by DJ Molles
The being touched down to the stones again and let out a great, bored breath. “It is done.”
The one that had spoken with authority earlier, raised his hand aloft. “Go to the others.”
And in a great hurricane of wind, seven of the Nine shot into the sky again, leaving trails of dust in their wake that turned to vapor as they sped off. A crash of thunder—the splitting of the sound barrier—shook Karapalida and caused the derelict temple to groan and spill dust from a thousand cracks.
Perry only realized that the field of energy had taken him up again when his body shot upright, like a puppet yanked on its strings. To his left, Mala and Lux jerked into the air just as he did, teeth bared as they tried futilely to fight against the power that held them.
They were drawn together until they nearly touched again, held nearly fifteen feet into the air so that they hung there like bugs in a spider’s web, and they stared directly into Batu’s merciless eyes.
“Now listen to my words,” Batu intoned, his voice low, even though it still pressed at Perry’s ears like an all-consuming force. “And repeat them to all you encounter. We are the gods of this earth. Nothing lives upon this earth that we do not allow to live, for we have been given the power of death. The Guardians mean nothing to us. The All-Kind that sent them will never return. Every human that draws breath upon this planet from here until the end of time belongs to us. This is your punishment. This is your earned justice. This is our vengeance, which is absolute: That you and every human creature will toil, and slave, and serve us. Your children will be stooped with the burden that you have brought upon them. Your young men will have their bones ground to dust by their labors. Your women will curse their wombs for each life they doom to live on this earth. You will break your bodies and souls to bring us the fruits of your labors, only to watch us turn them to ash before your eyes, so that you will be reminded that you have no purpose here. Your only reason for existence is so that we can witness your endless suffering.”
The power released them, and they dropped, as shocked by the impact to their bodies as the words had been to their hearts.
And when they looked up in a daze, they found that they were alone again in the temple square.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A BIT OF A CRISIS
Teran’s skiff roared out of the low, craggy hills, and the dread that had been building since she’d spotted the black smudge on the horizon became full and complete.
She stood at the controls, the wind thrashing her hair, sucking the moisture from a mouth that had already gone dry with fear, so that her tongue felt like sand. At the fore of the skiff, Lucky stood, jabbing a finger to the west.
As the land opened up and stretched out before them, the city of Karapalida had come into view. And everything that had happened to it.
“Look!” Lucky shouted back to her, his voice just a whisper on the wind.
Teran was already looking. Dozens of smoke trails rising into the sky. The proud temple spire gone from the skyline of the New Section.
Lucky staggered back to her, his eyes full of doubt and gripped with terror. “Are we too late?”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Figured the vision of destruction was obvious enough.
“There could be Guardians in there!” Lucky shouted over the wind. “They could still be fighting! Should we turn back?”
Teran snapped ferocious eyes onto him. “Turn back? What do you think we came here for in the first place?”
Lucky stammered about for the right words and ended up sounding cowardly and lame: “We came to help them prepare. Not to throw ourselves into the maw!”
Teran gritted her teeth together. She couldn’t even look at him anymore. Should have perhaps been thankful that he’d come along with her in the first place, but now all those high minded words he’d said were shown for what they were: Bullshit you say when your neck’s not actually on the line.
She jerked her head to the side. “If you don’t like where this skiff is heading, then jump off.”
Lucky looked over the siderails as though actually thinking about it. The ground blurred by beneath them. “We’re going to fast!”
Teran only curled her nose and punched the throttle faster.
***
They’d all heard it. You couldn’t not hear it.
The voices of the Sons of Primus were vast, and even when they only spoke in what Stuber assumed was their normal voice, it still boomed through the city as though projected from the loudspeaker system.
The only people that maybe hadn’t heard would be the ones who were too busy dying to register the voice of their gods. Their tormentors. Their devils.
