Cogs in the Gears of War
Page 4
The blade slammed home into the chest of Jax’s mechanoid, and the warmancer twisted the sword left and right, tearing at the creation’s guts, stirring them into a mechanized froth spilling oily blackness.
The mechanical basilisk shuddered and twitched, thrashing about, struggling against the blade, but there was nowhere to go. Pinned to the earth, the gears and circuits strained and fought until they gave way, burning out.
A great hiss resounded, steam and smoke issuing from the joints, and Jax’s creation gave up the mechanized ghost, slumping to the ground and going still.
The warmancer released the blade and stepped back, admiring his efforts. Jax’s creation lie in a shattered ruin, slowly collapsing in on itself under its own weight.
The warmancer grinned and set his own construction down, the mechanized beast kneeling so Grainge could admire his victory in person, not tainted by the abomination he’d created to counter Jax’s.
The glass eye peeled away once his construct had settled, and the warmancer stepped out tall. He strode over to Jax’s fallen beast and grinned as the stench of oil and scorched flesh wafted to him. The mechanoid flared in its belly, fire consuming it from the inside out, soon to melt and slag all that remained save for its lifeless husk.
Grainge grinned at the sight as the remnants of his men gathered around to witness his victory.
“Know this!” he called out, arms raised to gather his army’s attention. “Let there be no mistake, the better man won this day.”
A muffled click sounded at the base of Jax’s construct, and a panel fell loose, crashing to the ground, loud in the sudden silence.
“You got that right,” Jax said as he emerged from the hatch at the abomination’s treaded foot, pistol raised.
He squeezed the trigger and shot Grainge in the face, replacing his nose with a smoking hole. The back of his skull exploded out the back, splattering his creation, adding to the gore already splattered there.
The warmancer gaped.
Then his corpse slumped to the ground.
“That was for Ord,” Jax told him. “And, oh, by the way, you didn’t learn shit, Grainge. You automatically assumed I’d made my cockpit in the torso…just like you would. You never could look outside that dull, gray box of yours.”
The warks shook off their stun and raced forward, dozens of weapons rising.
Jax glanced across the field and zoomed in with his advanced optics as they closed. He grinned, glad to see Conor, Riley, Malkom, and even Brand as they stood, hunched down, nearly hidden from sight by the base of the cliff, just a short distance from freedom and safety, long forgotten by the remaining enemy.
He grinned as the warks encircled him, a soldier pressing his rifle barrel to the back of Jax’s skull.
“Mission accomplished, assholes. Do what you gotta do.”
Jax never felt the shot that ended his life.
About Tim
Tim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, The Enemy of My Enemy series, Superdreadnought series (with Craig Martelle as CH Gideon, in the Kurtherian Gambit Universe), the Blood War Trilogy, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances alongside the biggest names in fantasy and horror.
www.tmarquitz.com
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