Shadow Heart

by J. L. Lyon

  “How many, Robert?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “Forty-three operatives,” the lieutenant commander replied. “And at least forty more who were not wearing uniforms that we could find.” Robert paused and looked away. “Some were children.”

  Aiken felt a spike of hatred and had trouble keeping the rage at bay. So much death over so many years. Sometimes he thought about the world he was born into and wondered how it and the one he lived in now were the same planet. How long could it go on?

  “The Spectorium, I presume.”

  Robert shook his head, “We haven’t found any wounds consistent with the Spectral Gladius. Looks like this might have been a Great Army raid, likely from Montreal. We’re only a few miles south of the wall.”

  Aiken nodded, realizing the implications. Few Silent Thunder bands wanted to be anywhere near Alexandria after the evacuation, and for these to be so close to the capital—about halfway between the borders of the two cities, actually—meant they had likely been killed not long after leaving Alexandria. Dead near a year, then, left to rot in the open.

  But the saddest part was that this was not the first such scene Aiken had come across. Silent Thunder bands had been dropping like flies all over the Wilderness. Few, if any, remained of the group that assaulted the Communications Tower outside his own team and the main force with Sawyer. They had left Alexandria to save themselves, but it appeared they had only delayed the inevitable.

  “We should bury them,” Aiken said.

  Robert winced, “I agree it would be kinder not to leave them…but we must get back to Commander Sawyer and the 2nd. They must know what we have seen.”

  Aiken’s expression grew even harder, though this time it was not because of anger or pain, but fear and uncertainty. Crenshaw had sent him north to the ruins of New York City, with only a map and little explanation of what he sent them to find. All he knew was that once they got there, only an empty hole remained where Crenshaw had said the item would be. Until that moment he had doubted there would be anything there at all, but whatever Crenshaw’s game, someone else was also playing.

  But that was not the event to which his lieutenant commander referred. He thought back to their journey out of the decrepit streets filled with ruined skyscrapers, when the ground beneath them began to shake.

  Aiken ordered his men to return to the ruin and take cover in the shadow of those broken husks, for decades of war and still more in the Wilderness left little doubt as to the source of the quake. He and Robert picked their way through the nearest old skyscraper, careful not to fall through its rotted floors, to get a better vantage. About halfway up he made his way to the windows, glass long shattered, and nearly cursed.

  The Great Army had taken the field. And not just an execution squad or a token force. This was an entire division. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers, swarming across the landscape like ants, bringing the horizon itself alive with their movement. Sometimes it was easy to forget the kind of power Napoleon Alexander could wield. In Alexandria the army had been spread out to maintain order, but here—seeing them all together in formation like this—it was humbling. Terrifying.

  It made him wonder what they were even doing. Even with the Spectral Gladius, they were rodents beneath the paws of lions.

  “Where do you think they’re headed?” Robert had asked.

  “North,” he had answered. If they had departed even a few moments later they might not have realized the army was present until it was too late to take cover. Fortuitous, then, the extra time they had taken to make absolutely certain Crenshaw’s artifact was missing.

  “I thought the Imperial Guard was holed up in the south. Seems like they’re headed in the wrong direction.”

  “Sullivan has ships,” Aiken said. “Perhaps he opened a second front.”

  “Maybe,” Robert conceded. “Whatever the case, it isn’t good news for us. We’re low on supplies, and we’ll have to wait for the army to pass before we—” Robert cut off suddenly, eyes on the army in the distance. “Commander. Something is happening.”

  Aiken squinted into the gloom and lamented that his eyesight wasn’t quite what it used to be. A shockwave began on the horizon at the northernmost edge of the troops and reverberated throughout the army like a stone dropped in water. The soldiers had halted their march.

  “A Great Army force that size never sets up camp in the Wilderness,” Robert said. “What are they doing?”

  “They’re staying in formation,” Aiken replied. “Almost like—”

  Orange light suddenly erupted from the front line of the army, throwing a shower of metal toward some unknown foe. Aiken squinted harder. For the life of him, he could see no opposing force. The Great Army seemed to be firing at nothing. So what then? A training exercise? For a group this large?

  Robert must have been following the same train of thought, but his eyes were a bit better, “Jesus…what the hell is that?”

  Aiken marked the strange movements of the Great Army line. The direction of the gunfire seemed to slowly shift, turning inward upon the army as though the two halves had suddenly decided to fight one another. But as the anomaly spread toward them he finally saw its source: a single thread of white, pushing its way swiftly through the Great Army’s ranks with little resistance. The gunfire did not appear to be slowing them down in the least. Every now and then he thought he caught a glimpse of a man’s silhouette through the white, but couldn’t be sure.

  At this distance, it could very well be the angel of death, stretching out his hand to smite the cruel thugs who propped up Alexander’s regime.

  But as the white line surged toward them, heedless of the constant gunfire, those ghostly silhouettes consolidated into the forms of men. Men, and blades. Aiken took a step forward, nearly forgetting there was no glass in the window to lean upon, his mouth hanging open in disbelief. Not just because the men in that line seemed invincible before the might of the Great Army; not just because they swung blades glittering with the light of diamond armor. But because not all of those blades were of the traditional straight design. Some were wide and flat, curved into the cruel shape of a scimitar.

