City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3)

by Heath Pfaff

  The man with the unusual metal weapon tucked the blade into his belt and then nodded his head back towards the camp. Xandrith was thankful that they hadn’t searched him for the weapon of bone he had hidden at the small of his back. He had no intention of being separated from that. "Follow me. Stay close, and don't stray or I'll color the grass with your brains."

  "I've no intention of causing trouble for anyone." Xan said, as he fell into place behind Lottan.

  The man walked quickly, not bothering to reply to Xan as he led the way. Xandrith was fine with the silence. It gave him time to observe, at that was something that he liked to do. As they passed into the camp Xandrith got his first good look at the carriages being used to carry the families and their goods. They looked somewhat like stretched out coaches with four separate doors per side instead of two. Each of the eight coaches had three wheels per side. The wheels were thicker than any Xan had seen before, and instead of being banded in steel they were covered in a strange, black material. What they were comprised of was weird enough, but what they were lacking was even stranger. None of them had any sort of rigging for harnessing to animals. Instead, the driver's bench had a bank of strange instruments in front of it, wheels, levers, and buttons that were a confusing mess to Xan.

  Lottan led them past all of the unusual carriages, then further out until they were on the very edge of the far side of the camp where a small fire burned. Lottan sat down in the grass on one side of the fire, and Xan took this as his cue to do the same. There were skewers of meat resting near the fire, already cooked, being kept warm by their proximity to the low burning flame. Xandrith couldn't help but stare.

  "Eat what you want." Lottan said. "I've finished."

  Xandrith moved for the food as fast as he would move to strike a target dead in his line of work. It was only after he'd shoved several chunks of meat into his mouth and was chewing on the grisly, delicious meat that he realized he probably looked barbaric. He forced himself to slow down and chew more carefully. He swallowed hard. "I apologize." He said quietly.

  Lottan was watching him closely. His eyes were clouded with suspicion, even the one hidden behind a strange glass monocle that shone blue in the fire light. Xan had seen similar glass in the eyes of the mechanna, but never a piece worn over a regular eye. The eye on that side of Lottan's face seemed to stare directly through him. It made the assassin uneasy, though he didn't let that stop him from eating. He finished the rest of skewers of meat under Lottan's watchful eye.

  "Now that you've eaten, why don't you tell me who and what you really are?" Lottan said as Xan returned the skewer to a rock by the fire.

  Had Xan possessed hackles, they would have risen. "I've told you already. I'm just a man who had a bad run in with the mages. I'm not particularly interesting. What of this party? Where are your horses? How do you pull those carriages around?" He attempted to redirect the conversation.

  Lottan wasn't having any of that. He pointed to the blue glass over his eye. "I can see the metal work that has been done in your shoulder. That is mechanna construction, but it's not all mechanna work. It's fused to the muscle in a way I've never seen before. That would take some incredibly skilled technicians to replicate, and I wouldn't even want to guess at the cost of such an undertaking. I know most of the master craftsmen who might attempt a reconstruction of that nature, and I've never heard of any of them finishing something like your shoulder. We mechanna are proud folks. News would have gotten around. So, Trast, who are you really?"

  Xandrith shrugged. "I'm a man traveling north. I have no friends amongst the mages, and no agenda with your camp other than what I've stated. What more do you want from me?" None of this was a lie, even if his given name was.

  Lottan leaned back, using his arms to allow himself to recline. "Most of those in this camp were lucky enough to evacuate before they had a chance to see any fighting. I wasn't so lucky. I was working in my shop on the day the trolls broke ground in the middle of the city, Guildstark. Panic spread like fire in dry grass, Trast. Those who weren't running away were running to join the fight, but those were fools. We'd heard rumors for some few days that the trolls were burrowing into cities and towns, and that the Fae were smashing down gates and killing anything that moved, human or troll. None of us wanted to believe that it was happening, but we weren't truly surprised when chaos erupted inside the city. We'd already been trying to fend off the damned plague. We had no energy left for an attack, and that was proven true enough.

