Metal Mage 8

by Eric Vall

  While I used my magic to draw the wiring from the chunk of copper and wind it directly into a spool, I heard the next session with the mages in the field begin. Defender Huslan was interacting more with the Terra Mages already, and I couldn’t help wondering what had changed his tune about the whole arrangement.

  He didn’t sound too enthusiastic by any means, and I could picture the tired look on his face just from hearing his drawling tone.

  Still, I was grateful he’d taken an interest at all, because a guy like him could have easily turned right back around and sat his ass down on his farm for the rest of his life.

  His question about me working to defend the Oculus suggested he didn’t see much merit in the operation, and part of me was dying to hear the story behind that. I had a hard time believing he’d always felt this way considering he’d served as a Defender for thirty-five years.

  With a decent amount of copper wiring already spooled, I turned my attention to crafting the arms of the snatcher next, and even though I based the design a lot on Big Guy’s makeup, I expanded the final product to match the greater size of this one. I also used a series of steel plates to construct the limbs since solid steel would be incredibly heavy and add to the noise the automaton made as it traveled around.

  While I worked on assembling the two identical limbs and adjusted the steel plates to keep the design as sleek as I had in mind, I kept my ears trained to the village to practice a bit with my runes. Talking with the women the night before had given me an extra push to keep at it, and the fact that I somehow didn’t have a headache was just the extra incentive I needed.

  The first and easiest task was locating each of my women, and it sounded like Shoshanne was helping Defender Kin, while Aurora continued working with Kurna. Deya was right at Cayla’s side which worried me for a moment, but when I caught their conversation, I burst out laughing.

  Apparently, Defender Barnik had hit on Deya too, and finding out she was on a first name basis with me as well had sent ale spewing from his nose all down his beard.

  Beyond the noise of the mages in the pubs and those practicing in the fields, I picked up the distant rumble of the train coming down the tracks, and I grinned as it pulled into the station near the mines. It was a sound no one in this realm had ever heard up until a month ago, but to me, it brought back a hundred memories of my last life. I couldn’t imagine having to get around Chicago with the runes I wore now.

  The runes were slowly becoming less apparent to me, though, and as I moved on to sketching the elbow joints of the automaton, I realized I hadn’t noticed their muttering at all today.

  I paused in my work to concentrate for a moment, and I could still make out the distinct difference in the elements of the three runes, but just as easily, I could turn my focus outward and let them fade to little more than a hum in my mind.

  I grinned to myself as this realization eased my concerns about the runes by several degrees, but there was still a lingering fear that made my chest feel tight when I remembered the biggest task ahead of me. I’d managed to calm my women’s worries about the healing rune, and half that battle was insisting I could find a solution.

  In actuality, I had no fucking idea how I was going to train with this rune and not harm anyone. I’d never had an issue with being too deadly for my own good, and the notion began to make my heart pound heavy in my ears all over again.

  Then another sound caught my attention.

  It was the heavy shuffling of what sounded like large boots heading this way and the whir of tracks that wasn’t coming from the ones beside me on the shop floor.

  I shot to my feet and left the atrium in only three long strides, and just as the heavy boots scuffed across the dirt outside the house, I pulled the wooden doors open to find a big green face grinning at me.

  “Thought I’d make enough noise so you’d notice,” Haragh chuckled. “Just in case you and those women were up to anything.”

  Behind the half-ogre, I could see Big Guy rolling his way over, and on his shoulder, Stan stood waving wildly with one arm and pointing to his big brother with the other.

  Chapter 15

  Hugging a giant metal man wasn’t something I thought I’d be doing in this realm, but I couldn’t help it. The minute I saw Big Guy and Stan, it was like my own sons coming home from a long trip, except they looked nothing like me or any of my women.

  Stan leapt onto my head and buried his little metal face in my hair, and Big Guy … well he couldn’t necessarily hug me back, but I sensed he was just as happy as I was.

