by DJ Molles
Perry nodded. “The Guardians. They were the things guarding the Nine. And then, as it was explained to me by…” Mala, a demigod “…someone…there is something called The Watcher.” Perry peddled his hands over each other. “Apparently it’s been watching us the entire time, with orders to destroy everything on the entire earth if the Nine were ever released.” Perry cleared his throat. “Which we did. Unfortunately.”
Mordicus’s eyebrows went up. “So you’re the reason these fucking monstrosities came out of the sky to kill everyone?”
“No, no.” Perry shifted his weight. “It was because of the Nine. They were supposed to stay in captivity.”
“And then you released them.”
“Accidentally. There was this paladin who had it out for another paladin, and then things got squirelly, and this other paladin showed up and tried to stop things, but he didn’t really know what was going on, and he fired his longstaff, and the bolt hit the ceiling…” Perry sighed. “Ceiling crumbled, chunk of rock hit one of the Sons of Primus, freed him, there was a lot of yelling, he disintegrated some praetorians…there was a lot going on. It’s complicated. But the point is: Not our fault.”
“So it was a paladin that released them.”
“More or less. Yes.”
Mordicus chuffed. “Fucking figures. Godsdamned paladins set these machines loose on us and then run and hide.” He nodded to Perry. “You see why everyone wanted to kill you when they thought you were a demigod. Myself included.”
Perry thought of Mala, lying bleeding on that skiff. “Well, you know, they’re not all bad.”
Mordicus did not look inclined to extend any grace to the demigods. “You tell that to the three cohorts I lost when those Guardians of yours slashed through our ranks. Tell that to the thousands of bodies lining these streets. Oh, did you not notice them? Don’t worry, you will. When they start to rot.” His face became a snarl. “Another day in the sun and they’ll be able to smell this place from The Clouds.”
Okay, so don’t mention Mala.
“How did your legion end up in Karapalida?”
“We were meeting with The Truth, those red bastards, in a valley not too far from here.” Mordicus’s eyes darkened even further. “We were setting up our night camp when those things came out of the sky. We didn’t know what they were, or what the hell was happening.” He bared his teeth in anger at himself. “We just stared at them. I just stared at them. When I should have been doing something. Then they hit right in the middle of us. The impact alone must’ve taken out a cohort’s worth of men. I still thought they were just meteors…” His toothy grimace became a humorless grin, full of self-recrimination. “…And then out of the smoke, they came out. The Guardians, as you call them. I’ve never seen such destruction in my life. The weapons that they used…” he trailed off.
Perry could imagine what Mordicus was seeing in his mind’s eye. The shredding of ranks of armored legionnaires, being raked with gunfire from its turrets, being splashed with caustic spray, micro-missiles and energy weapons turning warriors into gristle and greasy mist.
“It must’ve been horrific,” Perry said, quietly. “How did any of you survive?”
Mordicus’s far-away stare snapped back into focus. “I ran for the auto-turrets. I’d had them installed prior to encampment. My second-in-command always told me I was paranoid—The Truth never struck at us outside of the pre-arranged battle times. But I suppose my paranoia paid off. And my second-in-command died.”
“Wait.” Perry’s brow furrowed. “The autocannons worked against the Guardians?”
“Not at first. Whatever they have for armor is thick as shit. Very few chinks to take advantage of. But for some reason, they completely ignored the auto-turrets and focused on my men. And when I was able to get all eight auto-turrets to focus their fire, it was enough to incapacitate one, and then the other.”
“Is that why your men call you Slayer of Demons?”
Mordicus waved it away. “My men call me many things. I allow it because it increases their faith in me. But I take no pleasure from their fantasies. It’s a means to an end. It keeps us strong.”
“At what point did the paladin in charge of your legion run away?”
