by Ren Cummins
“We need to spread out along as much of the perimeter of the town as we can – break into groups of two or three and set up defensive barriers. Block off any of the empty streets with anything you can find – carts, crates, loose doors, whatever.”
He examined the faces of the men before him, and chose one with a firm jaw and no obvious scars. “You – I want you to report to Galder of the Defense Guild and coordinate our men with his.”
“Any questions?” With no responses, Cousins set them off to their appointed tasks. He remained in the room for a full minute, letting the adrenaline’s edge dwindle and fade before running upstairs to Favo’s office to get a few weapons of his own.
By the time the sun had begun to set, Rom was already aching and exhausted. Just getting to the Granaries on the edge of the town had taken her hours, fighting more creatures than she could even remember. Her dress was spattered with a variety of different colored blood, her hands were bruised and her right leg was still sore.
Mulligan was saying something, but she was barely paying attention. “You’re getting quick on assessing your opponents, but you might want to just switch to the most effective weapon – the crook against the smaller animals, the sword against the larger ones, and the parasol against the ones that can fly or shoot things at you. And you need to protect your legs better – try to keep moving, so they don’t get a clear swing at you… Rom, are you listening?”
She managed to nod at the proper time, but in fact she was too busy looking at the growing cloud of dust drawing steadily closer to the open fields. Birds and smaller animals had already taken off from the encroaching stampede, and a low rumble could be felt even up here where she stood.
“Mully,” she whispered. “I can’t fight all of them. It’s going to be us against all of those. There’s just no way.”
A sudden vibration shook the building she was standing on; then another, and another. She looked around the base of the building, but there was nothing unusual there. On her shoulder, Mully gasped.
“Rom,” he whispered. “Behind us!”
She spun to come face-to-face with a large metallic man, tall enough to look her in the eyes, even though his feet were on the ground several stories below.
His jaw extended, revealing a small chair, upon which was seated Kari. Yu flew down from above, landing on the rooftop beside Rom.
“I’m glad we found you!” Kari exclaimed. “We got Aleph-Five up and running, and now that we know the frequencies the Kinesthesians have to play, they’ve got another 20 stones charged and being set up into more of the machines we’ve been working on.” Her enthusiastic expression soured somewhat as she continued. “But it will probably be a few hours until they can get them up and running, so I came on ahead so you’d know you’re not out here by yourself.”
Rom sighed deeply, her body suddenly feeling lighter and less achy – even her leg had stopped hurting. Yu nudged her, and she petted his thick mane. Mulligan pointed to the fields.
“There they are!” he exclaimed.
She turned to squint among the expanding columns of shadow cast by the setting sun before them. There was a lot of movement there, now, and, unhindered by the underbrush, were now running at their full speed. On the streets below them, she could see hundreds of the citizens behind impromptu barricades, brandishing a variety of weapons. At random intervals, she could see the distinctive uniform of the constabulary of the Defense Guild.
There were only two large squares of field separating them now – at their current pace, they would easily be here in only a few minutes. The other machines – delightful as their promise had seemed a moment before – could not possibly get here in time to help. It was going to be up to them and them alone.
One street over and below her stood a small group of people, behind an overturned market cart. It was as a good a place as any to lend a hand, she decided.
“Can that thing fight?” she asked Kari, swinging up onto Yu’s back.
Aleph-Five answered for her. “I will do all I can to protect the citizens who dwell here,” he said.
“Good enough for me,” Rom said, as Yu lifted off to drop to the street below. The townspeople saw her and the giant machine with the translucent Yu, and Rom could see the momentary panic be replaced by some kind of comfort.
They know what I am, she realized. They know I’m a reaper. She vaulted forward, off Yu to stand on the ground on her own two feet. Trying to offer some degree of optimism, she nodded to them and lifted her shepherd’s crook in a way she hoped was comforting. In case it wasn’t, she avoiding looking at them.
“Do not fear, Mistress,” Yu whispered. “It is merely a battle, nothing more. Our cause is honorable.”
Rom stared out into the approaching hordes, she could imagine their breath, see the fury in their eyes and straining muscles…no, not fury, she thought. Her eyes snapped wide with a sudden realization. The animals she saw far across from her were not enraged at all. They were stampeding – most of them, at any rate – in panic.
The animals she had fought thus far had been attacking – some in rage, others in hunger – but these ahead of her were running as much from something as they were running towards them. Though she hated each death she’d effectively caused, she’d always known that her role was one of mercy, one of releasing the trapped souls from this life into a life beyond. Many of the creatures barreling towards the town now, however, were simply being herded by the others, or fled in panic towards the town. Many of these creatures meant her no hard at all, and how could she fight that?
This question instantly paralyzed her with frustration – why must she try to kill so many of these innocent creatures, whose only crime was to have lived in a place targeted by the queen’s wrath?
But even as that realization coalesced in her mind, fear gripped her heart. This battle must still be fought, even if she were forced to fight dozens of creatures who were merely running to flee death and destruction of their homes into the waiting resistance from the humans.
