by S T Branton
I glanced at it. “It’s not about the weapon, baby. It’s about the wielder.”
The gun felt cheap and the firing mechanism hitched when I shot it, but it got the job done. At the end of the new passage, I used the sights to pick off approaching baddies, but as the distance closed, the gun became more reliable as a bludgeoning weapon. Or maybe I’d simply gotten used to swinging a big old sword around all the time.
I grabbed it by the barrel and whacked bad guys with the fat stock end. Unfortunately, the rifle wasn’t built nearly as well as the Gladius, and after a few good hard swings, it broke against a soldier’s jawbone. Both the thug and the back half of the rifle crashed to the floor.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You guys blew your whole budget on razor wire and army rations? Because this is shameful.”
I dropped the rest of the weapon and grabbed another from a different man sprawled beside me. I wielded it in the same way—first, the way it was intended with middling results and then as a souped-up billy-club. This one had a sturdy metal ammo clip affixed to the bottom that removed a few teeth.
I retract some of my earlier statement, said Marcus. This method is rather crude but also effective. I should not have doubted your ability to achieve success via brute force regardless of the circumstances.
I smiled. “And you doubted me. Shame on you.”
Making my way down the endless gauntlet of foot soldiers, I watched carefully for any refugees who might happen to wander too close to the crossfire. Other than my aggressive fan club and me, however, the fort might as well have been empty. Over and over, I told myself to keep my eye on the prize and focus on recovering my sword. It wasn’t so much that everything else could wait. It was that everything else had to.
Deep down, I knew we were cutting it close. Hell, we might already be too late. There was no clock to tell me the exact time, but I had a feeling the pervasive lull of activity in the fort meant that the populace had already gathered in the mess hall. An image of the general appeared unbidden in my mind’s eye, beaming and sprinkling white powder into giant trays of glasses.
The feast would start very soon. Time to pick up the pace. I dropped my latest and now shattered rifle butt and resorted to punching my assailants directly in the face. It was faster and probably as effective.
I did not know you thought yourself a pugilist, Marcus said. He sounded like we were sitting in a bar, having a revealing conversation.
“I don’t.” I adjusted the angle of my fist and kept punching. “But I really, really need to get back into the general’s study. I’m sure the Gladius Solis is there in that lockbox. And every time I think of myself putting it in there, I get a little madder.”
We had been vulnerable, in desperate need of food and shelter and medical care, and the old snake had taken advantage of that. He would pay. All these bastards would.
My punches grew harder and more vicious, and I barely even noticed.
Your hand-to-hand form is…intriguing, Marcus said. Be more careful, or you will risk injury. You must preserve your dominant hand for when you retrieve the blade.
My knuckles sank into the right side of another flunky’s head. He crumpled to the floor at my feet among a growing trail of his comrades. “This isn’t hanging fucking streamers, Marcus. I’ve got this. Let me do my thing, all right?”
He didn’t respond directly, but I still sensed him fretting. For a brief moment, I wanted to take the medallion off and put it in my pocket. He was a tad distracting at that moment. Then I recalled how put out he’d been the last time I had pulled that stunt, and I took a deep, stabilizing breath instead. The faint red tint faded from my vision. My swirling thoughts cleared and focused on my goal.
Get the Gladius Solis.
I finally made it to the hallway leading to the general’s study, the one protected by an electronic lock. At the same moment, the door opened to admit yet more soldiers. Intent on seizing any opportunity, I snatched a loose weapon from the floor and fired its clip into the mass of troops. They broke apart like a flock of birds. I threw the gun aside and ran toward the open door.
“Close it!” someone shouted. “She’s making a break for it!”
With a grinding noise, the door began to close slowly. I saw it and launched my whole body forward into a slide.
“Close it!” came a second cry. “Don’t let her get past.”
A host of hands grabbed at my clothing, but none caught me firmly enough to slow me. I barreled on my stomach toward the steadily lowering door. As I slid under the wide steel lip, a storm of cursing followed before the barrier closed all the way.
“Safe!” I declared, umpire-style. Then I stood and bashed in the electronic panel on my side on the off chance that it would force that portal to remain shut completely. Satisfied with my handiwork, I turned and headed quickly toward the study door.
“You can’t tell if he’s in there, can you?” I asked Marcus.
I cannot. He is but a villain, not a true Forgotten.
“Damn. Well, here goes nothing.” I put my hand on the knob and my foot against the door and pushed inward.
The study was empty. The general’s enormous desk stood opposite the open threshold, as tidy as the last time I’d seen it. The man himself was nowhere to be found, so I took the liberty of stepping behind the desk and pulling the drawers out one by one. Each was full of mundane things that didn’t look altogether out of place inside a desk—staples, index cards, boxes of pens, and notepads. I pushed the high-backed leather chair away from the desk. The lockbox wasn’t under there like I’d hoped, but I did see something that looked suspiciously like a switch.
I leaned down and pressed it. Behind me, something mechanical hummed to life. I turned around in time to see the bottom row of the bookshelf disappear.
“Huh.” I knelt in front of the exposed alcove. “I thought they only made these things for movies.”
