Tue 12 Jan, 2010
Alyas was surprisingly difficult to find. Her priestess duties took her all over the castle, and she apparently spent a lot of time helping people with little problems. Tom finally tracked her down as she was leaving a noble’s room. Alyas smiled as she caught sight of him walking up.
“Tom! Can I help you?” she asked, as nice as ever.
Tom paused, choosing his words with great care. “Did Brask talk to you about what’s going to happen to us next?”
“Yes,” she said, still smiling sweetly. “And I’m so happy for you! You’ll finally be going home.”
“Yeah, about that,” Tom said. “We’d…like to fly our Giant Armors again. Just one last time.”
She frowned. “I’d love to, but I don’t know if Lord Brask will approve.”
Tom looked down, hoping fiercely that she was buying this. “Well, we were kind of hoping that we could do it without letting him know first. We…don’t want to get him all upset over this. We just want to fly one last time.” He looked up at her, trying his hardest to look pleading and hopeful.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Tom knew she was thinking about it. She probably realized they could take advantage of this opportunity. She was nice, but not completely stupid.
Her expression softened, and she smiled knowingly. “All right,” she said. “One last time.”
There was a thoughtful understanding in her voice that Tom didn’t dare to probe into. She’d agreed.
A few minutes later, they strode into the courtyard: Tom and Alyas, both firm and resolute. Taka stood next to Hope, the ladder already in place. Tom gave him a nod, seeing with relief that Taka was tired but healthy.
“Are you okay?” Tom asked.
Taka gave him a tired smile. “You’re not the only one who loves Hope,” Taka replied. Tom grinned, then grasped the ladder and hauled himself up to Hope’s cockpit. He swung around and settled in, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.
He leaned forward to look at Guardian, where Adam was carefully stretching his muscles, then down at the ground. Alyas stood there, looking up at him with a strange, wondrous expression on her face. It looked like she admired him. It was weird.
Tom nodded at her. She walked forward, stood between Hope and Guardian, closed her eyes, and began to pray. Tom suddenly felt fear clutch his heart. He was going to go out and risk his life. He’d been in danger before, but this felt like the first time he was really doing it. He pushed down his fear, knowing how important this was, how many people he had to protect.
The cockpit faded away. He floated upwards, then with a glance to one side to ensure Guardian was following, he streaked northwards towards the pit.
Tom’s stomach churned with anxiety as the trees flicked past below him. The Giant Trych appeared again in his mind’s eye, slashing at him. It would be repaired by now, he knew. And there might be more.
He shook his head as he neared the pit. He glanced around and was surprised to see no bugs around. Surely they’d be waiting for him, since he’d attacked before. He approached the pit and settled down with a dull thud on the bare ground a few dozen yards from the black entrance. The moon cast a glow just bright enough to glint off the iron of destroyed wagon wheels. He felt the thump of Guardian touching down behind him.
“Well,” Adam said, “I guess we have to go down.”
Tom nodded to himself, then replied with reluctance in his voice, “Yeah.”
Tom lifted himself up, floated forwards, then dropped slowly into the pit. Hope began to glow, and with Guardian just above him, their combined light was enough to make the pit walls quite easy to see. Tom stared hard at those walls, but they were solid spiraling walls of rock. No Trych.
The walls of the pit opened up, and Tom peered into the darkness. Hope’s light brightened until he could see they were descending to the floor of a massive cavern. A hundred Giant Armors could fit in here easily. Even with Hope and Guardian both glowing like bonfires, Tom could still barely see the walls.
They dropped down further, towards the floor of the cavern, and Tom felt like his stomach had turned into fluttering moths. Where were the Trych?
Hope’s feet just touched the ground when he heard Adam yell, “There it is!” Tom turned just in time to see a flash of movement and Adam yell something Tom couldn’t understand. Then there was a deafening clang of metal on metal as the Giant Trych hit Guardian. The Armor flew backwards with the force of the hit, and something large spiraled away. It took Tom a second to realize that it was Guardian’s left arm. It clattered away on the other side of the cavern, so forceful was the Giant Trych’s attack.