The moment froze in her mind – she tried to conceive of a plan to stop the inevitable violence which was about to unleash itself upon both sides of this battlefield, but she despaired that there simply wasn’t enough time to think of one, much less to bring such a plan to bear. If only there were more time!
Time. Time! She pulled the pocket watch out and sensed – somehow – that it was integral to her needs. She thumbed the latch, popping the case open – gears filled her vision – small, infinitesimally intricate, all working in connection with the others, all maintaining a precise and unceasing flow of the inevitability of time. No, not just tracking, it whispered to her mind. Governing. She felt like she was falling, staring into the heart of time itself.
She depressed the button a second time, and the world suddenly went …silent.
Her eyes rose to take in the scene around her and gasped as she realized it was all frozen, herself as the sole exception. From her friends and allies to the creatures who were now barely a few meters from them to the motes of dust in the air and the clouds in the sky, everything was held still – motionless and suspended in time.
She looked back at the pocket watch. “Wow,” she breathed. “I am totally keeping you.”
Chapter 22: Time Stands Still
It took her longer to move than her characteristic patience could support – every step was resisted by the bits of air around her, and felt as if she was walking against a powerful wind. Were it not for her unique abilities as a Sheharid, she was certain she would have been locked in place simply by the sheer force and presence of the air itself around her. Breathing, too, was a challenge, but after a few minutes she had become used to it, and was able to get into a rhythm of moving and then pausing to take in some long, deep breaths before continuing.
But moving wasn’t the only problem. She wasn’t entirely certain if this was going to last until the pocket watch released it by another press of the button, or if it would last until things snapp
ed back into place. She realized it was a matter to be resolved later. For now, she needed to do something. She needed to explain to the people of Oldtown-Against-The-Wall that the creatures meant them for the most part no harm, and were simply frightened animals running from, Rom believed, the explosions sent by the people inside the Wall. She also needed to stop the animals from attacking, long enough to try and convince them that they could return home and not attack the people in the town.
She looked along the front lines of the two groups of beings – thankfully, at no point were the people actually fighting the animals, or vice-versa. But the conflict was no more than a second away at various intervals of the gathered masses. Rom grimaced. She wasn’t a planner – that was Kari or Cousins. Frustrated, she bit her lower lip: she wasn’t sure how much longer this would last. She didn’t know if she could stop time for them also – doing anything with the pocket watch at this point might just start time back up again, which Rom assumed would make things pick right back up where they’d left off.
“If I could just make you all turn around and go home,” she started to say, but then stopped, nodding to herself in sudden realization. Among the creatures, she could feel in approximately every fifth one a dark and horrific presence; something sick, diseased, was there, drawing them deeply into death. This was like the nauseating sense she had in the creatures that had broken through the Motive Wall and driven them towards aggressing the people of Oldtown. It was clear to her now; this was definitely what had permitted them to pass the defensive barriers all along. Not all the creatures possessed this infection, however. The explosions in the distance appeared to have chased them all this way, but only a few of them were actually dying or driven to madness by that mysterious sickness. The remainder were just frightened, and running along with the stampede.
She stepped slowly ahead, her hair pulled back tightly by the current of the stationary non-wind, to stand before the nearest of the creatures; it was one of the infected, she realized.
It was mostly covered in short, fine hair, with a thick horn jutting from the top of its muzzle. Looking into its eyes, Rom could sense it as the mother of a small group of hatchlings – they had been caught by the brunt of the explosions, but they were too young yet to have grown the dense layer of scales below their fur which might have otherwise protected them. She’d been one of the last to turn from the flames and follow the herd of screaming, maddened beasts. She was in pain – only slightly by the fires, but most by her loss. She wanted to quell the pain of the voices of her children, and wanted to find a peace to calm the rage that filled her.
Rom bit her lower lip, her heart heavy. This one would not go home – she had no home left. She reached down and placed one hand on the side of the animal’s face, heard the animal’s voice singing in her mind. It was no small surprise or comfort to realize that song so closely mirrored the one she felt in her own.
In her mind, through the gem embedded in her skin, Rom spoke to her. “We will find those answers together,” she swore. “Fight with me, and we will set your soul at peace.”
The song shifted, pausing, and its tone altered. Fading slightly were the overtures of violent and aggressive response to her pain and loss, replaced by determination and concession. The creature perceived through Rom’s mind the reality of her precarious situation, and Rom felt her acceptance of the imminent peril which would, undoubtedly, overwhelm her and so many others. Senseless death did not justify more senseless death.
“I am Terenaa,” she whispered into Rom’s mind. “And I surrender my life to fight by your side, if it will bring peace to my soul.”
One by one, she approached all the animals in turn, heard their rage and their panic; listened to their fears and their aggression. A few were like the first with whom she had communicated; whose encroaching disease or hunger for release was so strong that she accepted them in; allowed them a peaceful transition to the lands within her and a promise to seek a response from those who had been responsible.
Of those which were not infected, many were simply calmed by her approach, and admitted they sought no harm, but were simply swept up in the herd and did not know how to return to their homes. She physically lifted these creatures and placed them behind the rushing stampede, pointing them back away from the town and out of harm’s way.
