A Subtle War

by Tim Marquitz

  Just after he said that, the man in the middle lifted his chin and called out something indecipherable, raising his hands, clasping his book in one. The chanting stopped at that, and the room went silent. A chill tickled Taj’s spine at his easy command of all those gathered about him.

  They looked up at him rapturously. She could see it even through the masks that hid their faces and expressions from her. Their body language was enough for her to know what they felt. They swayed on their knees like serpents under the spell of a flute.

  The man stood before them and smiled, taking in his supplicants.

  “Our time is at hand,” he said in clear Zoranthian, the crew’s translators adjusting so they could understand everything he said now that it recognized the language. “The Queen Worm still sits upon her throne, believing herself immune to the voices of the people who would cast her down.”

  Does he mean Queen Rilan? Torbon asked over the link. Is that why they attacked us in the caravan?

  Taj shrugged, waving him to silence so she could listen.

  “Long has she ruled over those greater than herself and dragged the people of Dulta into ruin behind her.” The man rose up even taller and lifted a hand before his disciples, fingers hooked like talons. “We must take what is ours, brothers. Bring down the crown and stand above, proud in the ashes of her failure.”

  He paced in front of the men on their knees, poking a finger at each one in turn as he passed. “We are the martyrs called upon by the great Elerus to bring blood to the people, to rain war down on the oppressors. We are the blade, destined to strike deep into the heart of the Worm!

  “Sharpen thy hands, my brothers! Prepare thy souls to meet our goddess Elerus. Make ready to—”

  We’ve got a problem, guys, Lina said over the comm, speaking loudly over the fiery sermon, drowning it out.

  Taj bit back a hiss at the poorly-timed interruption. What is it?

  Incoming, Taj fired back. Four men at the door. They have a key. They’re coming inside. I can’t take them out without making a huge scene out here.

  “Rowl,” Taj muttered under her breath. She glanced around, looking for another way out.

  There was none.

  Backward or forward? Cabe asked, realizing the situation they were in.

  They’re in, Lina confirmed.

  And here we forgot to clean up after ourselves, Krawg said, letting out a whispery sigh.

  There was a shout down the corridor behind them just after the Ursite spoke, and Taj glanced up to see the man in the middle of the gathering staring at her just as he did Grom in the last photo.

  Her heart thumped at the clear malevolence exuded by his four eyes.

  “Back!” Taj ordered, willing her weapon out of her suit and snapping off a couple of shots into the room in hopes of forcing everyone under cover.

  She realized her mistake a split-second after she pulled the trigger.

  Several of the robed men leapt to their feet and tackled their master, driving him to the ground beneath the shelter of their bodies, making it impossible to see him, let alone target him.

  The rest, nearly fifteen by Taj’s quick count, spun around and charged toward the crew without any hesitation. They screamed and howled, and Taj caught the glint of steel as knives were whipped free of hidden sheaths.

  Dent was the first one down the hall, headed toward the door they’d come in through.

  They’re armed, Taj warned. Be careful.

  Too late, Dent answered, and Taj saw what he meant.

  The first of the new arrivals stepped forward with an almost suicidal glee warping his expression. He drove a foot-long blade into Dent’s side, sliding it between the ribs until the hilt struck manufactured bone. Blood and ooze bubbled out of the wound over the man’s hand.

  Taj gasped as she watched, only remembering Dent was an AI in an android body when he grabbed the man’s wrist and snapped it, ripping the blade out of his side without a sound as he did so.

  The man, however, shrieked until Dent headbutted him into unconsciousness.

  Dent shoved the man toward his companions and charged ahead to face the next one.

  Torbon ducked past Dent and triggered his energy blades.

  “Mine are bigger than yours,” he shouted, slashing at the attacker before him.

  Two crimson lines welled at his chest, and he stumbled into the man behind him while Torbon and Dent pushed on.

  Cabe slithered around Taj, putting him between her and the men racing maniacally toward them.

