‘I can do it,’ said Jaden strongly.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Alkon.
Jaden nodded.
‘One more time,’ said Alkon, picking up the rifle again and taking aim. ‘If you fail to stop this, we will not try again. Where is your shield?’
‘Just shoot,’ said Jaden.
Alkon looked at him curiously.
‘Don’t hold back,’ added Jaden.
With a slight increase of pressure on the trigger, Alkon adjusted his aim a final time, and then collapsed it entirely. The rifle burst with bullets streaming out of it, but the sound of it firing was drowned out as Jaden became hidden behind a wall of fiery light, crackling and sizzling as each bullet struck. Alkon began to move around Jaden, firing from all directions, but no bullet was able to get through.
Suddenly Alkon found himself on his back, the gun thrown far out of his hand by a pulse of energy that had knocked him over. The wall of fire disappeared as Jaden stepped forward.
Alkon looked up at him from the ground. ‘How did you know where I was?’ he asked.
‘I could feel your footsteps,’ said Jaden, giving him a hand up.
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’
Alkon dusted himself off as he got to his feet. ‘I have never seen a shield like that before. How did you do it?’
‘I’m not sure. I have trained under different masters,’ said Jaden. ‘They all teach something different. Now I just do what I feel is right.’
‘You have become this powerful in a few months since I last saw you?’
Jaden shrugged, ‘It’s the sickness. I think I’ve had the power for a long time, I just never knew how to use it.’
‘Quite impressive. Could it stop a grenade?’
Jaden looked at both of his hands. ‘I don’t think anything can get past it.’
‘How long can you make it last?’
‘Ten minutes, maybe twenty,’ said Jaden.
‘That should be enough,’ said Alkon. ‘But how high can it go?’
Jaden stepped back away from Alkon and ignited the shield again, making it reach fifty feet in the air as it burned through the branches and leaves above him to go even higher than the tree.
Alkon smiled widely. ‘This might just work,’ he said.
‘I will not fail,’ said Jaden, his conviction absolute.
Alkon nodded. ‘We will attack at dusk. The change of guard won’t take place for another hour after that.’
‘Shouldn’t we attack during the change of guard?’
‘Not unless you want double the number of soldiers after you,’ said Alkon. ‘I know you entered the fort during a change of guard, but they had been given orders to be at ease. We do not have the luxury of my incompetence this time. We will strike well before the change.’
‘What do we do until then?’ asked Jaden.
‘We’ll see what else you can do,’ said Alkon, and he took the pin out of one of the grenades and lobbed it high into the air toward Jaden.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
What if the choice is wrong?
March 8, 997 R.E.
In the fading light, the Alliance soldiers continued to move the remaining vehicles in behind the Waikorian wall. Alkon and Jaden waited patiently near the edge of the trees and vines, not far from where they had first been spotted. The helicopters were still in place to the right, as Alkon had hoped, but they were well guarded.
‘Explode the landmines, then draw them away as far as you can,’ he whispered to Jaden. ‘Are you sure you can do this?’
‘I can run if I need to,’ Jaden assured.
‘I only need a few minutes,’ said Alkon. ‘The lights are about to come on. Are you ready?’
Jaden closed his eyes in concentration, and without a word, he stood and walked toward the edge. Alkon held his breath, waiting for Jaden to attack. When nothing happened, he worried Jaden was not up to the task after all, but he recoiled in shock as three of the landmines exploded with flames reaching far above the trees. Seizing the opportunity, Alkon raced down to the right toward the helicopters while Jaden ran out onto the field.
‘Sentinel!’ came shouts from the soldiers, and instantly guns began to fire.
They swarmed toward him from all directions, some throwing grenades as well as sustaining constant fire on him. Alkon saw his chance as many of the soldiers from the helicopters joined the others. There were only a few that remained standing guard, but he knew their attention would be set firmly on Jaden.
Alkon crept around the back, avoiding detection as he came up behind the first soldier. With a swift hit to the back of the head with his left hand, Alkon made the soldier fall forward and took his pistol with the right. In less than a second he had removed, unlocked and fired the weapon, killing the soldier before badly wounding the next. Being a commander in the Alliance for so long, he knew exactly how to disarm and neutralise his opponents. It was not long before several more soldiers had fallen at his hands and he had secured an aircraft. With all the commotion Jaden was causing, Alkon’s feats had gone unnoticed, and he leapt into one of the smaller craft behind the larger ones, hidden from view. He waited a moment, watching for the fiery shield to distance itself away from him before he started the engine. When he judged Jaden far enough away, he took off and headed west to avoid any detection. He had achieved what he had set out to, and now he would need to come back for Jaden, if he survived.