by Chris Fox
“Nara, you began the demonstration without me,” called an amused male voice. It came from out of Aran’s field of view, but the booted footsteps approached until Aran got a glimpse of the speaker. “You know how much I hate missing it. This is my favorite part.”
A tall, slender man walked over to the woman who’d executed the beefy man. He wore jet-black environmental armor, and had a stylized dragon helm clutched under his arm. One of his eyes had been replaced with a glittering ruby, and his bald skull was oiled to a mirrored sheen. His right gauntlet was larger than his left, and studded with glowing rubies and sapphires.
Aran could sense…something coming from the gauntlet. A familiar resonance that danced elusively out of reach.
A cluster of armored figures entered the room behind the one-eyed man. They fanned out, taking up relaxed positions along the far wall. Each guard carried a rifle similar to the pistol the woman had fired. Blue-white sigils lined the barrels, though they appeared inactive at the moment.
“I’m sorry, Master Yorrak,” the woman he’d called Nara finally replied. She gave a deep bow, which she held for several seconds. Finally she straightened. “This prisoner…volunteered. And I know that we are pressed for time. I thought it prudent to educate this batch quickly.”
“Efficient as always. I’ll handle the rest of the orientation.” Yorrak patted her cheek patronizingly, then turned toward the slaves. Nara shot him a hateful glare, but he seemed oblivious. “Good morning, slaves. My name is Yorrak, true mage and pilot of this vessel. I’m going to make this very simple. In a moment we’ll be landing. When we do, your restraints will be removed. There is a rack of rifles near the door. Take one, and step outside. Nara and her squad will lead you beyond that. Obey her orders without question, or meet the same fate as our late friend here.” Yorrak moved to the corpse, prodding it with a finger.
“Are there any questions?” he asked, rounding on them.
“Where are we?” Aran rasped. His throat burned, and he blinked sweat from his eyes.
“The Skull of Xal, one of the more remote, and most powerful, Catalysts in this sector,” Yorrak proclaimed, thrusting his arms dramatically into the air. “You’re about to be granted a wonderful opportunity. If you survive, you will become a tech mage. Those of you who apply yourselves might even rise to the rank of true mage, one day. That will increase your relative value, and I treat my mages very well. Now, I’ll leave you in Nara’s capable hands. I’ll pick up any survivors in the second ocular cavity. You have two hours. Oh and one more thing. If Nara isn’t with you when you exit the Catalyst, I’ll disintegrate the lot of you.”
Yorrak strode past Aran, eyeing the slaves gleefully as he exited. What a sadistic bastard. Aran caught a brief glimpse of the hallway before the door hissed shut behind him, but saw nothing that helped his current situation. The transport, if it was a transport, shuddered violently for several moments, then finally stabilized.
“If you listen to me, you have a very high chance of survival,” Nara said, drawing their collective attention. She stepped into the light, affording his first real look at her. She had liquid brown eyes, and a light dusting of freckles across her entire face. She was pretty enough that Aran understood why she’d been picked to lead them. The whole girl next door thing made them that much more likely to trust her. “In a moment I’m going to release your restraints. You’ll arm yourself from the rack, and then move outside. Some of you might be tempted to attack us. Before you do, consider your options. It’s in both our best interests for you to survive. If you die, Yorrak has less slaves. You don’t want to die, and we don’t want you dead.”
Her argument made sense, though Aran detested the idea of working with his captors. He didn’t know anything about them, or about himself really. Was he a hardened criminal? Or just some idiot in the wrong place, at the wrong time? It was just…gone. All of it. Only his name remained, and even that might not be real.
The restraints whirred, and the harness released him. The manacles were still around his wrists, but the chain linking them together had disappeared. Aran rose to his feet and the other prisoners did the same, each looking warily at the others. It seemed an effective tactic on the part of their captors. Since none of them knew each other, they weren’t likely to cooperate. That made mutiny a much lower risk.
