“You fire first, you fall first,” said Onnd softly.
Kai watched on as the consequences of his choices unfolded before him — a single moment, seemingly unending. Clouds again swallowed up the steely sun, dimming the cold air around the SYS-soldier as Onnd — without blinking, without a breath — carefully monitored his nervous movements; his finger twitched impossibly slowly over the trigger then pulled it towards his fearful aiming eye. Onnd cocked her head to one side and nodded slowly, almost sadly, as she witnessed yet another disappointing demonstration of ignorance. The trigger reached a hair from home, but before the flare could discharge, Onnd was already upside down in the air bearing straight down on him with her staff — the SYS-soldier lay in a sobbing heap in the middle of a pewter-paved circle on the forum floor before any of the SYS-troops could even register the act.
As Kai’s next heartbeat thumped against his chest, a new SYS-soldier took command with a shout. Another flare repeater was aimed and discharged, followed by a hundred more. Flaming filaments blistered towards them over the ground. Onnd leapt with a calm cry of command; immediately a hundred gleaming I’sta warriors were with her in the air. One blazing bolt made straight for Kai; still in the air, both Onnd and Sann twisted their long, sleek bodies round before the bolt, crossing each other’s path, and with a whip of their cloaks and flicking staffs, the shot deflected upwards. At the same time, Nira grabbed both Kai and Shen and forced them down onto the ground. Shen screamed wildly crimson and tried to force himself back up to flee. In one movement, Nira spun her body round, fighting against the unexpected ferocity of Shen’s strength, and put one foot on his head as her hand thrust deep into the roll of fabric at her side, plucked out the violet-grey pistol, and let loose a volley of scarlet streaks at the SYS-troops. Onnd and Sann landed lithely, shared a fleeting glance and nod, then cast themselves upwards again into fluid and separate orbits.
Fire rained across the forum. A thousand screams erupted into the air as citizens fled. Warriors pierced between the flaming daggers and cast their staffs through stinging arcs at the SYS-troops. Before Kai’s heart thrust its next beat, one third of the soldiers collapsed onto the ground in wails of terror; but the I’sta were already back in the air, spinning into a hundred graceful circles around the rest. Onnd and Sann danced and wove faultlessly around the hapless troops, felling them in droves to lead the warriors down into their second effortless strike — and then only one third of the SYS-soldiers remained, surrounded by the soundless wash of white about the screams of their fallen comrades.
And as Kai felt his heart push out its third beat, he watched the curling trails of Onnd and Sann lace their way around and through the final dropping SYS-troops and back towards him, landing effortlessly — they were not even breathless — between him and the first fallen SYS-soldier, followed almost immediately by the rest of the warriors around the forum, leaving the place suddenly strewn with the prostrate forms of hundreds of whimpering SYS-troops.
“That was easy,” said Sann.
“You seem surprised,” said Onnd plainly.
“Let...me....GOOOOooAAaaaaaAAARGHHHHH!” screamed Shen; Nira rolled her gleaming eyes as she took the point of her heel from his forehead.
“Don’t bother thanking me, idiot,” she said as she got up.
Shen sprang to his feet, looked around and shivered away his ruby veneer into a calm, pearly shimmer as he courteously helped Kai up and looked around the forum: “My, oh my! Every...single...one! You I’sta certainly are efficient. Well, now I assume we...run away? Yes?”
“That’s the first useful thing you’ve said all day,” said Nira coldly as she adjusted her weapon and scanned the entrances to the forum.
Onnd turned her head; the first SYS-soldier was emerging from his coma of terror.
“Sann,” she said, turning back to face her first disciple, “I need you to lead the I’sta.”
“Master?” said Sann in disbelief. Jhor stepped in from behind them past the SYS-soldier, pushing him over again with her foot as her eyes remained trained on Sann.
Onnd’s austere lips curved almost imperceptibly into a smile as Sann looked up to her, unsure.
“You are more than ready, my Sann,” said Onnd; Jhor circled them, eyeing the scene from a distance, with the rest of the warriors coming in close behind.
“And you, master?” said Sann.
“Nira and I will stay with the boy.”
Sann’s eyes brightened and her breath quickened more than it had done during the entire skirmish: “He is the One, is he not?”
“He is only one boy, Sann,” said Onnd, her visage and voice darkening again, “But ‘the One’ is an idea we can harness, and this boy’s vision may bring us closer to the Shield. Go now, Sann! Find B’rra and lead the I’sta safely from this place! We are no longer welcome here. If we are separated then blaze your way to the blind eye of the silent storm — our paths will cross.”
Sann bowed before her master, then called out, “I’sta — with me!” as she sped away, followed by the white mass of I’sta — all but Jhor, who stood her ground and looked darkly over at Onnd. Onnd met Jhor’s eyes with unconcealed contempt, then turned her back. Jhor thrust herself away into pursuit of her younger superior.
“They’ll have my ship now for sure,” said Nira, then waved her pistol at Kai, “What about you? You have one?”
Kai looked into Nira’s gleaming eyes and nodded. And smiled.
In the silence, Onnd watched the long line of I’sta flow out of the forum through one of the great stone archways, then looked back at the reviving SYS-soldier.
After a few moments, Nira shook her head incredulously at Kai: “So? Where is it?”
Kai nodded himself rapidly back to the moment and made immediately for the opposite forum wall, gesturing for them to follow. As Kai, Nira and Shen swept into a sprint, Onnd stood her ground and turned back to the SYS-soldier. He was scraping himself up onto his knees from the ground and looking around for his flare-repeater. Onnd stepped slowly over to him as, in the distance, more of the black-clad SYS-troops began streaming through the other archways into the forum. The SYS-soldier looked up at Onnd's towering figure: “I beg you, I...”
Onnd simply touched her staff against his arm — he howled out in immediate, hyperventilating fear and collapsed with bloodshot eyes onto the icy stone of the forum again. Onnd’s lips curled back into a microscopic smile, then whisked herself around into a blaze of white, and, as Kai, Nira and Shen neared the far wall of the forum, where no new SYS-troops had yet appeared, a heartbeat of Onnd’s impossible speed and grace brought her back alongside the three.
Next chapter — Changes
Sunday 11 September 2011
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