Into the Storm

by Larry Correia

  Rains reached down, took hold of the iron mask, and ripped it from the fallen Menite’s face. It was a woman, and she was bleeding from her ears, having struck the back of her head against the cobblestones hard enough to crack her skull. The apostate stood there, looking down at the dying Menite, not saying a word. Cleasby and Acosta approached. Rains seemed transfixed, but Cleasby saw nothing special about the woman. “Who is this?”

  “A vassal of Menoth . . .” Rains muttered, but he didn’t elaborate. “Menoth took her as a slave in life, and now he can have her in death.” He hurled the iron mask to crash against a nearby wall, then turned and walked away.

  “What was that about?” Acosta asked. Cleasby had no answer. “It appears the others are mopping up the resistance. The Menites do not strike me as being fond of surrender.” He pointed. “But Sergeant Wilkins has them on the run.”

  All that remained of the Menites in the street was a small group fighting a delaying action, buying time for the others to retreat, and Wilkins’ squad was assaulting them. Wilkins had forgone the standard Stormblade-issue buckler in favor of his prized Precursor shield, which he was using to push against the Flameguard’s shields, striking over the top with his glaive. As they neared, Cleasby could hear that Wilkins was loudly praising Morrow and cursing Menoth, which seemed to infuriate the few surviving Temple Flameguard to no end.

  By the time they got there the last of the Menites were completely surrounded, though they continued to fight ferociously. Their leader shouted a command, and then Wilkins was engaged in single combat with the officer, while the other surviving Menites tried to reform their shield wall for one last push.

  “This is your only chance,” Madigan offered. “Surrender or we will cut you down.”

  The officer struggling against Wilkins shouted his defiant response. “We will fight to the last for the Creator’s glory!” His few battered troops cheered. Cleasby and at least twenty other Stormblades approached, but the handful of fanatics seemed excited for their end.

  But Madigan was done losing men for the day. “Storm throwers! Light them up!” There were a series of booms and flashes, and then all but the Menite officer were dead. The Stormguard approached and poked at the smoking corpses with their halberds to be sure.

  The Menite officer took a few halting steps away from Wilkins. His helmet was missing, revealing a remarkably young, handsome face above the tattered, bloody rags of his uniform. His shield was broken, his spear shorn and useless. He’d been severely burned by their electrical charges and had terrible wounds on all of his limbs, yet somehow he was still standing. The officer looked at Wilkins and snarled when he spied the Morrowan symbol upon his shield. “Your god is weak. Menoth stands with us and cannot be defeated. You will be expelled by the faithful. Every home, every road, every corner: we will be there, waiting to bleed you. You do not know what you’ve done.”

  The flutter of a curtain and a quick glimpse of someone at a second-story window across the street caught Cleasby’s eye, and he realized there were still citizens of Sul here. They had not all evacuated. Scanning the buildings, he could see frightened faces risking glimpses out of windows or peeking out from various hiding places. It made him very uncomfortable.

  “The faithful will fight. We will never stop fighting, for Menoth compels us, and in death he embraces us. Hierarch Voyle speaks with Menoth’s words and strikes with his fury.” The officer stumbled but braced himself with what remained of his spear. “Repent! Repent and flee before the righteous! It is your only hope.”

  Wilkins looked to Madigan. The lieutenant held up one hand, indicating that the sergeant should stay his blade, and then he opened his visor. “I am Lieutenant Madigan of the Cygnaran Army. Tell me who those Knights Exemplar were protecting in that wagon.”

  The Menite smiled with red-stained teeth. “One who will bring the fires of purity to burn your evil from this world!”

  “Sergeant Wilkins. Do this man a favor and send him to the Creator.”

  “Yes, sir.” Wilkins approached cautiously. The wounded young officer pushed his shield into the Cygnaran’s with surprising force. The Menofix on one shield crashed against the Radiance of Morrow on the other. Wilkins struck, quick and clean, and the two devout men wound up eye-to-eye. “Go to your eternal labors, you poor deluded bastard.”

  “Nicia, my love . . .” he whispered. The Menite took a few halting steps back, sank to his knees, lowered his head, and died as if kneeling in prayer.

