The giant doors hissed open, and the locks clanked as they unwound. The curving corridors inside the fortress were about two meters wide, so the prot-field surrounding my body would absorb any enemy fire before it hit the enforcers behind me. We traveled in the direction of the antechamber Alin had pointed out while I watched for any sign of movement. The thought that there might be Grendel Elites capable of cloaking themselves crossed my mind, but I pushed the worry aside. The closest enemies were the Grunts locked within the turret chamber. The Grendels wouldn't have penetrated the outer rings yet, so the enchanters would be safe until we reached the antechamber.
“It’s just through here,” I said as we turned into the second ring. The map Alin had shown me was seared into my brain, so I knew the antechamber was thirty meters away.
Our steps echoed in the empty corridor, and I heard the steady trickle of water. I glanced up and didn’t see a metal pipe, just the reddish color of the behemoth’s flesh. It looked like an enemy had torn an organic weapon of some kind from its mount on the ceiling. The area was bruised and broken, and a bluish fluid leaked from what appeared to be a wound.
“The Grendels have come through here!” I yelled as I lifted my longsword to prepare for an attack. Somehow, the enemy had gotten past the chamber filled with Grunts, and they’d stripped the organic weapons from the passageways.
A scream seared my eardrums, and I spun around to see the enchanter, Dominic, on the ground. Blood and entrails cascaded from his stomach as a Grendel Elite shimmered into view.
Shit.
“Run back to the main chamber!” I screamed as I moved to attack the Elite.
The lizard-man jumped from the dying enchanter and turned its talons on me. My sword struck the claws and bounced off, but I leaned into the creature and slammed my head onto its skull. My helmet cracked bone, and then I thrust my blade all the way into the monster’s armored stomach before pulling it free of its squishy guts.
While the enchanters had already fled, the enforcers remained. They were engaged in combat with a trio of Elites, and the lizards were winning. I hurled myself at the enemy without a care for my own safety. My sword found a lizard-heart beneath thick armor and skewered it like a piece of meat.
I heard a dozen boom sounds as the enforcers thrust their staves into the abdomen of the last Elite. The force pulverized the lizard-man’s armor, mashed the flesh beneath, and a spray of green ichor coated the hallway.
When I glanced back down the corridor where the enchanters had gone, I saw the Ecomese robot on the ground. Two Elites tore the Dust canisters from its back, and they hacked them with their curved swords. One cylinder exploded into a cloud of golden particles, and I charged toward them as I flung a forcewave.
The air rippled as the forcefield plowed into them, and they pinwheeled through the air. I activated my speed sequence and sprinted after the enemies. Before the first could get to its feet, I severed its head with an arcing slice. The second Elite slashed its serrated sword at me, but I jumped above the swing and sliced down with my sword. The blade sunk between its eyes before plunging into its brain.
I grunted as I removed my weapon. The enforcers had taken down their share of Elites at great cost. Out of the thirty-six soldiers who had entered the fortress with me, only twenty remained. The others now decorated the floor alongside lizard corpses.
“Keep your eye out for any more enemies,” I said as I examined the giant robot. The cables in its artificial limbs were severed, and two of the three canisters were broken. The Dust lay scattered along the ground, intermingled with the blue blood of Ecomese humans and green Grendel ichor. I followed a trail of crimson to the corpse of the Stalwart’s enchanter, Dominic.
I should have been more cautious. I was responsible for this man's death.
“We need to get inside the turret chamber,” Casey said, and my head shot up to see her on the far side of the corridor with Joseph and Brad.
“What are you still doing here? There could be more Elites!” I couldn’t allow the enchanters to stay here. None of us could remain when there were Grendel Elites that could hide from my thermal recognition, but we couldn't move further into the Watchtower without the knights.
“We’re not going back,” Casey said. “This turret might be the only thing that buys the Ark Den time while the others get here.”
Although I didn’t want to endanger the enchanters, I couldn’t argue with her reasoning.
