Chapter 26
Levi wasn’t the only one on the wall that flinched when the airship blossomed into flames and chunks of metal began to rain down on the Academy. A nebulous field of blue caused the debris to bounce, the dome of energy preventing the falling hazards from striking the school. Darren’s friend let out a bleat of fear and Levi saw a white aura light up next to them; when he looked, he saw that Darren was shifting into the towering wolf-man he’d been in the cafeteria. This time, though, runes of power hovered over Darren’s skin and a faint armored outline marked the air around him.
Lances of orange energy began to flash out from the sides of the other airships, and their propellers started spinning rapidly as they moved. Levi squinted and tried to get his night vision back as the flames fell to the ground. He saw faint signs of things moving among the ships, but they were only dark blurs. “The fire killed my night vision, so I can’t see what’s happening up there,” he said. I have no idea how we’ll fight together, but I have a bad feeling we’re going to have to learn fast, he thought.
“A wave of Lesser Horrors is swarming the airships. Imperial ships are using their cannons to try and hit the creatures. There’s something larger still descending from the incursion field,” Elizabeth reported. She continued to hold her perception spell, but Levi saw sweat forming on her forehead. He remembered that Nox mentioning Elizabeth had struggled on her practical examinations.
The fish guy had finally started casting something, though Levi had no idea what he was doing. The guy had taken a silver rod from a sheath on his hip and it expanded into a staff with a twisted claw at the tip—the focus looked savage. His chanting came in a guttural tongue that Levi didn’t recognize, and then a purple energy field started filling the air around him like a million fireflies. Most of them clustered around the claw on his staff, and the man started to spin it over his head to create a disk of light above himself.
Flix let out a hiss and a bright light flashed from her jaws. The ball of blue-white plasma streaked upwards and hit a twisted thing as it descended toward them. The mass of tentacles, teeth, and eyes had no problem getting past the dome over the Academy, though Flix’s breath caused flames to lick all over the abominable shape. Levi narrowed his eyes and lifted his cane. He aimed the knob toward the Horror as it approached, then pictured a pencil-thin beam lancing out to pop it like a bubble. “Vek sin dobri!” he shouted.
The crimson-and-black energy spiraled rapidly around his cane, and then when he finished the incantation, a beam flared out, exactly as he’d envisioned. The energy bolt crackled as it shot through the air and rammed into the Horror. He saw the black shape deform upward. The body sagged around the spell like someone had kicked a black, deflated balloon as the power punched into it—then its form exploded into a cloud of goo that burned when it hit Glint’s shield. “Yes!” he crowed, glad the practice had paid off.
Levi didn’t catch the looks of shock that the others gave him at the display. Glint cupped his weapon in both hands, and when the next Horror descended, his friend aimed, squinted, then fired. A green bolt flashed from the mouth of the weapon, and when it hit the Horror the pink flames from Glint’s energy barrier began to eat into it. The imp rapidly fired several more times and each one increased the flaming aura until the Horror burst. Levi glanced over and saw Glint had snapped the weapon open and was pulling the empty vials from the chambers. “Good job, Glint!” he praised.
The purple shield had grown wide enough to cast a shadow over all of them, though Levi still wasn’t sure if it was defensive or offensive in nature. The staff-spinning student seemed focused, though, so Levi didn’t want to distract him. Darren bounced on the balls of his feet, the not-quite-armor around his body shining as he stomped back and forth and gnashed his teeth. Levi took the moment to note that Darren didn’t have a tail, which oddly surprised him. The rabid drooling as the man exposed his fangs to the sky didn’t—honestly, it was the most Darren-appropriate expression Levi had seen on the canid. He glanced at Elizabeth and saw she was still holding her sensory spell, but the dark shapes inside it were growing bigger. He clicked his tongue to Zuzan and pointed, so the squirrel leaped over onto Elizabeth’s shoulder, squeaking in support as she curled against the half-fae’s neck.
