Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [167]
Feeling the exuberance of the worldforest through the green priests and other observers, Celli laughed with sheer joy. Leaves sprouted from the fresh boughs, and thorns sprang from the ends of the energetic branches, extending like scimitars in search of any enemy. No longer a set of blackened stumps, the new wental-infused growth towered above the canopy.
Another enormous treeship, the first in a new fleet.
Jess Tamblyn watched the spectacle with obvious surprise, as if even he hadn't guessed what the wental power could do when joined with the worldforest. Celli saw her parents standing together, mouths agape, like little children watching a condorfly hatch from its chrysalis.
Beneto's voice echoed from all the trees. "This is just the beginning."
More water globules spread away from the Roamer man's strange ship. The separate wental bubbles homed in on other broken trees, crippled trunks, and blasted boughs that had never recovered. The large droplets drenched stumps, reviving and transforming them into monumental thorny structures as well. A new armada of treeships sprang to life, surging up from the forest floor.
Solimar grinned at Celli, full of fresh knowledge from the forest. "Now you know what created the verdani battleships in the first place! Worldtrees infused with living wentals, joined in a symbiotic construction great enough to battle even a hydrogue warglobe. A hundred warglobes!"
New thorny battleships lunged up from the ground all across the forest, at least a hundred more. Celli wanted to race through the wooded paths to see them all.
Ever since the first hydrogue attack, the Theron people had felt sore and defeated, overwhelmed by an impossible task of mere survival. Now, though, Celli could feel the strong new sensation of hope. "If the hydrogues know what's good for them, they'll just surrender."
Beneto stood beneath the shadow of the first newborn seedship, facing the Roamer man. "You brought what we needed more than anything, Jess Tamblyn. By reviving Theron trees with wental water, we can now add a new fleet of verdani battleships to the ones we summoned from the far reaches."
Dazed, Jess flexed his hands, as if he couldn't believe what he'd helped to accomplish. "Will it be enough? That isn't the only ability we have to offer. Even now, Roamer clans are gathering tankers and cargo haulers to take shipments of wental water and drop them like bombs into hydrogue gas giants."
The wooden man looked at the thorny trees that filled the Theron sky. "These new verdani battleships will also find and destroy hydrogues. The enemy is already weakened by their struggles against the faeros. We can tip the balance and defeat them forever."
Jess beckoned to his water vessel. "Before that can happen, I still have plenty of work to do--coordinating Roamer water carriers, managing the wental distribution--while you prepare to launch your treeships. Even a few hundred verdani battleships aren't a sure bet against thousands of drogue warglobes."
The nearest verdani battleship continued to crack and thrash as it grew like a geyser of living wood. Across the worldforest, a hundred more like it reached for the sky, unsheathed swords prepared to strike the hydrogues.
"Our fleet will join the great fight very soon," Beneto said, then lowered his voice. "But first we must find pilots for each of these new vessels." He studied the looming, gold-scaled trunks. "And I will be the first volunteer."
Solimar's face was solemn, and Celli's heart clenched with instinctive dread. What did the golem of her brother