Aran moved to the rack along the side of the wall, picking up the first rifle. It had a heavy stock, and a long, ugly barrel. The metal was scored and scratched, though the action worked smoothly. He scanned the base of the rack, bending to scoop up two more magazines. He had no idea what he’d need the weapon for, but more rounds was rarely a bad thing.
Other slaves moved to take weapons, the closest a tall man with a thick, black beard. He eyed Aran warily, moving to the wall two meters away.
Nara walked to the rear of the room and slapped a large red button. A klaxon sounded, and a ramp slowly lowered. A chill wind howled up the ramp, dropping the temperature instantly.
“Outside, all of you. Now!” Nara’s words stirred the slaves into action, and they began filing down the ramp. Aran moved in the middle of the pack, and found himself next to the bearded man.
“Watch my back?” he asked, eyeing the bearded man sidelong. His arms were corded with muscle, and his eyes glittered with intelligence.
“Do the same for me?” the man answered, eyeing Aran in a similar way.
“Done.” Aran pivoted slightly as he walked down the ramp, angling his firing arc to slightly overlap with the bearded man. The man echoed the motion. “What name did they give you?”
“Kaz. How about you?”
“Aran.” The ramp deposited them onto a bleached white hill. A hellish purple glow came from somewhere beyond the ridge ahead of them, as bright as any sun. Aran’s teeth began to chatter, and his breath misted heavily in the air.
“The cold isn’t life threatening, if you keep moving,” Nara called. Her guards fanned out around her, covering the slaves with their strange rifles. Something about the weapons tickled at the back of his mind, but the haze muddied the sense of familiarity. “Form two groups, one on either side of the ramp.”
The guards broke into groups, pushing slaves into two lines. Aran moved quickly to the one on the right, and the bearded man followed.
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Kaz asked. Aran followed his gaze, taking in their surroundings.
A high ridge prevented him from seeing beyond the closest hills. The rock reminded him uncomfortably of bone, its porous surface just the right shade of pale white.
The purplish glow flared suddenly and Aran raised a hand to shield his eyes. Harsh, guttural voices boomed in the distance, and he heard the rhythmic pounding of metal on stone.
“Those,” Nara began with a yell, “are tech demons. This is their territory, and they will defend it with their lives. Your job is to kill them, without dying yourself. Follow my orders, and we’ll all get out of this safely.”
A brutish creature leapt into view at the top of the ridge. Twin horns spiraled out from a thick forehead and it clenched and unclenched wickedly curved claws. It stared down at them with flaming eyes, the same hue as the glow behind it. The creature wore dark armor, not unlike the armor Nara and her guards had.
“Fire!” Nara roared.
2
Used
Aran reacted to Nara’s command, snapping the rifle to his shoulder and sighting down the barrel. He’d guess the demon to be about seventy-five meters away, but it was hard to judge distance without knowing how large the thing was.
The rifle kicked into his shoulder, firing a three round burst that echoed off the rocks around them. The rounds peppered the demon’s left side but only pinged off armor. Kaz snapped up his rifle as well, but the shots went wide. Other slaves fired, the chattering of weapons fire lighting up the area around them as they added to the thick stench of gunpowder.
All their collective fury accomplished nothing. The rounds, even those that hit the demon dire
ctly, simply ricocheted off. The demon’s face split into a wide grin, revealing a sea of narrow fangs. It leapt from its perch, bat-like wings flaring behind it as it sailed in their direction.
Only then did Aran realize the creature carried a rifle too. The weapon was heavier than their own rifles, and the fat barrel was ringed with red sigils, like the rifles their captors used.
“That thing is packing a spellcannon. Tech mages, end him!” Nara barked, stabbing a finger at the descending demon.
Too late. The creature raised the cannon, and the sigils along the barrel flared to brilliant life. The cannon kicked back, and fired a blob of darkness. The blob expanded outwards, bursting into thousands of fragments. The fragments rained down on the other group of slaves, and their armor began to smoke and hiss.
