The Endless Knight: The Seekers Trilogy (The Watchers Series Book 6)

by T. C. Edge

  I keep my cool, however, as the others meet and greet and start to talk furiously in their huddle. I barely hear them, watching Velia as her eyes sweep across and find mine. I wander towards her, and she comes towards me, and in a moment of liberation I let myself go, forget the world and all the terrible things in it, and scoop her up into my arms.

  I hug her tight, and then give in to the inescapable urge to kiss her right there and then, at the heart of the two convoys. Under the burning sun, without saying a word, I do what I’ve wanted to do since she left, departing with that kiss that has lingered in my mind ever since.

  Now, I deliver a second, and by the time I’ve regained any semblance of control, I look over to see that the others are looking at us with amusement in their eyes. I immediately remember myself and feel a twinge of embarrassment creeping up through me.

  Then, I feel something else: Velia’s hands on the back of my neck and head. She pulls me straight back in and kisses me again, and as she does, the many now watching around us begin to clap and cheer.

  “OK you lovebirds,” says Drake, stepping towards us. “It’s time to get moving…”

  The rest come over and greet Velia, my mother in particular drawing her into a hug and looking upon her in a fresh light, like the daughter she never had. And as they do, Athena comes to me and offers me a brief embrace.

  “The war is calling us, Theo,” she says. “Are you ready to answer it?”

  “Of course,” I say defiantly. “I was born ready…”

  She smiles at my bravado as Drake’s voice rises up again.

  “OK, back to the cars,” he shouts out. “We have a long way still to go.”

  As we all begin moving back to our respective vehicles, I see my mother still in conversation with Velia. When they split, my mother moves towards Athena’s car, and Velia comes towards mine.

  “Your mum says she wants to chat with Athena,” she says. “So…I guess I’m with you.”

  The wink from Cyra suggests it’s more about giving Velia and me some time together than anything else. I’m happy for it, and as we climb back into the cars and the combined convoy begins moving across the wasteland, I get to learn exactly what’s happened with Velia since her departure.

  By the sounds of it, they’ve been spending their time moving across from town to town, trying to drum up support. At first, they gained little traction - those in the West have generally remained undisturbed by the actions of Eden and the regions, and even Petram, for a long time now.

  However, this war isn’t like any other, and if our enemy can’t be stopped now, the fires of destruction will begin to spread to all corners of the nation, and perhaps even beyond.

  “Athena was brilliant,” Velia tells me. “She made some rousing speeches, got the people revved up. They’ve been under the thumb of the Baron for a long time. She made them realise that this was their chance for revenge, their chance to make a difference.”

  She asks, too, what’s been going on back in Petram, and I have to bend the truth to keep from revealing too much. The most notable events have centred around AK1, whose true identity still remains a secret to all but a few. As we grow closer to the battlefield of war, however, it’s going to be harder to maintain the subterfuge.

  Much of her interest, however, is naturally on her sister. I tell her that Vesuvia has been missing her terribly, but that her leg is continuing to recover well. With so many departing the city, though, her loneliness and isolation is only going to get worse. Leeta now appears to be her only remaining friend.

  Thankfully, I quickly learn that that’s not going to be the case.

  “Our mother is going to stay with her,” says Velia. “She’s heading to the city now, with many others.”

  “Oh, that’s great,” I say, knowing just how desperate Vesuvia is right now, particularly after the sudden departure of Ajax.

  “We’ll all be together again soon,” she says. “We’ve just got to get this war out of the war first.”

  She brings a tone of lightness to the conversation as we rumble on through the dirt, although I can tell it’s more of a shield to her own pain than anything else. It’s the right attitude, though. At this time, there’s little point in stewing on such things. It’s crucial that we’re able to keep our heads in the game, and in that regard, knowing that her mother and sister are safely back in Petram is probably a good thing.

  I have no such luck. More or less every person I care about is heading into the arena of war, and there’s no knowing if any of us will come out of it alive. But in much the same way, it’s a useless thing to be dwelling on the fear of death and loss. That’s all part of the game, and is something I have little to no control over.

  We make good progress as the day grinds on, the fall of night not halting our progress. We spare little time to stop and rest, the convoy only occasionally coming to a halt to allow people to switch over behind the wheel, or take a bathroom break. As the night descends, the convoy continues, moving slower under cover of darkness but refusing to quit.

  In the back seat of one of the leading jeeps, I try to get some sleep as my body grows weary. And behind my eyelids, the sight of death and destruction grows more pronounced, more clear, our proximity to the chaos spreading through the regions bringing out more distinct and lucid visions.

  The same will be happening for all of us Watchers, our minds growing busy with blood and fire. And despite the horrors I see, I know it can only be a good thing. That when we finally reach Fort Warden, we’ll be able to better hunt for sight of a Seeker, or of some larger troop movement passing across the lands.

  Through the night we drive, on and on as I’m rocked about in the back, the endless sound of engines creating a mechanic chorus through the silent wasteland. And soon, the light starts to appear on the horizon again, signalling the coming of a new day. The low reds turn to oranges and then brighten into yellows as the sun bursts from below the earth, bringing the world to light and life.

