by M. R. Forbes
Jeremiah shook his head. "I'm sorry," he repeated. "I know it doesn't mean much, but she took at least fifty of them with her."
"We did this, Jeremiah. We caused this."
"I know."
"We were fools."
"I was the biggest fool of them all. I had such big dreams for our people. Such bright hopes. I'm sorry, my friend. So very sorry." He came forward, putting his hand on Talon's shoulder. "We'll fight back. We'll make them pay."
"It won't bring her back."
"No. We can avenge her, and we can save the dream we all shared."
"I'm a simple man. An artist. A tinkerer. I'm not a wizard like you."
"You have skills that no man can match, Thomas. There's no reason to think we will not need them in the days to come."
"Whatever I can do, I'll do."
"As will I," Jeremiah said. "I promise you that."
Talon opened his eyes. The grass was cold and damp beneath his hands. His breathing was labored. Jeremiah? He had been the one to tell him Alyssa was dead. Did he know the truth?
He got to his feet, ready to turn back towards the inn, to find the juggernaut and question him. Would he be able to get an answer? Whatever he had done to save Jeremiah from death at Thornn's hand, it had stolen so much of who he was and reduced him to communicating in simplistic statements. Were the juggernaut's thoughts as simple, or was there a fully-functioning mind behind the glowing eye?
He had saved his friend for a reason, even if he couldn't remember what that reason was. Had it been to avenge Alyssa? To bring him to the one who had stolen their victory for his own and prevented him from honoring her loss?
He headed for the inn, intent on finding out.
He paused when he heard the thunder.
His eyes went to the sky.
Wispy streamers of white mingled with twinkling lights. There was no sign of rain.
Not thunder. An army.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Talon
"Wilem," Talon shouted, nearing the inn. "Spyne. Jeremiah."
He could hear the pounding growing louder in the distance. It was an army, he was certain.
It was coming their way.
Of course they had known he might send an army to stop them. They had discussed it at length. With so many of his soldiers in Elling, he wouldn't be able to muster a defense that could move fast enough to intercept them and be large enough to overpower their contingent of cavalry and Carriers.
But the sound. The thunderous pounding was too great, the cadence too quick. It suggested an army of thousands, moving at a speed no mass that size could maintain.
Unless it was being propelled by magic? Talon didn't know if it was possible.
"Wilem," he shouted again as he drew near to the inn. Jeremiah exited the building in front of him. His eye was glowing sharply, and his sword was in his hand.
"It is coming," he said.
"What is?"
"It."
Wilem appeared a moment later, his clothes and hair disheveled from sleep. "What's happening?" he asked.
"It is coming," Jeremiah repeated.
"Do you hear that, Wilem?" Talon asked.
The wizard was still for a moment. "Yes."
"That is the sound of an army crossing the earth, and coming directly towards Valance. Can any magic make people march faster or longer?"
Wilem shook his head. "Not that I know of. The Curse affects the things around us. It doesn't work on us directly. I think only the stones, the resonance can do that."
"I am not fully a man," Talon said. "How can it be moving that fast?"
The door to the inn exploded outward, and Spyne stumbled through. He was leaning on his sword, using it to hold himself up. "It's no army of men, brother." He glared at Wilem before spitting. "You challenged him, and he is responding."
"Juggernauts?" Wilem asked.
"It is coming," Jeremiah said.
"How long do we have?" Wilem said.
"Not long enough," Spyne replied.
"Do we run?"
The General laughed. "Run where, wizard? Unlike horses, they do not tire."
"We have to fight them," Talon said. "There is no other choice. If we can find out what model they are, we can stop them."
"You hope," Spyne said.
"Worried?" Talon asked.
Spyne sneered. "Hardly." He turned back towards the inn, his voice rising loudly enough to shake the timbers. "Time to go to war, you lazy mongrels. Get out of bed and grab your gear. You've got five minutes to muster."
There was no immediate response. A few moments later, a light appeared in a window. Then another. Then another.
"I'll wake the others," Spyne said, storming off to the next inn. He didn't need to. They had all heard him. So had the villagers.
"What's going on?" Mayor Colesum appeared in the center of the town, wearing his nightclothes and carrying an oil lamp.
"Do you have shelter?" Talon asked.
"We have the tunnels."
"Go. Now."
The first soldiers began spilling from the inn. They rushed off to retrieve their mounts, joining the sudden, organized chaos. Talon turned to Wilem. "Is there anything you can do?"
"Juggernauts are immune to magic."
"Directly, yes. They aren't immune to side effects. We need earthworks." He pointed out to the southern wall, which was little more than wooden posts driven into the ground. "There. In front of the posts. We'll try to force them through the gate." Wilem put his hands out, summoning the magic. He whispered something and the ground began to shake.
Spyne returned, the Carriers moving into position behind him. "It will take more than a little dirt to stop them."
"We don't need to stop them, we need to bunch them up and consolidate our forces."
"It won't work, brother."
"Why not?"
"These aren't soldiers. They're juggernauts. All of our horse will be lucky to bring down one of them."
