by DJ Molles
Praetors on them, around them.
As he bounded up the steps, shoving a man roughly out of his way, Mala came crashing out of one of the massive doors and nearly ran headlong into him.
“Took you long enough!” were the first words out of her mouth, a bit of spit alighting on Stuber’s face along with them.
“Don’t be a cunt,” Stuber growled, then pointed to the skiffs. “Those praetors need to get those skiffs airborne!”
“They’ll get shot to shit.”
“We’re all about to get shot to shit.” Stuber shouldered past her. “What’s your point?”
***
Mala rebounded off of Stuber’s shoulder, a flare of anger making her want to reach out and grab his neck and yank him to the ground. But that seemed counterproductive at the moment. She just wasn’t used to being pushed around. Especially by humans. Even big ones.
“Cocksucker,” she grumbled at his back, then whirled around and tramped down the steps. She used her advantage of being a taller than everybody to scan the crowd for Perry, then realized that wouldn’t do her a whole lot of good, since he was shorter than everybody.
She considered calling out to him, but didn’t want to sound like a goat bleating for its kid. So she resorted to a litany of curses and waded through the mire of bodies, everyone trying to press into the temple square, because it was the only place that was even slightly fortified.
The Guardians had done them one favor: They’d eliminated enough of the populace that they could probably fit everyone in the square.
That was, perhaps, a little harsh, but being on the cusp of a battle is no time to balk at harshness.
The temple was the fallback point. For the legionnaires, anyways. If the Guardians came crashing into the temple square—or rather, when they came—Mala knew it would create a stampede for the relative safety of the temple. The entrances were being held by blocks of legionnaires, but Mala had no illusions that they would hold once the shooting started.
For a moment, she stood there, as though straddling two points in time, and she saw them both so clearly. The current moment, with its haggard and fearful faces all tumbling about like a school of frightened fish…and a moment in the future when the temple square would be hung in clouds of acrid gunsmoke, the cobblestones littered with body parts soaking in a stew of blood.
And the worst part about it was that she wasn’t sure she could stop it from happening. It seemed inevitable. The only question that remained was whether or not there would be any survivors.
She forced herself to continue on, still looking for Perry—where was that little halfbreed bastard? Luckily, her size, and probably her hellish demeanor, got most of the peons out of her path.
She stopped, about midway through the square and spun a slow circle, getting madder by the second because Perry was being so hard to find.
A flicker of movement from above caught her eye, and she shot her gaze up to the spire of the temple.
There.
Perry stood on the time wheel, between the Giver of Strength and the Giver of Death, peering into the east.
Finding him didn’t relieve her irritation, but it did release it in a gout of anger that she channeled into her shield and pulsed herself skyward. She intentionally came in hot, and had a moment of enjoyment seeing the wide-eyed surprised on his face when she slammed into the Giver of Strength, cracking the stone.
Perry swore and sidestepped as the hooded visage of the Giver toppled over, crunched the spot where he’d been standing, then rolled towards the edge.
Out of mercy for the people below, Mala stamped her foot on it to keep it from falling. “I’ve been looking all over for you!” she snapped.
“Well, you found me.” He glared at her. “What’s the problem?”
“Where’s Whimsby?”
“If you wanted Whimsby, why are you looking for me?”
“Because I can’t find Whimsby!”
“I don’t know where he went—he’s with Sagum somewhere in the temple.”
Mala bared her teeth, considering kicking the stone head off and letting it land on whatever poor fuck it happened to find. “Are you sure that they were Guardians he spotted?”
Perry raised his hands in a you gotta be kidding me gesture. “Big, copper-colored spheres of metal, hovering over the ground? Yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re Guardians.”
Mala didn’t respond. Instead, she looked out east, scanning the horizon line, which she figured was what Perry had been doing before she interrupted him. Maybe she needed to cool down a bit.
“You didn’t see them for yourself?” She asked, slightly less irate.
“No, my peon eyes don’t go that far.” Hesitation. “Can you see them?”
Mala strained her eyes. They were, of course, far superior to a human’s…and yet, she still couldn’t see anything.
She shook her head, not sure what to feel in that moment. Doubt? Fear? Irritation?
“Well, they didn’t just up and disappear,” Perry said, suddenly quiet.
“Unless that mech’s got his circuitry scrambled.”
“He does have his circuitry scrambled.”
Mala looked at Perry. “Halfbreed, if we’ve done all of this—” she swept a hand at the square “—and there’s no fucking Guardians—”
Perry flashed an angry grin. “Then you’re going to be glad we’re not dead and thank me for being cautious.”
And then he jumped off the temple spire.
***
Perry gave himself a little pulse so that he landed gently in an area where his shield wouldn’t melt some poor refugee to slag. The second his boots hit the ground, he turned and ran for the entrance to the temple.
A group of people were squashed in on the top step, arguing with the double line of legionnaires hunkered behind their shields.
“You can’t leave us out here!” a man wailed.
“There’s no room for you in here!” one of the legionnaire barked back, though that was an absolute lie.
