Gears of Troy 3

by Daniel Pierce

  “Linos!” I shouted, gesturing to the cannon again. “You pull, I push!”

  He reached out and pulled the cannon back toward him while I pushed its rear his way. I waved his hand away when the heavy instrument of death was pointed to the opposite half of the field. I did not have to say it this time; his fingers were already jammed in his ears upon being released from assisting me. I did not know if I could take another blast without going deaf—or blind for that matter—but I was determined to find out.

  I punched the button a third time but was slapped with only disappointment. It needed more time to charge—or rather, the air needed more time to refill.

  “Fuck, I should have brought two,” I ground out.

  I turned to see the rammer crews finishing off the rest of the poor fools on the last enemy ship. The third rammer and the other warships were swimming past the havoc, and the larger ships were beginning to take aim at the battlefield as planned. Earlier would had been preferred, but this would surely still be effective.

  Crack! Crack! Crack! One after another, the ship cannons blasted forth, reshaping the field. Hundreds more enemies were reduced to less than ash, and the air was brimming with the overwhelming stench of ozone—a smell I had yet to experience during my tenure there in the past. The remaining riders, of which there were still many, rode forward no longer with looks of determination but with faces full of horror, knowing they had no choice but to press on but with little hope of survival.

  Thirian and Trojan arrows cut through the sky as the enemy came within bow range. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Scander was just returning from his quick trip to Zinni’s. I was happy that my friend was about to see some close-up action. His eyes went wide with realization as he watched the scene ahead of him, and he broke out into a full-on sprint for the wall. This was what he lived for, after all.

  With the distraction, I had almost forgotten my own cannon. I whipped my head back around and slammed my fist on it again, shouting, “Fire!”

  It exploded forth and wiped out another entire squad of foes, leaving the survivors to deal with the aftermath of the devastation. The scene happened much like it had before, with dozens upon dozens of riders cascading into the newly-formed pit.

  Wall after wall of allied projectiles rained from the sky—arrows, gifts, and even a few spears here and there. They came from the wall and the hills on either side of the field. I could not imagine the sheer terror our enemies felt at being trapped in the middle of it all. It truly must have been Hell on Earth, but their aggression meant I would lose no sleep over their deaths. This was my land—and my people, and my queens. Their choice would be paid in blood.

  Whistler joined me at my side and unleashed gift after gift, striking riders dead left and right with hideous wounds that sprayed the air with crimson arcs of blood. Without taking my eyes from the scene, I asked, “Whistler, do you see Thrax or his children?”

  “No, Troy,” she said. “I have been looking, but I do not see any of them. Perhaps they already perished.”

  I was silent for a moment, then said, “I hope so, but I doubt it. Something seems . . . off.” I trust few things in life, but my gut was one thing I listened to. In a series of flickering glances, I scanned the water, then the land, and finally, the sky. There was nothing, and I gave a decisive nod. “We might win this thing—"

  As soon as I said it, there was a change in the air. More men were gathering on the hill. This had only been the first wave, and I knew that the enemy hadn’t shot their bolt. They were just getting warmed up. The enemy numbers had been greatly underestimated. What they lacked in firepower, they compensated for in sheer quantity, and warm bodies pointed in the right direction can turn the tide of a battle.

  Over all the other sounds of battle, their war cries echoed out and they descended the hill, driving forth like a horde of Vikings called down from Valhalla to fight in Ragnarök. Their wheels rolled like the thunder of a thousand hooves, and for a few moments my heart stopped.

  There came another series of thunderous crashes, all aimed for the remaining riders of the first wave. The land was reshaped again. Several more blasts like that, and the strait would flow to the river on the other side of the peninsula—a convenient buffer against future ground invasions if my colony would survive to see them.

  Most of the first wave have been obliterated then, and the stragglers were losing what little reserves of nerve they had left. Their chariots carried them ever forward to their waiting doom. Scander had resumed his position, now on the side of Whistler opposite to me, and was firing bolt after bolt into the scattered stragglers, his shots hitting their marks more often than not. The pain on his face was replaced by that Thirian joy of satiated bloodlust.

  “There he is!” shouted Whistler, pointing to one of the chariots in the center of the coming horde. “Thrax!”

  I followed her finger and saw the unmistakable leader of this army of cutthroats. He stood alone on his massive chariot, which was two times as large as all the others. The metal of its front was shaped to resemble a human skull, the color of the entire vehicle—skull and all—being ash grey, while all the others were cast-iron black. His chariot seemed to radiate in a way that the others did not, almost as if there was a great deal of heat emanating either from or around it.

  The man himself was swollen by his own muscles in a display of raw strength that I had not thought possible. He looked like a drawing of muscles, not a real mand, every vein writing on skin that was taught across a body verging into cartoonish dimensions. With him, he carried his signature shortened javelins that Whistler had described to me. I wasn’t about to let him get close to anyone with those if I could help it.

  “Linos,” I said, calling for the chief to help me aim the cannon again.

  We had our new target in the cannon’s sights in a matter of seconds. Maybe, I thought, if I stopped the leader in his tracks right there on the spot, the rest of the army would turn and get the hell out. Maybe.