Mordicus flashed blood-thirsty. “The second the Guardians came out of the craters they left when they crashed into my men. Strange, it made no sense to me at the time, but it seemed my paladin knew what they were. And he wanted nothing to do with them. How many of my men could he have saved with his shield? The fucking coward. He flew—I’d never seen him do that before, didn’t even know that he could—straight to a skiff. Jetted away while everyone died.” Mordicus lapsed into a brief moment of silence, then concluded with a heavy sigh: “Then we came here. Because we weren’t sure where else to go. We have no paladin to lead us. It’s just me. And I decided that being stuck out in the plains with those things would be a strategic error. But, as you can see, Karapalida didn’t fare any better. The Guardians had already struck it before we arrived. Most of the people that are here now arrived after we got here. A flood of people from the outskirts—villages, freeholds, scavenging crews.”
Stuber crossed his thick arms over his chest. “I noticed that you and your legionnaires have cut off your sagums.”
Mordicus nodded. “We were pissed. Abandoned. Holding to the faith seemed pointless, and even more than that, it flew in the face of the dead men we left behind. Men that died because their paladin left them. What purpose does faith have now?” He shook his head bitterly. “A part of me still feels guilty for betraying my colors. But the larger part of me rebels. We are Faithless now, out of necessity, rather than desire.”
Stuber exchanged a look between Perry and Teran, as though to ask who was going to break the next chunk of news to Mordicus. But both Perry and Teran silently pushed that back on Stuber. Best to hear it from a fellow legionnaire.
Stuber took a deep breath. “I cut my colors from me long ago. Don’t hold it against me, but they were once red.”
“What does it matter now?” Mordicus retorted. “The paladins have fled. And they’ve taken their war with them.”
“The war was a lie from the start,” Stuber replied, his voice oddly soft. Mordicus watched him with a feral sort of intensity, waiting for further explanation. “The paladins have no war between them. They live together in The Clouds, at peace with one another. The war that we’ve fought and bled for was just a stage play. A way to keep us distracted from the truth. A way to keep us fighting and dying, and to depopulate us. That is all they’ve ever wanted: To maintain their rule, and to keep us under their thumb, by whatever means necessary.”
As Stuber spoke, Mordicus’s face trembled, and Perry grew tense, wondering what outburst would come. He saw the rage, but he didn’t know what it was directed at. The messenger? The truth? Or the situation itself?
Mordicus’s fists clenched.
It didn’t escape Perry that Stuber very subtly bladed his body, as though preparing for an attack.
But then Mordicus simply turned away.
Another uncomfortable glance between Perry and his companions.
When Mordicus finally spoke again, his voice was low. It betrayed his age. “You always knew it. From the first battle. And every single one after that. What could possibly be the point? It defied all logic. They taught us strategy, but the things they had us do bore no strategy. You knew it, and I knew it. We let ourselves be fooled. And what fools we are for that.” With his back still turned to them, Mordicus tilted his head back and appeared to be looking at the faces of the Sons of Primus, far above them. “The biggest fool is the one who denies his own sense of truth because a lie is more comfortable to believe.”
Perry felt shame rise in him, knowing that what Mordicus said was true. “Well. I guess we’re all fools then. At least you managed to take out two Guardians. That’s better than we can boast. And you still have the autoturrets, don’t you? You can fight back.”
“They’re
out of ammunition,” Mordicus grunted. “It took every last round to take down those two.” Mordicus turned back to them. “That’s why so many of my men died in the slaughter. It took everything those autoturrets could dish out. They fired until the barrels glowed. And we only just barely took them out. What happens when they come back? And they will come back, won’t they? That’s what they’re designed to do, isn’t it? Exterminate.”
Perry nodded. “Yes. They’re going to come back. And yes, their job is to exterminate all life on this planet. Humans and demigods—we’re all just a big experiment that’s gone wrong. The Guardians are here to wipe the slate clean.” He took a step towards Mordicus, his voice becoming deadly serious. “But we’re not going to let them.”