  “You look fantastic!” I laughed as I took a turn around the machine to be sure he wasn’t too dinged up or rusted anywhere. He looked as good as ever without a single plate out of place, but I did notice a new mark had been hammered into his metal, and for a moment I feared the worst.

  Until I realized it wasn’t a rune at all, but a symbol I recognized from Orebane, and I sent Big Guy a pointed look.

  “So, you joined the dwarven ranks, huh?” I asked the metal man.

  Big Guy raised his arm like he wanted to show off his new mark, and I chuckled as I raised my own as well to show him my runes.

  “Thrungrig’s mark does look cool, but I think I’ve got you beat, Big Guy,” I told him. “Three to one. If you want some fancy upgrades, though, I don’t mind. I was actually just working on a project I think you’re gonna like.”

  Haragh and Big Guy followed me into the atrium, and the moment they saw the partial construction I had going on, both halted on the spot. If Big Guy had a face, he’d probably have furrowed his brows, but Haragh looked confused enough for the both of them.

  “What the hell?” he growled. “You sent me all the way up to Orebane and then you just built a replacement anyway?”

  Big Guy’s channeling gem flared, and I knew the half-ogre’s words hurt his feelings.

  “Not a replacement!” I quickly corrected. “Never a replacement, come on, Big Guy … you know I could never replace you. This is another brother for you guys! I thought you’d be excited! Here, look at the drawing, it’ll all make sense.”

  I grabbed the parchment from the worktable and brought it over, and as I held it up to Big Guy, I realized I was showing a faceless man a picture which was kind of strange.

  “Hmm … ” I mused, “maybe I should get you a head first. You seem to do alright without one, but I feel like it would really top you off.”

  Haragh snorted. “That’s the idea of a head, yeah?”

  I chuckled and nodded my agreement, but since Big Guy didn’t seem amused, I decided to fill them all in on my plans to ease the tension. He did travel all this way just to find another automaton in the middle of my shop.

  Haragh’s eyes gradually got wider as I broke down the design for him and the plans we’d been making, and when I finished, Stan suddenly dropped from my head onto the parchment.

  The little metal man pointed to the sketch of the snatcher and gave me one decisive nod that couldn’t possibly be misinterpreted.

  “That’s such a relief,” I sighed,” I was hoping you guys would like this one.”

  Big Guy remained frozen in place, though, and I furrowed my brow.

  “Not good?” I asked uneasily.

  Stan tugged my arm to let me know he wanted a lift, and once he was in my palm, he pointed the way to Big Guy’s shoulder. From his perch on his big brother, Stan gave the metal machine a reassuring pat before he pointed to what I had finished of the snatcher so far.

  Then he lifted his arms and did a pose that reminded me a lot of a bodybuilder.

  “What?” I asked. “Too big?”

  Stan nodded and pointed to Big Guy.

  “Hey now,” I tried, “he has to be bigger because he’s gonna be carrying so much weight. You’ll still be the Big Guy, though.”

  Stan shook his head and struck another pose, and I couldn’t help but grin at his little arms.

  “Alright, I get it,” I chuckled as I turned to Big Guy. “How about
this? First off, we’ll give you a head because I think you’d really enjoy having a face, and then I’ll bulk you out a bit. Is that cool? Give you some bigger arms maybe … ”

  Stan pointed to the sky, and Haragh let out a sigh.

  “Ah, give him more than that,” he suggested. “Make him fuckin’ huge. He’s a good guy, and he’s been workin’ his ass off up at those mines.”

  With Stan nodding excitedly, and Big Guy’s channeling gem burning brighter just at the thought, I couldn’t possibly object to the new plan.

  “If you wanna be bigger than your brother, I’ll build you up,” I told the metal machine, “but I’m gonna do it now so I can get back to the snatcher and not worry about another thing.”

  Big Guy promptly rolled his way over, and he unceremoniously bumped my other project so it was shoved far under the worktable.

  I sighed as I pulled some more steel from the shelf. “When he’s awake, I expect both of you to make an effort to welcome him into the family.”

