The Chimera Summoner – ch 46 (1/2) – aftermath
Ch 46–
We waited for what felt like an hour on the edge of the campus green, which had been reforged by Principal Maule into an emergency skydock, complete with several large stone piers that extended off the cliff that now marked the end of the green.
Most of the student body and most of the Netherim were gathered, waiting anxiously. There was such a press of craning necks that Maule raised a railing so that no one would fall off into the sky.
Brawly, Marok, and Principal Maule stood in arrowhead formation, watching the Crawling Castle below us, hawks that might dive on prey at any moment.
Worried, anxious hawks.
Brawly was tapping two fingers together at a speed that would’ve put a hummingbird to shame.
Hera and I were being seen to by upperclassmen Healers and Ravale, once she, Nyke, and Jennie had arrived.
When Valant’s portal opened and she walked out, missing both arms, covered in blood, and holding Carmine’s shrieking head by the hair in her bloody teeth… it caused something of a commotion.
She dropped the head on the grass, spat blood repeatedly, said something about a person called Lyla, and dropped unconscious like a sack of bricks.
Brawly caught her, before her knees had even fully bent.
I noted that she had not deigned to catch Atalanta Carmine’s head. Which was screaming angry invectives from facedown in the grass.
Well. This was a new experience for all of us.
Seconds later, every available upperclass Healer was working on Valant. In swift order, she was surrounded by a wide circle of women working in concert to stabilize her. Several started working on a large ritual circle, while those with more emergency oriented Skills applied themselves directly.
It was beyond shocking to see Valant so severely injured.
We’d fought her in person and she'd become a symbol of indestructible power to me.
She'd taken care of the cultists who had attacked Emberdome without so much as a scratch. And they had had an Ascendant with them too.
Carmine’s rolling head was caged in a prison of stone, forged by Principal Maule. The stump of her neck sprouted a thick carpet of pale, wriggling threads which seemed to be doing most of the work of keeping her alive, and letting her move her head to and fro like a grim marionette.
It was bloody but no longer bleeding. Apparently, her self healing was so strong that even being decapitated wasn't enough to kill her.
I turned away, burying my nose in Violette’s pink hair.
It wasn't a pleasant sight.
“MAULEEE!!” Marok’s voice rang out from across the courtyard, full of alarm.
All eyes darted to her, then over the cliff of the side of campus green.
Below us, the crawling castle sprawled, swathed in a cloud of steam where its heat was boiling the snow beneath it.
I didn't understand the urgency.
We'd captured or killed basically every cultist.
Their leader was a head in a cage.
Even now, the few remaining crew of the crawling castle were evacuating as fast as they could.
Which made sense. Bayla had been quite clear that the whole thing was about to melt down.
Maybe there was an explosion imminent?
I had thought it was going to be more of a melting cake kind of situation…!!
From the outside, it was a steaming cacophony of stone and metal. Brutal towers, layered upon one another up to the massive dome of the throne room.
Below it, thousands of insectile legs, ending in wide rolling treads, dragged the behemoth of a fortress across the frozen plains.
The whole thing thrummed with spooky energy.
It was starting to look… awfully haunted.
An otherworldly chorus of voices could be heard, even from a distance. A hellish choir, tuning to some infernal chord that scratched at my bones.
The castle shuddered.
“MAULE, GET US OUT OF HERE!” Marok screamed.
Maule raised her hands, and most of the assembled crowd sank to the ground as the whole of Bayloft accelerated up and away from the crawling castle below us.
The display of power…
Physically feeling the very mountains beneath us lurch and soar at Maule’s command was staggering.
Knowing Ninth Ascension was the height of mortal power was one thing.
Feeling the whole school fly was QUITE another.
As I recovered from our acceleration, I realized why we were retreating from an empty castle.
Massive iron doors were opening their jaws all over the crawling castle.
And from them?
Huge cannons.
Rings of runes along the barrels glowing with power.
Long barrels for range.
Lifting with unified purpose, as if the whole castle was a living organism.
Heat glowed in the barrels, little embers in the midst of the castle’s cold aura.
“Samantha!” Maule barked.
“My name,” Brawly yelled, sending her voice reverberating over the climbing school. “Is…!”
A series of flashes from below.
Dark projectiles hurtling up toward us!
My whole body clenched.
Those cannons were built for war. They would shred the school's defenses, exposed as we were.
The Ascendants would be fine.
But the students? The Netherim?!
We would shortly be ashes in the clouds.
Brawly kicked herself off from the school with a thud that shook the campus green, rocketing downward to meet the oncoming barrage.
“BRAWLYYYYYYYYYYYY!!”
Her voice echoed joyfully, her own speed shifting her voice downwards into the depths even as she plunged.
I watched in awe as dozens of cannonballs veered towards the Tank professor at her call, like well trained birds of prey.
The rattling boom of the Cannon's launch reached us a second before the much louder explosion of all of the dozens of projectiles meeting Brawly at once.
A massive cloud of black smoke erupted below us.
“WHEEEEEEEEEEE!!” Brawly came shooting out of the cloud, past us, and over our heads, like it was her that had been shot out of those cannons.
Not a single cannon ball reached the school.
There was a crack like thunder above us, and a second later, Brawly slammed to the green in a shower of dirt.
She held her pose in her own little crater until all the dirt had fallen.
Then she raised a single victorious fist.
We erupted in cheers.
Students were jumping and screaming, holding hands and dancing.
Brawly stood slowly, tossing her hair into a rugged slick back, her spot stained face set in a noble frown.
“Please. Please.” She said, raising a modest hand.
The cheering ebbed.
Her eyes popped open, and she made a confused little lifting gesture at us all.
The cheering redoubled, filling the air and ringing in my ears.
I joined right in with gusto.
Brawly covered her eyes, and if embarrassed.
“Please. It's what anyone would have done. Please. Valant is the real hero. I just saved the whole school and every student and the historic buildings and all our stuff. She captured one mean, ugly traitor. Stop cheering for me! You're making me blush!”
I looked to see if there would be another bombardment.
But the crawling castle was busily rearranging itself. Parts were melting. Whole towers sinking into the mass of metal and stone, melting and reforming into less of a castle and more of a shell.
Around each change, I thought I could see thousands of ghostly hands hard at work. Like some many limbed thing was wearing the castle like a suit of armor, and was rearranging it to better fit itself.
It was rapidly starting to look…alive.
“That…” Jennie muttered at my side.
“Is going to be a serious political disaster.” Lorna nodded, completing her thought.
“Is some extremely interesting architecture.” Jennie finished, leaning over the edge for a better view. “What does a castle that builds itself look like?! Fascinating. Is that a crab shell? Is it undergoing carcinization?? I wonder–”
“Best stay onboard, Ms. Montil.” Maule observed.
“Jennifer Amelia Montil-Valant three.” I corrected, automatically.
“Montil… Valant?!” Maule asked, raising a severe eyebrow.
“Eeeeeeeiiiir?!” Jennie moaned, wheeling on me.
“Is it a SECRET?!” I asked.
She’d told me within MINUTES of meeting her?!
“That wouldn't happen to be Valant, as in this woman here?!” Maule asked, indicating Grace Valant, who was swathed in so many layers of healing magic that she could scarcely be discerned.
“Daughter or niece?” Maule demanded.
“Step-daughter, technically, but we barely even knew each other until–!” Jennie said glumly.
Maule stomped over to Valant.