But for every dozen beasts had been driven by fear, she found one or two that would not relent in their anger – these she left for now. Most of them were carnivorous, and welcomed an opportunity to feast upon the seasoned blood and tissues of humanity. These were anxious for war, for the thrill of the hunting of the tender people, and would not yield to Rom’s urgings to retreat.
But what to do with these? They numbered more than thirty, still intent on the battle; the rest were now pointed back towards the wild; a few had already been collected into the spirit gem; their bodies would simply collapse, Rom assumed, when time returned. The thirty or so who would continue to fight were still a sizable group, and it was likely they could kill many people before they were brought down.
“You will have to stop them,” Mulligan said. He was still on her shoulder, though he had been silent all this time. He seemed unaffected by the pressure of the air around them.
Rom shook her head. “It wouldn’t…be right,” she said. “It isn’t fair to kill them like this, when they can’t defend themselves.”
Mulligan sighed. “If you do not, Rom, who will? Can you fight them all at once? Will you risk your friends’ lives as well?”
She looked at the staff in her hand – it was cold and pale. She’d never noticed the similarities before, but its curved, gnarled shape did not resemble the vegetative and organic elements of dried or polished wood; it shared more in form and substance to a mysteriously molded bone of some enormous but delicate creature. As she watched, it shifted to a scythe, the cold and unreflecting blade extending out from the top of the staff. There was a soft sense of hunger to it – as if the Crook was breathing, alive. Her eyes returned to Mulligan’s, and then reluctantly to the remaining hordes of monsters. The gap between the people of Oldtown and the creatures was very small; only a second would remain when time continued again. It was a cruel choice she faced; either choice condemned the living to death. Her scythe did not care which; it was a blade, free of emotion or remorse.
“This is why they call us Reapers,” she realized. Her eyes welling with tears, she approached the first of the raging monsters and raised the scythe high above her head.
It passed through the monster’s head like it was made of fog – but the curved blade dragged with it the glowing shadow of the beast, tearing it free of its body. Disconnected, it silently snarled at her and dissipated like breath on a cold morning. She reached out and coaxed its eyes closed, and pressed down on its head until it lay flat upon the ground. If it kept moving after time started back up, this should make it stop suddenly enough to prevent it from hitting anyone.
After time started back up…she bit her lip again. Would time start back up, she wondered? She shook her head. One problem at a time, Rom, she muttered. She moved slowly to the next unrepentant and untamable beast, and swung again.
* * * * *
The tears had stopped falling – she wasn’t sure when, exactly, but her face was mostly dry by the time she was done with all the infected creatures. The sense of failure; the pain and bitter frustration were replaced by a hardened resolve.
This was what it meant to be a Sheharid, she realized. She stood on the barrier between life and death, helped those cross over who could not do so on their own, and pull those across who simply refused to do so. She was not their judge or their council – she was like the wind that carried the seeds across the open fields, like the great curls of water that crashed against the foundations of the city. All those nights of her childhood where she lay awake and wondered about the wishes of a young orphaned child in a poor steam-driven town of castaways – of a family, of comfort, either elevated and directed in the relati
vely abandoned Oldtown or the utopian dream of life within the walls, all manner of fancy; now she was faced with the numbing reality that she could never have possibly considered. She was not a child, she was…this. A shepherd. A gatherer. A reaper. Standing on the edge of life and death, in the half-breath between heartbeats and silence.
She stood as a lone motion between stillness and wrestled a deep breath for luck as she pulled her pocket watch back up by its chain and held it in the palm of her hand, thumb poised above the watch-stem and closed her eyes.
Chapter 23: Requiem
The townspeople, for the most part, never realized what had happened. One moment, they stood facing certain, almost unavoidable, death in defense of their homes and families; and the next, the creatures were either heading back they way they had come or lay dead at their feet.
There were a few injuries – mostly due to untrained people holding potentially dangerous weapons or tools fashioned into instruments of war. Three scientists were badly scalded when a pressure valve erupted on a self-propelled well-digger they had turned into some sort of reverberating battering ram, for example. All of the minor injuries were being contained and treated on site, with no expectations of lasting damages.
Kari sent Aleph-Five into the field to ascertain the damage to the agricultural fields, and he seemed happy enough to do so, even going so far as to conscript a few of the other newly-reactivated machines into assisting in an organized and methodical approach. Even as they searched the fields, they took the time to dispose of the many bodies of the creatures which had so suddenly and inexplicably died, within striking distance of the townspeople. Kari told Rom later that the machines had been somber and respectful of the creatures. She thought Rom would have appreciated that.
Cousins congratulated his men on helping to stand side by side with the rest of the town in defense of the congregated people – Rom thought he seemed to be doing so in a very suspiciously dramatic way, but he assured her later that his efforts were all above-board and simply part of his determination to find positive results in negative situations. In the end, it solidified her resolve to not look too closely at anything Cousins did, assuming she wanted to remain his friend.
