Conduit, I need recon.
No pause this time.
There are two more rogues with the Psion. You’ll be outnumbered, Knight Leader. And you are badly injured. One of your ribs is broken.
Reconnaissance, Conduit. I don’t need a medical check.
He felt a surge of irritation from the Conduit at this cocky, rude thought, and for some reason that made him feel smug. It was weird to care about how the Conduit felt – he was used to not even being allowed to care how he himself felt – but it was also somehow surprisingly fun, despite all his current physical agony.
A thud, and then another. Second and Third stood by. They had jumped back down from the blast shaft. Had they read his thought exchange with the Conduit? But he ordered them to shut off their psionic linkages for nothing but basic command. With a few steps they were now both standing next to Knight Leader, shoulder to shoulder, staring up into the lava tube together. They held up their rifles and nested the stock on their armored shoulders.
Eleventh is safe in the reaver. Second.
We are with you, Knight Leader. Third.
The Conduit’s psionic energy changed the moment Second and Third joined the Knight Leader’s side, as if she too was committed to the new mission – one entirely of the Knight Leader’s own agenda, directly disobeying the Princess! What fraying was this? – it didn’t matter, they would either save Eighth, Ninth and Tenth together, in which case the Princess would have no reason to flay them, or the Knight Leader and his two knights would die.
In which case, why worry about the Princess? They would already be dead.
And so, the three knights strode up the lava tube, equally spaced, rifles trained.
The Conduit was now straining as hard as she could to scry for the rogue elvans. Since breaching, they had mapped the crooks and crannies that the tremorsense pulse missed with ambient echolocation, and now its contours were clear and crisp to their mind. All that remained was sensing the presence of the rogues.
Then the Conduit felt a psionic flicker. It looked to the three knights like a blue mote that they could only see in their imaginations, overlaid upon the darkness.
In unison they aimed at it and fired. Round after round. The retorts rang out harshly and angrily, and each ringing crack of the rifle the cave returned threefold in echoes. The recoil was felt as only a slight tickling sensation as their carapace’s shock pads absorbed it.
But the Conduit did not feel the sharp, burning, piercing kind of pain indicative of bullets penetrating through flesh from the foreign psionic signature, she could only feel dull thuds of faint pain, bruising pain, and disorientation, but not the sudden dark silence of death… they had stripped Eighth, Ninth and Tenth’s carapaces for themselves!
Ready your melee weapons.
Affirmative, Knight Leader.
Knight Leader grasped the handle of his gryphantene greatsword strapped upon his back, and he could feel the carapace’s active sheath unfold itself so he could whip it in front of him. Second had a long dirk, he pulled it out of his carapace’s thigh sheath, and his offhand gauntlet unfolded a circular gryphantene buckler. Third, who was a marksman, only had a thin steel stiletto, but he dropped his gun and readied it in reverse grip.
On me!
Here the ceiling of the lava tube was thin, and a narrow crack had opened, sealed with translucent polymer, just enough to cast a brooding pallor that thinned the darkness. The area was squared off and expanded past the natural sloping walls of the lava tube; it seemed to be a staging area for a retreat, had the rille not collapsed - the lava tube ended here, at a wall of rocks. Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth were bound up, stashed to a corner. Three rogues, now clad in carapace, turned to face their attackers. Three in the shell, against three in the shell. A fair fight.
The rogue psion emanated frustration and shock, surprised that somehow the Knights had gotten the slip on her. The Conduit had strained her abilities to the point of nausea, and hand tremors, but she had managed to cloak the Knights’ psionic signature… for the most part. Knight Leader heaved his greatsword in a running downward slash, the rogue psion parried with her railgun held aloft in both hands at the last second. Her thumb flicked a switch, and the railgun started humming. The Knight Leader tried to pull his greatsword away. But now it was stuck to the railgun by magnetic attraction. Curse that steel core, couldn’t they have given him a pure gryphantene blade?
The Knight Leader’s newfound psionic sensitivity felt a wickedness from the psion, and it angered him. You think you’ve got me?
He let go of the greatsword, dropped to his knees, and smashed his fist as hard as he could into the psion’s armored torso. “Ungh!” The psion toppled backwards, and the railgun and greatsword clattered on top of her.
Second was pinned down by one of the rogues, who had reappropriated one of their own guns. He was down on one knee, and a rain of bullets hammered his shield. Third had only his stiletto and could only dive for cover from the rounds of his assailant. Satisfied now they had their initial targets well suppressed the two rogues trained their stolen firearms on Knight Leader.