  Wilkins stared at the dead officer for a moment. “If this is the measure of the men we face here, may Morrow preserve us.”

  Madigan sighed. “So much for the idea that this invasion would be simple.”

  Sixth Platoon’s first contact with the enemy had left them with three dead and six wounded, with two of those severely enough that they needed to be evacuated back to Caspia. Cleasby had lost one man in his squad. When he closed his eyes he could still see Wayne Crispin being smashed beneath the warjack’s flail so hard it had left a crater in the road. They’d almost had to pour Crispin out of his armor. Up until a few days ago he’d been just another name on a clipboard, assigned to the Sixth because he couldn’t control his urge for petty thievery. Then he was Cleasby’s responsibility, and suddenly he was dead. It was a lot to take in, but all Cleasby could feel was numb.

  What was more, he knew the Sixth had been held back to a minor position. There had been no reason to run up against so many enemy troops there. This fight had been over an unimportant, strategically insignificant, out-of-the-way market, and the Menites had still fought for every inch. Madigan had sent a runner to Schafer with a report, and other runners had passed through. The word was the same each time. Resistance was far heavier than expected. Serious casualties were being taken all across all of Sul.

  They’d been told to hold this block, so they’d set up a defensive position inside the marketplace while they waited for new orders. Cleasby found that the inside of Sul looked a lot like the inside of Caspia—which made sense, as they’d once been the same city—though the huge maze of walls here were painted white, and the newer buildings weren’t quite as chaotically designed. Sul struck him as a bit more orderly.

  Thornbury had gone right to work scrounging whatever supplies he could from the stalls. Cleasby wasn’t sure if that was technically considered looting, but he noted it along with the other infractions just in case.

  MacKay and his Stormclad warjack were back. The old mechanik was trying to accomplish a quick field repair, hammering out dents and replacing a few leaking hoses. His armor looked a bit different than the rest of the unit’s; Madigan had said he needed to fit into a suit, but he’d never specified MacKay couldn’t modify the armor in order to contain his extra girth. The mechanik also wore a leather apron full of tools and a backpack full of miscellaneous parts, so he appeared to be the bulkiest man present.

  The Stormclad’s fresh coat of paint and new banner had lasted all of one day into the invasion, and already the warjack looked beat to hell again. Despite rolling around in a burning house, it had utterly demolished the enemy warjack. Cleasby had found out later that the Protectorate machine had been a Templar, a design with a reputation as an infantry-shredding monstrosity. They’d been lucky to have their Stormclad to counter it.

  The clash had spawned an odd rumor about their warjack. A few of the men insisted that when the Stormclad had come out of the burning building it had been carrying the Templar’s severed head, which it had then presented to MacKay. It sounded far-fetched, but the Templar’s scorched metal head was sitting there on MacKay’s improvised work bench . . .

  “Hey! You, big man!” MacKay shouted at Corporal Pangborn. “Come over here and help me for a minute. I need some muscle.”

  Pangborn approached. It was striking how somebody so physically powerful made a habit of moving so cautiously. “What do you need?”

  “I need some help with this ’jack. I’ve seen you fixing up the Barn, so I know you’re not afra
id of hard work.”

  “Well, I’m not really good at much. I tend to break things when I don’t mean to.”

  “Son, this is a warjack, not a flower-arranging ’jack. I need some brute force. Take this here hammer, take that there armor plate, and beat those sodding dents out. Go!”

  “Are you sure?” Pangborn eyed the Stormclad. Still active, its boilers barely running, it turned its head slightly to study the big man threatening it with a hammer. “It won’t get mad?”

  “Ah, its fine.” MacKay shook a finger sternly at the Stormclad and pointed to Pangborn. “No smash! Be good!”

  Pangborn took up the hammer and gently tapped at the dent. The Stormclad looked at him quizzically but didn’t react.

  “Ach, boy! No! Hit it like you mean it. If I needed some effeminate, thin-wristed debutante, I’d have called for Thorny.”

  “I’m right over here!” Thornbury exclaimed from the other side of a tent. “I can hear you.”