Stuber didn’t really know what to feel at that moment. His rifle was in his grip, but it felt for the first time in his life like a useless chunk of metal. He pressed himself through the line of legionnaires crowding the door of the temple, and they didn’t move to stop him. They simply stumbled out of the way as he shouldered past, like all the fight they’d learned over the course of their life had suddenly been drained out of them, faces bloodless and blank.
Stuber felt that same powerlessness. For fighting is only worth it when you’ve a chance at winning. Only fools fight battles they can’t win. And all of humanity had now been played for a fool.
But his eyes were fixed upon his three friends. Well…one friend named Perry, and two assholes named Mala and Lux. Perry did not look so swell, and Stuber realized that was all that was animating his feet: The sudden conviction that he needed to get an arm around the poor halfbreed bastard and keep him from falling on his face.
Stuber staggered numbly down the steps of the temple. Bodies burning. Bodies disentagrating. Bodies bleeding out. Empty shells. Parts of people. Smoking remnants of shields and armor. The hulk of a Guardian to his right, spilling an acrid-smelling smoke that reminded Stuber of burning hair and burning plastic, all at once.
No one spoke. Stuber’s own brain seemed empty of language. The entire city seemed to have been suddenly abandoned. The screams of the dying could not even be heard. Those that had died had died. Those that had lived were rendered speechless.
Just a big, smoky ghost town. That’s all that Karapalida was anymore. And any survivors inside of it were just ghosts.
Stuber scooted up to Perry, who swayed on his feet, shoulders slouched, mouth hanging open, eyes half-lidded. The big legionnaire had to dip down into a half-squat to get an arm under Perry’s and pull him upright.
In any other time, in any other moment, Perry might’ve pulled back from that. Might’ve told Stuber that he could stand on his own two feet, dammit. But this was not one of those times, and he sagged against Stuber.
Stuber licked dry lips with a dry tongue. Searched for something upbeat to say, but all that came out was “Uh…” There simply wasn’t enough humor in the world to lighten this situation. He grimaced down at Perry, felt a little tug of long-suppressed compassion as Perry just leaned his head against Stuber’s chest, so drained that the little runt couldn’t even summon any pride.
“Are you injured?” Stuber finally husked.
Perry’s face bore no expression. His eyes looked almost like a blind man’s. The way they simply washed over everything without focusing on anything. “I don’t know,” Perry mumbled.
Stuber cleared his throat. Lips tightened. Trembled. “Well. Stand up and find out.”
Perry didn’t seem inclined to try.
Stuber glanced over his shoulder, saw the legionnaires stumbling out of the temple like an army of animated corpses. And through them, no more alive than any other, Legatus Mordicus stepped out. Looking like he’d forgotten who he was. Forgotten how to be a commander.
Stuber tightened his grip on Perry. Gave him a little heft. “Stand up.”
Ghosts. They were all leaking out of the wreckage of the ghost town now.
Stuber’s eyes couldn’t stop ranging all around them. The poor, hopeless, huddled masses, trickling out of the dest
ruction behind them, faces bloody and smoke-smeared, eyes searching for something and not finding it.
Perry shuffled against him. Stuber felt a bit of the weight taken off of him. He sidestepped away, hands hovering about Perry as though he were trying to balance a teetering tower of blocks.
Perry sniffed. Frowned. The first expression he’d been able to conjure. He blinked. His eyes seeing what was all around them. The people of Karapalida. The legionnaires. Mordicus.
Perry didn’t fall, or cry out at some unknown injury, so Stuber quickly stepped away, snatched the longstaff from the ground—he assumed it was Perry’s as Mala and Lux still held theirs—and shoved it into Perry’s hands.
“There. Hold it.”
Perry held it. Leaned on it.
And then he laughed. Low. Hollow. Dry as the Glass Flats.
Stuber cleared his throat again. “Maybe don’t laugh,” he murmured. “It makes you sound crazy.”
Perry turned his gaze on Stuber, brows arching. “Aren’t I? Aren’t we?”