It is highly irresponsible to dispose of precious books in such a manner. Parchment is difficult to come by.
“Don’t worry. They’re probably all fake.” I peered intently at the shelf and found myself staring at the top of the lockbox. “Bingo.” I reached down, grasped the handles on either side of the box, and lifted it out onto the floor. It was crazy heavy, and it had a complex lock on the front. At first, I was discouraged. Then I remembered where I was and what I was doing.
I rotated the box to face outward, retrieved the battered, discarded rifle I’d dropped in the hall, and used it to shatter the lock. With an audible release, the lid lifted about an inch.
It could be trapped, Marcus warned.
The thought had crossed my mind as well. I stepped forward and nudged the box with the tip of my boot until the lid popped open on its own. Nothing happened, so I reached in and felt for the Gladius Solis near the bottom, the only sword hilt in a pile of guns. When my fingers finally closed around the hilt, it was like being reunited with a missing limb.
I held it flat in both hands, examining the exterior for any signs of damage. The sword looked pristine. “Oh, I missed you,” I said. “Now, it’s time to go to work.”
As a little warm-up test, I summoned the blade right there in the study. Its ambient heat washed over my arms, and I felt the familiar energy spread through me, reconnecting.
“Okay, new rule,” I announced. “Never, ever give up the sword.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
It is raining, Marcus observed.
“What?” I glanced up, stepping carefully over the bodies of henchmen littering the path from the back door to the general’s study. Some of them—most, in fact—weren’t really dead, but I didn’t care. They couldn’t fight me, and that was currently all that mattered. I paused for a moment to watch raindrops spatter a nearby window. The sliver of sky that I could see had gone from a hard, clear blue to sooty-gray in less than an hour.
If I believed in omens, that would not have been a good one.
The halls of the fort were still eerily qui
et, as they must have been right after the general’s initial massacre. No one had even raised the alarm about the platoon of downed soldiers outside the officer’s quarters. There was only one reasonable explanation for the emptiness: the feast had definitely begun.
And that meant we were down to the wire. I hoped Brax had been able to reach someone before things got underway. But when I saw him standing out in the rain, his arms folded and face completely impassive, I knew otherwise. He was alone.
“No dice,” he said when he noticed me. “They had started already. I couldn’t go in.”
“Is everyone in the mess hall?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
“I couldn’t tell you,” the demon answered. “I didn’t stick around long enough to get a real good look. But there were a lot of people. Your friends too, I’m guessing.”
“Yeah. Shit.” I shot a glance toward the looming shape of the abandoned building and caught sight of several shapes hustling across the wet grass. Deacon and Dan were the first to come into focus, tailed by Dan’s troops. Except for Deacon, they all were dirty and pale, and I smelled them almost immediately.
“Lovely,” Brax deadpanned. “Now we’ll all stink of rotting corpses.”
It may work to your advantage. I doubt the general will be intimidated, but his troops might be.
Marcus’s theory struck me as wildly optimistic at best, but there was nothing to be done about the stench anyway. I met them on the approach to make sure they were all fit to fight. “Good to see you, Dan,” I said. “You had us worried there for a minute.”
He grinned, snapping a salute. “I’ll admit to being caught off guard, but every one of us has been through worse.” His face darkened. “Can’t say I’ve seen much worse than what was under those tarps, though.” He turned to survey the men who had formed up at his back. “I don’t think I need to tell you we’re all gunning for a fight. The military is our family, and we don’t take kindly to people who kill our family.”
The men bellowed in vehement agreement and raised their guns. The level of anger smoldering in their eyes worried me for their sake, but it would certainly help with the task at hand.
“No backup?” Deacon asked. Brax shook his head. The agent looked at me. “What’s the call? I’m deferring to you.”
“You know what it is,” I said and smiled. “Time to crash this party.”
With another rallying cry from Dan’s squad, we turned and stormed the front door. None of the guards were on duty. They’d probably been summoned to the feast with everyone else to make sure the plan went off without a hitch. Or maybe he wasn’t above sacrificing his own men. Whatever the case, even the front foyer stood as empty as a tomb. As we crept closer to the mess hall, we heard signs of life—silverware clinking, dishes and plates rattling around, and the constant hum of conversation. There was laughter too. A lot of it. The sound tugged at my heart. None of these people had any idea what was coming. Nobody knew, except us.
Suddenly, the noises stopped, and momentarily, so did my heart. Our little group was almost at the hall door now, and the two men watched my every move, waiting for the go signal. We were all as tense as hell, like coiled springs ready to explode. I put my hand gently against the center line of the double doors in case the last person in had been stupid enough to leave them open.
They were locked, but a voice boomed from the other side. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the general began. “Thank you for attending this most victorious of celebrations. The road we have traveled has been long and difficult, full of trials and tribulations. Many have not been blessed with the good fortune we share today, and we will mourn those souls as we move forward into a new era.”
Dan nudged me. “I can’t listen to this horseshit,” he growled. “Let’s go.”
“Stand back,” I replied. “I’ll kick it in.” They fanned out behind me. I took a step back, gathered my strength, and struck the doors with the heel of my boot. They were tall and sturdy but weren’t reinforced like some of the others. Both burst inward with a sharp crack.