I entered the narrow antechamber and walked toward the door. The turret chamber was on the other side, and the echoing sound of scratching filled my ears. The Grunts were attempting to penetrate the door in front of me with their talons, and I shuddered at the fear inspiring noise.
I lifted my glowing sword at the camera in the corner of the antechamber. Alin must have noticed my signal because I heard a slow wheeze as the door in front of me started to open. At the same time, the one behind me shut, and the locks triggered.
I just hoped my plan would work. There was now no easy way to change my mind. It was either kill the Grunt horde in the turret chamber, or risk the deaths of the people behind me.
When the door leading to the turret room opened to a gap of about thirty centimeters, the lizard-men’s clicks echoed into the hallway. The scaled monsters pushed and squeezed as they attempted to get through the narrow slit. I shoved my sword into the skull of a Grunt. Its brain popped, and I removed the blade before striking another lizard.
The creatures gnashed their teeth and scrambled over one another to get to me. Alin had been smart enough to open the door only slightly, so the enemies were hard-pressed to get more than a few through at a time.
Lucky for me, my sword encountered no difficulty finding its mark.
A thrust of my blade into the gap and the point slipped through one lizard’s eyeball before skewering the neck of another. I pressed my right foot against the wall beside the door and heaved my weapon free. The blade slid out from the Grunts with a wet sound.
I was huffing from the effort, and my lungs struggled to suck in enough air. I stepped aside for a moment, and three enforcers took my place. They blasted the Grendels with their staves, and each boom signaled the death of a dog-lizard. After at least two dozen deafening blasts, I returned to the doorway. Saliva dripped from the aliens’ fang-filled maws, and they growled in desperation even as my longsword ended them. I wondered whether they possessed any rational capabilities since they didn’t seem to care about their dead comrades lining the floor beneath them.
After the corpses piled so high that the doorway was completely obstructed, I took another moment to breathe. My arms were aching, and green blood drenched my equipment.
“Is that the last of them?” I heard Joseph ask from behind me.
I listened for any clicks or growls that would suggest more Grendels lay within the turret chamber, but there was silence. I planted both hands on the mound of corpses and pushed them aside. Grendel bodies tumbled into the turret room, and I climbed over them.
“One second,” I said to the enchanters. “I’ll make sure there isn’t any more hiding in here.”
My eyes swept over the dozens of dead enemies felled by the turret in the center of the room. The giant weapon wasn’t a cannon like I’d assumed, but a melee turret with giant axes attached to a swiveling mount. If extended, the blades would have reached to the far ends of the room, and I could see their handiwork scattered across the ground and painting the walls. Anything intending to cross from this chamber to the antechamber behind us would have encountered the fine edges of the axes. It was the perfect automated weapon against Grendels since prot-fields wouldn’t be able to absorb its attacks. The sheer amount of enemies that had flooded the room must have been unanticipated, leading to the turret’s malfunction.
I couldn’t see any movement, so I guessed the bodies which were still somewhat whole were no longer breathing. I heard something click from behind, and I whirled around to see a Grunt launch itself toward me. I carved it in
two with a swipe of my blade, and the halves joined the ensemble of Grendel body parts on the floor.
“I think that’s the last of them,” I called out. “Let’s get this turret repaired and get out of here.”
While the enchanters entered the chamber, I kept an eye on the closed door on the other side of the room. There were indentations on its metal surface from a great force, and a sudden series of thumps told me a shit ton of Grendels were trying to get through.
The door wouldn’t sustain many hits for long.
Brad removed a toolkit from his belt and then siphoned Dust from the container into a drill. Joseph grabbed the tool from the other enchanter and set to work on the runes on the turret. Soon, all three enchanters wielded replenished Dust-drills, and they each took a side of the weapon to retrace its magical sigils.
The heavy thudding from the door grew louder, and the metal started to buckle inward.
“How much longer do you need?” I asked the enchanters.
“Almost done,” Casey said as she sealed a sigil atop the right axe-blade. The rune circle burst with blue light and then dulled to a soft glow.
