The general jumped the last level, landing in a crouch a little away from the Host. Aria watched in horror-mixed awe as he straightened up, tall and proud, his green eyes blazing with inner fire. The armor he wore was bloody and so was his face, making him look even more dangerous.
He squared his wide shoulders, effortlessly showing off his powerful, magnificent body. Aria had heard it said many times that it was the Brion warrior himself, not the weapons he carried, that was the true threat to any enemy.
That might be true, but I bet the spear helps, went through her mind.
The spear was right there in front of her, the blade stuck in the deck. Aria's eyes flickered to it and she considered the impossible, while trying to keep an eye on the Host and the general.
The Clayor hive mind didn't attack at once as she'd expected it to. It paced slowly, positioned between Aria and Ryden, not once taking its eyes off the general. One of the twin knives lay broken on the deck, but the other was still in the Host's hand.#p#分页标题#e#
Aria's thoughts were rushing her.
It's trying to figure out whether to kill me first or take Ryden down before he retrieves the spear. Only it doesn't dare to kill me yet, because my fated will tear him to shreds if that happens. It wants to live. I have to get the spear to Ryden.
Easier said than done, however. Aria had barely been able to lift Joya's spear, but she had been a woman, a whole head shorter than Ryden, who was powerfully built even for a Brion warrior. His spear would be impossible for her to carry, much less pull out of the deck.
But as the Host and the general stared each other down, deciding on the best course of action, an idea occurred to Aria. Maybe it wasn't important if she could get the spear out. Maybe it was enough to distract the Host for only a second.
She'd done enough crazy things in one day to already be used to it. Aria looked at Ryden, whose expression changed instantly when he saw her. The momentary gentleness she saw turned to utter, stunned horror in the general's eyes when she wrapped her hands around the shaft of the spear and made as if to pull.
Naturally, she'd been right. The spear, longer than her and probably heavier, didn't even budge. That didn't matter, as she'd predicted. Both Ryden and the Host reacted as one, like arrows released from a bow. Ryden charged toward her. The Host attacked him, clearly refusing to let him back to the weapon.
Aria let go and started to climb. Her heart was beating furiously and her hand ached, but she pushed through both. The Host had been right. She had spent too long in the presence of Brions. Their ways were contagious, but while she had found them brutal and savage at first, now Aria could no longer find fault in them.
The Brions were proud and rash, yes, but their willingness to put everything on the line for what they believed in was nothing short of inspiring.
Aria told herself that she'd be damned if she wasn't going to at least try to answer with the same. She'd done all she could for the general, given him a moment of distraction. Now the best she could give him was to get out of the way. As Aria climbed the stairs, she looked back down, a petrified gasp escaping her lips.
She'd thought she had seen fighting, but it was instantly clear to her that what she'd witnessed before were civilized, nice battles. The brutality before her eyes knocked the breath from her lungs.
The Host had rushed Ryden as soon as the general moved, which left him with the single option of meeting the hive mind barehanded. Anyone else, Aria guessed, would have been killed in an instant, but Ryden had done the only logical thing and caught the knife coming to cut his head off. Now he and the Host wrestled on the ground in a beastly, barbaric duel for their lives.
The knife was between Ryden's hands, with him holding onto the blade, because to let go was to die. Aria saw the impossibly sharp edges cutting into the gloves of the general's armor, the blood trickling from his hands, but still he refused to let go. All the while the Host was as caught as he was, just as unable to let go. He pushed down furiously, using every limb he had to get an upper hand.
They rolled on the ground, kicking, gnawing, beating the other against the ground with their mass. Up close, unarmed, Ryden's weight and strength were almost matched. Only Aria suspected that the real obstacle were the Host's powers. The general had the same look in his eyes as Joya had, but he held up much better. Aria saw him blink deeply to clear his head, but Ryden couldn't afford to look away from an enemy like that for too long.
He wouldn't hold on forever, that was clear. Aria climbed, the adrenaline surging in her blood. She had to use the moment when the Host was occupied. The trick had worked before. She could only pray it would work again. If she managed to smash the coils instead of hiding them like she'd intended, she could take away the hive mind's last remaining chance to win. An enraged enemy was a clumsy enemy. Ryden had told her that back on Ilotra.