"I know the odds are challenging."
"Challenging? They are impossible."
Talon clenched his jaw, losing patience with Spyne. "What would you have us do?"
"Use the soldiers to draw them away while we ride for the mountains."
"You said we couldn't run," Wilem said.
"No, I said horses will tire. Unlike the Nine or the juggernauts."
"You would leave them to die?"
"You as well, Mediator. Yes. He is the prize, one that we cannot claim if we're dead."
"We aren't leaving," Talon said.
"It is our best-"
"Then go, Spyne. Take Jeremiah and try to kill him on your own."
"It is pleased to follow First of Nine," Jeremiah said, expressing his thoughts on Spyne's plan.
The din of the approaching force was growing louder. It wouldn't be long before they arrived. Spyne glared at Talon, his returning anger obvious. Finally, he relented.
"You want to die, very well. We'll die. I'll tell you I told you so in Heden."
He retreated, finding the soldiers assembling in the square and shouting orders, getting them organized to charge the incoming army after it was funneled toward the gates.
"Keep it up, Wilem," Talon said. "As much as you can."
"Where are you going?"
Talon pointed towards the gates. "To see what we're up against."
He ran to the town's simple wooden gate, a gate that would fall the moment the army of juggernauts arrived. The guard was in the process of abandoning it, rushing off to join the other townsfolk in the subterranean passages common in the Empire. He turned south once he cleared it, sprinting at full speed towards the dark blob of nearby hills. He could feel his pulse quickening, the magic of his ancient heart driving him forward with a speed that defied his years.
The footfalls became more obvious with each second that passed, the solid pounding breaking into individual steps. Talon reached the closest of the hills, cresting it quickly. He came to the top and paused, looking o
ut at the fast approaching force. Three hundred pairs of glowing red eyes, evenly spaced in rows and columns. Two juggernauts were ahead of the pack, carrying something between them.
Talon squinted, trying to discern the shape of their package in the darkness. It was large and mounted on a pair of rods that rested on each of the juggernaut's shoulders, carried easily by the magic strength of the metal men. A litter, he realized a moment later. No doubt to carry the Mediator who was controlling the army.
He turned his head to look back towards Valance. Spyne had moved the soldiers into position with the Carriers assembled behind them. Wilem was feverishly pulling at the earth, shifting it forward in waves that crashed and paused atop one another, creating a layered wall of dirt and stone. Talon looked back at the approaching army.
Two hundred soldiers, nine juggernauts, one wizard, and two of the Nine against hundreds.
The juggernauts were still too far away to determine their type. It didn't matter. They were vastly outnumbered. Spyne had guessed as much, and now he knew it for sure.
He was right. There's nothing to do but run.
Talon took a few steps towards Valance before stopping again. He made his way back to the top of the hill. He knew he should run, but he couldn't. He wouldn't. He drew Kwille's blade and looked at it, the ircidium reflecting the light of the stars. If he could kill the Mediator with the control stone, he could stop the army.
He sheathed the sword once more and began walking down the hill in the direction of the oncoming juggernauts.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Talon
Talon wasn't sure what was going to happen when he reached the approaching army of juggernauts. All he knew was that if he didn't do something drastic, it was all going to end tonight.
No, not all. My part perhaps. Eryn is still out there, somewhere. I hope.
Even if he died, she would still be out there. Surviving. Fighting.
At least until the cure is gone.
He tried not to let the thought eat at him. Once it was gone? She would change into one of them. A Shifter. A powerful one, if he had to guess. Would her life be the death of them all?
He needed to survive, no matter the odds. He was the Champion of Ares'Nor. He had faced ten thousand Shifters and come out victorious. At least there were only three hundred of the juggernauts.
The gap between them closed quickly, as Talon reached the bottom of the hill and started the long, lonely walk across an open field of recently harvested wheat. The juggernaut army came to a stop then, all but the two at the lead carrying the litter. They continued the advance, pausing and lowering their cargo once they were within a few hundred yards.
The door to the litter swung open. Talon's eyes narrowed while he watched first a sharp leather boot, and then a shapely, bare leg extend from it. It was followed by a short, black velvet skirt that rode up too far over the hips as the woman inside climbed out.
The upper half of her clothing was no more modest than the lower, with the neckline of her short dress diving down and revealing shapely mounds of flesh beneath. Her dark hair was choppy and wild, her face sharp, her eyes like a predator. The red eye of the Empire rested between her breasts, and an ircidium choker held a control stone against her neck.
"General Rast," she said, clearing the litter and moving towards him, undulating like a snake. "My name is Sazi. I am the Overlord of Varrow."
His eyes traveled her. Not out of admiration or attraction. He measured her. Examined her. He needed to take the control stone before she could use the juggernauts to defend herself.
"Your father was a good man," Talon said.
Spyne had told him of the power-hungry girl's rise to power, and of how he had lost days to her wanton sexuality. He could sense that part of her somewhere in his mind, but he had no interest in it.