They frantically tore at the armor, but within moments the hungry magic had eaten through…first metal and then flesh. One by one they slumped to the bleached stone, groaning out their last.
The guards around Nara, the ones she’d called tech mages, opened up with their spellrifles. Blue and white sigils flared, and bolts of superheated flame peppered the demon. The bolts superheated the armor wherever they hit, painting it an angry red. The fire bolts met with more success against the demon itself, and it shrieked as a large chunk of its neck burned away.
“This way,” Aran roared, sprinting low to the left, into the demon’s blind spot. He dropped to one knee behind a fold of rock and sighted down the barrel at the demon. He kept his finger off the trigger, though.
Kaz slid down next to him. “You have a plan?”
“Yeah, let those bastards deal with it. They’re using us as fodder. There’s no way we can hurt that thing with the crap rifles they gave us.” Aran plastered himself against the rock, its craggy surface bitterly cold even through his armor.
Nara strode from her ranks raising two fingers. She began sketching in the air, and wherever her finger passed a residue of multicolored light was left behind. The light formed sigils, which swam in and out of Aran’s vision. The more he focused on any particular one, the more blurry it became.
The sigils began to swirl in interlocking patterns of pale grey, and a dark, ocean blue. They were drawn together with a sudden thunderclap, then exploded outward in a wide fan. Fist sized balls of swirling energy shot toward several of the surviving slaves, each ball slamming into their backs. The energy passed through the armor, disappearing.
Each person hit by a ball began to grow, their armor growing with them. Over the next few heartbeats they doubled in size, and now stood shoulder to shoulder with the demon.
It did not seem impressed.
The demon leapt forward and wrapped its tail around one of the giant slaves. It tugged her from her feet, dragging her across the rough stone. The demon yanked the slave into the air, just in time to use her as a shield against another volley of fire bolts from Nara’s tech mages. They slammed into the poor woman, who screeched in shock and pain, until the final fire bolt ended her cries.
“Those things they’re firing, spells I guess,” Aran yelled over his shoulder to Kaz, “They’re the only thing that’s hurt that demon so far.” He cradled his rifle, trying to decide what to do.
“Then unless you’ve got a way to cast a spell we have to sit this out and hope,” Kaz called back. “We can’t do anything to that thing.”
One of the tech mages slung his rifle over his shoulder and drew a slender sword. He sprinted wide around the demon, clearly hunting for an opening. White flame boiled up out of his palm and quickly coated the entire blade.
The tech mage darted forward and lunged upward at the much larger demon. The blade slid between two armored plates, biting deep into the small of the demon’s back. The flames swept up the blade and into the wound, which drew a roar from the demon.
The creature rounded on the tech mage and backhanded him with an enormous fist. The blow knocked the tech mage into the air, and his blade spun away across the stone. Before the tech mage could recover, the demon fired his spellcannon and a bolt of blackness took the mage in the chest. There was no scream. No final death throws. The body fell limply to the ground and did not rise.
“I’m going to try for the blade,” Aran called to Kaz. The bearded man shot him an incredulous look. “Hey, after it kills them, it’s going to kill us.”
Aran sprinted fast and low across the stone, the sudden movement removing the edge of the numbing chill. He bent low and scooped up the sword the tech mage had dropped and then dove behind another outcrop.
The hilt was warm to the touch and fit his hand perfectly. The blade shone an unremarkable silver, and the weapon was heavier than he was used to. Used to? He couldn’t summon a specific memory, but felt certain he’d held a weapon like this, and recently.
The weapon called to something inside Aran, the same thing that had resonated with Yorrak’s gauntlet back on the ship. Magic, he realized. He didn’t understand how, but there was a power inside him, calling out to be channeled through the spellblade. That’s what the weapon was.
“Are you mad?” Kaz roared, skidding into cover next to him.
“Maybe.” Aran poked his head out of cover and assessed the situation. The remaining tech mages had scattered, and were harrying the demon from different angles. One narrowly dodged another black bolt, but was too slow to dodge the next. His right leg ceased to exist, all the way up to the thigh.
