Chapter 345: The Destructive Greeting
Gorak gritted his teeth and leaned his entire body weight away from the spatial tear. The crystal plating on his arm groaned under the intense gravitational pull. "Grab the boy. He is trying to eat my arm."
Gulag walked closer and scooped the infant up by his waist. She pinned his tiny arms against his sides to break his line of sight. The spatial rift snapped shut instantly. Deprived of his target, the boy opened his mouth and shrieked at the sudden interruption.
Gorak stumbled backward and massaged his glowing wrist. Glancing upward, he watched Gulag cradle the thrashing child. They stared at each other across the ruined tiles.
Krug stepped forward to lift the boy from Gulag’s arms, retrieving the dropped tungsten ring from the paving stones. He placed the alloy directly into the infant’s hands. The child bit down on the metal immediately, causing violet sparks to dance across his gums and fade into the toy.
Krug looked between Gorak and Gulag. "You two have been separated for three years. I will manage the boy while you catch up."
He retreated into the palace corridors with the infant chewing happily on the tungsten.
Gorak and Gulag stood alone in the ruined courtyard. Gorak observed the new scars crisscrossing her arms and neck. She reached out and traced the violet crystal fused to his right forearm.
"You survived the ocean," Gorak said.
"We killed everything in our path," Gulag replied. She stepped closer and ran a thumb over his jaw. "I missed your face."
Gorak rested his hand over hers, taking in the dirt coating her armor. He had spent years breaking bedrock in the permafrost while she fought across continents.
"Where is Krag?" Gulag asked. "He was two years old when I sailed. He must be five by now."
Gorak looked toward the northern horizon. "Krag is at the City of the Spiral. I missed his growth. The Sovereign assigned me to the northern excavation lines right after you left, and I remained there until just recently."
Gulag grabbed his armor plates and pulled him downward to slam her forehead against his skull. The impact echoed across the courtyard. Gorak leaned into the strike, wrapping his arms around her waist to pull her against his chest.
Gulag bit his lip to draw a bead of blood before pulling him into a bruising kiss. Gorak returned the embrace and tasted the copper and dirt on her skin. They broke apart after a moment, pressing their foreheads together.
"We will go to the City of the Spiral," Gorak said. He tightened his grip around her waist. "We will find our son."
Gulag moved closer to kiss him again, but then she dropped her center of gravity and drove her knee upward into his stomach.
Gorak grunted as the impact rattled his bone-plated ribs. He wrapped his arms around her waist to absorb the forward momentum and pivoted on his heel. Using her own weight against her, he threw Gulag across the ruined paving stones.
Gulag slid across the dirt and dug her stone-encased fingers into the ground to halt her skid. Amber light flared across her forearms as she pulled a slab of bedrock from the courtyard floor. She hurled the boulder directly at Gorak’s chest.
Gorak stepped into the path of the flying rock and channeled his mana core. Blue lightning wrapped around his crystallized right arm as he punched the boulder to shatter the stone into a cloud of gray dust and gravel.
He brushed a layer of crushed rock from his shoulder. "Your footing is too wide."
’I will show him wide,’ Gulag thought.
She lunged through the settling dust screen with both fists raised. Feinting a strike toward his jaw, she forced his guard upward to sweep her leg and target his knees.
Gorak shifted his stance to evade the sweep and grabbed her extended wrist. Electricity coursed down his crystallized arm to bite into her stone gauntlet.
The shock disrupted her amber mana and caused the compacted bedrock around her knuckles to crumble into dirt. Gulag cursed and twisted her body to break his grip.
She attempted to drive her elbow into his face. Gorak ducked underneath the strike and drove his shoulder into her chest plate. The tackle sent them both crashing onto the courtyard floor in a tangle of armor and limbs.
Gorak used the momentum to secure the dominant position.
He pinned her shoulders to the ground with his knees and pressed his glowing crystal forearm against her throat. Sparks of blue lightning danced inches from her chin.
"Yield." Gorak leaned his weight into her collarbone as sweat pooled in the crevices of his face.
Gulag stared up at the crackling electricity and laughed. She dropped her arms to her sides and let her head rest against the broken tiles. "I yield. You learned a few new tricks in the permafrost."
Gorak stood up and offered her his unmutated hand. "We all had to evolve to survive the expansions." Gulag took his grip and let him pull her to her feet. She dusted off her armor and glanced toward the palace corridors where Krug had disappeared.
"Let us go see Krag." Gulag bumped her shoulder against his arm. "I need to make sure he has not inherited your stubbornness."
Gorak pivoted to follow Gulag toward the palace corridors.
Suddenly, a piercing whistle cut across the courtyard right before a star-iron dagger spun directly toward his throat. He raised his crystallized arm to intercept the projectile. The blade deflected off his glowing forearm and embedded itself deep into a sandstone pillar.
Iron-Scale dropped from a shadowed balcony, landing without a sound on the broken paving stones. Emerald wind swirled around his legs to cushion the descent. He extended his hand toward the pillar to recall his weapon.
The dagger ripped free from the masonry and snapped back into his grip.
"You make enough noise to wake the fallen," Iron-Scale noted. He slid the blade into his sheath. "The entire eastern wing heard you breaking the floorboards."