A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [245]
As the nearest warglobe continued its destruction, Reynald saw the forest stir beneath it. After the devastating icewave had cracked and split the massive trunks, a wave of rebirth followed behind it like a green ocean tide. Even as the old trees blackened and began to fall, a rippling surge of newborn foliage burst out of the twisted, scarred trunks, green leaves replacing the shattered brown ones.
The explosion of fresh foliage was like some eerie time-lapse image of rampant fecundity. The new, bright growth instantly sealed over the hydrogue wound like a fresh, shiny scar. A defiant flush of green softened the black scars, trying to keep pace with the destruction.
The warglobe passed, seemingly oblivious to the small swatch of forest healing itself after each crippling blast.
Reynald wanted to cheer. Heartened by the demonstration of living power, the splash of hope, he called upon the priests again to do something, but they could barely remain standing, obviously exhausted. “It is not enough. We cannot continue this.”
Reynald looked to the densest, greenest part of the carpeted forest, which was momentarily safe from the destruction. Trembling, as if concentrating verdant energy drawn from billions of leaves, a section of the trees collapsed, folding of their own accord into a central mound, like a fortified shelter that twined branches together and dug its roots deeper into the soil. The thunderous booms of toppling trunks rolled across the sky even as the warglobes continued their onslaught.
Reynald stared, wondering if the worldforest was protecting a small core of itself…preparing for the worst. The interlocking wood appeared as hard as iron. Had the towering trees given up already? And how could that small shelter protect any of his people?
The warglobes struck again and again, crisscrossing in random paths of destruction—they seemed to have no specific plan other than to destroy all of the worldtrees. Vast sections of the vulnerable worldforest had already been freeze-blasted. So many trees, so many lives. Swaths of landscape now withered and collapsed.
Reynald saw that it was only getting worse, second by second. Though he felt exposed and vulnerable from his vantage point, he knew that Therons on the ground were dying just as rapidly as those on the treetops, all across the continent. The worldtrees and wildlife were being wiped out and millions of people slaughtered.
Neither he nor the forest could do anything to fight back.
126
ADAR KORI’NH
“The Ildirans must have a victory,” Adar Kori’nh said to the skeleton crew of his commandeered maniple. His warriors…his heroes. He reflexively ran his palm over the rough, stubbly surface of his shaved scalp. “We need it now more than ever.”
These battleships were the grandest vessels in the Solar Navy, loaded with the best weaponry the Empire had ever created, gaudy with spectacular solar fins and sails that fluttered each time the course was adjusted. He knew he could have had ten times as many volunteers for this mission. He wasn’t the only Ildiran to have felt impotent against their enemy.
Everything was ready, and he simply had to make the effort count.
Reeling from the loss of the Mage-Imperator, every person of their race—including Kori’nh himself—felt adrift. Before long, probably within a day, Prime Designate Jora’h would reassert control, bind the soul-threads together again, proclaim the paths he saw from the Lightsource.
But Kori’nh was the Solar Navy’s supreme commander, and he had his own ideas about how this war should be pursued. Here, now, freed at last from the constraints of thism, he could put those ideas into action.
“Full speed to the Qronha system,” he said, and the forty-nine warliners arranged themselves into a perfect battle formation. “It is our turn to take the fight to the hydrogues. And to destroy them.”
The crew cheered, glad to be following him in uncertain and painful times. The Adar stood proud in the