Stuber grimaced. “Now’s not the time, Shortstack. Now’s the time to stand the fuck up. You got a whole shit ton of people staring at you right now. They’ve just had their hearts ripped out of their chests. They need a little something. But definitely not laughter.”
“I don’t have anything to give them, Stuber.” Perry dropped his gaze to his longstaff. Turned it clumsily in his fingers. “Did you see what just happened?”
Stuber hadn’t seen it—only heard it.
“I can’t fight them,” Perry said, as though the prospect was madness. And perhaps it was. “No one can fight them.”
The longstaff started to slip out of Perry’s grip. At first Stuber thought he might be losing consciousness, but then he realized Perry simply didn’t want the thing in his hands. But Stuber was still acutely aware of all those eyes watching them. Searching. So he grabbed the longstaff before it could topple, smashed it back into Perry’s hands and closed his own fingers over Perry’s.
“Don’t drop that.”
“I don’t want it.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you want. Hold it.”
Perry suddenly shot away from Stuber. In a way, Stuber was relieved to see him move so nicely—he clearly wasn’t injured. But he hated the look in Perry’s eyes. The look of despair. And as soon as Perry had gotten a step away from Stuber he flung the longstaff to the ground with a great clatter that seemed to echo off the walls of the buildings around them for an oddly long time.
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish, Stuber?” Perry yelled, loud enough for all to hear. “What? Are we going to inspire the people to fight again?” Another mad laugh came croaking out of his throat. “They could barely put their differences aside long enough to fight the Guardians! And these things? The Nine? You can’t beat them! Did you see what they did? Just a swipe of the hand! A swipe of the hand to destroy two Guardians! How are we going to match that? How are we going to beat that?”
Stuber approached him, his hands up to show how harmless he was. “You would never use your shield to cut my arms off, would you?”
Perry looked completely befuddled by the question. “No, of course—”
Stuber punched him in the face. One quick jab that rocked his head back and sat him down on the ground. Stuber really didn’t mean much by it. Sometimes you just have to punch the sense into a guy. It was no big deal.
Perry sat up, blood pouring from his nose. Interestingly, he didn’t look entirely shocked. He brought a hand up to his face, touched the blood, looked at it, licked it off his upper lip, then spat it to the side and squinted up at Stuber. “Really?”
Stuber reached down, took him by the arm, not unfriendly, and pulled him onto his feet again. “There you go. You okay? Did I break any teeth?”
Perry ran his tongue along his teeth, then shook his head. “No. I’m good.” Swiped his wrist across his face, smearing the blood into a lopsided mustache. “Shit. That hurt.”
Stuber put his arm around Perry’s shoulders again and ruffled him up like you might try to shake some feeling back into a punch drunk boxer. “It’s all good,” he said, peeking out at the crowd and seeing a bit of confusion on the faces. But confusion was so much better than just abject hopelessness.
“Godsdammit,” Perry muttered, spitting again. “You’re an asshole, Stuber. But you’re the asshole I deserve.”
“I try.”
“Does my nose look broken?”
“Petra can set it.”
“I still don’t know what the hell we’re going to do.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to punch an idea into your skull.” Stuber turned Perry so that they were facing, his hands resting on the smaller man’s shoulders. “All you can do is try to figure out a way. And you know what? Maybe there’s not a way. Maybe we’re fucked. But you know when we’ll know that we’re fucked?”
“When we’re fucked?” Perry guessed.
Stuber nodded. “Exactly right.”
“I feel fucked.”
“You’re not fucked. You’re fucked up. Lot’s of people get fucked up but don’t end up getting fucked.”
“Fucked is dead, then?”
“Yes. Fucked is dead.”
A growing thrum became apparent to Stuber’s ears at that moment, and he glanced up to find a skiff hurtling in over top of the city. He frowned at it, expecting to see praetors, but he was pretty sure they were all dead.
No one made a move of overt hostility towards the craft, though it was unidentified. After everything they’d just been through, a skiff, even if it wasn’t friendly, seemed like the least of their problems. Laughable almost.
