Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  Cassimer tracked the sniper, found an opening and took the shot – but as his finger squeezed the trigger, incendiary grenades were launched into the clearing. Tarry fire splashed the meadow's sun-dried grass. Hammersmith ran towards the Hesperia's shimmering hull, flames licking his face, turning the chain links of his camail red-hot.

  The Hesperia's ramp hissed open. Hammersmith stumbled inside, disappearing from sight in a spray of fire suppressants released from the ship's ceiling. More grenades hurtled through the air, arcing towards the ship, but Hammersmith intercepted them remotely – Cassimer's HUD reported the execution of a script – and they detonated early, misting the woodland with hot droplets. The Hesperia's ramp closed, its edges dripping with suppressant foam.

  Cassimer exchanged his Hyrrokkin for the Morrigan and turned from the burning clearing to see tongues of fire come rolling between the trees. RebEarth troops moved in the shadows, their backs heavy with flamethrower tanks. Such weapons were next to useless against the armour of cataphracts and banneret men, and Cassimer had seen many fellow Primaterre soldiers suffer for underestimating them. With RebEarth, their weapons were rarely the real danger. It was how they used them, how they turned earth and water, any element at their disposal, into death traps.

  A flamethrower couldn't hurt a banneret man, but a raging forest fire could.

  Cassimer traced flames to their sources and put an end to them with his knife or his Morrigan. Acid sizzled on his armour plates, fire scorching his visor. He took out six, seven, eight – but the RebEarthers had reinforcements coming – a gunship, and rumbling armoured vehicles.

  The smoke was so thick that he no longer could see Joy or the Hesperia. He dropped the RebEarther he was holding, burning off the blood from his thermal knife. Ashen branches drizzled down from the treetops. The sky was gone, hidden behind a blaze.

  He found the hollow soaked with corrosive acid. A RebEarther tried to run from him. He grabbed the man's shoulder, broke his knee with a kick, and threw him into the hollow. The screams seemed well-deserved.

  Joy had made it out. She sat by a tree, frantically trying to remove one of her greaves. The acid had eaten through the reactive plates and the layered armouring, bubbling away at the shock-absorbent lining. Her gauntlets had begun to corrode too, the damage exacerbated every time she touched the greave.

  "Brace," he said, kneeling by her side. She pushed her foot deep into the earth, and he wrenched the greave loose. "Can you move?"

  "Yes."

  "We make for the Hesperia. Little resistance if we hurry. Come on." He pulled her up, and together they ran for the clearing's edge.

  They made it there in time to see a RebEarth gunship open its bomb ports and let out a leisurely spray of napalm. A cascade of liquid fire cut a crescent perimeter around the clearing. Thick droplets splashed Cassimer's armour and turned to plasma, but wherever the fire touched Joy, it singed holes in her armour. The gunship was coming around for another pass.

  "Close your eyes," he said, lifting her into his arms. "Hold your breath and turn your face towards me."

  He ran across the clearing through flames high enough to reach his waist. The ground trembled underneath his feet as the Hesperia's engines roared.

  "Almost there," he told Joy – and then the Hesperia took off.

  It hovered above the clearing for a moment, and then it was gone, tearing towards the sky, the RebEarth gunship in hot pursuit.

  "Hammersmith, lose the gunship and return at once. Requesting urgent evac! Hammersmith, do you read?"

  "Only the mission matters, Commander."

  "Hammersmith–" Cassimer clenched his jaw as the towerman cut his comms connection. That absolute fucking prick. Hopewell was right; they should've killed him. Joy had saved his life and now he was leaving her to burn like she didn't matter at all.

  "You don't really believe that, Hammersmith, I know you don't," Joy said. "It's what you've been telling yourself so that you can get through the days, but Hammersmith, you needn't do that anymore. We're almost done. It's almost–"

  A cough interrupted her. How much smoke was too much? Cassimer had no idea, but the forest was black with it now. He couldn't see more than a foot ahead. The armoured vehicles were about two kilometres away – he could vaguely make out their electronic signatures – but they could see him too. His HUD flashed warnings as his suit's defences worked hard to throw off targeting systems.

