by CM Raymond
“But one night, he did. Well, he didn’t tell us much at all really. But after hours of drinking, we all started to talk about the machine. Started laughing his ass off. ‘Machine,’ he said. ‘Makes it sound so nice. All kinds of machines in the world. Mostly good ones.’ We kept pushing him trying to get him to talk. Eventually, stopped using the word machine or even weapon. Instead, he started talking about the ship, and all the damn damage it could do. Whatever it is, “Jack continued, “this thing is no joke. If it is a weapon, I certainly wouldn’t want it aimed at me.”
Parker kept his eyes focused on the wires in front of him. He knew Jack was speaking the truth. Whatever he was being forced to make, it was a weapon for Adrien to use.
He prayed the chancellor wouldn’t use it against Hannah.
****
“Don’t move,” Ezekiel whispered as his eyes flashed red. Then his body laid in the grass motionless. Hannah had been around long enough to know that the man was practicing mental magic. She could only assume that he was down there scouting the area with his mind, much like Hadley had on her first morning in the Heights.
Ezekiel’s eyes glowed brighter red, and then returned to normal. “It’s as I feared. The remnant.”
“Shit!” She put her head to the ground, then beat it twice before lifting it back up, exasperated. “Are you going to tell me that those goblins are real, too?” Hannah asked.
Her mother used to tell her stories about the remnant. Warned her that if she didn’t behave, the remnant would sneak into their room and eat her and her brother. Even as a kid, Hannah thought the idea of these distorted half men was silly.
“How about from now on, girl, you take everything that you thought couldn’t exist and assume that it might,” Ezekiel barked softly. “But we have no time to talk about goblins, or dragons, or even lycanthropes. There’s a group of rearick down there getting their asses handed to them as we speak. I think we should go even the battle. What do you think?”
At the mention of rearick, Hannah immediately thought of Karl and jumped to her feet. She pulled his gift, the silver knife, out of her belt—ready to put it to good use.
“Let’s do it,” she agreed as the older man surged to his feet.
Ezekiel ran double pace down that path towards the melee, and Hannah followed after. He was damned fast for an old guy.
“You flank them on the right; I’ll take them on the left. Just be careful out there, and I’ll see you in the middle,” Ezekiel spoke into the wind.
“Got it. I’ll get to the middle and then keep working in your direction,” she said with a grin, but her throat still tightened, and her stomach turned over in the face of what could have been considered her first true battle.
As they neared the fight, the dire odds for the rearick became clearer. Half a dozen men and women from the heights were surrounded by a group of the remnant easily twice that size. Most of the rearick were miners and traders, not warriors. But they swung hammers and axes as if they’d done it all their life.
The remnant, on the other hand, were a teeming mess. Their sallow skin darkened by dirt and blood was poorly covered by ragtag bits of armor and clothing—clearly stolen from Arcadians, or rearick, or other civilized people. One male remnant was completely naked. He spun and slashed with two jagged knives, completely oblivious to the cuts and wounds he was taking in return.
What the remnant lost in order, they more than made up for in ferocity. If Hannah had run across them a few months earlier, she would have been scared shitless.
But Hannah had developed enough ferocity of her own to welcome the fight.
The first remnant she came across never saw her coming—he was focused on a rearick woman who kept him at bay with a long spear.
Hannah decided to save her magic and instead lowered her shoulder. She rammed hard into the remnants back, pushing him forward into the rearick’s spear. Thick, black blood splashed out of the gaping hole the spear left in his chest, but the creature kept gnashing his jagged teeth until he bled out all over the spear.
Hannah’s move worked, but it drew the attention of a female remnant. She was huge and dual-wielded two chipped and dented hand axes. But Hannah wasn’t fooled by their poor maintenance—they still looked like they could do some nasty damage.
The remnant let out a roar, her eyes glowing bright red in the early morning light as she came at Hannah.
Hannah let out a battle cry of her own, and she threw her arms down across her chest. Two fireballs burst to life in Hannah’s palms. Hannah dove into a roll and came up with the fireballs in front of her. The remnant opened her arms wide for a vicious double arc, but it left her core exposed.
Hannah slammed her magic fire into the remnant’s chest. Her screams mingled with the smell of burnt flesh until the screaming turned into a death rattle. The monster dropped into a smoking hulk onto the ground.
The fire magic sapped some of Hannah’s energy, but her heart was pumping faster than ever, and the adrenaline carried her deeper into the fray.