“That’ll give the Grendels something to worry about,” Joseph said as he stood.
“Let’s get out of here.” I eyed the door as it rippled with the impact from the other side, and the enchanters filtered out from the turret chamber.
The door suddenly burst open, and Grendel Grunts swarmed into the room. The turret immediately activated with a high-pitched squeal, and a rune-empowered axe extended from the spinning top. The glowing blade diced the lizards like a giant blender, and green gore splashed against my back as I turned and sprinted after the enchanters.
The turret’s squealing was joined by the clicking from the Grunts. The two sounds filled my ears as I passed Dominic’s corpse. I halted and glanced over my shoulder. The weapon inside the turret chamber was dealing with the enemies, and none of them could make it past the spinning blades without being torn to shreds.
I knelt and lifted Dominic’s bloody body into my arms. The man’s lifeless eyes stared up at me like they were accusing me of his death, and I tried to ignore them as I caught up to the others. After sprinting down the remaining corridors, we came to the Watchtower and the entry door opened and then sealed behind us.
“The knights should be here any minute,” Elle said, and her face paled when she saw the dead man I was carrying.
I’d failed to keep the promise I’d made to her. I carried Dominic beyond the rows of alchemists with their VR helmets and laid him on the floor next to a metal cage. I pulled down his eyelids and then glanced up to see Joseph Roman approach.
The old enchanter gave me a somber frown as he looked at Dominic’s form. “He shouldn’t have died.”
“I made a mistake,” I said with a heavy sigh. “I’m so sorry, Joseph. I should have detected the enemies sooner.”
Joseph clapped me on the shoulder, and I almost leaped back at the touch. It seemed almost affectionate, and I didn't know how to respond.
“Dominic now lives within the furthest star,” he said. “If it wasn’t for you, we might all have died. You risked your life for us and these Ecomese when you don’t owe them a damned thing.”
“I only did what was right,” I said, and the man nodded at me. His blue eyes sparkled with unshed tears, and I wondered if I’d finally earned his respect. I should have been pissed that it had taken the death of a crew member, but all I felt was rage at the Grendels.
Maybe it was my Academy conditioning, but I didn’t care. Our universe was home to humankind, not those alien scum. Every one of them deserved to die.
“Squire Lyons,” Alin said, and I turned around. “The monitor is now showing a video-feed of the turret room. I believe you should see it.”
I turned and looked up at the monitor. There were almost a hundred Grunts inside, and they scattered as a huge figure pushed past them. I groaned at the sight, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled.
It was a Grendel Ogre.
Chapter 10
The Ogre’s thick muscles rippled as it charged past the Grunts. The massive club in its hands descended from above its head and came crashing on the rune-turret. Metal crinkled from the sheer force of the blow, and a half second later an explosion erupted and covered the entire monitor in black smoke. When the camera cleared, the weapon sparked and jerked as it failed to swing the axe-blades at the remaining Grendel Grunts. I searched the screen for any sign of the Ogre, but it was no longer inside the turret chamber.
“The giant has crossed into the first ring!” Alin confirmed as we all watched in silence. “There is nothing we can do from here,” she said in frustration. “The door to this room is sealed. We must pray it lasts until the Stalwart’s crew arrives.”
More Grunts stormed into the turret room in the wake of the Ogre’s attack. The weapon attempted to slice them, but its mangled axles could only manage a futile lurch toward the enemies. The Grunts leaped over the broken machine and surged into the antechamber beyond. They were followed by a trio of Elites with plasma rifles. Their muscled limbs sprung out from beneath carapace armor molded to their scaled forms.
The new arrivals twisted their heads toward the camera inside the turret chamber. One of the lizard-men pointed his firearm at it, and a ball of plasma engulfed the screen I was looking at. The video-feed went offline, and everyone in the Watchtower gasped in unison.
Alin cursed as she consulted her tablet, and the monitor flickered a few times as each video-feed she selected registered as offline. “The Grendels must have brought something with them to kill all our surveillance systems at once. I have never seen anything like it,” the empath said.