And even now the Trych was running past Hope, closing in on Guardian, which now lay on its back. Tom lunged at the Giant Trych, reaching out an arm to grab it, but it just leapt away from him. He accelerated towards the Giant Trych, lunging and dropping from one side to the other to keep it confused, but after a few moments the Trych dashed around him, too quickly for him to react in time, and leapt at Guardian, one arm held forward to keep its wicked blade facing its target.
Tom screamed “No!” as he turned towards his friend, but Guardian was up on one knee now, and managed to duck away from the blade and knock the Giant Trych off-balance. It wasn’t enough. The Trych tottered for a second, then regained its balance and swung its left arm straight at Guardian’s neck.
The head of the Giant Armor flew several dozen yards and clattered to the ground. Tom screamed in frustration and leapt forward, finally able to move, and the Giant Trych leapt away. Tom collapsed in front of the Giant Armor and yelled, “Adam! Adam, are you okay?”
Life froze for a split second, then Adam replied, “Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
Tom began breathing again, then looked back at the Trych. It crouched in a fighting pose fifty yards away, apparently not willing to attack both of them head-on.
“How’s Guardian?” Tom asked.
“I can still move okay, though I’m really off-balance without an arm. But something’s wrong with the cockpit. I’m starting to see it. I think without the head, everything’s starting to shut down or something.”
Tom frowned. “Let me do this,” he said. “We’ll keep you in reserve.”
“I can live with that,” Adam replied. Tom could almost see him smirk.
Tom knew that any further delay wouldn’t help anything, so without further warning he rushed at the Giant Trych. It stood there, unmoving, letting him get closer, and he just started to get worried when it ducked to Hope’s left and dodged around him, like a basketball player heading for the basket. Tom tried to turn, but he was moving too fast and he was too heavy. Hope swung around in a circle as the Giant Trych headed straight for Guardian.
He could only stare in horror as the Trych closed on Guardian, was almost there, its blades gleaming dully in the reflected light of the Armors.
And suddenly Guardian leapt forward, bringing its right arm around to pummel the Trych in its shoulder. It spun, stepping back, as Adam tried to get in another punch, but the Trych was faster. It pulled itself close, then lunged forward. There was a horrible screech of metal splitting metal as the Armor and the Trych were jumbled together for a moment, and Tom ran forward. The Trych got itself out and ran away a few steps, stopping to turn back to survey its victory.
Both of Guardian’s legs had been severed, straight through both thighs. It was a chest with one arm, now. But it had managed to survive.
“Th—thanks, Tom,” Adam said, his voice faint and breathing hard. “I’m…I’m okay, just shaken up. You go for it. I know you can do it.”
“I know,” Tom replied, keeping his eyes on the Giant Trych. “I have to.”
Tom stepped over Guardian and put up his arms. “That’s it!” he yelled. “I will not let you hurt my friends any more! It’s just you and me, and we’re going to fight, and I! Will! Defeat you!”
He stood there, waiting. He knew that that was all he had to do. The Trych would come to him; bullies always did. Sure enough, the Trych began hopping from one foot to the other, then suddenly leapt forward. He tensed, surprised again at how fast it was. As it approached, he barely had time to crouch, then it was on him and he leapt forward, his blades slicing through the air towards its chest.
It veered away, dug in its heels and crouched like a baseball player sliding into home plate, then switched direction almost as fast as Tom could blink. Tom was just turning to face it as it came at him again, diving low at his legs. He managed to leap to one side and the Trych tumbled into the ground, but tucked into a roll and skidded on its side. They both scrambled to their feet and faced each other.
This relieved Tom; the Trych was ignoring Guardian now, at least. He tried to think. It was faster than he was. Lighter. Not as strong, maybe, but that didn’t help him now, since he couldn’t get near the Trych to take advantage of Hope’s strength.
He cast around in his mind for some solution. There was nothing but him, the Giant Trych, Guardian, and the bare walls of the cavern. The walls….
