Metal Swarm - Kevin J. Anderson [219]
One of the Klikiss grabbed his leg. Sharp claws dug into his thigh muscle, setting hooks and yanking him backward. Davlin thrust his hands through the transportal in a desperate attempt to grab the frame. Another insect warrior fell upon him, seizing his arm, tearing him away from the stone gateway.
Davlin shouted and fought fiercely, but it was futile. Klikiss claws sliced the flesh of his arms, another sharp leg punctured his left side between the ribs. He was bleeding badly, too wounded to hurt them anymore.
The Klikiss warriors turned him around and pulled him back, leaving a long, broad smear of blood on the stone floor. Davlin looked up to see two domates arrive in the chamber. They blocked off the room, and he had nowhere to go.
One hundred and thirty-five
Yazra'h
The Prism Palace began to glow like a sun. Some of its I grand domes had already melted. The faeros seemed to be I everywhere.
The Ildirans needed their leader, even if the Mage-Imperator was not there. Prime Designate Daro'h understood his obligation -to find an effective way to fight against the unquenchable flames. And Yazra'h's job was to keep him alive.
She had dragged the Prime Designate from the skysphere chamber along with anyone else she could save. Even as they fled the throne room, the terrarium dome had turned into a giant magnifying glass. All of the plants and flying creatures blackened, withered, and burst into flames. The lone treeling atop the palace had been incinerated in the first pass of the fireballs.
When Adar Zan'nh's warliners struck back with water blasts from overhead, Yazra'h urged her companions to greater speed. The air itself scalded their throats and lungs. They ran through the shimmering passages, down stairs, across impossibly exposed halls, all in an effort to reach the outside. The three Isix cats bounded along.
Daro'h, still draped in heat-resistant cloth, asked, 'Can we get to the Adar's warliner?'
'I do not know - but we must leave the Prism Palace!'
Osira'h and her younger siblings had bright feverish eyes, though they said they had blocked off the new thism/telink they had learned, they seemed to be united in a way even Yazra'h had not seen before. Focused.
'We should go to where the seven rivers converge,' Osira'h said. 'We might be safe in the water underground - at least long enough to get to the Adar.'
Yazra'h grabbed the Prime Designate's shoulder and turned him down another passageway. 'Yes, we will do that. Out here!' She led the way until they emerged through a vaulted side entrance into stifling air that smelled of burnt meat. Each breath scalded their lungs with hot steam from the Solar Navy bombardment. Broken panes of crimson and yellow glass left colourful, dangerous debris all around.
Faeros danced across the sky, arcing plumes of flame like solar flares. The Adar's warliners continued emptying their water reservoirs in their struggle to extinguish the fireballs. Another blackened faeros ship dropped like a dying ember into the city. Yazra'h's eyes burned every time she tried to look at the spectacle. ;
Hundreds of guard kithmen had already died, unable to stand against the heat. Now Yazra'h saw a squadron of mirror-armoured jousters - champions - rushing together to face the elemental enemies. The burly athletes had thrown on their full mirrored armour, adjusted helmets, and grabbed their prismatic laser staves. She had fought alongside these men, trained with them, pitted her skills against theirs, and she considered them her friends. Yazra'h knew their exceptional abilities. Perhaps their weapons would work where others had failed.
When a faeros ellipsoid swooped down at them, she shouted to her Isix cats, and they ran back into the meagre shelter of the vaulted overhang. Daro'h flung his flame-resistant cloth like a blanket around himself, Osira'h, and the other children, pulling them all down together as the flames approached.
The jousters raised their laser lances, sent out a flurry of razor-sharp beams,