  “Whatever . . . Shut up and find me some more coal,” MacKay said impatiently. “Sometimes you need an aristocrat, but most times you need a farmer to get stuff done. A proper mechanik ain’t comfortable unless he’s got dirt under his nails. Didn’t you say you had an old laborjack on your farmstead you kept running?”

  Pangborn nodded. “Sure, but it wasn’t like this. That thing was old and dumb. This fella is . . . well, kinda scary.”

  “Same general principles. Only this one’s built for killing instead of plowing. Tell you what. You seem mechanikally inclined. I’ll teach you the fundamentals of how to command a warjack, then if he gets uppity, you’ll know how to control him. Now, hit it like he owes you money!”

  Pangborn did. The Stormclad didn’t seem to mind. So then Pangborn went to work and the market filled with the sound of hammering metal. MacKay nodded approvingly.

  Enoch Rains entered their temporary encampment. “Cleasby, you’re needed.”

  “Is the perimeter secure? Are the Protectorate forces coming back already?”

  “I don’t know. Madigan wants to show us something on the other side of the square. Come on.” He led them away from the others and deeper into the market. Rains was still limping from being run over by the horse. Cleasby knew the feeling. He didn’t dare take his armor off to see, but the way his arms and legs felt, he was covered in bruises, and his head ached from when the Templar’s shield had crashed into him. When he had removed his helmet he’d been surprised to see it had a huge dent in it and all the paint on one side had been scraped off by skidding across the cobblestones on his face.

  Things were still awkward between the two of them, as it was for most of the men with Rains, though Cleasby had seen no indication the former Menite was anything other than a loyal citizen of Cygnar. “It’s been quite the day already,” Cleasby said, trying to make conversation as they crossed the square.

  “For you?” Rains looked around. “My mother used to shop in this market. I remember walking down that very street with her. I played here. All of us children would take up our imaginary swords and fight each other, declaring ourselves mighty warriors for Menoth. The unlucky ones had to play the villains—Cygnar, of course.” He laughed bitterly. “Oh, how we would beat on them.”

  “I’m sure you never dreamed you would invade your own city.”

  “It is . . . odd. But we’re not invaders, we’re liberators. By the way, thank you for helping with that Exemplar.”

  “It was my duty. Though I think Acosta’s brutal demonstration was simply to prove some odd point.” He probably should have dropped it there, but scholars are by nature curious people. “Why did you go after a squad of Exemplar on horseback by yourself, anyway?”

  “I wasn’t going after them. I—” Rains grimaced. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It was stupid.”

  “You said in your own briefings on the Protectorate forces that the Exemplars are deadly and not to be underestimated.” Cleasby stopped walking. “Wait . . . It was the woman in the mask. You called her a vassal, a vassal of Menoth. You were after her, weren’t you? Why?”

  “Vassals are vital to the war effort, so we should target them whenever possible.” Rains kept walking in an obvious attempt to avoid the conversation. “They are arcanists.”

  “What matter of magic do they have? What makes them so important?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Now the man was just being evasive.

  “I’m not some Enkheiridion thumper who thinks that just because you were raised here you’re a Protectorate spy. I’m a scholar, Rains. Try me.”

  The other knight finally stopped. He seemed to be debating what to say but then gave up and leaned against a market stall to take the weight from his swollen ankle for a moment. “In Cygnar, when a child is found gifted with the ability to weave magic, they’re valued—given opportunities, fine schooling, no shortage of employment.”

  That was true. Cygnar, as the freest and most advanced nation in the history of the world, also had the most enlightened appreciation of the arcanely gifted. “Sure. They can join the Fraternal Order of Wizardry or, in the military, the Arcane Tempest.”

  “Exactly. They can choose.” Rains had a faraway look on his face. “Not in the Protectorate. Here there is no choice, and being able to touch magic and twist it to your will is not a gift but a curse. It is seen as a deviation from Menoth’s divine design for mankind. So here, the gifted are chained and enslaved.”