Tom stepped to the left a few times. The Trych copied his moves, keeping the same distance between them. Tom stepped to the side again. The Trych followed. Now the cavern wall was only a few dozen yards on Tom’s left, curving around on either side of them.
Tom started forward a little, and the Trych leapt at him. Tom stumbled backwards, hoping the Giant Trych thought that he was running scared. He managed to get within two steps of the wall when the Giant Trych was on him. He put his arms up and grabbed the Trych’s hands as it came at him, then heaved with all his might and hurled it into the wall, then slammed Hope’s body up against it.
He began to push. He held the Trych’s arms out as he leaned against the Trych, grinding it into the solid rock of the cavern’s wall. The Trych squirmed, wrenching at Tom’s grip, but he used all his strength to hold those arms apart and push forward. He felt his muscles groan at keeping his arms outstretched, and the muscles in his legs began to burn with the terrific strain of pushing up against the Trych.
He continued to push. He stared straight into the Trych’s horrible yellow eyes, as if daring it. He pushed and pushed, and the Trych squirmed and writhed, but it was helpless.
Tom heard a crack, and looked down to see the hard, china-like armor on the Trych’s chest had split. The Trych put its head back and screamed in pain.
The scream was definitely human. It rattled the bones within Tom’s body. He felt himself shake. Emotions poured through him—horror, shame, fear, disgust, worry. His emotions took over and energy surged through his veins. He could think of only one thing: He had to finish this.
He released the Giant Trych’s right arm, put his free hand on the Trych’s chest, braced himself, and pulled with all his might on the other arm. There was another loud crack, followed by three pops, and with a sickening slurp Tom pulled the Trych’s left arm from its socket.
The Trych howled and pulled away from Tom, but collapsed on the ground before it could get anywhere. With grim determination, Tom reached down and grabbed its other arm. It squealed again, but he was determined to finish this. He held it with both arms, braced a foot against the Trych’s shoulder, and ripped out the other arm with a crunch.
The Giant Trych curled in on itself in pain. Tom grabbed at the crack in the Trych’s chest, jammed Hope’s fingers into it, and heaved, feeling his arms burn with the effort. The Giant Trych went limp as its chest cracked apart.
In the center of the Giant Trych’s broken chest, like a single egg in a bird’s nest, lay a young girl, a little younger than Tom. She wore a dingy white dress that was drenched with sweat, and she was curled up in exactly the same position as the Trych. Her eyes were closed; she was unconscious with exhaustion.
She was a pilot, just like he was. The Trych must have summoned her, just as Brask had summoned him, and she’d been made to pilot their own type of Giant Armor. He wondered what it had been like for her, surrounded by Trych all the time.
A few minutes later, Adam crouched over the girl’s unconscious body, both of them held in Hope’s left hand and covered by its right as Hope flew over the forest, back towards the castle. Tom fought to keep Hope above the trees as they flickered by below him. Exhaustion dragged at his limbs.
As he neared the castle, the Armor began to shudder. He’d pushed it too hard during the fight, and it desperately needed a tune-up from Taka. He felt his hands begin to loosen, and he clenched his hands hard to keep them closed over Adam and the girl.
The castle walls loomed up at him—he was too low! He pushed himself upwards with all his remaining strength. It wasn’t quite enough; his feet caught the top edge of the wall and smashed through. The Armor tilted off balance, and Tom turned in mid-air, his back towards the courtyard as the machinery around him began to rattle and clack.
They fell for a very long three seconds.
Tom curled inwards as best he could to protect Adam and the girl, then they slammed into the ground with a bone-rattling crunch.
He lay there on his back for a second, then leaned forward. The sky above him faded into the grey cockpit. He heard something whine, but the door wouldn’t open. He panicked for a moment and tried to push at the door, but he couldn’t get any leverage. Finally the door groaned open and he heard a loud rattle and clang as something fell off.
He clambered out to find the Armor’s hands just below the cockpit, and Adam pushing its fingers away so he could get out. Tom could see both he and the girl were okay. Tom breathed a sigh of relief, then he really saw the Armor’s hands. He whipped his head around to look at Hope.
