br /> She held up her clan crystal as the monitor lizard’s head pivoted towards her, eyes glowing a dull red in the darkness. It seemed to take longer than any of her previous crossings, an agonizing wait.
Pass, the great lizard said finally, dipping its head. The field shivered into temporary harmlessness.
The workshop was another ten minutes’ walk. Rafe was flagging by the time they arrived, although he’d snapped at Marcus for offering help. Sunniva triggered the lights and the heating, and went over to her workbench to where the network matrix sat in its tungsten bowl.
All the sensors were working. Three were already in the storm, and the projected path would take it past four or five others. Time to see if she’d been successful.
She put her finger in to touch the matrix. The dots of light marking the sensors glowed a brilliant white as they connected to each other and back again to the matrix, ready to collect the storm’s power and channel it.
She could see the pathways with her dragon’s sight, the lines radiating out from the matrix to the sensors, and then the sensors communicating with each other, ready to collect the storm’s power and make it accessible. The storm itself was a brooding presence. The internal stresses on the matrix increased as it took the load, but stayed within acceptable limits.
Sunniva let out the breath she’d been holding. Marcus looked over from where he’d convinced Rafe to sit down and drink some water. Rafe had brought his matrix with him on her suggestion, and he was fiddling with it now, adjusting wires here and there.
“Did it work?” Marcus straightened up.
Sunniva stepped back. “I think so. I need to go outside. If it works we can try to connect to your matrix.”
Rafe nodded, and shoved it into his jacket pocket.
The path outside the workshop was slippery in the dark. They made their way to the flat space the crawler used as a park, a small flat area at the top of the trail to the aerie, lit by a pair of standing lanterns. The rain pelted them in short vicious bursts. In the distance a lightning bolt split the sky in jagged forks, and barely ten seconds later the thunder boomed.
Sunniva moved a short distance away from the other two, just in case, and reached for the pair of turquoises on her bracelet, manipulating the captured energy. Slowly, the pathways swam into view before her as pale strands of light, faint but definitely present.
Her network. She concentrated for a moment, and a tiny red lizardform bounced out of the air to land at her feet. She gave it a gentle mental push, sending it off to patter around Marcus and then Rafe. Rafe bent down to pet the tiny lizard and shot her a delighted grin.
It worked. The relief was nearly overwhelming. Another lightning bolt cracked, and she held up her bracelet again, readying herself.
“Oh, I don’t think you need to show off again.” The coldly furious voice cut through the hiss of the rain.
Sunniva spun around to see Giels standing at the start of the trail down to the aerie, flanked by two long-horn lizardforms. The gems on his bracelet were incandescent. To her dragon sight he was painfully bright to look at, carrying what must have been the full power of the aerie matrix; unstoppable.
“I suppose I should be grateful that you actually made it work.” He strode forward into the center of the space. The lizardforms moved with him, tails lashing. “And that you’ve so undeniably shown your treachery to our clan. At least the monitor lizards alerted me that you were bringing in another human. They serve the master of the matrix rather than trouble themselves with blood loyalty.”
The delay on coming through the field. She should have realized.
Giels’ gaze swept the area and fixed on where Marcus and Rafe stood by the workshop. “I see you’ve meddled with my modifier as well. No matter. I won’t need a pet human to bribe the council if I have the power network to show them.”
The anger that surged inside Sunniva was hers and her dragon’s equally. The sheer pressure of power Giels commanded was making it impossible to shift, and he now stood between her and the others.
“You can have the network.” Sunniva’s voice shook. “We’ll leave.”
Giels chuckled. “Oh, I’m taking the network. But none of you are going anywhere. I don’t like leaving loose ends.” He gestured, and a ruby on his bracelet pulsed in acknowledgment. “Kill him.”
One of the lizardforms sprang towards Marcus, jaws wide and snarling. Marcus’ hand went to his blaster. Sunniva moved without thought towards them, and Giels backhanded her across the face with the full weight of his bracelet.
The pain was intense, and the impact was reinforced by the power Giels wielded, a blast of energy aimed at her bracelet rather than herself directly. As she hit the pebbled ground by the trail to the aerie she felt it shudder violently, and looked down to see the secondary matrix she’d built cracked clean through, its light fading rapidly. The opal was a sudden vivid red next to it. Marcus doubled over, the blaster dropping from his hand, and as Rafe grabbed for it the long-horn lizardform bent its head and drove its massive horn into his chest.
Her dragon wailed, a wild high keening that ripped through her. No! Tears blurred Sunniva’s vision as she fumbled for the opal, trying to wrest back control from Giels as the color darkened rapidly. The long-horn jerked its head violently and Rafe’s limp body fell to the ground, leaving the exposed horn wet with blood.
Giels moved towards her. Sunniva backed away, her face throbbing and her heart raw with grief, but there was only so far she could go before she ran out of space. Behind her the cliff dropped away, the aerie below and the trail between them winding off to one side.
He was only a few steps away. “You can’t fight me, dear sister. You don’t have the strength.”
Another flash lit up the whole area with livid intensity, the thunder striking almost simultaneously. Sunniva dragged everything she could from her network and flung it at the opal. For an agonizing moment it swung back to orange before beginning to darken again, the stone vibrating with the stress. Giels’ smile widened.
In the instant that the opal lightened Marcus half-straightened up, moving in a stumbling run towards Giels’ back. As it darkened again he slowed, but kept going. Sunniva didn’t dare look at him in case Giels saw. She clung on to her slipping control.
Look, her dragon said, voice urgent, straining herself to the utmost to force a tiny gap in Giels’ control. For a second Sunniva saw not just the air currents, the power network and the burning fury confronting her, but the rapid funneling of charge down through the lowering storm clouds. Towards the answering pulse rising from the metal lantern post that stood next to her. As the vision faded she also caught a brief unfamiliar flicker from where Rafe’s body lay, and her breath caught.