Hero of Arcadia

by Annathesa Nikola Darksbane

  A mid-sized golem lunged from an alcove and slammed them against the wall. Unfazed and snarling, Rote gripped the war machine's wrists and pried its arms away to the tune of simultaneously squealing metal.

  Too late, Jone noticed the heavy explosive strapped to each hand.

  The double detonation resonated through them, distorting Rote’s body—even before a shard of shrapnel shot through her and nicked her pulsating core as it passed.

  Her friend’s cry of pain washed away Jone’s senses, leaving her blind as the wave of shock followed. As the spike of agony cleared, the Arcadian found them on the floor, smoke boiling off them, a golem’s foot poised to come crushing down.

  Without thinking, Jone pushed reflexively at her companion’s body. Rote reached out, hooked the metal boot as it fell, and yanked it out from under the war machine, toppling it to the corridor floor. She was on top of it an instant later, claws tunneling through tritanium until it stopped moving.

  “That...was a pretty smart ambush.”

  “I’ll save my accolades for something that doesn't hurt like the Abyss,” Rote rested for a moment on top of the golem before floating back upright. “My question is: why didn’t you see it coming and warn me?”

  Jone paused. She’d been a little distracted examining the ship and trying to piece together its layout, but that shouldn’t have been enough on its own to leave them so vulnerable. Cautiously, she tried to extend her senses further, pushing them free of Rote’s body, and paused.

  “There’s...some kind of interference. Energy, running through the walls. Making it hard to see and hear ahead.”

  “Great.” Along the top of the walls, red lights flashed on and off, over and over. A low, constant siren wailed in the distance, and behind them, the thunder of many heavy feet echoed along the halls. “Do we...keep moving forward?”

  “Yes.” Now it was her turn to hesitate. “But...are you okay? Will you be okay?”

  “Yes?” The spirit floated onward, darting from door to door and corner to corner, still quick but much more cautious now. “It’s been a long, long time since I was injured in my own body, you know? Most of a spirit’s wounds are temporary. Especially one of my caliber.” Jone felt her grin and made the mental approximation of rolling her eyes. “These, though…” she gingerly tapped a horn, and there was no indication needed to draw attention to the ache deep in her breast. “These are a little more serious.”

  That, and she’s getting tired, Jone realized. I think freeing all the other spirits and fixing the sylph from earlier wore her out more than she wants to let on. In truth, trying to keep her senses pushed so far from their anchor was exhausting as well, especially with the added interference. What would even happen if she stretched herself too thin trying to help? Jone wasn’t certain she wanted to know, or that the answer even mattered right now. Rote trusted me enough to follow me into this place, even though she’s still scared. I won’t let her down.

  A door slid open in their face, revealing a larger room with probably a hundred motionless golems inside.

  For a moment, they both froze, until their combined senses registered the lack of power running through the slumped suits. Many of the war machines stood open, pilots’ compartments empty. Others were missing pieces or sections of armor and hooks dangled replacement parts from motionless tracks set into the ceiling above.

  “This...is kinda creepy,” the spirit whispered, drifting carefully forward. “Even to me. Like walking through Elizabeth’s Deadly Dollhouse.”

  “It’s obviously some sort of repair or staging area,” Jone thought back. “But look at how advanced all the tech is. I haven’t seen anything similar since I woke back up. Not has anyone, even Bellamy, mentioned the like. What has Elizabeth been holding back? What if the Queen’s Revenge was just the tip of the spear?”

  “Well, this is more tritanium than I’ve ever seen in one place.” Rote swept between aisles of inert war machines, coming to a stop before a single intact one. “And we once liberated a tritanium mine. It’s a pretty heavy investment, since the metal’s so limited and so hard to work.” Charcoal fists tightened, etching lines in the golem’s faceplate. “My people’s continued slavery must be worth an awful lot to the Elizabethian Empire, I suppose.”

  The shallow nick on Rote’s core ached as she vibrated with animosity. Claws dug deeper and deeper, sawing gashes into the golem’s impassive face.