The Giant Armor looked like a toy that had been stepped on. Both legs twisted at unnatural angles, and the armor on the arms was partly pulled away in places, like it had been pushed out from the inside. Hope’s head was nearly severed. The body itself was compressed slightly, and the armor had cracked all around it. He could see gears inside, all out-of-sync and some of them broken.
The scene began to swim before Tom’s eyes, and he put out a hand to steady himself. Adam caught it, and held it firmly. Tom looked back at him, and Adam gave him a wide grin.
“You need some rest, Tom,” Adam said. “You’ve earned it.”
Tom gave him a tired smile.
He awoke late the next morning. As soon as he came to, he leaped out of bed and ran to the infirmary. He spent the rest of the day at the girl’s bedside. Her curly brown hair framed her round face. She looked peaceful, though completely exhausted. She slept deeply, barely moving at all. Tom never left her side. He wanted to be sure he was the first person she talked to when she woke up.
Finally, as the setting sun filled the infirmary with golden light, her eyes opened, and she looked directly at Tom. The corners of her mouth twitched in a slight smile, but she was too weak to do more.
Tom leaned forward. “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe now. You’re in bed here in the castle, and the bugs are gone, and nobody’s going to make you do anything any more.”
Her muscles relaxed, and she sank back in the bed, a small, tired smile spreading over her face. “Thank you,” she said, and her voice was small but surprisingly firm.
“Can you tell me who you are?” he asked. “Or are you too tired?”
She shook her head slightly. “My name’s Jeri. I was…just playing in my yard at home. Just playing. And then I started feeling dizzy, and then everything went white. Then…I was in a room with them.”
She took a breath, and it shuddered slightly. “I was in a big cave, in their…den, or nest, or whatever you’d call it. They’d used some kind of magic spell to bring me there. And then they took me to the suit. That’s what I call the…the thing I piloted.”
“It was strange,” she said, her voice thoughtful and faraway. “They were very…careful with me, like I was going to break. They couldn’t speak English, and I couldn’t speak that horrible chattering stuff they said. So they took this sort of chalk and drew on the cave walls. They drew me, and them, and the suit. And me climbing into the suit. I shook my head at that, but they ignored me and kept drawing. And they drew other things, like your suits, and me fighting them.”
Her face grew taut. “But the one thing I remember is, as they drew things more and more complicated, more of them started drawing. They were all drawing at the same time, sometimes drawing two parts of the same circle. It was so…so horrible.”
Tom gently placed a hand on her arm. He smiled at her, reassuringly, and she looked at him. She gave him a little smile back, and relaxed.
Tom leaned forward slightly and, keeping his voice soft, asked, “Why did you pilot?”
She thought for a moment. “Because that’s what they brought me there to do. They kept gesturing at it. I wouldn’t go in, at first. I convinced them I was hungry, so they brought a pouch with some water, and some weird mashed food. But they wouldn’t take me anywhere. Finally, I got inside.”
Tom heard the scuff of a boot behind him, and he turned to see Brask standing in the doorway. He put a finger to his lips and just stood there, listening. Tom wondered how busy Brask must be, and what he was ignoring so he could stand and just listen patiently to Jeri.
“I used the suit for a couple of days,” Jeri continued, not noticing Brask, “getting used to how it worked. They fed me, and took me to a little room with some blankets to sleep in. But everything was so bare, so empty. The place was full of hallways and doorways; I would’ve been lost immediately if I tried to escape. And there were always some of them around. It felt like they were always watching me.
“They drew more for me. They showed what it was like thousands of years ago, with the people who created them. The bugs were the guardians, you see, made all that time ago to sleep with the suits, and stop anyone who tried to dig them up and use them.
“But the spell went bad over the years. By the time the bugs woke up, your two suits were already gone.
“So they came after the suits. But you started using one of the suits, and they had no choice; they had to use one against you. But they couldn’t pilot the suits themselves, see? It had to be a human. Me.