That was because she had never faced a portal with this level before. The aliens we were dealing with must possess advanced tech, and now we were completely in the dark.
I turned to Joseph and Brad. “You guys need to get out of here.”
Both enchanters looked up at the monitor even though it was offline. I could imagine their minds trying to convince them that what their eyes had seen wasn’t real. They’d have heard about Grendels but they’d probably never gone to a portal zone before. Confronting the real thing was very different from hearing stories.
Joseph’s hand trembled as he gripped my hand. “Good luck,” he said before turning and approaching Casey. They shared a whispered conversation that lasted only a few seconds, and I expected the enchantress to follow her grandfather and Brad out from the Watchtower. Much to my chagrin, she stayed behind with Elle.
I walked through the booths with the cyber alchemists and confronted them both.
“You two should leave,” I said. “It’s not safe for you here.”
Elle removed a curved dagger from beneath her golden coat. The weapon’s runes and the jewel on the hilt glowed a bright pink. “I am not leaving,” she said.
I shook my head. “You’ve never fought a Grendel before, let alone an Ogre.”
The point clerk touched her prot-belt, and a lightweight armor shifted over her body beneath her coat. The metal plates hugged her form, and I saw the flicker of rune magic sparkle in the center of her breastplate.
“I went to the Academy like you, and I also trained to fight Grendels.” The dark-haired woman smiled at me.
“Yeah, but this isn’t just a few Grunts,” I said. “It is an Ogre. It would kill most knights. I want you to leave.”
“No,” she said. “You aren’t a knight yet, Nick. You can’t order me around. I’m going to help you with this.”
“You are so damn stubborn,” I growled with frustration.
“I am,” she said with a barked laugh. “But look at my armor. It is something I purchased from a seller on Tachion. His name was Hirsch, I believe. He told me it once lined the Salenum king’s treasury. It is powerful.”
I’d been inside the treasury, so I didn’t doubt Elle’s words. Even wearing powerful equipment, I didn’t think she was ready to face an Ogre. I ope
ned my mouth to express my disagreement, but she silenced me with a gloved finger.
“I’m not waiting around here while you two have all the fun,” Casey said before grabbing an enforcer on the shoulder. He whirled around, and she offered him a smile. “Can I borrow one of your weapons?”
“They are not for the uninitiated,” the man responded in a thick accent.
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” she said as she held out an open palm. “Hand it over.”
The guard looked at the enchantress like she was crazy, but he placed the staff into her hand all the same. The weapon looked like an upgraded version of the staves used by the normal enforcers. At its tips was a crystal housed inside a four-pronged claw. The weapon ebbed and flowed with energy as the enchantress inspected it before smiling at the man.
“Uninitiated? It’s a simple point and shoot.” Casey glanced at me. “Looks like we know where Max got the idea for the Forcewave rune. It’s not as effective as his version because it uses the crystal’s energy rather than a prot-field, but it’ll do the job. I can shoot the Ogre and give you cover.”
Elle activated her prot-field, and the surrounding air shimmered. “My dagger has a few tricks that will prove useful as well.”
I was about to argue the point further when more reinforcements of staff-wielding enforcers entered the Watchtower. Some carried old-fashioned rifles, the kind which would barely put a dent in a Grendel’s armor. While the firearms might have limited effectiveness against Grunts, we were now facing an Ogre.
Even with the newcomers, the total number of Ecomese soldiers inside this room couldn’t number more than fifty. I’d seen the Elites take out their comrades with ease, so their presence didn’t fill me with confidence. They would just be more fodder for the enemies, more kills to add to their growing tally.
I imagined the Den Ark had relied on the warsuits and weapons like the rune-turret to deal with Grendels in the past. They probably never needed an army of substantial size, so this meager number of enforcers was all they could muster. Or maybe their military had been much larger once, but the troops were sacrificed to fuel the Ark and its fortress. Either way, we were short on manpower and now Ogres had joined the party.
Space Knight Book 2 Page 15