  “Stop being a hero, gack it!” she shouted, firing a blast over her shoulder to slow the men’s advance.

  “There needs to be something good carved on my headstone,” he answered, letting loose a barrage of gunfire that dropped the first of the men and slowed the rest as they scrambled to get past his body. “I sure wish I had my bolt rifle,” he complained as he pushed into Taj and nudged her forward.

  She did, too, but it had been too unwieldy for the suit to absorb properly. They were all stuck with pistols and wrist blades, and while both were better than nothing, it would have been nice to have better firepower.

  Torbon hacked another of the men up front, and Dent blasted the last of them. The AI grabbed the nearest of them and threw him aside, clearing the way for the rest of the crew.

  Taj and Cabe jumped over the prone body of the man she’d knocked out when they’d come in—him still oblivious to what was going on—and the pair bolted out the door behind the AI and Torbon, Krawg making sure they were protected from the rear.

  Lina ran up to them as soon as they were clear and filled the doorway with bursts of fire before joining the crew as they bolted down the street.

  “Any idea where we’re going?” Lina asked as she came up alongside Taj.

  “That way,” Taj said, pointing straight ahead.

  “Works for me,” Lina answered.

  And they ran.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Which way?” Torbon asked after they’d run a long way, the men still chasing them like rabid hounds with the scent of blood in their noses.

  “Here,” Taj answered, huffing into the comm.

  She darted to the left and bolted down a narrow alley. They’d managed to keep ahead of their pursuers, but the men were relentless. Taj hadn’t wanted to engage with them beyond what was necessary, but she was starting to think they weren’t going to have a choice soon. The men kept coming.

  They’d run a long distance through the town already, Taj leading the way through as many back alleys and dark, deserted streets as she could. There’d been a few witnesses to the chase, but they had fled in the opposite direction, unwilling to become involved.

  Taj couldn’t blame them.

  She didn’t want to be involved.

  Just as she was readying to tell the crew to find a defensive position from where they could take the men out, she spotted a crowd of people milling around a building a short distance to their left. The sounds of merriment and loud voices rose into the night.

  “This way,” she called out, veering down a narrow street toward the rambunctious crowd.

  “Is this a good idea?” Lina asked, seeing the oblivious throng ahead. “People could get hurt because of us.”

  “We just need a distraction,” she answered, ducking into a nearly-obscured alley off the main road. “Cover your faces so no one recognizes us,” she ordered.

  The rest did as she asked and followed her but almost missed her next turn into a narrow alcove that led into a nearby building. A man at the door shouted something incomprehensible at them as they stormed past his post, but that was the extent of his effort. His voice faded behind them as they wound their way through the labyrinth of hallways that splayed out before them.

  Taj could hear the crowd roaring, the sound echoing through the stones of the building as they kept on, finally slowing as the hallways began to fill with people and become crowded. They pushed through a short distance longer before breaking into a
massive, domed-ceiling room where hundreds of people gathered in small groups around the walls and at every corner.

  “Where are we?” Torbon asked.

  Taj shrugged. She had no idea, but she knew it was their best bet to lose the zealots—which was really the only reasonable name to give them—before the crew was forced into a firefight in the streets.

  That wouldn’t do good things for their effort not to be noticed by the authorities or anyone else.

  Not able to see the knife-wielding zealots anywhere behind them, Taj went over to a barred alcove and stood before the open gate to catch her breath. The rest of the crew joined her, everyone but Dent panting heavily. The sound of the crowd was nearly deafening where they hunkered down.

  I think we lost them, Cabe said over the link so he could be heard over the noise, staring back the way they’d come.

  “About gacking time,” Torbon shouted. “I’m tired of running.”

  “These suits do wonders for your strength and power, but they don’t do a ton for cardio,” Lina complained, leaning against Torbon.

  “I’ll see what I can do in revision,” Dent told her, keeping watch as the crew reclaimed their wind.