  A ruby visor flicked on without warning, glaring a baleful red. Jone and Rote squeaked in unison, and a pair of heavy hands clamped tight around their sides and pinned the spirit’s arms like a vice. All across the room, the scattered creak of metal on metal and the thump of footsteps echoed as giant siege engines came abruptly to life and lurched into motion.

  Jone felt the ache in their chest spike as the pressure increased. Shoulder plates parted before their eyes as an autocannon emerged, quad barrels already a blur of motion. Desperately, she nudged the spirit to act, and Rote raised her forearms and pushed against the golem’s elbow joints, forcing its arms apart before sinking her claws in and twisting them savagely.

  The spinning autocannon roared as it belched lead, and Jone recoiled as it tore through Rote’s impish charcoal face. The spirit pushed through the pain, twisted, and slung the goliath across the room, flattening countless inactive shells and incomplete golems along the way.

  And leaving a clear path that led directly to them.

  “Jone? Jone!” The rumble of approaching footsteps and steam engines was like an approaching storm front. “What do we do?”

  The Arcadian shook off the sense of visceral horror as her body reconstructed itself, and she cast out her senses for answers, even as Rote dodged among the maze of still motionless golems, seeking safety. She couldn’t push her senses past this one room, or even cover the entirety of it due to fatigue and the persistent interference…

  ...But maybe she didn’t have to.

  “There! Up!”

  The frightened spirit obeyed without hesitation. She reverted to insubstantial smoke as several of the goliaths below opened fire, darting to the ceiling and through a series of thin slits in a strange metal tube that ran the length of the room.

  Instantly, a strong current drew them in, sucking them directly toward a set of rapidly spinning blades. Rote congealed an instant before they would have passed through the hazard, loudly tearing the metal apart with her claws.

  Steam-powered gunfire shredded the tube around them, high-velocity lead rupturing their shared body as the assault tore it apart. Rote winced as Jone cried out, becoming smoke again in an instant and zipping away.

  She didn’t stop until they were hopefully far gone. A swift current of fresh air tugged at them as Rote re-formed and the pain finally ebbed.

  The spirit lay there and didn’t move.

  “Rote? Rote? I’m so sorry...Are you okay?”

  In response, she merely vibrated: hesitantly but rapidly in an irregular pattern.

  Comprehension only took Jone a moment. “You’re scared. Are you badly hurt? This is some sort of concealed air supply channel. We can probably rest here—”

  “Can we leave?” The spirit whispered the words aloud. “Let’s just...get out of here. Please.”

  “We...we can’t. You know that. Too many people are depending on us. We have to push forward.”

  Rote rolled over in the tight space and stared at the smoke trailing from her hand. “I can’t. I...I don’t want to die, Jone.” Her arm hit the metal with a tired thump. “I came too close once before. Watched it happen to you. Lived trapped with it for far too long.”

  Jone’s reassurances died before she could project them. She tried to emanate comfort instead, but it came out too laced with sorrow.

  “It was never me, you know? It’s always been you. You stepped up. You survived, when I thought we would die.” She snorted. “Well, every time but that one. You were always the brave one, the one that carried us when I would have turned back.” Rote’s onyx eye
s gazed upward into the curve of unpolished metal, and a foggy charcoal face with short pitch-black hair like wisps of night gazed back.

  Those eyes resonated with fear, and the memory of fear. The spirit’s deepest, darkest recollections pulled at them both, her heart projecting terror and trepidation.

  And for once, Jone’s decision was hard to come by.

  “In that case...let me guide us again.”

  Rote didn’t respond; she didn’t even move.

  “I won’t let them kill you. Or us. Not again.” She thought of her mistakes, let them strengthen her resolve like forging steel. “I’m done with failure, Rote. After we met in the black mirror, I made a decision to trust you. A decision I reaffirmed here, tonight. I made that choice. Now I need you to trust me in return.”

  The spirit took a deep breath. “I’m in control. I could just leave.”

  “But what would escaping solve? This pursuit would never end. We’d end up fighting this same fight some other place, some other time, I think.”

  “I can’t keep fighting like this, Jone. I’m obviously really awesome, but even I’ve got limits.” Her voice caught for a moment. “Even my predecessors couldn’t defeat an invasion force like this one. And I’m...just me. Alone.”