Levi didn’t have time to see if that helped Elizabeth out, since there were more Horrors coming down. He was faintly aware of blasts of light and noises coming from all over the Academy walls. Must be other students fighting. Almost all of his attention was reserved for the teeth-laden balls of doom-spaghetti dropping on them, and he used the lancing spell over and over. There was a satisfaction in the destruction that caused a laugh to escape him. He felt jubilant and as his delight in the chaos and violence rose, so too did the glow of the power surrounding him. His eyes were crimson beacons and his fingers held a white-knuckled grip around his cane as he sent his attacks blasting upwards. A vague sense of exhaustion began forming in the pit of his stomach, but it was easy to ignore.
Flix swept in circles around him. Her blasts of plasma didn’t do as much damage, but they knocked the Horrors back; the dragonet seemed to be focused on slowing the interdimensional monsters down before they reached the group of students. She descended and landed on Levi’s shoulder with a chiming trill as her flames went out. She hung from his back as she rested, so Levi absently scratched the base of her horns as he sent another attack into the sky.
Theirs was only a small fragment of a larger battle, made evident when two more airships exploded, raining debris down on the school below. Small skiffs were dropping toward the Academy far faster than looked safe, and the largest airship was pulling away. The other ship had turned broadside, maneuvering like a shield between the swarm and the escaping vessel and Levi saw an ever-greater number of energy beams flare out from the ports on the ship. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it looked like one ship was covering the retreat of the other. He hoped the landing skiffs were carrying survivors, not more attackers.
Unfortunately, when Levi looked up, he realized they had run out of time to worry. With the destruction of the airships, the Horrors swarming above had less to focus on—which meant they were dropping toward the Academy. Where before they faced two or three, now he saw a dozen. His eyes widened at the sight. “Look out, there’s a lot more of them coming down,” he called. The students on the wall with him kept their focus, though the fish guy might have been shouting curses at this point, Levi couldn’t tell. Glint had finished reloading his weapon and snapped it back into one piece. Darren just looked happy to have a chance to rip something apart.
“Levi Walker, our situation is worse than you know. There is a Major Horror moving among the others. I suspect there are several Greater as well,” Elizabeth announced, though she still sounded shockingly calm.
Levi glanced to her spell and saw a thing that sent dread moving through his stomach. It had to be a third of the size of one of the airships, and at first glance his brain tried to insist it was a squid. Squids don’t have wings, or tails with teeth, he thought. If someone had taken a giant squid and fed it steroids for a couple years to thicken it up, then grafted a pair of monstrous bat wings to its cone and given it a long tail that had jaws snapping up and down its length, they might make an ancestor for this beast. His mind didn’t want to fill in all of the details, and he flinched when he saw it casually bite the Lesser Horrors out of the air around it. It confirmed the sense of scale in his mind—the thing was huge.
He didn’t see anything else, so he took Elizabeth’s word on the Greater Horrors. “Right, well… the Lessers are on us, so let’s hope the teachers can take down anything bigger,” he announced. Glint at least looked up at him with an expression that said it helped. His friend made some adjustments to the knobs on his staff, and the barrier around them hissed with more intense energy. Glint also began pulling more parts from his pouches and attaching them to his weapon.
Levi wondered if Darren and the fish guy were actually going to do anything, but the sudden descent of several Horrors interrupted his train of thought. Three of the monsters had managed to drop down near them, just outside Glint’s protective shield. The purple disk suddenly began to spew bolts of power that went off like a machine gun and Levi saw each hit burn a fistful of flesh from the Horrors. The creatures couldn’t get closer because the rapid-fire attack kept pushing them back. One by one they burned and collapsed in on themselves, and the disk had only shrunk by a quarter. “Nice spell,” he said.
The three-eyed figure flashed a smile—which revealed teeth even worse than Glint’s. Then the man went back to powering up his disk and Levi turned his attention to the night sky. The darkness was distorted by the energy blazing in every direction. There was no question as to whether the other students were fighting. Levi could hear screams and curses echoing in the air, and magic was flying in every direction. He flipped his cane around so the tip was pointed up, and then clasped his hand around the opposite wrist to steady it. He began to whisper his lancing spell once more, picturing thinner, even greater controlled bursts of power.