"I forgot that you knew my father," Sazi said. "He told me the story once, of how you hired him to kill a nobleman. He always felt guilty for taking part. I never forgot that story. He was a fool to feel guilty. The strong take from the weak. That is the way of nature. You used to be strong, General Rast. What happened to you?"
"I realized that the strong have a duty to protect the weak, not take advantage of them. I realized that his ways are wrong."
She stopped walking, leaving twenty feet of distance between them. He continued moving towards her, one step at a time, hoping to close the distance.
"I should ask what happened to you?" he said. "Your father had morals. He had a heart. You have, what, exactly? Your sex? Is that all you aspire to be?"
"You have no idea what I aspire to be," she snapped. "This." She ran her hands along her curves. "This is also nature. A weapon that can be brought to bear on the weak minded."
"Like General Spyne?"
She smiled. "I enjoyed my time with him, but yes. His passion is his undoing. He can't control it. So I used that to my advantage. As I said, a weapon."
Talon moved a little closer. Her eyes shifted slightly. She knew what he was doing. He came to a stop.
"Why are you here, Sazi?" he asked. "You're no Mediator. You're only an Overlord because I have killed so many of them."
Her eyes blazed at the comment, and he noticed her fists clench. "I'm here because he sent me here, after he delivered an army of these creatures to my city."
"He came to Varrow?"
"No. Don't be stupid, General. Believe it or not, I went to sleep one night, and the next night they were standing outside the city walls. One of them had this in its hand." She tapped the control stone. "I went up into the tower. I saw the spinning stone. He ordered me to find you, to show you this army and offer you a final chance for redemption."
Talon looked past her to the juggernauts. They resembled the Carriers, with a few minor differences. The metalwork was slightly less refined, the parts a little more blocky than rounded, the fit in the joints not quite as precise. They were the precursor to the four zero. They would have the same activation switch behind their faceplates. The control stone would be the only way to stop them.
"There is no redemption," he said. He stared into her eyes, something working at the corner of his thoughts. He could sense the rhythmic pulsing of his ebocite heart. "There is no surrender. Either he will die, or I will die."
"I told him you would say that," Sazi said. "I understand you, General. Better than you think I do or can. We aren't really that different in the end. We use different weapons, yes, but both of our goals are equally self-serving."
The pulsing of the heart grew stronger, and Talon could feel it mix with the fires of rage. "Self-serving?"
Murderer.
"The promise," she said, her voice deepening and slowing in his mind. "All of this to assuage your guilt. That's what this is really about, isn't it?"
"You know nothing of it," Talon said. He saw Aren's face locked in a chamber of cold air. He saw the blood flowing in clear tubes to open vials.
"I don't need to. I believe in him. What do you believe in, General?"
"I believe that he is wrong."
"And you are right?"
"Yes."
The pounding had grown so strong he could barely hear her reply. Was it anger? Was it guilt? Or was it something else? Truth, perhaps. There was something Sazi was hiding. She had a secret, and he knew what it was.
"As I said, General," Sazi said. She started backing away from him, returning to the litter. "We aren't very different at all."
"There's one thing you are that I'm not," Talon said, his voice low and strained.
Sazi pulled open the door to the litter. "What is that?" she asked.
"A liar."
Talon disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Talon
Thrummm...
Talon felt himself slip away, the world around him coming to an abrupt halt. He could see Sazi standing there, one hand on the litter door, the faintest look of confusion and surprise only beginning to register on her face. He could see the juggernaut
s aligned behind her, still and silent.
He found his target a moment later, standing to his right. A man older than himself, with dark stains along his skin and a single eye, inherited from an accident during the construction of the first prototype reactor in Genesia. He wore simple black leather armor and held a curved sword in one hand. The other hand was near his throat, where a second control stone was resting.
He looked surprised that Talon had moved into the second timeline, the Shifter's timeline. While it was easy to do when Shifters were near, it was an impossible task otherwise.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Talon had sensed something was off about the situation from the moment Sazi had exited the litter. It made no sense for him to give an army over to a girl who had never seen a battle in her life, even if she was the closest Overlord he could call upon. When she had made no move to use the stone, even after he had refused the offer, his suspicions had been confirmed.
Her stone wasn't real. She wasn't controlling the juggernauts.
That meant someone else was.
He had seen no one else, and he was certain Wilem would have felt it if a Mediator were hiding in a distortion field. That had left only one other option. Someone who had done what he had thought was impossible.
And if Nayle could do it, so could he.
"Talon," Nayle said. His voice was raspy and weak, a side effect of his ancient injuries.
"Nayle."
"I was close."
"Not close enough."
"I don't want to kill you, brother."
"You don't have to."
"The promise."
He had heard it so many times. Responded so many times. He knew Nayle was beyond hope.
"A lie."
"A necessity. That is why it was made."
"You were going to assassinate me."
He smiled. "I was going to do what I had to do. You, and then Spyne. He sent me to stop this before it was too late."
"Was she supposed to distract me?" Talon asked, looking at Sazi.