Hundreds of heads turned to watch us stroll across the threshold. Almost everyone had their glasses raised to the general, ready to drink at the conclusion of his little speech. The man of the hour stared at us, his eyes full of surprise and fleeting rage. Then he smiled. Only this time, it was more like the grin of a hungry shark.
“Ah, the guests of honor have arrived!” he announced. With a hint of venom, he added, “You’re late.”
I glanced around the room at the ocean of refugees. The uplifted glasses sparkled. I had no doubt that every single one was laced with ricin powder.
“No,” I said. “It looks like we’re just in time.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but I gave him no opportunity. The whole room blurred as I charged toward the head table. The crowd erupted in confused babbling as people fought to see the commotion. I heard Dan and Deacon call for calm and tell people not to drink anything. My mind and vision focused entirely on my target. If Marcus spoke just then, I didn’t hear him.
The blade of the Gladius Solis didn’t appear until it was inches from the general’s heart, and when it did, it emerged with such fury that I saw his uniform scorched instantly from the blazing heat. His face morphed from smug self-satisfaction to shock and then to horror and fear as he realized he had no time to stop me. The sword plunged into his chest before he could utter a single word.
He crumpled on the floor behind the table. I did hear something after that—the sound of a dozen guns cocking. When I looked up, it was into a row of barrels. But most of the men behind those guns weren’t looking at me. They gazed with dismay at their leader’s dead body, the remains no longer imposing and charismatic.
“Listen.” I readied my sword, and a few of them flinched. Up close, I could see that many of those boys were young, impressionable, and scared. The guns began to waver in their hands. “I’m only here for him. This could easily get worse, but only if you want it to.”
A beat of silence passed. “No,” one man said at last. His voice cracked a little. He cleared his throat and looked to either side. “No, he’s dead. You killed him.” He dropped his gun with a clatter. “You don’t need to kill us too.”
Very quickly, the rest of the men followed suit, raising their arms in surrender.
“All right,” I said. “Kick those guns away. We’ll figure out what to do with you from here.” I glanced back at Dan. “I can promise we won’t kill you, but something tells me the actual military is gonna have a real bone to pick with you.”
The young man went as white as a sheet.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“What the fuck? This is bullshit!” A ripple went through the cluster of fake soldiers as one shoved his way to the front. He still clutched his rifle, and his eyes blazed with righteous fury. He rounded on his former comrades. “What the hell is wrong with you pansy assholes, huh? We didn’t sign up for this because it would be easy. We weren’t promised a walk in the park or a damned Sunday drive, okay? You think that’s why we took out all those other guys? Call me crazy, but I did that because I believed in the general.”
He held his gun tightly in one fist and gestured wildly with the other hand. The others stood motionless in front of him, transfixed by his passion.
“You’re crazy, man,” someone muttered. “It’s over.”
“It’s over?” The single loyalist let out an uneven laugh. “You hear this guy, trying to tell me it’s over? I’ll tell you when it’s fucking over, man. For you? Right now.” He raised the gun in a flash and pulled the trigger.
The crowd of spectators screamed.
“Stop him,” Dan shouted. “Now, before there’s a riot.”
“We’re going to rebuild,” the loyalist yelled. “The general may be dead, but his dream is my dream, and it lives on.” He held the trigger down again, and in the second before I reached him, a few more of the surrendering men fell. I lunged from behind and tackled him to
the floor. His rifle skidded toward the refugees, who shied away as if it might explode.
I held the Gladius Solis to the man’s back—not close enough to immolate him, but close enough to make him sweat. He grunted and tried to twist away.
“Uh-uh.” I held him fast. “You’re not going anywhere, friend. It’s time to sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. And when I say the corner, I mean the dungeon. With the bodies of all those soldiers you killed.”
“It wasn’t only me,” he spat, his face pressed down sideways against the floor. “We were all there. We all followed orders.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I assured him. “Your buddies will be there too. Don’t mistake mercy for forgiveness.” That said, I turned to find Dan. “Hey, Dan? Do me a favor and round these guys up, will you? If anyone else tries to dissent, tie ʼem up before you taken them down to the basement.”
“Don’t worry,” he told me grimly, looking over the prisoners with a cold and critical eye. All traces of his trademark friendliness were gone from his face. “We’ll handle it from here.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” To the general’s men, who suddenly seemed much less intimidating, I said, “Good luck.”
“We can bury the bodies,” one of them piped up. “If-if you think that would help.”
Dan glowered at him. “You know what would help me, son? If you shut your mouth.” He motioned for his squad to join him, and together, they herded the unfortunates through the broken doors. The throng of survivors watched them leave in relative quiet before they turned back to me.
“Vic?” Veronica emerged at the front. I saw Jules right behind her. “I think it would be an awesome idea to explain what just happened.” She came up to the table and stood beside me. “Please don’t worry, everyone. It might not seem like it right now, but I assure you that Vic’s done the right thing. She can tell you everything.”
“This had better be good,” a woman shouted. She was instantly bolstered by outraged agreement. “That guy was taking care of us. What will happen now?”