Mordicus merely looked at him like a child who thinks they can right all the wrongs of the world. “Is that so? And how are we going to do that?”
“We need to work together. For five hundred years we’ve been kept weak. We’ve been divided and set at each other’s throats by a fictional war. All of that’s over now. We need to put aside the petty differences that we’ve been squabbling over, and realize that we’re all humans—not paladins, and peons, and legionnaires, but humans. And we’re all going to die together if we don’t learn to fight together.”
Mordicus sighed. “Good luck with that. There’s a reason the fictional war worked so well to keep us at each other’s throats: Because we like it. It’s in our nature to fight.”
“You’re right. And that’s what makes us dangerous. If we can learn where to direct it. Not at each other, but at the Guardians. You yourself managed to take two of them out. They’re not invincible.”
“And can you summon fifty thousand more rounds for my autoturrets?”
“Well. I can’t summon them. But I may have an idea.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE GOOD DOCTOR
“Hauten?” Teran seethed as they left the relative safety of the New Section and stepped into the nightmare of the Old. “You can’t be serious.”
“You got a better idea?” Perry grunted as he looked around them warily.
Stuber led them through the city, as the new stone buildings gave way to the husks of shattered mudbrick. Legatus Mordicus had secured the New Section in order to house his legion, but the Old Section was without order or oversight, and here the people scuttled like rats in a trash heap. Their eyes watched the three newcomers with the feral curiosity of beasts evaluating whether something can be overpowered or not.
Luckily, the stormcloud that was Stuber seemed to discourage them.
They had not left Mordicus on fantastic terms. He more or less seemed to believe that Perry was a fluke for his abilities to use the godtech, and either a madman or a simpleton for his belief that they could unite and fight back. But he had told them to check the Third Ward of the Old Section. It was the only place where the buildings still stood, and Mordicus’s scouts had reported that the most recent influx of refugees seemed to have holed up there.
Perry would have liked to continue working on Mordicus, trying to shape him into something of an ally, but Stuber was having none of it. He was on a mission to find his wife, and Perry pitied any idiot that got in his way. Including himself.
Teran apparently did not have a better idea than enlisting the assistance of Boss Hauten, so she instead opted to rehash a little history for Perry. “He left you to be hanged! He abandoned you! You can’t trust him!”
“Yes, well, I’ll admit I’m still a little hurt by that. But the circumstances have changed. And if I’m trying to get people to put their differences behind them and work together, then I might want to lead by example.”
Teran gave him a look that echoed Mordicus’s convictions that Perry was a simpleton. “I’ve never heard you be such an idealist before.”
“I’ve never been forced to put my faith in humanity before,” Perry answered. “Trust me, it’s not my first option. But it’s the one and only chance we have. If we don’t work together, we might as well flee into the mountains and wait to get routed out.”
Teran glared. “Is that a jibe at the Outsiders?”
Perry looked skyward, exasperated. “No, Teran. I would never dream of speaking down to ‘your people.’”
“Why do you say it like that? ‘My people’?”
“Because they’ve been your main motivation. You told me so yourself.” He flashed irritable eyes at her. “Which I think is ass-backwards, considering we’re all going to die together if we keep insisting on staying in our individual tribes.”
“If you had a people, you’d feel the same.”
Perry was surprised to find that little comment seeping into his consciousness and burning him like acid. But the truth about yourself always hurts, as Perry had recently found out. Teran was right. Perry had no people. He was a drifter, a deserter from the legionnaires, orphaned by the man he’d believed to be his father, disowned by his biological father—who tried to kill him—and abandoned by the faithless scavengers he’d thrown his lot in with.
“I have a people,” Perry grumbled. “It’s you and Stuber.”
“You don’t even know where to find Hauten and the crew.”
“They cut the same circuit every year—or at least they did the three years I was with them. The godsmoon is waning, so they’ll be shifting back west, towards Junction City.”
“If they’re even alive.”
“Boy, you’re just a fountain of positivity right now.”