  "I fled the city, but not before I watched the trolls ripping through the streets, killing humans as easily as we might squash a wasp beneath our booted foot. I'd imagined they would come like a horde, all chaos. I'd imagined that we would use clever strategy and the cunning of our own creations to fend them off, but the trolls weren't just monsters. They were smart, organized, and brutally efficient. They formed squads of differing ranks, groups of ten or more that attacked our forces with unerring proficiency. They split our cavalry and ranged attackers apart and broke us as though we were children playing at strategy. On top of that, they were horrifying. I saw giants rip the heads from children, and bite the arms from armored foes. I even saw one snap the legs off a fully plated armored orc. It's not something I'll ever forget.

  "That's the problem I have with you Trast. You may not be one of the big ones, but you look an awful lot like a troll to me. I don't know what game you're playing, or what you hope to achieve by coming into our camp, but I don't trust you. I'm not going to let you hurt these people. The others may believe you can't be a troll since you can talk and reason, but I know trolls better than they do, and I think you're some kind of scout."

  Xandrith felt backed into a corner. He could feel the deep seeded rage radiating from the mechanna. "If I was a troll, some kind of scout, then why would I come here alone rather than simply send in the horde? What could I possibly want from you?"

  Lottan's eyes drifted to the horseless wagons for a second, but they did not linger long before they fell upon Xan's face again. "That's what I want to know as well. What are you hoping to find here?"

  Xan offered a derisive snort. "I told you why I'm here. Food, rest. That's it. I'll be gone in the morning. You're so worried about what sort of threat I pose to all of you, but you've been camped in the same spot for days with fires burning. You're lucky I'm the only person who’s come across this camp. The smoke from your campsite can be seen for miles in every direction. If you want to worry about something, worry about who’s coming next. As I said, I leave in the morning. The more distance between myself and this deathtrap, the better."

  Lottan leaned forward, a flash of anger in his eyes. "What would you have us do, sit in the dark with no way to warm our food or keep the chill of the air at bay? We have children to care for. We're not a war camp."

  "Whether you're a war camp or not, you should be moving constantly. There are things out here that don't care if you've a camp full of women and children. We’re all meat to the hungry." Xan was carefully working the conversation away from focusing on himself as a threat.

  "It's not that simple." Lottan spat.

  "It is that simple. Do you know how close to Yillan Reach you are? That place is crawling with things that would just love to get a hold of this caravan of yours." That wasn't exactly true anymore, but Xan wasn't above using a few lies to his advantage.

  Lottan's mouth opened and then closed again, then opened once more. He spoke more quietly when he replied. "I've heard it said that Yillan is off limits for the mechanna. Word has passed that it is dangerous there for our kind."

  Xan gave a dry chuckle. "That's an understatement, and it's not just for the mechanna. The city is lost. Even coming this close was a dangerous thing to do."

  "How do you know that?" Lottan asked, suspicion in his voice again.

  "I've just come from the Reach. There is nothing left there for men. It's a place of monsters now." The trolls would be moving in soon enough, so that made Xan's lie a little less dark by his
consideration.

  "You denied that you were more than you said, but every time you speak you betray yourself as something more than you claimed to be." Lottan replied.

  "To be fair, I never claimed to be anything more than a man traveling north to avoid the wars to the south. Beyond that there is a great deal of open territory for interpretation. The truth, for what that it matters, is that I'm not here to do any harm. I am simply in need of food and rest, and I plan on traveling north again as soon as I possibly can. I have business in that direction. There is more to my story, but it's not important to you or yours." Xan spoke as plainly as he could, and as honestly as he dared.

  Lottan seemed to consider him for a long time. The silence was deep between them, and the fire was warm. Xan felt himself almost drifting off to sleep when Lottan spoke again.