  “You do that,” she shot back, giving him a thumbs-up.

  “Rowl but this place is loud,” Taj mumbled, mostly to herself as she straightened to take a better look around.

  That was when the gate behind them creaked open and several gnarled, bent men pulled them through before they’d even realized what was going on.

  “You’re up next,” one of the men told them, his breath like sewage on a hot summer’s day.

  Taj was glad for her mask right then as she struggled to make sense of what the man meant.

  Another of the men slammed the gate closed, and Taj heard the bolt catch, locking them on this side as her mind started reeling.

  “Wait!” she called out, pushing the foul man aside so she could think. “What is this?”

  “The queue,” the man answered, gesturing down the short, wide corridor that ended in an archway.

  Bright light filled the arch, forcing her suit to adapt to its unexpected brilliance after having wandered the gloomy catacombs of the building.

  “You’re next, like I said,” the man repeated while he and his compatriots pressed forward, forcing the crew along with them.

  They reached the archway and Taj blinked as she saw a field of sand spread out before them.

  “Next for what?” she asked.

  “To fight, of course.”

  As he said that, the man and his helpers shoved the crew through the archway. A great metal portcullis slammed shut as soon as they were out, kicking up sand and blocking their path back the way they’d come.

  The crew turned and stared at the gnarled men grinning behind the bars of the portcullis.

  “Did he say fight?” Torbon asked, his tail twitching and slapping his leg.

  “I’m fairly certain he did,” Dent confirmed.

  The man who’d been talking all along jabbed a nubby finger their way and pointed behind them.

  “Might want to face that away `fore you spend your round getting shot in the back.”

  As his words sunk in, the crew turned slowly and looked out at the vast expanse of space before them that they had been too distracted to notice right away.

  “Oh…gacking Rowl!” Lina muttered, eyes so wide they reflected the array of bright lights beaming down on them.

  “This is…unfortunate,” Krawg said, staring out at the crowd that stared back at them, roaring.

  “This is the…” Cabe started.

  “The arena,” Taj finished, her eyes taking in the spectacle before her. “We. Are. So. Gacked,” she muttered as she realized how many citizens of Dulta were likely in the arena, and all eyes were on them.

  “Well, if it’s any consolation,” Dent told them, “at least our faces are obscured.”

  “Are the fights televised?” Taj asked.

  “I don’t believe so,” Dent answered, “which is another point in our favor. The men following us will need to be in the arena to know we are here, and I suspect men wielding knives won’t be allowed into the crowd unless they are…” Dent trailed off.

  “In the fighting area with us,” Taj finished for him, shaking her head.

  She glanced behind them but didn’t see the zealots’ faces peeking past the bars, just the amused eyes of the old men.

  The crowd started to boo at the crew’s hesitation.

  “Best get on out there, folks,” the gnarled old man told them. “You’ll want the crowd on your side seeing how it’s them that decides if you live or die when you lose. Don’t wanna be pissing them off none.”

  “No, of course we don’t,” Taj conceded with a sneer.

  “Why’d we take on this mission again?” Cabe asked.

  “Because we’re stupid,” Torbon replied.

  “I don’t remember being asked,” Krawg argued. “I’m thinking I’ll need to see some hazard pay if I’m going to be fighting in an arena.”

  The crew inched out onto the sand and into the dominion of the lights. Taj sucked in a deep breath when she realized just how big the arena was. There had to be ten thousand people or more there, each and every one of them staring down on the crew and expecting violence.

  But what are we expected to fight? she asked herself, and the great clanking of another portcullis rising across the arena gave her an answer.

  It wasn’t the one she wanted.

  “So much for my wish of it being a two-legged balboran with a limp,” Torbon whined as their opponent made its way onto the sands.

  Taj swallowed hard as she watched their opponent march into the arena to a cavalcade of applause. As it came to stand at the edge of the sand, its long shadow stretched to where they stood.