  I look upon it all, and see some remains of Knight’s Wall ahead, and my weary mind awakens with the knowledge that we’re nearing our final destination. Just beyond the wall it lies, the vast military camp that will be our new home, our new base of operations from which the result of this war will be decided.

  And only half an hour later, it grows in full force before me, the place I visited many months ago to witness the funeral of General Richter. Then, it was filled only with military personnel, lined up like statues to say farewell to their great leader.

  Now, the base spreads far and wide beyond its own walls, figures crawling across the desert like ants. Thousands of soldiers from the Eden and Petram armies, and many more from The Guardians of Liberty, have all begun to gather here, combining their strength for the final surge.

  Thousands have already been lost to the fighting, but so many more still remain. And looking upon the sight, I feel a fresh hope that, while we’ve been losing many battles, the war is still to be won.

  And that Fort Warden is the final staging point to determine whether, in days or weeks or months time, we’ll be facing victory or defeat.

  19

  A Special Purpose

  That day rushes past quickly.

  When the convoy grinds to a stop at the extremity of the base, we quickly set about our business. Immediately, the primary leaders and military commanders – Generals Trent and Proctor, Drake, Markus, Jackson, Athena – all move off to work out how best to integrate our new forces. With the camp growing so large, they’ll need to be housed, fed, and watered, with the base’s own security needing to be bolstered.

  Already, as I enter, I can see that a significant number of gun placements, turrets, artillery weapons, and so on, have been distributed around the extremity of the camp, defending it from all angles to the East, North and South. And with more brought along by our convoy, the base’s defensive capabilities are only going to be developed further.

  That, however, is not for me to worry about. After
being shown to our own accommodation, fairly centrally located within the base, our minds quickly turn to the fate of Link and Ajax, Ellie and me in particular. So far, no word has come from them directly. A visit to the communications centre, however, informs us that, while they still haven’t gotten in touch, reports have come in that suggest that they’re already hard at work.

  “We have word that some enemy lines of attack have been halted,” says a rather nervous technician, surprised perhaps to have legends like Cyra and Ellie descend upon his little office from nowhere.

  “Where?” asks Ellie quickly.

  “Lignum, ma’am,” says the man. “Reports are coming in that Link is decimating the enemy, just like the Seekers have been doing to us.”

  A proud smile emerges on my face as I listen, thinking of Ajax out there with his dad, cutting down the enemy, giving them a taste of their own medicine.

  Good on you, AJ, I think to myself.

  When Cyra asks if they’ve encountered a Seeker, however, we get no confirmation on that.

  “We haven’t had any new sightings of the Seekers for a day or two,” says the man. “With our forces retreating, things have gone quiet on that front.”

  “OK, good job. Keep searching,” says Cyra as if she’s talking to a Watcher.

  I feel a sudden urge to get straight back into a jeep and go join them, to get stuck into the action myself. Cyra cautions against such thought, however, and reminds me in private that we both need to set our minds to AK1 and little else right now.

  “Our connections with him will grow stronger now,” she tells me as we sit in my basic room, fitted with nothing but a single bed and sink and little bedside table. “I can already feel it. Let your mind be fed with thoughts of him, and perhaps the other Seekers will find their way inside too.”

  Her orders bring me back down to earth, and remind me that I’m probably going to be just as much of a prisoner here as I was in Petram. So close now to the fighting, the itch inside me grows stronger: a desire to join my best friend, fight by his side, defend our home and country and the people within it from the spreading tyranny of Baron Reinhold.

  But once more, I need to be reminded that my part in this isn’t quite so easy to define or determine. I’m not just a regular soldier, waiting to be called up and sent out to battle with a thousand others. And while I can play a significant role out there, my presence here can be just as profitable. All I need is a quiet space and my own mind, and I can determine the fate of hundreds, thousands, or even millions.

  That is the way of the Watchers.

  The camp is just as chaotic as Petram, possibly even more so. For many weeks, there’s been an almost constant buzz in the air, a hustle and bustle that accompanies such times. Back in Petram, however, most of those present were civilians, those drawn back from the war, hiding from it rather than facing it head on.

  Here, almost every soul is a combatant in one way or another. Whether a General giving orders, a technician hunting information, or a soldier preparing to join the front lines, the majority here will play their part, big or small, in the battles to come.

  Right now, with soldiers and militia men and women still coming in from around the regions, and with our new forces from Petram and the West arriving, it’s all particularly turbulent. It will no doubt take several days to work out who’s doing what, where any particular soldier should be, where they’ll stay, what troop they’ll move into, and so on. That will keep the top military officials busy for a little while, leaving us slightly exposed should the enemy be deciding to launch a surprise attack.

  To that end, the remaining Watchers that Athena has trained are set up in their own private quarters, tasked with nothing but searching for visions. All across the country, too, we have spies hidden in old towns and bunkers, watching and waiting around the main concentration of enemy forces on the coast in the towns of Piscator and Mercator.

