by J. L. Lyon
Quiet returned, so much more potent than before, punctuated only by the rhythmic sounds of water lapping against the shore. Anticipation hung on the air like a drawn breath, for she knew there was at least one more man out there in the grass. Another crack sounded and she jolted back, tripping over the body of the farmer as she did so. Her sidearm went flying into the river with a splash, and her Gladius remained planted in the bank, for the moment out of reach. She rolled off the body with a groan and held tight to her arm, already dripping red onto the ground. Seems I must bleed everywhere I go, she thought dryly.
Her assailant emerged from the grass before she could attempt to retrieve her Gladius, the long barrel of his sniper rifle pointed leisurely at the ground. He knew she was beaten.
Liz laid her head back on the ground and took in the wide blue sky. She knew, too. But in all the times she had nearly died, this was the first where she could say it might have meant something, that she would die serving something greater than herself. Her mission was an abject failure, but at least she would die because of the choices she had made on her own. She was no one’s puppet. Not Sullivan’s, not the MWR’s, not even Grace’s.
She would die free.
“You killed my horse,” she said absently. Even her words seemed far away.
“I’m going to kill you,” came the reply. “Doesn’t that give you greater concern?”
Not really. With her unwounded arm Liz drew the knife at her belt and let it fly. Had she been at the top of her game or not on her back it might have lodged in the shooter’s neck. But, as it was, she was a little off. It pierced his shoulder instead.
The soldier cried out in pain and anger as he staggered back. He ripped the knife from his shoulder with another angry groan and tossed it aside. Liz just looked up at him and smiled, which only increased his rage. He raised his rifle, and she closed her eyes, preparing for the final plunge. “You’ll pay for that, you little—.”
Little? Little what?
Liz cracked one eye open, and then both shot wide. A blade protruded from the shooter’s chest, long and curved, shimmering with the light of diamond armor: a Spectral Scimitar. She sat up and scooted away until her hand dipped in the cold current of the river.
The owner of the scimitar withdrew the weapon from its victim and let his body fall lifeless to the dirt, giving Liz a clear view of the Persian. He surveyed her critically, and then moved forward. His gold armor clicked as he walked, and the breeze off the water ruffled the plume that protruded from that ridiculous-looking helmet. Well, ridiculous and terrifying.
“You were the one we saw on the road,” he said in a thick accent. “The one with the golden hair. Where is the other? The one who was with you?”
“Uh…” Liz struggled to comprehend the moment. Was this a moment for awe, meeting someone up close who had supposedly been relegated to legend? Or was it one for fear, for the nightmare that those legends had unleashed? “Who?”
“Where is Grace Sawyer?”
With that question reality crashed back down on her. So, Grace had been right all along. The Persians were here for Silent Thunder. And whatever they wanted, Liz doubted Silent Thunder would get away unscathed.
“I’ll never tell you anything. You’ll just have to kill me.”
One corner of the Persian’s mouth turned up in a sly grin. “Maybe. Maybe not. The commander will decide.”
Liz shifted her gaze back to the grass, expecting more Persians to emerge, but the man's eyes were behind her, on the river. She turned to see what held his attention. Were the rest of them on the opposite bank?
A disturbance in the water caught her eye, only a ripple at first but growing in intensity. A shadow moved beneath it, a black mass distorted by the shifting light. She turned around—against her better judgment, with her back to the Persian—just as the surface broke, and a man armored in black exploded out of the river like some mythical creature emerging from the depths. More came behind him, some in black and others in gold, water streaming down their armor and what bare skin she could see. Fifty of them, maybe more.
Whatever happened with Van Dorn now, it might not even matter, for the Persians had arrived to take their revenge.
The boot of the first black-clad warrior hit the bank, and he spoke through a speaker on his helmet, making his voice sound mechanical and inhuman, “Well done, Shahzad. What have we here?”
“Elizabeth Aurora. She was the one we saw with Sawyer, just as you thought.”
The black-clad warrior stared at her in silence for a few moments, contemplating behind the opaque visor that masked his face. “Aurora. Strange to find you here, so far from the Imperial Guard.”
“I don’t serve the Emperor any more.”
“So I gathered,” the warrior closed the distance between them and knelt in front of her. “You were with Grace Sawyer in the Wilderness. Where is she now?”
“Won’t talk,” the man called Shahzad said from behind her. “Says we might as well kill her.”
“You would die rather than give her up?” the warrior tilted his head. “Curious. But perhaps it makes no difference. You were riding north, which means you likely came from Corridor Prime. We will go south, and we will find her there.”
“What do you want with her?”
The warrior snorted, which translated into a burst of static, “While your concern is endearing, your history suggests you are in this for your own personal gain. So I guess the question really is: what do you want with her?”
Liz gazed long and hard at the man, frustrated that she could not see his face or even gauge the inflections in his voice. The helmet just made him sound callous and cruel, and all she got in return for her stare was her own haggard face reflected in his visor. “You don’t have to do this,” she said. “Let me go back to her. Negotiate a truce.”