Then, Knight Leader felt his body jar and rattle from all sides, his limbs jerked back and forth, and he felt concussive forces hit his cheek, then his elbow, then his flank, then his thigh. It felt like being whipped with rocks. “Ah! Ah! AH!” The Knight Leader cried out in pain, but it was muffled in his visor.
Then the pain melted away.
I’m holding it back for you Knight Leader, I don’t know how much longer!
The Conduit was giving him a pain block? She was a stronger psion than he thought. He dove forward in a roll, grabbing his greatsword. The rogue that Second had engaged should not have changed targets, for now Second advanced quickly and bashed her with the full might of a powered running tackle behind his shield, slamming the rogue forward, and then Knight Leader, leaping sprightly out of his roll to dash in, swung his greatsword laterally at the lurching rogue, smashing her back the other way. His greatsword at least had a gryphantene edge, while the stolen carapace was ceramic, and so it split open the abdomen plate. It fell away to reveal a mess of bloody small intestines, dropping to the floor like a long bundle of rope.
And then the Knight Leader went blind. And deaf, all he could hear was a high-pitched screeching. It was suddenly dark, then light, then a scrambled mosaic of color and noise. The back of his throat dried up, and he wanted to retch, but then the sensation of crawling creatures marching up out of the back of his throat, out of his lips, and then suddenly all across his body overwhelmed him so that he felt like he was gagging, drowning in liquid that was filling up his lungs, suffocating so he couldn’t vomit because he was suffocating, but he needed to vomit but he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe but he needed to throw up, but he couldn’t breathe! He couldn’t see! He couldn’t hear anything but that intense, everpresent screeching that felt like razor blades vivisecting his eardrums and sinuses, penetrating deep and reverberating like a torturous itch from the inside of his skull. He needed to breathe!
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He was hallucinating. He had been hit by a mind blast.
I’m here, Knight Leader. It was a faint voice that floated up through the cacophony, and then the intense suffering dulled ever so slightly.
His mind grabbed onto that voice like a lifeline. You can fight it! You must fight it! The Conduit!
He concentrated on nothing but that voice. It had no sound, but he could feel her presence, almost sense her strange longings, though he couldn’t for the life of him vocalize it, or much less even understand it. The screeching changed the pitch to a deep hum. The mess of shapes and colors began to consolidate, a great gray circle in darkness, then more shades - the circle uncoiled outwards into a cylinder, and shadowy forms. The nausea subsided just enough for him to start gasping and choking.
Breathe. Focus on your breathing.
He took a halting breath, coughed a sputtering cough, then exhaled, then another breath, deeper this time, and exhaled.
Breathe. He breathed in.
Exhale. He exhaled.
Breathe. Breathe.
Exhale. Exhale.
And then they were in unison.
Breathe. Exhale.
And the world sharpened back into focus.
How did he recover from a mind blast?! The rogue psion! He could read her thoughts, crystal clear. It shouldn’t be possible.
And then she shot him with the railgun.
But it was a glancing blow, her aim poor in panic. The railgun shredded his pauldron, left a deep gash perpendicular to his collarbone, perhaps his collarbone took a greenstick fracture, but it did not snap. It was still just a flesh wound. Hot black blood spilled all through inside his thoracic plate, he could feel the warm stickiness continue to run and ooze all inside his failing carapace. Hydraulic fluid spilled out of the torn pauldron, and he could feel the arm lock and freeze up, and the buttressing bolts to his helm were cut open too so it now drooped lopsided on his head, only one eye could see through the visor now. With his other arm, still suited in the armor, he undid the fasteners and let the shredded pauldron, left arm pads and gauntlet fall to the floor, before finally even undoing the hydraulic exoskeletal limb, and then threw off his carapace helm. Blood trickled and trailed down his naked arm, dripping to the floor from his fingertips.
Cheek length, unkempt, stark white hair fell over a ghostly white face. A fierce brow, sharp jaw, and a large, crooked nose, clearly broken and reset many times. But his eyes were large and pleasant, with light purple irises; the rogue psion was surprised that they even seemed somehow innocent. Like the eyes of a wide-eyed broodling. His cheeks were gaunt, and large bags under his eyes gave him a look of an elvan run ragged. He had not slept much, and he had not eaten much. Despite his pleasant eyes, they carried a haunted look. His expression was cold. Emotionless.
She did not have the time to reload. This is why he hated railguns, both fighting against them, and fighting with them - they took too much damn time to reload.