  “But you’re not.” In response, she radiated warmth, the best way she knew how. “And you don’t have to.” Comfort, softness...even love. “We’re in this together, remember?”

  After a long moment, Rote rolled over with a heavy sigh. “I guess so.” She nudged gently, fondly at Jone’s place in their mind. “But you’d better be right about this.”

  “Trust me. Let me carry this burden. I will protect you, no matter what.”

  - - -

  They burst from the overhead vent in gout of smoke, a flurry of ash and darkness that poured from the ceiling in a torrent.

  They fell into the center of a room packed with guards, both humans uniformed in red and gold, and humans clad in the massive shells of goliath-sized war-golems.

  Metal clanked against metal and steel whispered from leather sheaths as all eyes turned toward them.

  One woman, distinguished and resplendent in her flawless captain’s uniform, held up a hand as the smoke roiled and withdrew, exposing fair, sun-tanned skin hardened by lines of muscle and scars.

  Jone gasped for air. Thick, shadowy smoke flowed down her throat, worked its way under her nails, and soaked through her skin like the caress of warm, sharp silk. Waves of discomfort came and went as Rote reluctantly yielded, dissipating as Jone manifested once more, the Arcadian promptly stumbling at the sudden control of her own body.

  For a moment, no one moved. The Elizabethian commander’s jaw hung open, slack with shock and utter disbelief.

  Then Jone rose, took a single step forward, and extended her wrists.

  “I am Jone of Arcadia. I think your Queen has been looking for me.” She took a deep, resolute breath as Rote settled into the back of her mind once more. “So I’ve come here to surrender.”

  4

  Enlisted

  Jone awoke to the whisper of cloth and steel across the thick onyx bars of her jail cell.

  Slowly, the world came back into focus, starting with the feel of her bare flesh on the cold, cracked stone floor.

  She only had a moment to wonder, weakly, where her normal jailers had gone before a familiar figure appeared in their place, towering over her like a specter from her distant, half-forgotten past.

  “Probably here to gloat,” the Voice in her head whispered, sounding just as exhausted as Jone felt.

  Blue-gray eyes like stormy clouds peered down at her: watching, weighing, judging.

  Jone growled at the tall shadow looming just outside her metal and stone cage; she moved stiffly, trying to push herself to her feet. She felt the shifting of fresh scars across her body, and the burn of the unhealed lacerations engraved into her flesh, but she refused to grovel.

  Instead, she snarled defiantly and rose to a crouch, rubbing a crust of dried blood from her lips. If she’d had more energy, she would have prepared for yet another escape attempt, despite her and Rote’s string of painful failures.

  But Elizabeth’s Inquisitors had beaten that energy from them both what felt like an eternity ago.

  Too exhausted to even be surprised, Jone could still feel it in her bones when the arcane current running through the gemstone bars suddenly shut off.

  “Ahem,” the figure cleared his throat. “If you want to be free,” the voice commented calmly in a familiar, urbane drawl, “you should probably get moving.”

  The click of a lever and a soft hiss of steam heralded the center bars sliding smoothly into the floor.

  Jone slammed into Sir Francis Drake, driving her bare shoulder into the pirate-hunter’s stomach and throwing them both across the hallway, powered by what felt like the last energy left in her strong legs. The back of The Drake’s breastplate clanged dully off the stone and she tried to follow up, to capitalize on her strike, but her weakness and lack of focus made her clumsy and slow.

  “Hff,” the old soldier grunted, easily wrapping one hand around Jone’s throat, lifting her clear off the ground as she kicked and struggled. A glitter of gold caught her eye; from The Drake’s other hand dangled a golden chain, a heavy amulet bearing a stylized eye, a shining golden iris on copper, bronze, and ebony.

  She whipped out a leg, trying to hook her amulet’s chain with her foot and retrieve it, but only managed to stuff her big toe in one of The Drake’s stormy eyes instead.

  With a flicker of irritation, the tall Admiral tossed her across the hallway. Jone’s head struck stone and her vision blurred; Rote grumbled weakly in pain.