Stuber, Perry, Mala, and Lux, simply stood there, squinting against the downdraft from the turbines as it nosed up into a hover and then dropped, somewhat hazardously towards the ground, wobbling as though piloted by someone who didn’t quite know what they were doing.
That was pretty much all the identification Stuber needed.
“Ah,” he growled to Perry. “Must be your girlfriend.”
They belly of the craft nearly kissed the stones of the square before jolting back into its natural resting hover, about three feet off the ground. Worried faces protruded from the siderails. No praetors here. Just a bunch of sallow-faced cave dwellers.
“Wow,” Stuber remarked as Teran pushed through to the front and leapt down, nearly toppling over, but catching herself and stumbling up to Stuber and Perry. “You brought a whole dozen Outsiders. A fine fighting force.”
Teran spared him a withering glance.
“I’m kidding,” Stuber said with a smile. “Even if you brought them all, they still wouldn’t do us much good.”
“Nice to see you too,” Teran snapped. Then focused on Perry. “What happened? Are the Guardians still here? Was it the Guardians?” Her gaze flicked to the hulls of the destroyed machines. “It was the Guardians! Shit! What happened?”
Perry prodded distractedly at his probably-broken nose, winced, then held that cringing face as he met Teran’s gaze. “Well. Uh. We’ve got a bit of a crisis.”
***
“Do you think the silence means everyone is dead?” Bren asked.
Sagum, squatting there tensely before him, his feet bouncing with manic energy, glanced in the direction of the temple square, as though he’d suddenly developed the ability to see through stone. “No. At least…I hope not.” He frowned at Bren. “Aren’t you finished by now? And shouldn’t you be focusing on what you’re doing?”
Bren smiled. “My subroutine is working independent of my ability to converse with you. And…” He paused, looking upwards as though imagining something. Could mechanical men imagine? “Yes, I’m finished.”
Sagum jolted. “Finished? You are?”
“Yes.”
Sagum’s hands swished back and forth without purpose. “Okay, what now? What do I do?”
“Now, you’ll have to deactivate me again,” Bren said.
“But what
if it doesn’t work?”
“Then I guess you’ll have to reactivate me.”
Sagum reached for Bren’s core processor, ready to finally accomplish what he’d set out to do. But then he paused. “If it works…”
Bren seemed to already know what was on Sagum’s mind. And yet he still smiled, as though encouraging a worried child. “If it works, then Whimsby will need my core processor.”
“So…”
“And I’m confident that it will work.”
“…so…”
“So this is it for me.”
It hung there for a long moment, Bren seemingly at peace with it, Sagum still somehow struggling with it, even though he thought he’d already been at peace with it. Hell, he’d already deactivated the mech once, what was one more time?
Bren nodded at him. “Go ahead, Master Sagum. Nothing has changed. I am content to be of use. I am…happy, even.”
Sagum found himself matching his nod. “Alright. No need to get all mushy again.”
“Indeed. We already did that before. And I found it quite heartwarming. So to speak.” Bren looked towards the square again. “On the off chance that all that silence is indeed the approach of your imminent demise, you may want to hurry up.”
Sagum felt his heart do a little flurry in his chest. He gripped Bren’s core processor. “Well, then. Thank you again, Bren. For everything.”
And without waiting for any further response from Bren, he twisted and pulled, disconnecting the core processor from Bren’s chest. He let it hang from the wires that fed it the power supply it would need from inside Bren, then hurriedly organized the tangle of leads from Whimsby’s inert form. Plugged them into the appropriate places. Agonizingly slow—he wanted to go faster, but didn’t want to screw everything up at the last minute by plugging the wrong wire and shorting the whole damn thing out.
As the last lead went into its port, he glanced left to see Whimsby’s core processor lighting up dimly, little spider-webs of blue where where the bullet had fractured it.
“Come on, Whimsby. Come back to—”