A woman shot forward, pummeling futilely against a legionnaire’s shield. “I can see there’s room inside!”
Perry sympathized with both the legionnaire and the terrified people, but now was not the time. He thrust himself between the leading man and woman, snatched up her wrist in one hand, then snaked his longstaff behind the neck of the man, and yanked them both close.
They seemed shocked by the sudden movement, and that gave Perry the smallest moment to speak reason, in a low, dangerous voice: “Do you think starting a riot is going to help this situation?”
The woman found her voice first. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one that’s about to go head-to-head with four Guardians to try to save your lives. Can you help me?”
She blinked a few times, indignation turning to shocked compliance. “Yes.”
The man nodded hastily. “We can help.”
Perry gave them eye contact, each in turn. “Then keep the people calm. Please.” And then he said the worst lie that had been told to these people to date: “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.”
Before they could call him on his utter bullshit, he released them, spun, and pushed through the legionnaire’s shields. They made a small hole for him to get through—they had learned his face by now—and brought the shields back together behind him with a fatal-sounding crunch.
The inside of the temple felt strangely close and hot. Somehow both dim and overbright—all deep shadows and false faces of false gods lurking in darkness, shot through with the electric lanterns that had been erected, their light bold and stark like a single bulb hanging in a dark basement.
Groups of legionnaires, organized by battleline, in pockets all across the vast interior. A centurion railing on about something to what looked like half a cohort that dominated the left side of the sanctuary. A decanus, off to the left, speaking in clear, calm tones to his men, a snippet of his words reaching Perry’s ears:
�
��You know what it was like last time. Learn from that. Drop your swords—they’re dead weight against these things. Shields, armor, and all the magazines you can carry.”
Perry pushed on, the air dank with breath and the scent of sweat starting to bead on the faces of legionnaires that couldn’t forget their last run-in with a Guardian if they tried.
He caught Mordicus at his little command table, situated towards the back.
“Mordicus,” Perry said, injecting himself into a huddle of fierce looks and fiercer words between Mordicus and a handful of his centurions.
Mordicus held up a finger—to his centurions, not to Perry—and raised his eyebrows in question.
“What are we gonna do about the people outside?”
Mordicus frowned. “We’re doing what we can.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
“What do you want me to tell you, Perry?” Mordicus looked suddenly tired. “They’d’ve been safer spread out in the city, but no. They all wanted to be here, close to Daddy’s bosom. Do you think even one of them thought about the abject tactical failure of giving these fucking machines a target-rich environment? Of course they didn’t. But it’s what we have to work with.”
“I know you can’t fit all of them in here,” Perry pressed. “But some…”
“Some what?” Mordicus nearly shouted at him. “Let a hundred in and tell the others to sit tight and deal with it? Are you going to explain it to them? Are you going to make the choice of who gets to come in?” Mordicus shook his head, his face all craggy sneers. “If we let even one inside, they’re all going to want to come in.”
“They’re going to break in anyways the second they start taking incoming fire.”
Mordicus jabbed a stout finger against Perry’s chest. “Which is why it’s so important that you and your demigod friends keep those fucking things outside of the temple square.”
Perry averted his eyes. “Yeah, there might be a problem with that.”
“Oh?”
“You know how our mech spotted them coming in from the east?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we can’t see them out there anymore.”
A moment of silence for the death of a plan.
“Shit.” Mordicus, for the first time since Perry had met him, looked worried. “So we have no fucking idea where they’re coming from now.”
“I’m afraid not. And…” Perry took a deep breath. “Well, I need to confirm with the mech about what he saw.”
Mordicus’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t aware there was any doubt.”
“There’s not. But, you know…it pays to be thorough.” Perry pointed towards the square. “You got a handful of skiffs and praetors already loaded and ready inside of them. I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job—”
Mordicus turned sharply and pointed to one of his centurions. “Get those skiffs in the air running patrol. The second they see anything—anything—I want to know about it.”
Perry figured that was about as much as he could hope for. “Mordicus, do you know what happened to Sagum and the mechs?”
“So you can confirm that there’s actually Guardians incoming?” Mordicus growled, but pointed towards the back of the temple. “They’re holed up with the wounded.”
Perry separated from Mordicus and his centurions, picking up the pace as he jogged towards the rear of the temple. How long had it been since they’d spotted the Guardians? And had Whimsby actually spotted Guardians? What else could they be?
Unless Mala was right and he’s just malfunctioning.
It was either that, or they were going to get hit hard from an unknown direction in less than five minutes. Or more. Or in just a few seconds. Or later.
Perry really had no idea what was coming and when, and that uncertainty, more than anything else, set him on edge. He’d almost have preferred to be able to watch those machines approach across the wastes outside of Karapalida—to know exactly when they were going to hit, and when he was going to have to throw himself into the fray.
Oh, shit, you’re actually going to try to fight one of these things?
Strange, but the reality of that had just crashed into him. Made his guts feel a little slippery. His limbs a little shaky.