  “I swear, woman,” The Drake hissed. “If you don’t quiet down and come to your senses,” the amulet glimmered in his fist, stubbornly drawing Jone’s attention, “neither of us will leave here alive.”

  “Jone… Wait. Something’s...not right…”

  Gone were Sir Francis Drake’s resplendent jewels, his wide, fancy collar, his rich crimson silks. In their place he wore a simple soldier’s breastplate of steel alloy, with worn iron-heeled boots and thick leather gloves, his tall, thin figure swaddled and masked by loose black cloth. The dragon’s gilded head did not shine from his hip; in the place of his distinctive dueling blade was a simple, broadblade rapier.

  Jone glanced to her side, finally registering the two other bodies slumped against the sturdy cobblestone right beside her and the rapier’s smiles carved into their still-bleeding throats.

  The otherwordly amulet glittered, catching and reflecting the dim light as it landed in Jone’s lap.

  “Besides, is that any way to treat your rescuer, Jonelise?” Drake tugged at the black cloth masking his face, revealing his sleek gray and black hair, cultured features and tanned skin, leaving no further doubts as to his identity. “Not that you’d get very far without that, methinks. Not from what Her Majesty’s experiments show.”

  Without hesitation, Jone slipped the ancient, ornate talisman around her neck. It settled onto her bare chest like a piece of her own flesh, like the restoration of a lost limb. Immediately, a great, oppressive weight lifted from her shoulders; the Arcadian could move again, breathe again without it feeling like she had to lift a mountain first.

  She was still exhausted, beaten, and battered.

  But not broken. Not yet.

  She was Jonelise of Arcadia, Knight Incarnate of the Order of the Iron Shield, and it would take much more yet to shatter her resolve.

  “I’m...still here too…” In the back of her head, the spirit flickered like a fitful flame. “Don’t count Rotesy out yet.”

  “What do you want, Drake?” Jone met his stormy blue-gray eyes without flinching, feeling the slow burn of rage and the desire for revenge building in her hungry, hollow gut. “What sort of trick is this?”

  The Drake raised an eyebrow, as if amused, or perhaps incredulous. “A trick, my dear Jonelise?” He sighed. “I suppose your
hesitance is understandable, considering our history. And your unfortunate tendency to fall for said tricks. But those corpses and your freedom should speak rather strongly of how serious this is.” He glanced warily both ways down the long hallway, a stretch of solemn dark gray stone broken by the occasional set of tritanium bars. “Simply understand that, for the moment, I have freed you for my own purposes, and that we should really be leaving. Now.”

  “You know...that sounds really, really good right about now.” Rote vibrated hesitantly in her head. “I’m tired of being tortured, Jone.”

  Jone shook her head stubbornly, feeling more of her strength slowly returning. “I’m not going anywhere without my friends.”

  The man shook his head. “Then you’ll linger in these halls a long time, Jonelise. They’re not here.” He sighed heavily. “Do you still not know? We didn’t capture them when we burned Arcadia.”

  When we burned Arcadia. The words hit her like a blacksmith’s hammer, and she reeled, her senses washed away by blinding white. In her mind’s eye, she saw her homeland afire once more, broken buildings and broken bodies covering the shattered cobblestone streets. She saw the endless procession of the Royal Armada darkening the bright sky overhead, heard the endless drone of incoming cannonballs and mortar fire. She felt the ring of her greatsword as it bit into steel, the chipped blade twisting in her sweat-and-blood slick grip, Jone screaming her defiance as tears blazed down her face.

  She remembered fighting to the last, in the dim hope that she could buy her friends and countrymen enough time to escape Arcadia’s inevitable destruction.

  But those memories couldn’t have come from Drake’s second conquering of her homeland.

  Because for the second time in her life, she’d failed everyone who’d depended on her.

  “Arcadia’s ramshackle defenses may have repelled the First Fleet, and the Second, but the Third broke your lines, and the Fourth mopped up.” The Drake’s stormy eyes glinted in the dim light, unreadable. “It was an impressive effort. You should have been there to see it.” Jone gritted her teeth in anger, but the older man just tilted his head, thoughtful. “Of course, now the fleets are all spread out, putting down rampant insurrection across three of the four continents. But, that's neither here nor there.”