  "Alright, I'll accept that for now. You can rest here for the night. In the morning though, I have a matter I'd like to discuss with you. I will make it worth your time to hear me out. I feel like we might be able to find some mutual benefit in working together."

  Xan nodded, eager to be done with the conversation. "Fine, we'll talk in the morning then." With that Lottan went quiet, and Xan soon felt himself drifting towards the uneasy respite of his dreams. Just before sleep took him, he thought he felt a shadow pass between himself and the fire. He was too exhausted to give it any more thought.

  Dull sunlight woke Xan from the depths of his sleep. He went to sit up, but found himself unable to move his hand to the ground to push himself to his feet. He stirred with a sharp jerk of shock. It took him only a moment to realize that his hands and feet were tightly bound.

  "They drugged your food. I don't know when they had the opportunity to do so, but sometime before you and Lottan reached your camp they must have put something on those skewers of meat. Drowsy Wisp, perhaps?" Imaginary Xandrith was stating the obvious. He was standing just to Xan's left, looking down at the tied assassin. "I guess they weren't taking any chances with you."

  "Damn it. I should have known better than to trust them." Xandrith cursed sharply beneath his breath. He rolled, trying to tell if the bone blade was still hidden on his back. He felt the lump after a moment of adjusting and breathed a sigh of relief. They hadn’t searched him thoroughly enough. With a practiced spin of his body he heaved himself to his knees. A normal man, one who wasn't accustomed to being bound and restrained, may have struggled to right himself. Xan had found himself in such situations before however. From his knees he leaned backwards and in one contorting jump gained his footing and managed to move his hands from behind his back to in front of him. He stood up straight as the sound of footsteps approached from behind him.

  "He's up!" Someone shouted.

  "They're coming." Xan's faux self noted calmly. "They don't look happy. If only we had a knife. Oh, but you gave that away." He clicked his tongue and shook his head. "At least your heart's finally working again." Until his other self had spoken the words, Xan hadn't realized it himself. His heart, his normal heart, was beating in his chest again. He felt stronger than he had in days, though the ripped flesh in his chest still pulled strangely. He hardly had time to consider his good fortune however, since a man was approaching him with a sword drawn.

  "Get back on your knees, Trast, or so help me I'll put you there myself." He threatened, holding his sword in what might have been considered a menacing fashion if it wasn't so laughably sloppy.

  "Is this the way you treat strangers?" Xan asked, holding his bound wrists in front of him. "If I'd wanted to be drugged and bound, I would have found a fancy brothel that offered such services."

  "I said get down on your knees! We're not going to hurt you if we don't have to, but you'd better listen." The man threatened again, he'd closed the distance between them even further. There were more men coming behind him, all holding some type of weapon. Lottan was with them.

  "No." Xan replied, and even before the word had passed his lips he was moving. The man with the sword was not only untrained with the weapon, he was completely unprepared for an unarmed and bound man to make the first move in a confrontation. Xan closed the gap between them with a massive, ungainly jump. His weight took them both down to the ground, but Xan had been prepared for that, and he forced himself to the top as they collapsed. The assassin wrapped his hands around the blade of the sword, using the ropes to keep the edge from cutting into his flesh. With the blade secured and no longer a risk, Xan twisted his upper body like a coiled spring releasing and snapped his elbow across his attackers face. Blood and teeth exploded from his mouth as the lights fled his eyes, but Xan didn't have time to rejoice in a single victory. He pushed himself back to his feet, using the blade of the sword to prop himself up. Others were approaching quickly.

  Xan steadied the hilt of the sword between his feet and drove his bound wrists against the blade. It wasn't as sharp as he would have preferred, but it did the job. His wrists were free. He gave a small hop which launched the sword up to where he could grab it with his hands, and then it was a simple matter of slicing his ankles free. By the time the rest of the men were within fighting range, Xan was standing completely freed and with a weapon in hand.

  "He killed Feen!" One of the men shouted, his face contorted in rage.

