Phoenix Ascendant - eARC Read Online Free Page B

giving way!”
    Muttered oaths echoed around the room and the exhausted salvage crews redoubled their efforts, yanking the tubes from their foundations, desperately dragging them to floating cradles, sprinting out with them. Kyri placed herself against the far wall, which had begun to crack across its surface, and auric-orange flame spread, dug in, anchored, refused the movement, denied the water entrance. But Tobimar knew that her power would not last forever, or even for terribly long. Both of them had drained their reserves almost to nothing in the battle against Sanamaveridion; he saw the strain on her face already.
    He saw Poplock scuttling around the wrecked mystical machinery at the center of the Great Array, shoving various things into his neverfull pack. Don’t know what he’s doing, but there isn’t too much he can do to help in carrying these things, so I suppose he’s doing whatever he thinks is best.
    There was a cracking, grumbling noise from above, and part of the ceiling sagged.
    “Everyone out!” bellowed Tanvol, his deep voice echoing around the room. “We’ve done what we can! Phoenix! Phoenix, run! ”
    But instead of running, Kyri walked, backing away from the far wall a step at a time, golden fire streaming from her arms, covering the wall, trying to climb higher, to grasp the bulging ceiling above.
    Poplock bounded to Tobimar’s shoulder. “Come on , go, go, go!”
    “I should help—”
    “She knows what she’s doing! You don’t have enough control of your power yet!”
    Tobimar gritted his teeth but couldn’t argue. He could use the power of Terian to reinforce himself, and to deliver incomparable strikes against his enemies, but controlling that power to reach out and hold something without possibly making it worse…no, he didn’t know enough to do that.
    But Lady Shae and Miri knew how, and did. The two former demons flanked Kyri and their power—white and aqua—reached out, building columns and braces of temporary might and evanescent energy. The workers were streaming out, Tobimar now passing most of the stragglers, glancing over his shoulder at the three women, still methodically retreating, holding uncountable tons of stone and water at bay through unbending will as much as immortal power.
    Tanvol was surveying the room himself, making sure all the others were getting out. “Lady Shae! Miri! Phoenix! We’re all out! No more time to waste, come on! ”
    Tobimar, Poplock clinging tightly to his shoulder, and Hiriista ran through the open doors of Wieran’s lab, hearing a creaking, ripping rumble starting, shaking the stone below them. Light Tanvol and Anora Lal sprinted past them with Unity Guard speed.
    Tobimar couldn’t keep from turning around.
    A blaze of white-gold light appeared in the entryway, and he saw all three women flying towards him, Kyri’s gold-fire wings stretched out and nearly touching the sides of the corridor, while Shae and Miri streaked through the air seemingly by will of light alone.
    And a rumbling roar echoed out behind them; dark-roiling movement seethed into view.
    “Great Desert! ” he cursed, and ran.
    Kyri caught up with him after only a few strides and caught him up, speeding up the stairs, weaving between the support columns. Behind them the water roared like Sanamaveridion’s rage, and Poplock gave a terrifed, wordless squeak. Cold, foul-smelling wind blew past them and Tobimar saw to his horror that the water was catching up , channeled by the tunnel into unspeakable velocity, reaching, hissing spray vaporizing from Kyri’s flaming wings, and then—
    —water caught them, coiling, grasping, filled with stinking bottom-mud and shards of stone, propelling them onward—
    —smashed into a wall, a stunning blow, Poplock torn from his shoulder—
    —and again, forward, unable to breathe, lungs beginning to protest, tumbling over and over, hammered by pebbles and rocks and timbers torn from the bracing below, racing at unguessable