“I hated it,” she said, her voice getting harder. “I don’t like fighting, I don’t like any of that stuff, but I did it anyway. How else was I going to get home? So I fought you, hoping I could stop you, stop all of this, stop sleeping on those lumpy rugs in that cold, cold room in the middle of a huge nest of nasty, ugly, terrible bugs.”
Her breaths came hard now, and she went quiet, forcing herself to calm down. She looked back at Tom, and her expression softened. “Sorry,” she said. “So, um, how about you?”
He explained himself, briefly, going over all the events of the past week. He grew increasingly uncomfortable, as she just stared at him, watching and listening intensely. It wasn’t like she was giving him big eyes, but she was so intent on him that he felt like he was giving a book report in front of every teacher in his school.
He wound down his explanation, and Brask stepped forward. He reassured the girl that she wouldn’t have to worry about the bugs any more. Scouts had discovered the few remaining Trych were wandering around the pit mindlessly. Apparently, now that all the Giant Armors had been destroyed, they had no more reason to live.
Jeri let out a deep sigh and breathed, “I’m so glad.”
Tom turned to Brask. “Destroyed? What about Hope?”
“Taka is probably crying like a baby right now,” Brask said. “He was close to it when I left him. Hope will never fly again.”
Tom felt a pang of loss at that. He took a deep breath, and let it out. So it was over. “Okay,” Tom said. “Then can we go home now?”
Brask nodded. “The Trych are defeated, and the Armors will never be used by us again. We’ve learned that much.” Tom was surprised by the simple humility in Brask’s voice. Maybe he really had learned. “Once the girl has recovered,” Brask continued, “we’ll send you home.” He smiled. “But meanwhile, there’s one last thing for you to do.”
The next day, they threw Tom a massive parade, where he was carried on a silver, circular carriage down the streets of the town, crowds waving and cheering. Boys his own age looked at him in awe. As tired as Tom was, he couldn’t help enjoying all the attention.
Jeri was ready to travel back the next morning. She, Tom, and Adam were ushered into a large stone room covered in swooping carved shapes. Alyas stood in the center, smiling encouragement at them, as they stood awkwardly before her.
Brask gave a long speech in a courtyard stuffed full of people, and afterwards put a silvery necklace around Tom’s neck. The crowd cheered again. Tom was still tired, but he managed to wave back enthusiastically to the people.
They were taken to a temple deep within the castle. The room was mostly an empty stone chamber, with a raised platform at the one end and a few bright torches, but intricate, swirling designs covered the floor and all four walls. The three of them were ushered inside, and Brask gave them a nod, and left for other business. It was just them and Alyas.
Alyas bowed at them, then straightened and looked at them all with shining eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “You fought bravely, and for those who were not your own.” Her words seem aimed mostly at Tom. “You have done more than we thought, and given us some hope.” She paused. “You also gave us much to consider. May we all someday be as kind as you.”
Tom couldn’t think of anything to do except bow awkwardly and say, “Th-thank you.” Alyas smiled her sweet smile, then went to the platform, raised her arms, and began to chant.
Tom looked over at Jeri. Her dress had been thoroughly cleaned and mended, and her hair combed. She looked like a normal person now, smiling back at him.
“Hey,” he said. “Let’s keep in touch.” He glanced back at Adam, who wore his normal self-confident grin. He continued, “All of us. We’ve been through a lot.” He gave Adam a meaningful look. “We’vebeen through a lot. And we’ve come out the other side. I don’t want to let that end.”
Their smiles widened, and as Alyas’s chanting grew louder, all three quickly recited their addresses. They’d have no trouble remembering.
Tom felt the room begin to spin around him, faster and faster. He let it. The job was over, and he’d come out the other end. He leaned to the side and toppled to the floor.
He awoke to the scent of moss. His eyes opened and he found himself lying face up in the patch of woods near his house. He inhaled the scent of trees, of leaves, of life, and he leapt to his feet and ran home.
The End
Chapter 10 of Armor – Finale - Giant Armors Blog says:
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