  “Persians,” Robert spoke the word like a curse, and Aiken felt his own hatred flare. This was a different hatred than the one he felt for the World System, for the Persians were not standing in the way of constructing a new world. They had destroyed the old one. Just seeing them again, those weapons he had not beheld or thought about almost since the Sundering, he could not help but lament the loss of that world all over again. And he could not quell the rage of his youth that returned in full force.

  It would be a cold day in Hell before he fought alongside a Great Army soldier. But seeing Persians on his land again did make the prospect somewhat tempting.

  “What is that they’re wearing?” Robert asked. “Some kind of shielded armor?”

  Aiken focused harder on the small force as it cut its way through the larger one, and saw that their armor shimmered white just like their blades. Somehow it had been reinforced with diamond armor.

  “Looks like they finally got Spectral technology,” Aiken said dryly. Looks like they advanced it beyond what was supposed to be possible. “We must get back to the 2nd as soon as possible. If Persians have landed, their intentions can’t be good.”

  “That can’t be more than fifty men,” Robert said. “A scouting force? Perhaps to herald a larger one?”

  “Possible,” Aiken said. “But not likely. Alexander bombed Persia into oblivion when he took power. I’m surprised there are even fifty of them left.” But it is a bold move. What do they hope to accomplish here? They were cutting through the Great Army, presumably to then move on further inland. They were after something; that was certain.

  “Tell the men to head south,” Aiken said. “Once the Persians are through they will continue west right across our path, and the Great Army will pursue. Leave a scout behind to track the movements of the Persian force. After we are
out of the city and they have put some distance between them and the Great Army we will swing back northwest and come up behind them. With any luck we might catch them by surprise.”

  Robert grinned, “It’s been a while since we had to fear a Persian scimitar, sir.”

  “Yes. Let’s just hope it’s like old times. That armor could turn the tables against us.”

  Aiken snapped back to the present, where the skeletons of his former comrades lay before him and Robert awaited his decision. The lieutenant commander was right, of course. They had no time to slow down. So far the Persians had maintained an almost inhuman pace, and they had been following for days. The men were tired…too tired to dig graves, even for friends.

  He nodded, “Tell the men to gather what they can find, and then we press on.”

  They continued to track their quarry for the remainder of the day, until the sun sank low in the sky and their advance scout returned with word, “They’ve made camp, Commander. I don’t think they will go any farther tonight.”

  Aiken said a silent prayer of thanks and then relieved the scout to go get some rest. Another would take his place for a few hours, though scouting a fortified camp would prove a different challenge than trailing a moving column. The Persians would be more wary, and might even send out scouts of their own.

  The small Silent Thunder band made camp as well, concealed on the side of a grassy hill. Aiken permitted only one fire, and gave that only begrudgingly. The last thing they needed was to alert the Persians they were being followed. His men might not survive without warmth in the winter night, but with any luck the Persians would judge one fire the work of a small nomadic group.

  Aiken himself stayed away from the heat. It was his decision that made two-thirds cold while the others kept warm, and so he didn’t feel right about being in the rotation. He should feel the weight of the decision worst of all. He got his wish. The cold froze his old bones, until all he could feel was the dull ache of a day spent running across the terrain. His lips and skin were already chapped by the wind, but with time to rest and think, his mind turned often to the sting.

  Eventually he grew tired of standing, then of sitting, and lay down on the incline tucked within a roll of blankets. There were no tents, as that would slow them down should the Persians suddenly take flight, but the blankets shielded him from the wind at least.

  As he began to doze off his mind turned to the same place it always did before sleep, of the world that had existed here before Silent Thunder’s deployment. He had been a young man then, just twenty-five when they left, but already he’d had much to fight for.

  A vision of curly hair, smooth and sandy blonde, passed across the back of his eyelids. Jennifer. The love of his life. Smart, intelligent, and more beautiful than anything he had seen before or since…somehow he had convinced her to marry him at nineteen. They had been children, then, full of hopes and dreams and the kind of love that everyone searches for but few ever find. She had followed him from their small town when he joined the army, and supported him on all the deployments and through all the hardships. She had shown him a love that he had never before dreamed of or imagined.

  When he accepted placement in Silent Thunder she had followed him again to Washington, this time with two boys and a little girl in tow, all with sandy blonde hair like hers. They were his pride and joy. The reason he fought. The only thing in his world that truly mattered.

  They had been in Washington when the Persian General Hassan had sacked the city, and he had been a world away. He had never seen proof of their death but knew in his heart they were gone. The manner by which they met their end had been the subject of countless nightmares.

  But he pushed all of that away, latching on to the happiness and the joy. So much of them had faded from his memory. He thought he remembered Jennifer’s face…the sound of his children’s voices when they called for him…but they were distant memories, so he could no longer be absolutely sure.

  Strangely, he did remember the smell of his wife’s body lotion so vividly that he could almost smell it while he lay there. He froze his thoughts in that moment and drifted off, hoping to find them in his dreams.