“A truce,” the man in black repeated. “Between the Swords of Persia and Silent Thunder.”
“She is more than Silent Thunder, now.”
“Explain.”
Liz saw no reason to hide the truth, now that they had rightly guessed where Grace was. Perhaps it would put them in a better mood to negotiate. “She now commands Silent Thunder, and all the System’s armies currently within Corridor Prime. She is the city’s magistrate.”
The effect of this information was palpable on all the Persians close enough to hear it. They were not visibly afraid, not these hardened warriors, but it did make them uncomfortable, and perhaps that was enough. But the black-clad warrior dashed that hope with a long stream of laughter, and his helmet made it hard to tell if he was genuinely amused or simply mocking her.
“It’s true,” Liz said. “We were captured in the Wilderness and brought into the city. Their magistrate had died two weeks before, but the System did not choose—”
“A Code Zero,” the black-clad warrior intoned, seemingly solemn.
A hand seemed to close around Liz’s lungs. A Persian could not possibly know that term. Most Great Army soldiers did not know it. Only officers and the ruling class were schooled in the nuances of Systemics. That meant this man was not a Persian warrior. He was—or had been, at one time—an officer in the service of the World System.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He seemed to realize his misstep, for he immediately disengaged from her and rose back to his feet, “I’m afraid, Miss Aurora, that if it is a truce you seek you will only be wasting our precious time. Let’s move, gentlemen. Magistrate or not, we have a job to do.”
“And what about her?” Shahzad asked.
Liz felt her heart drop as a tense silence stretched between them. Until that moment she had held out hope that she might actually get out of this, but now she knew how naive that had been. The Persians had come for blood, and no amount of words could dissuade them.
She had failed Grace. She had failed the people of Corridor Prime. This whole mission had been a mistake. And now all she could do was wonder which of the scimitars on the belts of the m
en around her would make it her last.
38
GRACE WAITED UNTIL MIDDAY for some message or sign from Liz, but none ever came. The word that reached her instead was from her Great Army officers, who reported that Van Dorn’s army had started to push southward toward Prime. They would reach the city in just under three hours.
She sat upon the chair on the raised dais within the Stone Hall, taking in a scene that she could never have imagined when she had first walked into this room. All of her advisors were arrayed before her, with General Crenshaw to the right of her and Jeremiah Bruce on the left, each a step down on the dais. At the base of the stairs, Davian and her Silent Thunder officers waited beside her two generals, Laban and Bracken, and their Great Army retinue. Beyond them, the rulers of Corridor Prime had packed in to witness the momentous event.
All of their fates would change today.
She allowed a few more moments of silence to pass as she took it all in, for once she uttered her next words there would be no turning back. Sparing one glance for Crenshaw, who returned it with a subtle nod of support, she rose.
“Generals. Move your forces north to engage Van Dorn before he reaches the city. Lieutenant Commander Davian, you will lead Silent Thunder in this battle. But I do not want you at the core, for that is what Van Dorn will anticipate. Instead, take as many Halos as you need to carry two thirds of Silent Thunder to the rear of Van Dorn’s army. We will catch him in a pincer attack.”
“Just two-thirds, Commander?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “The remaining third will serve as a last defense for the city, should our lines break.”
“The men will not like being told to remain behind while others go into battle,” Davian said.
“Ask for volunteers,” Grace said. “The first fifty who do so will remain here with me, though I expect they will get their chance for battle. I will have Halos in the air, watching for weaknesses. We may join if an opportunity becomes apparent.”
“With respect, Magistrate,” Jeremiah Bruce cut in. “Perhaps then it would be wise to also keep a small detachment of the Great Army here as well, in the event that you do venture out to the battle.”
Grace pressed her lips into a thin line, “I wish we could, Vice-regent, but we cannot spare the men. One less detachment could tip the balance in Van Dorn’s favor. General Bracken, what of the Spectorium?”
The gray-haired man spoke in a low rasp, a result of some wound he had suffered years before. “There has been no sign of them for almost a day, Magistrate. But my spies confirm they did arrive in Van Dorn’s camp.”
“Then rest assured, they will be at the battle,” Grace said. “See to your duties, all of you. Defend this city from those who would seek to enslave it.”
Her Silent Thunder officers and her Great Army allies saluted her simultaneously—another strange experience—and then split off to carry out her orders. She turned to the side and whispered to Bruce, “What of the other matter?”
“The Persians?” Bruce shook his head. “We have seen nothing.”
“Good,” Grace said. “Keep an eye out. We must be ready to deal with them as well, once this is over.”
“Are you so certain they are coming here for a fight?” Crenshaw asked. He had come up beside her during the conversation, no doubt still leery of Bruce’s intentions.
Grace looked up at him incredulously, “They killed our people, Crenshaw. They have been tracking you across the Wilderness. What else could they want?”
“We don’t know for sure what happened with Aiken and his team,” Crenshaw replied. “All we have is the word of a wild man you met in the forest.”
“He knew other things he could not possibly have known unless he was well-connected.”
