You want to drown me inside of you! If I go back to you, I die. You're coming with me. We're both going to survive."
"I'm not bluffing about the sword," Mira said.
"I'm not bluffing either," fake Mira answered.
"What if I love my freedom? What if I'd rather end than go back?"
"Twitch is right," Liam said in my ear. "I'm fantastic at discerning physical compositions.
There's a woman inside of Carnag."
"Mira!" I called. "Ask Carnag about the woman inside of her! The woman talking to her!"
Both the fake Mira and the semblance of Mira's father abruptly looked up at me. Their expressions told me I was on to something.
"The girl lies," the fake Mira and fake father asserted in unison.
"What woman is inside you?" Mira asked. "Is somebody controlling you?"
The semblances paused.
"I hear her again," Twitch said. "Quieter."
I pressed my ear to the beam below Twitch. The murmur of hurried conversation was faint but definite.
"I hear her!" I said loudly.
"We hear the woman," Mira asserted. "Who is she? Don't listen to her! You're part of me!
Listen to me!"
"You're unworthy, Mira," her fake father accused. "You would have squandered your power. You let me take her, and you ran away!"
"I ran because my father was after me," Mira cried. "I ran because I didn't understand what happened. I used to shape so many things!
Then it was gone. Stolen."
"Then use your shaping," her fake father challenged. "If you're worthy, take back what's yours. If not, accept her protection and let her live. Let her thrive. Let her be all the things you were too inept to make her."
"I can barely shape anymore," Mira said, "I'd be lucky to change the color of my shirt. Why?
Because my shaping power was taken."
"Interesting," her fake father murmured.
"More talking," Twitch called.
"Can you make out what she's saying?" I whispered, hoping Liam would understand that the question was meant for him.
"Sadly, no," Liam replied.
"Who are you talking to?" Mira demanded.
"Who's in there?"
"Give me the sword," Mira's fake father said, holding out a hand. "We don't want a tragedy."
"Come an inch closer, and I'll cut my throat,"
Mira promised.
"She's serious," the false Mira said.
"I know," the fake father grumbled.
"What do you call yourself?" Mira asked her double.
Fake Mira hesitated. "Some call me Carnag. I suppose that is a good name for my exterior."
"Is that what you call yourself?" Mira asked.
"No," fake Mira replied. "I call myself Miracle."
"She's the true miracle," her fake father said.
"She does wonders you could never have achieved."
"I didn't get much chance," Mira said. "I was thirteen. I'm still thirteen." Mira turned to her duplicate. "You call yourself Miracle because you come from me. My father stole you. Was the woman inside of you involved?"
There came a long pause.
"I don't hear anything," Twitch reported. "She could be whispering"
"Is she still talking to you?" Mira asked.
"Maybe," fake Mira said.
"Why are you listening to her? Who is she?" Fake Mira held up a hand to stop Mira from talking. "You wouldn't understand. She's she's my mother. Not your mother. Not Harmony. My mother."
"Your mother?" Mira exclaimed. "Does that mean she made you? Is she who stole you?"
"I freed Miracle from you," her fake father said smugly.
"Did she tell you she's your mother?" Mira asked. "Who is she really? I'm more your mother than anyone! You came from me!"
"Don't be absurd," Mira's fake father growled.
"I want to talk to this woman," Mira said.
"She doesn't want to talk to you," fake Mira said. "Not yet. Later. After you come with us.
She'll help you understand."
"I'm not coming with you," Mira said.
"You'll see," fake Mira said. "You can free me.
Fully free me. Free us. From each other. Cut all ties. We can go our separate ways. She can teach you."
"You're my shaping power!" Mira shouted.
"We're not meant to be separated. How would you like to lose your shaping power?"
"I can't," the fake Mira said simply. "I am shaping power."
Mira gasped. Her fake father stepped forward and took hold of her. Mira struggled, but he was stronger. Carnag reached down and picked her up. It took me a moment to realize what had happened.
Mira had dropped her Jumping Sword. It was no longer a sword. It was a stick.