  It was some time later when he woke again. The sky was the same color, but it was backward: dawn instead of dusk. He registered that fact before he saw the dark form of his lieutenant commander hunched over him, shaking him awake.

  “Commander,” came Robert’s hushed whisper. “Commander, wake up!”

  Aiken sat up straight, expecting to hear the sounds of his men rolling up their blankets and getting ready to continue the march. But instead he heard only hushed silence. He looked behind him and saw at least ten men standing rigid, all facing the top of the hill. He followed their gaze, and cursed.

  There, like a shadow left from the darkest night, was the silhouette of an armored Persian, looking down upon their camp like a predator about to spring. By instinct Aiken reached for his Gladius, but Robert stopped him, “Sir, wait. Look.”

  As Robert was speaking another Persian came into view on top of the hill, this one dressed in some sort of golden armor. Some wore gold and others black…was that a sign of rank? But then he saw that the second Persian dragged forward another man: the scout he had sent out the night before. Aiken’s gut twisted with regret for the boy.

  “Tell the men to pass the word,” Aiken whispered. “As soon as they come down the hill, attack.”

  “Commander,” Robert replied. “They have made no move of aggression thus far. Perhaps—”

  “They are Persians, Robert,” Aiken spat. “Them being here is aggression enough.”

  A few more moments passed with no more movement. The two figures, black and gold, merely waited with the Silent Thunder scout beside them. As the sun rose and cast the hill in morning light, Aiken saw that the boy appeared unharmed. Scared, yes, but who wouldn’t be? He had no doubt grown up with stories of the Persians and thought them equivalent to monsters.

  “I think they’re waiting for us,” Robert said at long last. “Should we…send someone?”

  Aiken pressed his lips into a thin line. He had never quite decided what to do about the invaders even while tracking them across the Wilderness. Initially his caution was due to their advanced armor and weaponry. But then, over time, as the rage began to fade, rationality returned. The Persians were once his enemy, but now the true enemy was the World System. After what Alexander had done to the remnants of the Persian Empire, he couldn’t imagine they harbored warm feelings for him or his government. But the thought of being on their side brought up a taste of bile in his throat. They had invaded his country, slaughtered his family and destroyed everything he held dear.

  No, he reasoned. That was the legacy of other men, men who later died on the edge of Silent Thunder swords. Just because they are Persian does not mean I can judge them based solely on that. Every man makes his own choices.

  But that did not mean he had to like it.

  “I’ll go,” Aiken replied. “Stay behind and be wary. For all we know the full force of them are waiting just beyond that hill.”

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” Robert said.

  “I will not risk the life of more than one man if I don’t need to,” Aiken said. “And if one must be risked, I’d prefer it be mine. Pull the men back in formation. Pack up and be ready to flee should this conversation go ill.”

  “Understood, Commander.”

  Aiken handed Robert his blanket and then started up the hill, running a hand over his hair—what was left of it—to press down the parts that had gone astray in the night. The two Persians continued to watch him, stoic as statues, and he felt exposed and inferior beneath their gaze. Both were warriors and well trained, he could tell simply from the way they stood. From his brief time in the east he knew that the reconstituted Empire under Ahmed al-Zarif had been a military autocracy, where the bravest and most skilled warriors were rewarded with command regardless of age. That had changed after Zarif’s fall, but Aike
n would not have been surprised if the tradition returned. The confidence exuded by both men suggested they were of a particularly high rank.

  He swept them both with his gaze as he passed the halfway mark. Now they would be able to strike at him before his men could stop it. However, as he drew closer he could discern no weapons. The loop on the golden-armored man’s belt where his scimitar should be was empty, and there was no weapon on the dark figure either.

  Strange, he thought, how different the two men are.

  The man in gold still had skin showing in places, as his armor was of the more traditional variety: breastplate, grieves, and leg guards with only a thin cloth-like material underneath. He wore nothing upon his head but long, black hair, and he was ethnically Persian. Young, too. His eyes held great distrust as he watched Aiken approach.

  But the other was covered in black armor from head to toe, complete with a helmet that hid even his face from view. Aiken sensed the gaze from behind that visor, but could tell nothing else about the man. He finally reached the crest of the hill—neither man having moved an inch—and stopped. There was only one brief, awkward hesitation, and then:

  “Assalamu alaykum,” the golden warrior said with a slight nod of the head.

  Aiken started at the greeting, wondering for a moment if he would be expected to converse in Arabic. He had been fluent years ago, but had not used it in so long that he no longer trusted himself. Still, he knew he could relax. The greeting was one of respect, and—barring some cultural shift—meant that the Persians meant him no harm.

  Aiken cleared his throat, “w…wa alaykum assalam.” He turned to the other man, expecting the same greeting. None came. The dark warrior remained stoic and silent, an ill foreboding of the Persians’ intentions.

  “You have followed us for many days,” the golden warrior spoke in perfect English, seasoned with a slight accent common to those whose first language had been Arabic. “Yet when we stopped to make camp in an exposed position you did not attack. Why?”