Dream of a City of Ruin: Dreams of QaiMaj Book II

Chapter 24: A Wall of Dust: Stasia

They stood in the shelter of the boulder for a long moment, watching Maia and the boys disappear in the distance. Dhuciri wheeled overhead, spiraling slowly down toward the field.

Ready? Dynat asked.

Ready, Stasia affirmed.

Together, they rose above the boulders, and Stasia opened herself to the heat of the sun, fully embracing T'Jas. She lifted her face to the sky and shot jagged bolts of white fire into the bellies of five Dhuciri birds that were circling overhead. Dynat coordinated his attack with hers, and ten charred, smoking, giant corpses drifted to the ground, crushing the mutant crops. Within seconds, fifty more birds were in the air directly above them, wheeling and cawing loudly.

NOW! Dynat shouted in her mind. She could see exactly what he had planned and how to do it. Linked with him, they worked like one entity and increased their power tenfold. She reached her hands toward the sky and sent a jolt of high intensity heat through the air. It penetrated the Dhuciri steeds and flash-cooked them, turning the water in their blood to steam. More steaming birds fell all around, their riders tumbling dead to the ground.

Maia and the other humans were halfway across the field. More Dhuciri eclipsed the buildings of the city. Stasia rushed toward them and used T'Jas to pull all the khyor from the fallen corpses, holding the dangerous metal away from her body with a field of T'Jas.

This time a hundred Dhuciri or more, without their birds, shot fast and nimble toward them through the air. Stasia, and Dynat, for he had seen her intention and done the same thing, spun the dark metal chains upward with T'Jas, and half the Dhuciri fell screaming out of the sky, landing broken and bruised on the ground, their ability to use T'Jas nullified. The other half jerked up toward the sky, wary.

Stasia saw Maia and her group of humans disappear behind the nearest buildings. Together she and Dynat shot forward through the air, cutting under the startled Dhuciri. When they reached the city, they were forced to weave around the building tops, held between the sky and the ground by layers of Dhuciri in either place.

They soon saw a dark metal wall looming in the distance, higher than the buildings they circled. On the ground waited another wall, this one of dark-robed Dhuciri spinning their black chains. Not just hundreds, but thousands of them, surrounding the wall in military-style rows. There was no sign of Maia and the people she had gathered, but Stasia did not see how they could have survived so many Dhuciri. The dust on the cobblestones at the Dhuciri's feet—was it Maia and Antah and the rest?

Past rows and rows of deadly Dhuciri, she could see an opening in the wall. The sound of rushing water was loud over the whistling ropes of the Dhuciri.

Stasia felt the rage building in Dynat before she saw it twist his face into a snarl. He had realized that Maia was likely dust. For a moment, he glowed almost as bright as the sun; Stasia could feel the T'Jas pouring off him. Heat exploded from his body, and the first row of Dhuciri fell down, charred to a crisp. He moved forward into them in spite of Stasia's pleas of caution in his mind. The spinning chains whisked inches from his skin. Stasia could do nothing but follow, incinerating the chains before they could reach him. In seconds Stasia and Dynat were surrounded, back-to-back, throwing white fire and jolts of heat in a chaotic battle for survival.

Stasia lost all comprehension of what they were doing and why they were doing it, lost her sense of direction and forgot the goal of reaching the walled city. She became a font of boiling hot T'Jas, flinging molten energy at the enemy like a geyser in the Lava River.

The sky dimmed, and Stasia looked up to see a wall of dust rolling outward from the city. When it engulfed them both it darkened the day and T'Jas from the sun was cut off. Stasia howled in rage and fear, her cry echoed by Dynat. They both still held T'Jas, but they could no longer funnel the power of the sun into their fight. They were blinded and surrounded.

Dynat missed a khyor as it slipped past his defense, and Stasia both saw and felt it close on his neck. Suddenly, he was gone from her mind, and she was fighting alone. The last of her T'Jas trickled away as she disintegrated the metal rope, only to see it replaced by another. The dust blinded her senses and prevented her from finding the Dhuciri to pull T'Jas from them as she had the night before. She drew T'Jas from the dust, but it was a weak sort of T'Jas, and before she could figure out what to do with it, a khyor slipped over her neck.

She and Dynat were both captive and blinded by dust.

A dagger whistled through the air and entered the Dhuciri holding Dynat's leash. The distraction gave Stasia a split second to pull free of her own leash, draw T'Jas from the nearest Dhuciri and disintegrate the khyor touching Dynat. She leapt forward and grabbed the dagger. She used it to slash and parry at the dark metal spinning toward her flesh. All around, Dhuciri were screeching and falling as more daggers and shards of glass fell upon them. As a space opened up where the Dhuciri stepped back from this unexpected attack, Stasia saw a glimpse of the wall, its opening, and churning water beyond.

A khyor closed on her neck again, and she yanked at it as T'Jas was cut off. Her jerk unbalanced the Dhuciri on the other end, and she surprised him with a stab from her dagger, freeing the leash from his hands. Without bothering to remove the rope from her neck, she dove forward toward the wall, grasping Dynat's hand and tugging him along. As they went, he disintegrated her leash and a tiny bit of T'Jas trickled back into her. It wasn't enough to light a fire-stick with, but it did allow her to join minds with Dynat again.

He was still full of battle fury, but Stasia pressed on him the importance of getting through the wall. She could see more clearly now, through the spinning chains of Dhuciri that would reach them in seconds. Maia stood just inside the wall, clearing a path by flinging shards of glass into the backs of the Dhuciri that faced Stasia and Dynat. Antah stood beside her, along with several other humans, doing the same. Maia had survived, and Stasia was not about to let her effort be in vain.

Stasia drew T'Jas from all the Dhuciri she could sense around her. They crumpled to the ground. More Dhuciri took their places, pressing in, but there was a brief opening in the mass of black, a way to the wall. Stasia dragged Dynat through.

T'Jas cut off as if it had never existed, and Stasia looked for the khyor around her neck. It wasn't there. Khyor leashes were spinning toward her, though, and she waded through knee-deep murky water out of their reach. She collapsed by Dynat's side on a low stone wall that stood just above the flood. The dust was clearing, the sky opening again.

"No T'Jas," he muttered. "I suppose fighting our way out is going to be even more difficult."

Stasia didn't have the strength to respond. With T'Jas gone, so was all of her energy. Still, she staggered to her feet. Maia and Antah and the other boys were coming forward, as the other people from the fields stood nervously by the opening in the wall, clutching shards of glass. Outside, the Dhuciri watched them, still spinning their metal ropes, but they did not pass the wall.

"Welcome to Peace Street," Antah said. "Not always so wet."

One of the Khell spoke, far too rapidly for Stasia to catch what she was saying, and Maia translated, tears of joy in her eyes.

"She says this is the day Hakua would raid Mast. She says . . . come this way please, to Mast's egla. If we are lucky, we can join the battle before it is finished."