She was starting to suspect her hand was broken. The pain was getting worse with every second that she thought of it. Aria knew how to fashion a first-aid sling for her broken limb, but there was no time. She couldn't afford to give up the use of her hand, even a broken one.
Behind her were only cries and growls and the awful stench of blood. Aria hoped it was the corpses around the fighters, but she could no longer look back. Seeing Ryden hurt was physically painful for her to see. She couldn't afford it; she had to finish her mission. For Ilotra, for Ryden, for everyone.
It was the most painful thing she'd ever done, to push her hands back into the engine, trying to pull the coils free. Down below, she heard the Host give a deafening roar of despair. She heard Ryden call something to her, but whether it was approving or not, she didn't understand.#p#分页标题#e#
Aria kept pulling, biting her lip in a hopeless attempt to dull the pain, but it felt like burning. The pain was so sharp she nearly blacked out, but the first coil came loose. The engine gave a furious twitch under her, nearly throwing Aria off again, but she held on.
The Host was up now, she saw, looking down at the deck floor. Aria peeked over the railing, down deeper into the core. Then she threw the coil over the edge as hard as she could, hearing it smash below a moment later.
The hive mind was howling at her, cursing her in its own tongue that Aria didn't understand. But he wasn't coming up. She didn't have time to check again, but it had to be Ryden holding the Host back. Aria's hands shook, pulling the second coil loose, praying that she'd disabled the electromagnetic current correctly or it would burn her to cinders.
With a pained cry, the second coil came loose and went over the edge. The engine started to shut down around her, fighting to remain going on the emergency reserves, but Aria knew which parts to pull. She was disabling her bomb now, breaking the ship that her fated commanded.
With a furious hiss, the last coil she needed came loose and the engine shut down around her. Only thrusters were keeping the Conqueror in place now. Aria was out of breath, terrified that she'd done something that couldn't be repaired and... where was the Host?
Now that the engine was no longer filling the huge room with its signature hum, Aria could hear the silence. She didn't hear the Host anymore. She didn't hear Ryden, either.
Her heart in her throat, Aria peeked over the edge. The bodies were covering most of the deck below as they had before. There was the broken Clayor knife, but the spear was gone.
Aria didn't know where the fighters had gone, but she couldn't stay up there like a sitting duck. Not after she'd killed the Clayor hive mind's last chance at victory. There would be no more speeches about betrayal waiting for her, Aria had no doubt about that. The next time the enemy saw her, she'd be dead in seconds with no remorse.
Climbing down went as slowly as going up had. Cradling her arm against her body, Aria descended back to the deck floor. Still no one around. Perhaps they'd slipped through the entrance? She found that hard to believe. Aria didn't like the idea of leaving the bodies of Joya and everyone else lying there, but there was nothing she could do for the dead now but escape.
Even walking hurt, because the hand wasn't fixed into place. Aria picked her way between the dead, wanting to give them the dignity of not stepping on them again, at least.
Then she heard the war cry behind her. In the next heartbeat, she felt like a character from a horror movie who, instead of running, chooses to look the killer in the eye.
Aria turned to see the Host climbing up the railing, coming from a lower level. Whether the hive mind had been trying to catch the coils or if Ryden had thrown him over the edge, she never knew. All she saw was hatred, a loathing so deep it turned her blood into ice.
Farther away from the enemy, she saw the general jumping over the railing too, the spear back in his hand where it belonged.
The Host was closer. And there was only one wish she could see in its eyes.
"Run, Aria!" Ryden roared.
Aria ran.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Ryden
The Host charged after Aria. It was slipping up.
The hive mind was making mistakes, one after the other. The part of Ryden that didn't thirst for the creature's blood and wasn't willing to rip the beating heart out of the Host's chest understood. The hive mind had lost. There was nothing else for it, no more tricks up its sleeve, no more clever schemes.
He hadn't known what Aria was doing in the ship's core, until it became very clear. The general didn't deny every inch of him rebelled at the idea of something being done to harm the Conqueror, but her plan was brilliant.