  Skilled in the art of stealth and secrecy, they will help to make sure that we don’t get any nasty surprises, waking one day to find the enemy on our dootstep. Right now, from their reports, it would appear that the enemy ranks are still swelling as ours have, many across the regions still joining them under duress or otherwise.

  These spies, however, are only able to get so close. Already, many have been picked off, pushing the others back. Now, they wait at a distance, doing little but giving us an early alarm when the main armies of the Baron choose to move out.

  Those tasked with infiltrating the enemy ranks properly, however, continue to stay dark.

  “We haven’t had contact from any of them,” Jackson tells me that first night when he arrives at our accommodation. “We have to work on the suspicion that they’re not going to be of any use to us.”

  His words come out weary and matter of factly. There’s no deflation in his voice regarding the suspected fate of his men. After hearing of the deaths of two of his brothers, little can hurt him now.

  Thankfully, his remaining brother and parents are being sent straight to Petram. With my grandparents old and my remaining paternal uncle injured, there’s little sense in keeping them here. The same goes for others who will only be a burden, the injured shipped back to the city of stone just as they were two decades ago.

  Here, we will maintain nothing but a fighting force capable of doing what it must to disable the Baron’s chaotic and senseless assault on this country. Truly, the man is insane, his devotion to the long deceased Augustus Knight now responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands in the space of only weeks and months.

  Should he continue his reign of terror, who’s to know how many will end up succumbing to his sword. And for many others who don’t, the world will once more revert to the sort of tyrannical rule that saw Knight himself rise to the summit of the nation and stay there for so long.

  Here, in Fort Warden at the edge of the regions, stands the last bastion of hope for this country. While sporadic fighting continues across vast swathes of the nation, this is where the action is. This is where the fate of our time will be determined, where the good people will come together in the face of annihilation and stand as one in defiance of a tyrant.

  Right at the heart of it, I turn my mind that night to AK1 once more. Turning my thoughts to him, and him alone, and leaving the likes of Velia behind, I find myself in my room with no distractions, searching for visions as I so often have.

  And just as the world here is chaotic, so are the images that rush into my mind. I wade through all the fire and death, looking for him, clinging onto the growing connection that links us. I know, too, that my mother will be doing the same, her own mind even more attuned than mine to such things, her connection with this clone much stronger.

  But despite that, this remains my role, and I throw myself into it, seeking him out. Working my way through the pain, the horrors, the faces of fear as they look upon their death, the wailing and screaming of men and women as their bodies are torn up by bullets and shrapnel, or cremated where they stand by surging flame.

  It’s more pronounced that ever, more difficult to witness. Sometimes I have no control over what I see, and how long I spend in a particular vision. Watching a mother shield her infant from an oncoming barrage of enemy fire. Seeing entire families cowering in exploding houses, unable to flee the war as it quickly crept up onto them. All such things enter my mind, playing out like I’m right there with them. I have to watch them all, fight to stay asleep, to stay in the vision, when all I want to do is turn away.

  Other Watchers aren’t able to witness these relentless horrors. They find themselves waking in the night, drenched in sweat, their minds stretched too far by the terrible things they witness. Others, however, will do what must be done, growing cold to such images as they pass through their heads each night.

  But here, with war raging, everything is more extreme. Only those like Link or Ellie or Athena, who had to contend with such things the last time, have experience of this. And above all of them is Cyra, her powers
exceeding the rest, her hatred of death built upon having to see it in more detail than anyone else.

  I have inherited such a terrible power, such a debilitating curse. And when all this is over, if I find myself still standing, maybe I’ll turn away from such power, just as she did. I feel foolish for ever doubting her, for ever criticising her for choosing a simple life. And even after suffering as she did, here she is again, doing what must be done.

  Never have I been more proud to call myself her son.

  And that night, as I watch the world suffer like never before, I begin to see fresh images come to me. Before my eyes, a lab materialises, stretching away into the distance. It’s not like before, not like the old dilapidated lap in the Baron’s compound. No…this one is brand new, modern and vast, fitted with high tech equipment and machinery like I saw in Professor Lane’s facility.

  In the grand space, I see a shape; that of a man, cloaked in finery. His back is to me, but I remember his silhouette. It’s the form of the man directing of all of this. The form of Baron Reinhold, staring into the distance beyond.

  My mind begins to weaken, the vision cracking. I try to stay in it, searching harder for any sight of where he might be. Even in the vision, I can feel my heart bursting, pulsing harder and harder as my breathing grows fast. The world before me begins to break up, before slowly solidifying again as I hold my focus with one final push.

  Suddenly, my eyes flash forward, moving deeper into the room, closer to the back of the Baron. And over his shoulder, I can see the sight of tubes, just like before, all lined up against the wall. But these are empty, yet to be filled, row upon row stretching out into the distance.

  Dozens of them. Hundreds. An army of clones waiting to be manufactured.

  And then, my eyes drift down to the front, and a large machine just ahead of the tubes. The Baron stares upon it, and it begins to clear before my eyes.

  There, sitting within the machine, surrounded by equipment, a shape appears. His face comes into focus, and I see the grey-blue eyes and murky hair, the thin lips and sallow skin.