  “Oh…dear,” Dent mumbled, taking the thing in. “It’s an automaton.”

  “Yeah, because I really wanted to know what the giant thing that’s gonna crush us is called,” Torbon whimpered, craning his neck to stare up at the massive mechanical beast.

  The automaton looked like a giant statue made of bronze, the arena’s lights gleaming off its metal skin. Over ten meters tall—10.0584 to be exact, Taj’s eyepiece informed her—it towered over the sands, the crew looking like tiny ants in comparison.

  The crowd cheered, “Warpath! Warpath! Warpath!” Their voices echoed through the arena, the sandy floor trembling in time to the chant.

  “And it has a name,” Cabe sighed. “Yay.”

  “And everyone knows it,” Lina added, “which means it wins a lot. Nobody remembers the losers.”

  “I’m motivated now,” Cabe grunted, unable to look away from the automaton.

  “At least we’re not fighting it alone,” Dent said, pointing along the circle of the arena where handfuls of other warriors gathered, staring up at the giant mechanoid. “That’s something.”

  Taj looked over at the other groups of warriors making ready to fight the automaton and groaned. They looked no more enthused than her crew did, and they looked far less capable.

  “We are so dead.”

  “Hey!” Torbon complained. “That’s my line.”

  “Warriors!” a great voice cried out, amplified throughout the arena.

  It drew their attention to a small man who stood upon a floating platform high above the sandy floor. Massive view screens loomed behind him, magnifying his image so everyone in the crowd could see him as easily as they could hear him.

  Dressed in colorful garb and wearing what appeared to be a top hat with the Orgesse Clan symbol sewed onto it, the man had a long, scraggly beard that seemed to swallow his mouth when he closed it.

  His bright yellow eyes stared out over the sands.

  “Steel your nerves for you face the automaton Warpath!”

  The crowd drowned the man out for a few moments as they howled and cheered and clapped and made all sorts of noise that made Taj feel a little bit badly.

 
“These people sure do want to see us die,” Taj remarked.

  “Seems to be a trend since we arrived,” Lina commented. “Maybe this mission was a bad idea.”

  “I told you so,” Krawg said.

  Taj spun on him. “No, you didn’t!”

  “Well, I would have had I known what was going to happen,” he clarified, shrugging. “Pretty much the same thing.”

  “It’s not remotely the same thing,” Cabe argued.

  “I’m with furry,” Torbon stated.

  Taj sighed as the bearded man on the floating platform went on.

  “Today, we will see who the great Elerus favors.”

  “There’s that name again,” Dent said.

  “It appears even the gods want us dead,” Torbon whined.

  “We’re in good company then, seeing how Elerus apparently wants the queen dead, too,” Lina said. “We just happen to be first, it appears.”

  “It’s good to be the queen,” Cabe announced.

  “Not if the zealots and their master have their way,” Taj corrected.

  “True,” Cabe replied with a shrug.

  “Now is your time!” the bearded man screamed. “Let us see who the gods favor this day!”

  A reverberating claxon rang out, stirring the crowd into a frenzy, and the automaton lifted one massive foot and took a step forward. Not unexpectedly, none of the warriors rushed out to meet it.

  Taj groaned. While she didn’t really want to see anyone lose their life, she had to admit she was a little disappointed when no one rushed off and took down the metal beast before she had to take it on.

  “Where’s a hero when you need one?” she asked no one in particular.

  “Sadly,” Dent answered, “I don’t believe there are any in residence today.”

  He gestured to the other warriors still gathered about the portcullises they’d come in through. Most stood still, likely in shock, and stared up at the slowly approaching monstrosity as if they planned to just wait for it to arrive and crush them into pulp.

  One man climbed onto the bars and screamed to be let out, beating his fist and forehead against the steel with a fervor.

  “That one is most definitely not him,” Dent went on, pointing to the man as he knocked himself unconscious and toppled to the sand at the base of the portcullis.