Chapter Seven

Marendar frowned.

His sensors were picking up a handful of signals making their way through the Bota Magna forest. Two strong signatures emanated from the eastern regions where they seemed to travel independent of each other. But three had been active in and around the Fertile Valley, in the heart of the Earth Lord’s domain, where they now appeared to be converging.

Really, there was no choice to be made. As Marendar hurried along the forest path, he could only hope to stop the Toa before the massacre began.

✴        ✴        ✴

“The harvest has been bountiful this season,” the Element Lord of Earth explained, gesturing from her elevated platform to the festive throngs. “The earth has yielded marvelous fruits… as I suspected it would.”

The pair had arrived at a towering ziggurat structure, the largest building in the Earth Lord’s capital. Inside was a vast interior courtyard covered by a domed roof lined with hundreds of large skylights. As Chiara looked out over the villagers, she was astonished at how accurate the Element Lord’s words were. Agori danced and sang, adorned in bright, vivid colors. A seemingly endless procession of farmers brought fruits and vegetables from their fields to lay before the throne of the Element Lord. Nor was it just Earth Agori – blue-armored water villagers and warriors participated in the festival in equal measure.

The Toa of Lightning turned to see two Glatorian approaching. One was clad in blue armor carrying a ceremonial trident and the other in brown the same hue as the Element Lord’s, a large scythe strapped to his back.

“Those who venerate the fertile lands here have prospered,” the Element Lord added. “Those undesirables who desecrate it for their industry have been removed like weeds.”

As she was speaking, a hardened battalion of earth soldiers marched to a halt before the high platform and saluted. “Hail to the Earth Mother, our great benefactor!” a general in blue pauldrons cried in a voice heavy with affection. Their tribute paid, the general led the unit through the far gate, outside.

“They must care for you deeply,” the Toa of Lightning remarked. “The rulers of our universe could have learned a thing or two.”

Chiara looked at the Element Lord, but instead of satisfaction, the ruler was gazing into space, her attention elsewhere altogether.

“Something’s wrong,” she murmured. “We’re about to have visitors.”

She looked at Chiara as an alarm horn blared through the courtyard. “Come. Now.”

✴        ✴        ✴

Panicked screams preceded Chiara and the Element Lord of Earth as they climbed the seemingly endless clay steps. As Chiara was starting to question if the staircase would ever end, the light at the top of the staircase appeared as the Element Lord threw open the door before they’d even reached it. The pair strode out, even as the Element Lord’s advisors quietly took positions behind them.

They now stood on an elevated platform, from which they could see the long, flat valley that surrounded the ziggurat they stood in. Chiara could see for miles in every direction before the mountains rose up to touch the sky. Farms and fields decorated the landscape, half-harvested already. But the scythes and sickles had been abandoned as their workers fled in terror to the fortress that Chiara now looked out from.

The dust cloud that the mob kicked up obscured an unseen adversary, but Chiara could see the Earth soldiers already mounting a defense. The first battalion to rally organized in a tight formation and raised their slingshot weapons to fire, only for them and their armor to melt, contort, and reform as iron prisons that bound them. Among them were the soldiers that only moments ago had paid their respects to the element lord.

The dust cloud dissipated. Stepping past the frozen soldiers and making their way up the road were a large unit of iron tribe soldiers. Where before the ragtag group had carried only bows and makeshift slingshots, they were now equipped with sophisticated mechanical slingshots. Almost all of them carried an unusual weapon, a handle with one or more arms extending horizontally out of it, each of which was holding a rounded projectile. When one of the soldiers foolishly charged, one of the Agori pressed a trigger on their weapon. The arms spun like helicopter blades before whistling again and striking down its target. It was like nothing Chiara had seen since her travels to Nynrah.

“Of all the squabbling tribes of Bota Magna, none have opposed us so viciously as the devious ironfolk,” lamented the Element Lord. “Perhaps I have tolerated their presence in my lands too long.”

“Element Lord, your time has come!”

With something close to irritation, the earth lord glared over the forest floor at the source of the protest. A lone iron warrior stood in the field below. With a start, the Toa realized his voice was coming out of the earthen bricks around them, the vibrations of his voice transmitted for their listening.

“I will let you hear them, Chiara,” the Earth Lord muttered. “See how warmongers are dealt with.”

She raised her voice. “I am here, scavenger. Release my soldiers and I will see that there is something of you left to bury.”

“Release our lands!” the Agori replied. “We are here to reclaim our ancestral home.”

“You wish for an Element Lord to concede ground?” scoffed one of the two Glatorian at the Earth Lord’s back. “Fool! She is the ground.”

An instant later, both advisors cried out in pain. Chiara and the Earth Lord whirled to see their metal accessories tightening around them, much as those of the soldiers in the fields had. A glance down to the soldiers on the ramparts revealed them to be suffering the same fate.

“It can’t be…” Chiara muttered in disbelief. “Surely not?”

And yet, surely it was.

At the behest of the Agori rebel, the familiar figure of Zaria emerged from the treeline, a jagged metal pauldron now adorning his shoulder and his features grim. As he raised his hands, metal twisted and bent to his whim until the soldiers slumped to the ground. As he approached, a distant flicker of recognition could be seen in his eyes.

“Chiara?” he murmured.

The two Toa locked eyes across the battlefield. Slowly, it dawned on them that they had found allies on opposing sides.

“It seems you have found yourself a warrior who trails in my footsteps,” the Earth Lord growled. “You’ve demonstrated your power, pretender, but you are no Element Lord. I am unimpressed.”

If any hesitation still lingered within Zaria’s soul, it vanished in that moment. Chiara could only watch as her ally’s features grew dark.

“I am what the iron tribe needs me to be,” he proclaimed, taking a firm step forward and charging his fists with elemental energy. “For I am Zaria, survivor of the Iron Toa purge, slayer of Makuta and defender of the innocent. In the name of Mata Nui, you will not stand between these villagers and their survival!”

The Element Lord observed him silently.

Zaria raised his hands. The iron binding the earth soldiers lifted them higher into the air, out of reach of the ground below.

The moment of vengeance had come.

Duluus held his breath.

But the hands dropped.

“I cannot kill them,” Zaria exhaled. “Not even for you.”

“Then we will all perish!” Duluus shouted. “A moment’s hesitation is all she needs! Don’t you see where we stand?”

Zaria shook his head. “She can’t harm us if there’s an iron barrier protecting us.” Calling upon his powers, he called on the vast iron deposits beneath the mountain and summoned them to the surface.

But the iron didn’t respond.

The Toa pulled, but it refused to yield. Panicking, he directed the armor in the Earth warriors’ armor and weapons to answer, but it did not.

His heart sank.

“Normally I’d hate to interrupt such a dramatic standoff, but you iron Agori have found something that belongs to me.”

Zaria didn’t want to turn. But he knew he had to.

Directly behind him, stalking out of the forest at the foot of the surrounding mountains, was the Vorox column. Kabrua grinned maliciously in Zaria’s direction.

“The rest of you can kill each other after I have him.”