  Haragh pulled a stool up from the floor of the shop while I tried to decide where to begin with Big Guy, and as I carefully started adding bits of steel here and there to expand his treads and bulk out his base frame, I explained to the half-ogre about the training sessions and the Defenders who had joined us.

  “You got Barnik out here?” the half-ogre chuckled. “He’s a hell of a mage, and a decent drinker, too.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” I replied, and Stan pointed to Big Guy’s forearms next.

  “Never heard of the other two, but if Kurna brought ‘em by, it’s probably a good deal,” Haragh admitted.

  “That reminds me, do you recognize any of these names?” I asked, and I pulled the two lists of suspected leaders from my pocket. “Kurna recognized a few of them, but not the others.”

  Haragh studied the list for a moment, and while I formed a step stool so I could reach the top of the growing automaton, the half-ogre’s expression darkened.

  “I know a few of ‘em,” Haragh said after a moment. “Don’t wanna worry ye’, but this is a fuckin’ scary bunch of mages on here. Where’d you get these names?”

  “When we went to the Oculus, Aurora and Shoshanne spoke with some of the mages there to help me figure out who’s helping the Master lead the ones he’s branded already,” I explained. “Aloshi and I’m guessing Dahko were the ones who were orchestrating the mass branding in the marketplace that I mentioned, but besides them and Ravvo, Kurna couldn’t tell me much.”

  “Well, Dahko’s a wild card,” Haragh assured me, “but he’s nothing compared to Lokar. He’s a Terra Mage, too. I saw him training with Abrus once, and the man managed to form a damn volcano right behind the Oculus. Abrus refused to train him after that, and he left the Order the next day. Haven’t seen him since, but if he’s on this list, I’d guess he’s been back recently.”

  I paused in my work and stared. “A volcano?”

  “Aye.” Haragh nodded. “Pretty clever, but I can’t imagine how he did it. Where the hell do ye’ get lava?”

  “Under the crust,” I replied blankly. “He really pulled it up from that deep down?”

  “What crust?”

  “The makeup of a planet has a crust layer,” I explained, “which is what we work with. The dirt, the rocks, all that. But underneath there could be anything, and if Lokar pulled up lava, he either altered the state of the substrate to create it, or this planet has magma beneath its crust.”

  Haragh nodded, but I could tell he was lost. “How you know shit like this?”

  “Traveling,” I mumbled as I turned back to my work. “Godsdamnit, though. If Lokar’s that strong, he could do anything to this kingdom. He could bring the whole Oculus down with a wave of his hand.”

  “Don’t even speak it,” the half-ogre warned.

  “If that’s what we’re up against, I’d rather know than not know,” I replied. “We have to be prepared to counter this guy. Can you make a volcano?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you know what you’ve gotta work on,” I said with a smirk. “In the meantime, what do you think of this? Big enough?”

  Big Guy towered two feet above my head when I climbed back to the ground, and after I’d bulked him out with some filler steel and a few extra plates here and there, he looked sturdy enough to smash right through the side of a mountain if I told him to.

  Stan dropped flat on his ass to express how shocking the upgrade was, but Haragh stood with a giant grin on his face.

  “There ye’ are,” he mused. “That’s a damn killing machine right there. The two of you could probably go head to head with the way you’ve been fightin’. Except he don’t have a head yet.”

  “Oh yeah,” I chuckled. “Hang on.”

  I formed a rounded head with a similar structure to the battle helms I’d seen the dwarves use in Orebane, and I decided to keep the face simple. Two eyes with nothing else would be all he needed, but I did alter the steel between his shoulders to create a pivot joint so he could turn his head from side to side.

  Then I mounted the head on Big Guy and fused the metal in place, and the second everything was finalized, I almost stumbled off my stool as the eyes suddenly lit up.

  The strange blue glow of Big Guy’s channeling gem stared ominously back at me, and I got chills as I imagined coming up against him in the woods at night.

  “Damn,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, that’ll do,” Haragh agreed.