  “Cover thine ears, brothers. And sister.” I would admit that I was probably uncharacteristically enthusiastic, but I figured fuck it—this was awesome. I was about to end a war with the press of a button.

  I made sure that the machine was cranked to the highest power setting available and jammed my finger into the fire button. Crack! I closed my eyes for a solid five seconds, but even so, the flash registered through my eyelids. When I opened them, I wanted to close them again and ignore what they were showing me.

  Thrax still rode forward, like Odin incarnate. The radiant glow around his vessel shimmered like a brilliant corona. To the best of my perception, there was some sort of magical shield around him that absorbed the blast. Several men near him had been harmed, along with a little of the land under which they rode, but the brunt of the attack had been absorbed by his powerful magic. Everyone within earshot gasped.

  “Holy shit,” I breathed. I had gotten my hopes up too soon.

  The Thracian king clamped his javelin back into his belt and pressed his hands together, forming arcane symbols with his fingers. A ring around his hands began to glow and grow steadily brighter as he continued working them into a wide array of configurations.

  “Run!” Whistler shouted at the top of her lungs. “Run, run, run!”

  She pulled me from the platform, and I began echoing her cries in hopes of saving my people. “Run!”

  The Thirians around us—those who were not too taken in by the scene—noticed our sudden distress and followed us away, many of them shouting things in their native language, presumably warnings for those who had yet to hear.

  Then there was a blast equally as devastating as those of the allied cannons. I didn’t stop running until the booming had ended, but when it was over, I turned in horror as I came to fully appreciate what we were up against.

  My cannon, the platform it rested on, the middle section of the wall, and several Thirians had all been blown away. I could feel the heat from the blast even as I stood there,
some 50 yards away, totaling up the damage. He had, literally at his fingertips, a power that took us about a year of intensive study and construction to harness—and that was after input from Helen, who had originally designed the devices years prior. We may all be dead the next moment if Thrax decided to snap his fingers.

  I was at a loss of ideas. My cannon was gone, and I had no firepower to match it, not even a bow which I could shoot in a futile effort to hold the man at bay. As he closed the distance between us, he set to work casting the spell again. There was no escape for any of us this time around; I had the overwhelming urge to drop to my knees and pray for some sort of divine intervention, but I did not want the last thing my allies saw of me to be a public admission of my weakness and fear. That aside, I had to remain strong as long as I could for Helen’s sake. I would draw my last breath defending her.

  The rings around his hands grew in intensity, and Thrax suddenly turned to the east and unleashed his satanic wrath on the ships whose cannons were still recharging. This time I did not shut my eyes. It was my duty as the leader to see my own demise, if that was indeed what was happening.

  The middlemost ship exploded, its outermost pieces bursting out and lodging into the ships on either side and into the water below. The crew vanished in a wall of smoke, as had so many enemies before them. The crews of the remaining warship and the rammers were shouting in panic. Loyal to the end, the rammers hastily paddled to intercept whatever may come, acting as a wall between the cannons and Thrax.

  The King was grinning with malicious satisfaction, his eyes wide with madness. It was then that I saw the other notable figures of army. Nisos and Silea rode on either side of him in their own chariots, his son riding alone and his daughter accompanied in her chariot by the man who had met her at the shore. If only it were not for that damned shield of his, I thought, they would all have been blown away in one efficient shot.

  “Fuck!” I screamed. There was nothing else to do. All seemed to be going so well, but then in the span of a minute or two, I felt as if all was lost. “Fuck!”

  I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. It was Whistler. Her eyes were glistening as if she were on the verge of tears. “Troy, it is not yet over.”

  “It might as well be,” I said through gritted teeth.

  She shook her head. “No. Remember, I am not afraid of his magic. If we can survive long enough for him to get close enough to touch, I can render his shield useless. Then . . . then we may have a chance.”

  She was asking a hell of a lot, but it did not sound impossible.

  “Let’s split up then,” I said. “It’ll be a lot easier for him to kill us if we’re all just standing clumped together in the open like this.” I turned and saw several Thirians, Slingers, and Trojans peeking out from around the corners of buildings where they were stationed, ready to do battle once the wall was breached. “Let’s get behind the houses!”

  All of us took off to hide, fanning out in different directions. There were eight others waiting behind the dwelling I chose, all wide-eyed and frantic.

  “What is happening?” one of the Trojans asked.

  “The enemy is using magic,” I explained. “He is shooting energy from his hands that is similar to our cannons. He has a shield that protects him from our cannons as well.”

  They all exchanged terrified looks but said nothing further.

  “Whistler has guaranteed me she can take his shield down once the enemy leader gets close. From there, we’ll have a fighting chance—but he is a beast of a man. We’ll need to throw everything we’ve got his way.”

  One of the Slingers, a young woman with short blonde hair, mustered enough courage to speak, saying, “If Whistler says she can do it, then she can do it! I would follow her to the end of the earth!” The words were not spoken with the confidence that the situation called for, but I wanted to believe them regardless.

  “Let’s hope so,” I said, turning back to the edge of the house to survey the enemy’s progress.

