Warsinger by James Baldwin (most important books of all time txt) 📕

Rin laughed over the party chat. “Umm… good question.”

“Much as I hate to say it, we march,” I said. “All we can do is just start walking. If Rose is anything like Nocturne Lament, you should be able to eat stuff on the way to keep yourself fueled. Monsters and plants and shit.”

“Eat… stuff?” There was a pause. “Oh. Yeah. Look at that. I can eat stuff in this thing. And she reaaaally likes that idea. She wants to eat you, she wants to eat Karalti, and she actually also wants to eat me. We’re havin’ a bit of… tug of war up here.”

“Are you okay?” As Karalti and I backed up, I shaded my eyes to look over the Warsinger’s smoldering face.

“Gonna have to be. But I can assure you this machine is animated by pure fuckin’ spite.”

Karalti dusted herself off and jogged out into the open. Dark light and scales swirled until she was a dragon once more... a dragon dwarfed by the titanic machine that loomed over us on all fours, dust swirling around it like a cloak. I equipped Karalti's saddle, then mounted her as she launched into the air. Suri waited until we were clear before getting one foot under her, rearing up, and then rising with surprising ease. As she did, the red spikes flared white. Sand boiled underneath her, slagging away to magma as the heat built and built, then discharged through a dozen discrete vents, blasting the ground around her feet like the trail of a rocket. As Karalti gained air and we looked back, I got a sense of the true scale of it.

“Every Vlachian villager we pass on the way to Taltos and-or Myszno is going to shit themselves.” I laughed nervously, holding on to Karalti as she navigated the vortex of bumpy air cycling around the Warsinger's body. “You’re frigging huge!”

“Yeah… the irony of suddenly becoming the size of a fuckin’ battleship hasn’t-” Suri stopped speaking as an eerie, whale-like moan resonated over the desert. “Hang on. Sensors are goin’ off: We've got incoming.”

Karalti winged over and hovered, looking out over the sea of sand. We sure did have incoming. A pod of sandworms was headed right for us, and in the lead was big momma herself.

Chapter 54

At her full length, The Sandworm Queen was even longer than the Warsinger was tall, with a five-lobed mouth big enough to swallow Karalti like an oyster. It let out a piercing cry that made my eardrums throb and Karalti flinch.

“I've got enough for a few attacks!” Suri's voice rang out as she took a fighting stance, holding her swords the way she usually handled her twin axes. “Karalti! You need to land!”

“Land?!” She let out a piercing cry of her own, beating her wings hard. “Landing and taking off uses a lot of stamina. How far away do I need to be?”

“As far as you can get.”

Withering Rose tensed, and then the corona behind her dissolved and extended out like whips, hovering and dancing around her. The worms gained on it, diving in and out of the sand. They ignored Karalti and I both, angling for Suri as we tried to put distance between us and the Warsinger.

Withering Rose's jaw opened, distending like a snake's... and she let out a piercing, pure, note that built into a deafening multi-layered keen. It was like throat singing on steroids: The sound beat out like a shockwave in all directions, causing the sand to lift and then swirl in a geometric pattern around Withering Rose's feet. Even at a distance, the noise made my teeth vibrate, my hair lift, and my skin crawl. The worms screeched, thrashing to the surface.

“AAAAAHHHH!” Karalti dipped crazily in the air. She couldn't seem to control her wings: the right and left began stroking out of sync, pitching her into a fatal angle of attack.

“Teleport! Now!” I barked, holding on with all my strength as she plummeted toward the earth at high speed.

Karalti didn't argue. One moment, the ground was rushing toward us; the next, we were twice as far away from the Warsinger and out of range of its sonic weapon. The sandworms were routed. Juveniles cooked from the inside out and ruptured, carapaces. Adults thrashed in agony, bellowing as they belched clouds of smoke. Even the Queen was struck dumb, her ability to navigate the sound crushed by the Warsinger’s voice. Nocturne Lament had used its voice like this… but as the sound built and sandworms curled and charred and died, I realized exactly why they were called Warsingers.

“My gods…” Rin breathed over the group chat.

Suri strode forward, plunged her sword into the back of an injured sandworm like a toothpick, and bodily pulled it out of the earth. It thrashed, its mouth opening and closing, but Suri just simply threw it... and gravity did the rest of her work for her. The huge worm bounced and tumbled before sliding to a stop, crushed to death by the weight of its own invertebrate body.

“I'm down to two percent!” Suri's voice had taken the edge of panic as she used her whip limbs to haul another [Sandworm Adult] out and fling it over her head like a toy.

“Focus on the Queen!” I bent down over Karalti’s neck, holding the Spear low. “Come on, Karalti! Let's get back in there!”

The dragon snarled with effort, boosting herself into the fight. She dove like a falcon, swooping in low and fast over one of the Level 45s that had survived the sonic onslaught. It reared back to strike at Suri's knees. Karalti cut around and blasted it with a long plume of white fire, causing it to rear back and twist away.

“Hold level!” I gathered into a crouch, then sprung up into open air.

I knew I still didn't have the full grasp of Dark Lancer on the ground or in tight spaces, but in the sky, Karalti and I