  Big Guy turned his head ever so slightly to look at the half-ogre, and I had to laugh as the giant man actually stepped back a pace with fear glinting in his eyes.

  “I’m the same old Haragh,” the half-ogre told Big Guy nervously. “Don’t uh … don’t be gettin’ scary or nothing now that you look it, alright? We’re friends if ye’ don’t recall.”

  Big Guy slowly rolled over to Haragh, and as the half-ogre shrank against the wall, a massive metal arm raised up to gently pat him on the shoulder.

  “See?” I chuckled. “Same old Big Guy, too. We’ll get used to the upgrades.”

  Haragh grinned and nodded to the machine with relief.

  “Well, I wouldn’t suggest going head to head with him now, just ‘cause ye’ might have a heart attack, but otherwise--”

  “Wait,” I cut in. “What’d you say before?”

  “Many things,” Haragh said with confusion.

  “No, you said he’s a killing machine,” I recalled as my heart began to pound with excitement. “That’s it. Haragh, you just saved my ass.”

  The half-ogre shrugged. “You’re welcome?”

  “Holy shit!” I laughed, and the amount of relief I felt couldn’t be expressed any better than that. “This is perfect! Big Guy, you’re gonna help me fix all of this and no one has to die, come on.”

  I beelined for the doors of the atrium, and I was already outside when I realized Big Guy was too big to leave the house on his own now. Haragh and Stan followed me, though, and while they stared in confusion, I quickly sparked my magic to lift the giant metal machine up out of the atrium and set him down in the clearing between the trees and the house. Then I unsealed the trunk of the Mustang and grabbed two swords to sheath on my belt before I eagerly turned to face the menacing eyes of the killing machine.

  “Big Guy,” I said as I readied my stance, “I need you to try to kill me.”

  “Hold up!” Haragh immediately protested. “I wasn’t challenging ye’ to it or nothing--”

  “No, this is good!” I assured him. “Step back, though, so you don’t get hurt. I need someone to try and kill me who I can’t accidentally kill. If I injure Big Guy, I can just rebuild him, and he’s more deadly than anything in this village. This is perfect. Big Guy, go on.”

  Haragh was about to protest again when Big Guy’s massive blade suddenly shot from his arm, and he raised it at the ready.

  “Alright,” I said as I took a steadying breath, “try to kill me, but please don’t if that’s at all possible. I just need you take your
best shot, and don’t let up. Give me everything you’ve got.”

  “This is fucking crazy,” Haragh groaned as he shuffled several paces back with Stan nervously clinging to his earlobe.

  A sinister grin came to my face, and I nodded my agreement. “Crazy is exactly what I need right now.”

  I beckoned Big Guy forward as I braced myself for the attack, and after a brief moment of hesitation, the metal man drove at me with his sword leveled right at my heart.

  I had my own sword out in a flash as I blocked the strike, and the strength of our steel clashing together sent a shockwave through my arm and right to my spine. Then I was locked in a sparring match with the deadly machine, and every blow shook my entire body as he advanced relentlessly.

  At first, I was only fighting as best I could, but when I locked eyes with Big Guy, my runes suddenly surged to the forefront of my mind, and I felt the familiar leaden weight pressing down.

  I grinned at the menacing machine and powered through another few blows, and as I let the runes take over, I knew I was in kill mode again.

  So, I leaned into it because Big Guy already had me backed against a tree, but then I ducked his next hit and rolled to the side, and when I righted myself, I put every ounce of effort into not wanting to kill him.

  Which it turned out was impossible.

  Big Guy swung his arm around, and when it slammed into my torso, I was thrown into the air and sent flying backward. I crashed into the side of the house with a sickening crunch, and as I fell to my knees, I coughed to try and get my lungs working again.

  The rune was already healing me while its power pulsed furiously in my veins, and I slowly stood as my vision faded into a predatory tunnel with only Big Guy in my sights.

  Then I nodded once more, and the machine came at me with everything he had.