A stir ahead of them caught their attention.
Stuber had rounded a corner and now stood with his rifle in his hands. Blocking the center of the rubble strewn street, stood a group of five individuals. They had that look about them. Like they were about to start some shit.
Stuber leveled his rifle with one hand, and with the other he pointed at them. “You five. Since you’re not doing anything useful with yourselves, perhaps you can tell where a tall, red-headed lady went. She’s a doctor from Oksidado. I need to find her.”
The five men did not move, or answer. They seemed to Perry to find themselves caught in a trap. Like they’d geared up for a fight—with what looked like some knives and a pipe—and were now forced to consider that it may have been a poor idea.
Stuber pulled his head back, as though realizing something. “Wait. Were you…were you going to try to rob me or something?”
“Well…” one of the men started.
Stuber held up a hand. “No, no. I’m looking at you right now. I can see that you were preparing to rob me. Here I am, just asking directions to a tall, red-headed lady who is a doctor from Oksidado, and you’re thinking about taking me for…what? My rifle?”
“We…”
“No.” Stuber stepped forward. “You’ve got knives and pipes, but I’ve got a rifle and enough bullets for each of you three times over. Do you really want this?”
Knives and pipes were subtly tucked behind legs.
“We don’t want trouble, legionnaire,” one of the men in the center said. “Has Legatus Mordicus sent you to find this doctor?”
“I just left from speaking with him,” Stuber fudged.
This only seemed to add to their discomfort.
“We don’t want to fuck with the legatus,” the man said. “I don’t know if it’s the lady you’re looking for, but someone came in and opened up part of the clinic down the way. It got bombed out and the doc that lived there is dead. But there’s a line of people trying to get in, so I think some other doctor is there. Might be the lady you’re looking for.”
Stuber lowered his rifle. “That’ll be all, gentlemen. Now kindly put your faces to the wall.”
They hesitated. Then turned, each to the nearest crumbled wall.
“Go on,” Stuber growled. “Faces to the wall. Until your noses touch. Hey! You! Your nose isn’t touching. There you go. Much better.”
Three with their faces plastered to one wall, two on the other, Stuber simply strode through their midst, not giving them a se
cond glance. Nor did he give them any instructions as to when they were free to take their noses off the wall.
Perry and Teran followed after Stuber as he quickened his pace.
Near the next intersection, Perry glanced back and saw all five men with their noses still touching the mudbrick.
***
The clinic was half-ruined, and packed full of misery. True to the word of the would-be robbers, there was a line out the door and down the street. And not a single person looked simply ill. They were all injured, all bleeding, all moaning.
Stuber didn’t care. He barged through them amid cries of outrage, and Perry and Teran followed, grimacing and gently trying to placate a man with a bone sticking out of his arm, who Stuber had rudely shoved into the door frame.
“I’m sorry,” Perry soothed. “My friend’s looking for someone.”
The man simply exploded in curses.
Perry turned away from him. “Well, fuck you. What’re you gonna do, fight me?”
Teran apologized for Perry’s apology.
The main room of the clinic probably hadn’t looked like much before it’d been hit by a flurry of micro-missiles. Though Perry had to say, it probably used to be fairly dark, and was now nicely illuminated by the gaping hole in the ceiling.
The air was dank, heavy with perspiration and breath, and it stank of bodies and, surprisingly, only slightly of blood. There was barely room to move. Those that could stand did so, but most leaned against something, or had simply collapsed on the floor.
People that likely had no business doing anything medical were hustling back and forth to a back room that belched steam and smelled like the worst cook in the world had been given free reign. They entered laden with bloody scraps of cloth, and exited a moment later with a slightly lesser amount of slightly cleaner cloths.
It was through this mess of humanity that Stuber plunged, his boots nudging into people’s wounds and stepping on fingers and broken toes. He followed the people with the freshly-boiled bandages. Perry slipped through the carnage and went after him.