  “That’s barbaric!” Cleasby ignored the irony of his reaction; it wasn’t as if his own nation hadn’t flirted with such dark ideas in the past, though now their witch hunters were limited to targeting those practicing evil forms of magic, such as necromancy or infernalism. “How can the people stand for such practices?”

  “‘The people’? You don’t understand the Protectorate. It’s not up to the people. There is no discussion or debate. Any deviation from accepted doctrine is apostasy. And the punishment for apostasy is wracking.”

  Cleasby felt an involuntary shiver. He’d heard of the wracks—every one of the soldiers had. Being captured by the enemy was a chilling thought on its own, but the Protectorate frequently tortured their prisoners to death on the horrific devices. “Are the gifted murdered, then?”

  “The Protectorate isn’t stupid enough to throw away resources. They need people skilled in the arcane in order to build their warjack cortexes, and though they preach about how magic is blasphemous, they still use it on the battlefield. No, Cleasby, when the Protectorate finds a gifted child, the child is taken from its family and enslaved. They do it to anyone they conquer, too. The arcanists are locked away for years of ‘training,’ until they have no mind of their own, all in the name of Menoth. They exist only to do the will of their Creator.” Rains spit on the ground.

  “That’s appalling!”

  “The way I see it, every one of them we kill, we’re doing a favor.” Rains pushed himself off of the stall and began limping along. “Now hurry up. You know how impatient the lieutenant gets.”

  Cleasby followed the apostate. Some of the others didn’t fully trust him, but Cleasby had heard the hate in his words and he knew Enoch Rains truly despised the Protectorate with all of his heart.

  So why had he hesitated to ask why Rains had felt the need to see the vassal’s face?

  Madigan now had some idea what, or rather who, had been so important as to merit an evacuation by a reinforced platoon of Temple Flameguard, a squad of elite Exemplars, and a Templar warjack. The site was an alchemist’s laboratory, or at least it had been before the Protectorate had burned it to conceal the evidence of whatever had gone on inside.

  He had sent for his squad leaders—Wilkins, Rains, and Cleasby—and hadn’t been surprised when Acosta had just shown up as well. The Ordsman had a habit of materializing seemingly out of thin air. “So, Savio, was this battle to your liking?”

  Acosta had his helmet tucked under one arm. “It was rather interesting. As I’ve said, my friend, you have a gift for finding the
best fights.” His smile was cold. “Between observing the tactics of the Protectorate and mastering this new storm technology, attending this war serves my interests, for the time being.”

  The old knight chuckled. “All these years I’ve known you, and I still couldn’t say exactly what your interests are . . . Other than finding exciting new ways to stab or shoot people, that is.”

  “I follow a path of enlightened self-interest, and for now, my interests coincide with yours. Do not worry. I will let you know when I feel I have learned enough. I will not, as you Cygnarans are fond of saying, leave you high and dry.”

  As always, Acosta’s motivations were a mystery, but he knew of nobody more capable in a fight. “Thank you for guarding Cleasby. Since I don’t have a conscience, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to draft one. The lad is an idealist, but he has potential as a leader. How many times did you have to save his life today?”

  “Three. I believe he only witnessed one.”

  “You’re slipping.”

  “I blame this clumsy armor. It slows me.” Acosta said before falling silent. The squad leaders had arrived.

  They were all battered, bloodied, and a bit worse for wear, but considering the overwhelming odds they had faced today, the Sixth and its leadership had made a good showing of themselves. The sergeants saluted, and Madigan returned the gesture with pride.

  “Good work today, lads. I, for one, would love to see the looks on the faces up the command chain when they read the after-action reports. Not too shabby for a bunch of discards. Make sure the men know you’re pleased with them.” He pointed at the smoldering wreckage of the alchemist’s shop. “Rains, do you know what was here?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t recall, sir.”

  “Can’t recall, or won’t?” Wilkins asked. “For all we know, this was where they performed some secret rite. Seems like the sort of thing a Menite wouldn’t be too proud of sharing.”

  “Why yes, Wilkins. This is where we conducted our human sacrifices to the Lawgiver.” Rains sighed, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I must be tired from killing so many Menites today, but are you trying to insinuate I’m a traitor again? Because if you are, we can finish this right—”