  They were just about to meet the wall, or what remained of it. The chariots on the outer edges were beginning to slow so that the entire army could funnel through the opening that its leader had created. Thrax was already working up another blast to unleash on something or something—presumably the remaining ship. The crew at sea had ceased the useless clamor and were all gathered around their cannon. As luck would have it, our only remaining ship was the one that housed a single cannon—a single cannon that was useless against our primary target.

  In the span of a breath, both parties unleashed their fire upon the other. Thrax let loose another horrendous strike from the palms of his hands, and several members of the crew slammed their fingers into the fire button on their cannon. The shots sailed past each other. That of the crew tore into the ground, annihilating a large swath of enemies on the eastern edge of Thrax’s company. Though it was a near-perfect shot, the crew stared blankly ahead as they met their own demise when, in the next second, the Thracian king’s attack hit home, consuming the vessel and leaving nothing behind of the men aboard.

  I could not see Linos or Scander, but I heard their cries ringing out over everything else. They had been somewhere nearby watching the devastation as I had. So many of their brothers had already died today, and the war seemed far from over. To add insult to injury, there were many Thirians who had vanished without a trace, so there was nothing left of them for the survivors to make a communion of during their death ritual. To many outsiders, this would seem inconsequential in light of all the other devastation that had been unleashed upon the tribal people, but I knew that they would be feeling a painful void at the loss. There would be no closure for them.

  The thundering Immortal Wheels cleared the opening in the wall, with their merciless leader paving the path forward. I looked to the nearest house but could not find Whistler. I had been paying little attention in my haste to find my own cover. As it currently stood, there was no way for me to know when Thrax would be within range for her to work her magic.

  I took my eyes away only for a moment to check on the men covering the hills. It seemed as if Thrax ignored them, choosing to focus his energy on bigger obstacles. Those brave men and women on the front lines were now hurried toward the town. When they arrived, they would be flanking the enemy in conjunction with those of us who stood scattered around the dwellings.

  When I turned my gaze back to the enemy, I was devastated to see that they were almost upon us. Less than ten seconds and I would be able to reach out and grab the crushing wheel of Thrax’s chariot. Nisos and Silea were now riding close at his rear.

  The hulking madman cleared the first row of houses, and as he did, I saw Whistler jump out from behind one of them. He did not seem to notice as she reached for his glimmering forcefield and placed her hands upon it, only for the fraction of a second that his passing would allow. Its intensity multiplied tenfold and then faded altogether. His eyes widened with surprise, and he jerked his head around to discover the culprit.

  The King raised a javelin to end his silent assailant, but she was immediately knocked to the ground by the pole of the spear carried by the man accompanying Thrax’s daughter. It was clear that the man had tried to skewer the leader of the Slingers, but his aim was off by a hair, causing the weapon to slide against her instead, pushing her to her knees as his chariot carried him by. Thrax apparently decided that it would be too much of a hassle to force a brake in his momentum and see the action through, so he carried on, riding past me before I was able to fully understand what had happened.

  It was at this point that several of the riders began veering off in different directions, aiming to take the entire town at once by storm. Silea and her companion stopped perhaps twenty yards from where Whistler had fallen and seemed intent on finishing her off. The warrior girl was only just beginning to get to her feet. I could see the pain in her face now that the hood of her enchanted cloak had fallen away. Though she was spared the pierce of the spear, that blunt impact at
such a speed was surely a heavy blow in its own right. My ribs ached simply at the thought.

  When the line of chariots streaming between us broke up enough for me to cross the street, I took off at full speed, ready to intercept Whistler’s attackers. They paid me no mind until I was right up on them, sword drawn.

  I yelled as I brought my weapon down upon the man, but he must have seen me moments earlier in his periphery and not let on because he was gripping his pole with whitened knuckles and already spinning around to block my strike before I started to howl.

  The metal of our weapons clanked against each other. His pole was vibrating against the force, and he staggered backward several paces.

  “Silea!” he shouted. “Stay back, my love!”

  I glanced in the princess’s direction to see her watching us with a bemused grin. She rested a hand on her hip and held her eyelids level as if his act of bravery on her behalf was only a source of mild interest which was soon to fade. I got the feeling that his love was not reciprocated and that she actually cared very little for the man.

  Before he was able to regain his footing, I flew into him again. He hunkered down and blocked my blade for a second time, but I anticipated as much. Instead of reeling my weapon back and trying a slightly modified version of the same attack, I slide it down alone the metal of his pole until the tip had cleared the thing entirely and then brought my talon up once again with a sharp thrusting motion—this time coming in behind his spear. He jerked his arms down in an attempt to catch my wrist with his spear, but he was too slow. While he did manage to bump his metal against my hand where the prosthetic ended and the wrist began—which did hurt like a total bitch, by the way—it was not enough to prevent me from lodging my blade deeply up and into his ribcage.

  He let out a pained groan as his spear fell from his hands. I could hear Silea laughing behind him, but I was too focused on making sure the man did not have any final tricks up his sleeve to turn my attention to her. He dropped to his knees and then fell forward onto my sword, forcing it even deeper inside, I turned him over and pulled it out.