The surviving slaves had all sought cover, except for the giant ones who had nowhere to hide. Only three remained, and they made a concentrated push at the demon. It spun at the last second, balling its clawed hand into a fist and slamming it into the closest slave. That slave’s jaw exploded, and he toppled to the stone with a muffled cry.
The next slave got his arms around the demon, briefly pinning it. The last giant slave jammed his rifle into the demon’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The demon twitched violently, its head jerking back and forth as the slave emptied the magazine.
Aran lurched into a run, his gaze fixed on the demon. The energy in his chest surged outward, down his arm and into his hand. Electricity poured into the weapon, snapping and crackling around the blade as he made his approach.
The demon broke free from the slave’s grasp and plunged two claws through the man’s eye socket. It hurled the dying slave into its companion, knocking the last giant slave to the stone.
Aran circled behind the rampaging demon, keeping within its blind spot. He waited for it to pass his position, then sprinted the last few meters, ramming his sword into the wound the tech mage had already created. The armor was scored and blackened, offering little protection. The spellblade easily pierced the demon’s flesh and plunged deep into the wound.
Electricity discharged, and the demon went rigid for several seconds. A trio of fire bolts shot into the demon’s head, the scent of burned flesh billowing outward as life left the demon’s smoldering gaze. Finally, the body toppled.
“Well done,” Nara called as she rose from cover. She gestured at her three surviving tech mages. “Get the surviving slaves moving. That thing was a scout, and its death will alert the others. We need to reach the Catalyst before they mobilize.”
3
Allies
“You there. Aran. Come here.” Nara’s voice held a definite edge of command, and Aran knew there was no way out of answering.
He trotted over, the spellblade still clutched in his left hand. He raised the other in a tight salute. Now where the depths had that come from? He had no memory of saluting anyone, much less this woman.
“You did excellent work with that spellblade. Clearly you are already a tech mage. Can you handle a spellrifle?” She studied him with those intense brown eyes, and he very much believed that his fate depended on the answer.
He briefly considered lying and accepting a rifle, but figured that having her find out he’d lied would be even worse than admitting the truth. “I don’t know, sir. The thing I did with the spellblade was…well instinctual, I
guess.”
“I want you to take charge of the rest of the slaves,” she commanded, pointing at the rest of the slaves with her spellpistol. “Move ahead of us, up that ridge. If we get attacked, get your people into cover. Try to distract them while my people deal with them.”
“Sir, we just lost two tech mages and a half dozen slaves to a single one of those things,” Aran pointed out. “If we get attacked by a group—.”
“Don’t mistake your position here, slave.” Nara’s eyes went cold. “Is this going to be dangerous? Absolutely. But keep your wits about you, and some of these people at least, will survive. How many really depends on how smart you are about deploying them. You want to save some lives? Step up.”
Aran stifled the urge to take a swing at her with the spellblade. He was fast, but there was no way he could close the gap before she got a spell off. Besides, she was right. He could hate her as much as he liked, but if he wanted to live, if he wanted any of these people to live, then they needed to get through here as quickly as possible.
“Yes, sir.” Aran turned on his heel and trotted back over to the other slaves. “Kaz, you’re on point. Double time it up that ridge and let us know what you see at the top.”
The bearded man nodded, then sprinted up the ridge. The other slaves followed and Aran brought up the rear. He glanced over his shoulder, unsurprised to see Nara and her surviving tech mages hanging a good fifty meters back. No sense being too close to the cannon fodder.
He trotted up the ridge-line, surprised by how easy it was. This place had lighter gravity than he was used to, a small blessing at least. Aran paused at the top of the ridge, looking back at the ship they’d emerged from. He was far enough away now to get a good look at her.
The starship was about a hundred meters long, a boomerang shaped cruiser. Blue spell sigils lined the hull, but many were cracked, and more than a few had sputtered out entirely. The ship itself seemed to be in good repair, though off color metal patches dotted different parts of the hull.