  "Your friend isn't dead." Xan corrected him quickly, holding his stolen sword at the ready. "His nose is broken and he's lost some teeth, but he'll recover. I can't make the same promise for all of you, though. I'd recommend you put down your weapons and let me walk out of here unhindered or things could get messy."

  "You've got a lot of nerve." The man who'd accused him of killing Feen began, but Lottan spoke over him.

  "We don't want any trouble, but you were a threat and we didn't trust you not to cause trouble in the night. We could have killed you, but we didn't. Put down that sword and let us check on our friend." None of the men had dropped their weapons and they were all still inching forwards.

  "Fair enough, you thought I was a threat so you drugged me and tied me up. I'll blame that on my own exhaustion, but I'm feeling much better now and I have no intention of finding myself in such a situation again." Xan lowered his procured blade to the unconscious man's throat. "Your men should stop trying to close in on me if you don't want to see Feen's head leave his body. I'm not eager to kill anyone today, but it has been a turbulent morning and I'm not feeling particularly forgiving at this moment."

  Lottan raised his hand and the others stopped advancing. "We can still handle this like civil men." He said, placing his weapon back on his belt and holding up his unarmed hands.

  "I thought that was what we were doing last night." Xan snapped. "Apparently I misjudged the situation."

  "We have people to protect, families, and taking you into camp was a risk." A man at Lottan's side spoke. He had black hair streaked with gray and wore the clothes of a farmer. "We didn't want to turn you away, but we couldn't have you sneaking around in the night if you were something more than you claimed to be." He looked tired, worried.

  Xan sighed. "Fine. I can accept that, but it's over now. I'm going to leave, but I want my knife back. And I'm going to keep this sword. Let’s not have any further misunderstandings."

  Lottan spoke quickly. "Let’s not part on such rough terms, Trast. You are obviously an able bodied man. I saw the way you handled Feen. I won't pretend to know where you acquired such skills, but we need help, and in exchange we could provide you with provisions. If you proved yourself trustworthy, we could even help make your journey north much easier."

  Xan hesitated before speaking again. He could see the need in the eyes of the men at the camp. What was it that they needed from him? He could leave them behind without ever looking back. It might be hard for him to survive in the cold northern wilderness, but now that his heart was beating again he was stronger. He could make it on his own if he had to, but what of this caravan? He certainly owed them no favors, not after they'd drugged him and tied him up.

  "What do you
need?" He asked, the words hesitant, dragged out from between his lips by some sense of guilt that he could barely understand.

  The men seemed to relax and their weapons dropped awkwardly. Lottan stepped forward. "Last night you told me we were foolish for staying here for so long, and you're right. We know we need to get moving again, but we have a problem. One of our wagons has broken and we've run out of spare metal to craft repair parts.

  "There is a small town about a day's hard march to the west of here. When we first broke down I took a group of men to see if they would be willing to trade with us, but they'd sealed their gates and refused to even speak to us. When we got close, they put an arrow in one of our men. He didn't survive the trip back. We need that scrap metal. Without it we're stuck here. As much as we need that metal though, we don't know how to go about getting it. We're not fighting men. We're not thieves or ruffians. If they won't barter with us we have no means to get what we need." Lottan looked at Xan expectantly.

  Xan just shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "Why don't you just leave one of your carts behind? Split the people up onto the others."

  Lottan nodded. "We might be able to do that, though it would leave us packed in very tightly, but what happens if we have another problem down the line? If we lose one wagon now while we're still on these easier roads, what do we do once we hit the mountain trails? If a part breaks down and we don't have the materials to repair it we become stranded. If we become stranded in the mountains, people die."

  "Perhaps you should have thought about that before you left without spare equipment." Xan replied coldly.

  "We left with a large supply of spare of metal for making parts, but these wagons were untested. There were flaws we hadn't anticipated and we went through our stockpile of materials far more quickly than we should have. We couldn't foresee all of these problems." Lottan seemed to almost be pleading. "These families will die without help."