Hannah never noticed the remnant coming at her from behind, nor did the remnant notice the huge green lizard with wings when it jumped on it’s ass, hissing in fury, ripping out the remnant’s throat.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Karl’s hammer took the head of a remnant male clean off, and he followed through with a spinning attack that left one of the creatures writhing on the ground with a shattered leg.
The rearick warrior had been fighting the remnant for most of his life. He had lost all pity for them years ago.
But hatred toward the raiders wasn’t the same thing as confidence in his own men. They knew how to hold their own in a conflict, but they weren’t fighters by trade. Garrett was the only hired guard on this shipment, and he wasn’t much more than a boy. Karl had tried to keep an eye on the young rearick, but the chaos of the fight was too much.
Karl silently cursed himself as he rained down blows. The raid had come out of nowhere, but he should have seen it coming. The last couple shipments had gone off without a hitch, which maybe made him overconfident.
But as the sickly creatures came screaming over the hill, Karl immediately knew they weren’t going to make it out of this one without taking some losses—if they made it out at all.
The rearick saw fire flashing off to his right, but before he could get a good look at it, a large beast of a devil jumped in front of him. The remnant was completely covered in armor, not one piece of it matched.
Karl parried a blow from the savage’s long sword and slammed his hammer into the remnant’s breastplate. The force of Karl’s strike caved in the armor, and his opponent toppled over backward.
But before Karl could finish off the kill, he was struck motionless by what he saw.
There in front of him was an ancient looking lowlander, with a torn robe and flowing white hair. But despite his age, the old-timer twirled around like a young man, smashing a wooden staff into the remnant like he was threshing wheat.
Karl, the old campaigner who never lost focus in battle, stood awestruck by the bizarre sight. And it was just enough of a distraction for the bleeding remnant at his feet to grab him by the leg and push him over.
The creature was on top of him in an instant, terrible breath and bloody spit falling on Karl’s face. The remnant held a crooked knife, and Karl caught it just before it plunged into his eye. Karl was by no means a weak man, but the remnant had size on him and leaned all of his weight into the attack. Karl knew that if he didn’t think of something quickly, the remnant’s wicked blade would plunge into his skull.
But the remnant was impatient for the kill. He smashed his forehead into Karl’s nose, dazing the rearick. Then the monster leaned up, raising his dagger high to finish Karl off. But before he could deliver the final blow, a silver dagger drove into the remnant’s neck. The creature’s red eyes faded into nothing as he fell to the side, choking on his own blood.
There, standing before Karl, was a beautiful young lowlan
der, holding a bloody silver blade. She smiled down at him, and it took the old rearick a moment to recognize who she was.
“Hannah? What the hell are you doing here?”
She cocked her head to the side. “Saving your ass, you ungrateful geezer.” She looked left and right quickly before looking back down. “Turns out this knife you gave me works after all. Stab them in the throat... Isn’t that what you told me?”
He looked over at the dead remnant that almost ended him and back toward the girl. “Aye, and I’m awfully glad I did.”
****
Hannah dropped to the ground, surrounded by the blood, guts, and pieces of bodies. It was mostly the remnant, but the marauders had taken their toll before her and Zeke had arrived. There were certainly more than a few dead rearick on the ground. Others, maybe half a dozen, walked around as if in a daze. She spotted one man a head shorter than her trying to pull a blade out of his leg. Karl and Garrett, the younger Rearick who was along for the trip in order to gain some experience, were standing nearby.
“Not bad for a baby,” Karl said to the young rearick. “But don’t forget to keep yer guard up. That one goblin, the one tougher than yer mother, he almost took an ear off.”
Garrett had a gash across his face that nearly perfectly followed the line of his beard. It dripped blood, but the young rearick didn’t seem to notice. He was dancing side to side, glad to be alive and still buzzing from his first real fight. “Thanks. Killing these buggers is harder than I thought, really.”
Karl gave him a slap on the side of the arm, and in his grizzled voice, he said, “Well, it was one of the easiest fights I’ve seen. If that’s your idea of hard, you might be screwed after all.”
The younger Rearick wandered off, and Karl took a seat in the grass next to his lowlander friend. “You’ve come a long way since running from that boar in the woods, haven’t you, Lassie?”
Hannah was too tired to come up with a smart ass response. She just nodded. “Yeah, I’ve learned a thing or two. Mostly thanks to him.” She nodded in the direction of her mentor.
They both watched as Ezekiel wandered through the casualties. As the man found rearick moving on the ground, he knelt by their side, laid hands on their chests, and with glowing red eyes, he pushed life into them. Hannah knew exactly what this meant. Healing magic wasn’t easy, and combined with the power she saw him use during the fight, she knew that this was only slowing down their plans to save Arcadia even more.