He strode forward and kicked the railgun away. Planting one foot on the rogue psion’s chest plate to pin her against a wall – there was no hope of knocking her over when buttressed by the carapace – he reached over with his arm in remaining armor and ripped her helm off, the latches wrenched away. Now, the Knight Leader could see the face of the rogue psion.
The rogue psion had light, dulled blue eyes, and like all elvans, the pallor and stark white hair of albinism. She wore her hair cropped short to her chin, except for the hair that fell over her face, which were cropped to a fringe that ended at her eyebrows. She too, was thin… emaciated. They were barely surviving, these rogues.
He leveled his greatsword at her, holding the tip to her throat.
Although Second and Third now lay on the floor, collapsed, both succumbed to mind blasts, the Third had managed to rush up and rip off the only other remaining Rogue’s helmet, indeed was about to stab her before he fainted after being mind blasted. She wore a single long braid and was as emaciated as the railgunner. “Stop!” she cried.
Stop! The command echoed psionically, and the echo rippled out. So, she was psion too, not just a mere labor worker.
The Knight Leader felt himself freezing in place, unable to move. His muscles twitched, contorted, so tight he felt they might tear. He gritted his teeth, pushed himself with all his might to impale his blade upon her gullet. But his body was not his to control. The other psion had him in a hold person.
Conduit, break me free!
I… I can’t…
He could sense now that blocking his pain, and then absorbing the mind blast, had sapped the Conduit of her will. For her to protect him, it meant that what he felt, she felt too. He could feel the agony of the Conduit, faint and in the back of his mind, for she was trying to protect him even now from her own pain, and that only gave the Knight Leader a loathsome regret that he had dragged her into this. If only he had died, instead of Fourth! Then no other Knight would have had the authority to embark them all on this death wish. His whole body was shaking now, and again tears had formed in the corners of his eyes.
The rogue psion who was once at his mercy now stared at him with a scowl, those blue eyes boring furious hate into him. It was withering, and he could feel now the crushing power of two psions, combining their strength to slowly choke his mind. The nausea began to creep back. The sensation of drowning, too. But he closed his eyes tightly and tried to focus… he somehow had stronger psionic power than he should, this was not the first time he felt this undue strength of mind. He didn’t know how or why. Soldiers, by default, were not given psionic power, in the fear that the workers would lose control of them. For now, though, it didn’t matter how or why. All he knew was that he could.
Then he could feel the Conduit using her remaining strength to guide him. Once again, he focused on his breathing, although her guidance was faint now. He felt his trembling subside, his muscles start to unwind and unknot.
He held still in his mind, for just a second, just enough to feel the braided psion, who had locked him in a hold person, start to slacken her will as she assumed he had given up resisting…
And then he let out a roar that vibrated through his chest. It hurt his broken rib a lot, but the pain gave him a way to feel his body again, torturous as it was, and take back command. In a whirl, he spun and leapt backwards, bringing his blade back around with him in a wide arc, and then lopped the braided rogue’s head clean off, for she had not put on the helm lest it interfere with her psionics. It bounced to the side, the braid flopping after it like the tail of a scurrying creature.
“Elyn!” screamed the blue-eyed psion, who wore a fringe.
It was just the Knight Leader and she now. Elyn’s lifeless eyes rolled to the side, but the expression on her face, although still slightly frozen in the shock of losing her psionic hold, seemed serene now, abruptly drained of fear. The Knight Leader turned to face Blue Eyes, sword held in front of him.
She snarled.
HOLD! It echoed through his body like cold needles on his meridian points.
Again, the Knight Leader could not move. Blue Eyes, the leader, was much, much stronger. And she would not be tricked by the Knight Leader’s feint like Elyn had, now that the Knight Leader had shown his hand. But this time, the Knight Leader conserved his strength, and did not try to break free of the hold person.
He had never felt his mind defray, reweave itself back to tight knotted strength, so he couldn’t recognize it.
Her name was Orlia Adanbani.
Much weaker than the chest, for it needed many more ductile bindings.
And though the Knight Leader could not sense it, the Conduit thought- this fucking sick bitch! Get your mind off my knight!
Who thought- Don’t you fucking die on me, Knight Leader!
The Conduit thought to herself- C’mon! Come on! COME ON!
The Conduit thought- You can’t give up! Not now!
The Conduit thought- Why did he have to be such a glutton for punishment?!
Elyn’s full name was Elyn Zilis.