Using the spell seemed to be doing what Nox promised; each casting felt like it took less of a toll on his body. He felt a burst of power and violent joy each time a Horror exploded, so he spread his feet to keep himself ready as he attacked relentlessly. Balls of green flames began flying upwards to explode out in a wide spherical attack, which Levi assumed was from Glint’s weapon—modified by whatever his buddy had been doing. He felt like they were doing well enough, and he even heard Darren get into the battle. A roar echoed around them as the wolfman leaped to slash his claws through a Lesser Horror and shred the monster. The Horror’s teeth skittered off Darren’s armoring spell, and his return strikes blasted through the tentacled creature like a freight train.
Then, Levi’s magic hit something that didn’t explode. The black shape had flapping wings and a vaguely man-like shape. Tentacles emerged where its arms should be, and its legs were skinny and looked fragile, but the head was a twisted knot of teeth that bulged forward from between its shoulders. His spell burned it, but didn’t detonate it the way it had the others. The creature was dropping straight toward them and Flix let out several chimes of warning. Her chest glowed as she tried to summon her destructive breath, but Levi wasn’t sure it was going to happen in time.
“We’ve got something coming!” he shouted in warning to the others. When the beast landed on the wall near them, Levi glared at it. His personal energy spiraled down the length of his cane and began to condense while he considered using his focus as a physical weapon. Before he had a chance, Darren hit the creature with the force of a bear shot from a circus cannon. The wolfman slammed into the shape just above the waist and it folded backwards as he took it off its legs. Tentacles and teeth ripped at Darren’s back, and after a moment the armor flickered and faded. Levi saw claws hidden among the tentacles and watched as pieces of Darren’s energy construction were torn away. The canid didn’t seem to care, however, as he attacked with his own claws. Each strike came with a flare of silver, like Darren was dragging knives behind his claws. The Horror let out a cry that disoriented all of them—Levi stumbled, and he heard Glint cry out. There was a thud as someone fell, and then the purple blasts of fish guy’s disk began to spray out. The spell was attacking every Horror around them and knocking them back—all except the big one Darren tumbled with.
Levi began to gather his energy into a sphere at the tip of his cane, struggling to remember the words for the incantation he needed. Rage, and a bit of fear, churned inside of him and Levi began to run toward the bigger Horror. The energy balanced on top of his cane like it was attached and Levi jumped into the air, shocking himself when he cleared Darren and found himself passing over the Horror. “Get fucked!” he screamed as he shoved the cane down to spike the tip into the creature’s soft head.
It wasn’t a proper incantation, yet it made Levi feel better. The mass of energy he’d gathered slammed into the beast’s head and then exploded. The energy lifted Levi up and sent him bouncing down the length of wall as smoke rose from Darren’s position. Levi didn’t lose consciousness, but he did lose track of where he was as he rolled and tumbled to a stop on the heavy stones.
Behind him, the headless Horror flailed in every direction as it tried to kill the thing that had attacked it. Darren took advantage of its inability to aim and tore into it with abandon. His claws lashed out again and again, now leaving visible silver echoes behind with each strike. When the canid jumped back and roared a word, Levi caught a glimpse of each of those silver streaks suddenly slamming into the Horror’s flesh—and then it burst into a spray of gore that thankfully burned up under the influence of Glint’s lantern.
Unfortunately, fish guy’s disk had almost vanished, and the catalyst inside Glint’s lantern was starting to grow very dim. Levi struggled to his knees, though exhaustion filled all of his limbs. He had never before used so much energy and remained conscious, yet it was hard to feel pride when the sky was still full of monsters waiting to eat him.
The airship which had acted as a shield to the runner was listing, descending toward the ground with half its hull on fire. The ship that had fled was disappearing over the stony hills. Levi glanced to the part of the sky the Horrors had emerged from, but he couldn’t tell if there was an end to the damned things. A gray light seemed to bloom in the air over the central tower of the Academy. Turning his head, Levi saw a small robed figure floating in the air over the school. Gloved hands rose and stars began to sprinkle out with each gesture until a new starfield came into existence. When the gloves thrust upwards, all those tiny sparkling lights shot out to explode on contact with any Horror they touched.
Do interdimensional Horrors feel fear? Levi wondered. The Director lifted into the sky above the Academy—vaporizing Horrors with casual waves of their hands as they floated over the school.
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