“Death waits in the wings,” Perry mumbled to himself as he sidestepped a column of legionnaires emerging from the makeshift field hospital in the back of the temple—bandages still on their heads, arms, legs, even as they limped along with grim faces, pulling on their battered and bloodied armor. “Let the fear move through you.”
One of the wounded legionnaires flashed him a grin as he passed. Slapped him hard on the side of the shoulder. Like getting hit by a brick. “There you go, Halfbreed.” Perry didn’t know him, but apparently he knew Perry. “Tooth and nail, motherfucker. Shit’s gonna get thick!”
Perry mimicked the man’s bold grin, wondering if it felt as fake to the legionnaire as it did to him. But sometimes you have to fake being brave to force yourself to do something brave.
Perry moved through the doorway into still more dimness. Back here, there was less lanterns to light the way. Only a few that he could see, stationed over wounded people that were actively being worked on. The light spilled over the rest—a tired, undulating mass of people in pain.
He looked for the telltale blue glow of Whimsby or Bren’s core processors, but couldn’t see it. He decided Sagum probably didn’t want to work in the midst of all this fracas. He would have found himself a quiet corner.
He moved further along until he spotted it—a low, blue glow coming from a little alcove in the far corner. He picked his way through the wounded and stuck his head into the alcove.
Sagum squatted there before the bodies of Whimsby and Bren, absolutely still.
“Sagum,” Perry called out, moving into the alcove. The tinkerer gave no acknowledgement. His hands were clasped together, mushed against his mouth.
Perry stopped, just behind Sagum, and realized that the blue glow was only coming from Bren. Whimsby’s own core processor was dark, his face blank and still like a mannequin, his eyes open but sightless.
“Shit, I need to ask Whimsby a question.”
“I’ve deactivated him.”
“Why?”
Sagum shook his head and frowned up at Perry. “What did you want to ask?”
“I wanted to confirm…” Perry grit his teeth. “Is there any way that what he saw could’ve been a malfunction or something?”
Sagum just stared at Perry for a long moment, then looked at Whimsby’s lifeless form. Eventually he shook his head. “I’ve got no reason to believe that his visual processing is corrupted. If that were the case, he would’ve presented other symptoms.”
“Why’d you deactivate him?” Perry asked again.
“He’s not doing us any favors in the state he’s in,” Sagum said, rising. “I’m trying to reactivate Bren because…” he rubbed his hands on his face. “Maybe I can get him to do what Whimsby did to those Guardians back in the East Ruins.”
Perry nodded. “What can I do to help?”
Sagum shook his head. “You can’t do anything. I have to do this. And you…you should get out there, Perry. Get out there and try to buy me some time.”
Perry took a deep breath, wondering if he’d wished that Sagum had something for him to do so that…
He shook the thought away like a dog shakes rain off its fur. No. His job was to fight. He, and Mala, and Lux. They were this city’s best bet against being exterminated.
“I’ll do my best,” Perry said, a little thickly. “But work fast.”
***
Sagum crouched back down as Perry left him. He stared at Whimsby’s dead face for a long moment, then looked at Bren. It was taking the mech an inordinate amount of time to boot up. Had Sagum done something wrong? Put a part in the wrong place? Forgotten a part?
What if Bren was just as corrupted as Whimsby now? Sagum wasn’t sure how that would happen, but these damned
mechanical men might as well have been sorcery to him. They worked in ways that he couldn’t comprehend.
He felt like a mindless nekrofage, trying to make sense of how a skiff stayed airborne. Which, as a matter of fact, Sagum also didn’t understand.
All of these things had been built by demigods using god-tech. He was just a toddler playing with things far beyond him.
He was kneeling down to take a closer look at Bren’s innards, when the mech straightened in his sitting position, his face coming alive, eyes moving.
Sagum felt a wash of relief. “Bren? Is that you? Is everything okay? Are you whole? Did I fuck anything up?”
Bren smiled that daft, innocent expression. No clue as to the danger they were all in. “Yes, Master Sagum, it’s me, Bren. I appear to be functioning normally. I don’t believe you fucked anything up.”
Sagum nearly wilted. “Oh, thank the gods.” But not really. A holdover expression. The gods wanted to kill them, best Sagum could understand.
“Master Sagum?”
“Yeah?”
“This is really quite odd, but I’ve been partially conscious the whole time.”
“Wait. What? So you know what’s going on?”
Bren frowned. “That depends on what you mean. There appears to be many things going on.”
“Do you know that there are Guardians coming for us?”
“Oh. No. I was not aware of that. Are you all going to die?”
Sagum swallowed. “I hope not. What were you talking about?”
“Apprently, I maintained some rudimentary computing abilities even while I was deactivated. Likely because you had Whimsby and I sharing processors. I was able to access Whimsby’s memories, and you should know…”
Sagum grew suddenly excited. “Yes?”
“The chronology of those memories has been corrupted.”
Excitement snuffed out, like a bucket of cold water on a single candle. “Yes, Bren,” Sagum groaned. “I’m really, really aware of that.”
“Oh, splendid,” Bren beamed. “Then you’ll know what I’m talking about when I say that I believe I can organize those memories into a proper chronology.”