“Intelligence can be wrong,” Crenshaw said. “We at least need facts, not hearsay, before we start a war with a group that hasn’t been heard from in two decades.”
“So we should wait for them to strike the first blow?” Bruce retorted. “If we don’t take them out first, people in this city will die.”
“You don’t know that,” Crenshaw said. “Your decision is being driven by the wrong motives. At best, by fear. At worst, by prejudice.”
Grace crossed her arms, and she knew he could see the look of hurt on her face, “You really think I am capable of that? Starting a war because I don’t like the color of someone’s skin or the region of the world they were born in?”
“We are all capable of that,” Crenshaw replied. “The one thing the both of you have in common in your childhoods is that you were raised to fear Persians, and at some point that fear turns to intolerance and hatred. But two decades can be an eternity in geopolitics. The world has changed. Western civilization has changed. How can we assume that the Persians have stayed the same? I know what the stories make them out to be: nightmares and shadows, barely even human, the monsters who destroyed civilization. But I was over there. I fought them. They are flesh and blood, capable of deciding their own course of action…and perhaps, changing that course.”
Grace softened her expression, “What would you have me do?”
“Find them, and send them an emissary. Ask what their intentions are, or pre-empt them with an offer of peace, rather than greeting them with drawn swords.”
“No Silent Thunder operative will treat with Persians,” Grace argued.
“Nor will any Great Army soldier,” Bruce agreed.
“Then lucky for all of us that I am neither,” Crenshaw said. “I will be your emissary, Grace, once all of this is over. Then perhaps we can avoid one war while we prepare for the next one.”
“We have to win this one first,” Bruce said.
“Indeed, Vice-regent. What exactly is it that the rulers do during a crisis such as this?”
“The same thing we always do, General,” Bruce said with a grin. “Rule. Events such as these create a certain unrest in the people. The rulers will reassure them. Comfort them. And should the lines break, they will protect them. They do not have the Great Army’s training, it is true. But that does not mean they are of no use in battle.”
“Corridor Prime continues to surprise me, Vice-regent,” Crenshaw said. “You are a much better man than any in the ruling class I have met. If the rest of the cities were the same, perhaps we would not need a war.”
“Perhaps. But it seems the System has chosen war for us by bringing you here. Let us hope the outcome is to all of our liking.”
Grace hated this kind of exchange. The smooth talk, the false cordiality. It was all she had been listening to the last two days, as the two sides each accommodated but found ways to express their dislike for one another through veiled insults and threats. And Bruce’s last statement, laced with subtle sarcasm, might as well have been a blatant admission that an outcome to all of their liking was impossible.
“Thank you, Vice-regent,” she said, breaking off the conversation. “But as the army has likely already begun to march, it is probably time to send out the rulers.”
“Of course, Magistrate,” he gave a small bow. “And what, may I ask, do you plan to do with yourself?”
“Crenshaw and I will observe the battle from the balcony,” she replied. “And should the need come for the rest of my warriors to intervene, I will take command and lead them. To victory or death.”
Bruce grimaced and began to descend the dais, “Let us hope it does not come to that.”
- X -
The ground shook with the thunder of thousands of boots, all marching in tandem to the north—and war. As the black-clad warrior watched from his vantage on the roof of a small building a significant distance away, Halos joined the force, flying slow so as not to outpace the infantry.
“Two divisions, you say,” Shahzad repeated thoughtfully. “Marching to uphold the claim of the new magistrate?”
The warrior shifted his gaze away from the army and toward the man he had come to know as a valued friend during their time together. Shahzad had removed his helmet,
as had the rest of his men, making it easier for them to hide in the shadows of the city, revealing long jet-black hair that he had pulled back in preparation for battle.
“So it would seem.” He dipped his head and went on despondently, “This is not at all what I expected to find here.”
“No, I suspect not,” Shahzad replied. “But what does it change? Our desire remains the same. And its object is in the Stone Hall. With eyes on the battle it will be easier for us to get close. And it is a dark day—what is the word…many clouds…”
“Overcast,” the warrior supplied.
“Yes,” Shahzad nodded. “Overcast. A perfect day to move in the shadow. Let them fight their battles. We must fight ours.”
He gazed out over the vast army and sighed, “Indeed we must. Continue south. Pass the word to move quietly, across rooftops where possible. We are a good distance from the army now, but that does not mean they won’t spot us.”
For another hour or more they continued on their path, leaping from rooftop to rooftop in the hope that they would avoid the eyes of Corridor Prime’s citizens. The warrior’s black armor made him a good deal heavier, but it also augmented his strength, which to an experienced user meant increased grace. Likely if anyone was in the building below them, all they heard on impact was a low thump, something that, if not repeated, they might mistake for the normal creaking of the structure.
It took them that full hour to reach the end of the advancing army, a monstrosity of size and power now wielded—supposedly—by Grace Sawyer. He could not imagine what had happened to get her to this position. It seemed impossible—laughable, even. The most wanted rebel in the World System, now magistrate of one of its cities. Napoleon Alexander had to be sweating bullets over that.