Even though the city was near and dear to the old magician’s heart, there was something more important. That something was each and every particular life he met along the way. While some people lost their compassion in their ideals, Ezekiel’s ideals only fueled his compassion. It just wasn’t in him to let someone die when he could save them.
Ezekiel finally wandered up to Hannah and Karl and she introduced the two men. It was pretty cool watching the two who had saved her life shaking hands after a hard fought battle.
Ezekiel stretched his back, his eyes continuing to survey the violence that lay on the ground around them. “I don’t have much patience for these remnant. I can’t imagine many do. A man who does evil, whether due to lust or hatred—them, I can still pity. For we all, often enough, do that which we do not want to do. And sometimes we do not do that which we want to. But in these goblin men, there is no rational desire outside of their hunger.”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “What are they?”
“Now? They’re monsters. But they haven’t always been this way. The remnant are descendants of men and women from the Age of Madness. While myself and another had found a way to cure the disease and stop it from spreading, there were a group that was too far gone to be cured. While the Mad were nothing but hunger, the healing helped them to regain some form of consciousness, but not completely. Mixed with the animal instinct to survive, many of them learned to scratch out a living off of consuming the world around them. Decades later, we have these—” he pointed to the carcasses across the field “—the remnant. They aren’t quite the mindless hordes of the age of madness—the creatures of the night that you and your friends call zombies. But what intelligence they do have is geared toward their more animal nature. Their only desire is to eat, mate, and destroy.”
“What do they eat?” Hannah asked.
“Mostly human flesh,” Karl said, jumping in. “The damn goblins are worthless in our world. Less than worthless. They don’t build, or bake, or create anything of value. All that they have and all that they want is stolen from their victims. The remnant live on the spoils of their wretched raiding. And they only live to screw and to screw others over.”
As Hannah listened to Karl talk, it was clear that he had experienced more than his fair share of the remnant.
He began to tell them about the mission, and how it had gone smoothly ever since they had left the Heights. Escorting a group of their own, other rearick, was usually the easiest task a guard like him had. He talked about how the mystics, with their minds in the sky, were probably the hardest to watch out for. It was like babysitting a herd of toddlers who drink too much ale.
When the remnant raiding party had come out over the rise, they were ready for them. But nevertheless, they were outnumbered. The remnant never minded a fight. They had no care for their companions on the left or on the right. All that they focused on was the kill—and the prospect of coming away with a full bag of coin. Some trinkets from fallen soldiers was worth the risk of their brother’s death.
The rearick looked around at his fallen comrades. “But maybe we’re not much different. After all, these men died much for the same reason.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, Karl. What are you hauling?” Hannah asked.
“The usual,” Karl replied. “Some gold, few precious gems, and a shit ton of amphoralds. For the past year, that’s all Arcadia really wants. It’s like they forgot about all the other beautiful things we can pull out of mother Irth.”
It’s what they use to power the magitech, Ezekiel’s voice suddenly said inside her head.
Hannah suddenly pictured the Hunter who killed her brother. He wielded a magitech staff.
Does he not know what Adrien uses them for? Hannah asked back.
I’m not sure, but it’s not our job to inform the rearick of the injustices that he is fueling by the sweat of his brow. At least, not yet. We must keep things running the way that they are. Any disruptions and Adrien will be sure to see them and suspect us. For now, keep it to yourself.
“Darkness is coming,” Karl said, breaking through their thoughts. “You are welcome to camp here with us. There may be more remnant hiding in these hills, and there is safety in numbers. Then, in the morning, I will bury my dead.”
The rearick picked up his hammer and walked off through the fallen. Hannah wondered how many more dead she would see before this was all over.
****
Parker looked up from his task of twisting wires to the balcony walkway overhead. The bridge above him was the perfect place for the factory’s overseers to observe their progress. He saw Doyle, the Chancellor’s assistant, looking down upon the men. Most within the city walls thought the bookish Doyle simply helped with the day-to-day functioning of the Academy. He was a sort of an academic administrator.
Parker thought so, too, before he was enslaved in this place.
Doyle had been there every day since Parker started working in the factory. The man had to be somehow involved in overseeing the project of the machine, more so than crunching numbers and counting tuition dollars. Which wasn’t a surprise. This machine had Adrien written all over it—why wouldn’t his people be involved?
What did surprise Parker was who currently joined Doyle in his perch. Parker had to do a double-take when he recognized the Governor of Arcadia staring down at them as well.
It was a shock just to see the man.