  "He'll come back," Joy whispered. "The gunship would have killed us, he's only leading it away. Once he's lost it, he'll come back, I know he will."

  Hammersmith's motives were irrelevant. He was gone, and Cassimer had no choice but to keep moving. The fire was a funnel, designed to force him towards the vehicles, and yet he ran towards them anyway – in a vehicle, they might stand a chance at escape. But he couldn't fight with Joy in his arms and if he left her here, where the ground was aglow with embers, he might never find her again.

  "Set me down," she said. "Two guns are better than one."

  "This isn't like anything you've done before. One hit from those mounted guns–"

  "Or one more minute in this smoke. It's all the same."

  He was afraid that she was right, so he nodded.

  "All right. Stay behind me."

  * * *

  They moved quick and quiet among trees and smoke that seemed to coalesce into the shapes of dark wolves. The fire snapped at their heels, eager to devour. Embers flitted ahead, whirling afterglow patterns.

  Cassimer climbed up a slope and saw three armoured vehicles idling on a logging road. None of their crew had left the vehicles. They sat there, watching and waiting, and he couldn't take them all on, there was no chance, but no chance was not acceptable.

  He shouldered his Hyrrokkin, lined up his shot, and took it.

  The bullet tore through one vehicle, knocking the next one askew. But the third vehicle's targeting systems locked onto the Hyrrokkin and its mounted chain guns spat a barrage of bullets.

  He dove for cover, pulling Joy down the slope with him. They tumbled over roots, coming to a stop in a ditch. He could hear voices as RebEarth troops abandoned their ruined vehicle. The only question was whether they'd come hunting, or if they'd flee from the forest fire and hope it would finish off their enemy. Either way, he inserted a fresh armour-piercing ammo block into his Morrigan.

  "Commander, we've got a problem," Hopewell said over the team channel.

  "What is it?" he replied, as Joy half-laughed, half-coughed.

  "RebEarth didn't care for the surprises we left outside the submarine pen doors. They stopped sending men in to breach, but now we've got a gunship here. It can't get in through the tunnel, but judging by the noise it's making, they mean to blast through the rock – and then the doors. There's no cover here. If the ship breaches, Florey and I will be forced to retreat."

  "If they breach..." He hesitated. Mission protocol stated that they should retreat to the lab and hold it at all cost, but that's what Hammersmith would've said. "If they breach, fall back and regroup with the lab team. Retreat into the station's corridors – they go on for miles. Evade the enemy until an opportunity presents itself."

  "Yes, Commander."

  "And Hopewell?"

  "Yes, Commander?"

  "Never surrender."

  "Of course not, Commander."

  The RebEarth voices were getting louder, their boots heavy on the ground. A gust of wind swept black smoke through the trees. So hot that it would hurt to breathe, and hot enough that held the enemy back another minute. Joy coughed, and when the smoke cleared, her face was smudged with charcoal underneath the camail.

  "Look," she said, scuffing the pine-covered ground with her boot. A plant grew there, deep green with pink flowers. "Betony. It was thought long-extinct, a herb relegated to history. But here it is, alive, and even the fire won't kill it. The ashes will fertilise the soil and come next summer, there'll be more betony than ever before."

  He reached out and touched her ch
eek. "I haven't stopped thinking, Joy."

  "I know." She plucked one of the flowers. "There's another thing you should know about betony. According to tradition, it has the power to ward off evil spirits. Wear it, and your mind will be safe, your soul protected."

  "Impure superstition."

  "Yes. Kind of like believing that somebody dreamed of you once, long before you met." She smiled and dropped the betony flower into one of his belt pouches. "There you go. Now I know you'll be all right."

  "Joy–"

  A tempestuous sound interrupted him. The Hesperia skimmed the treetops, the force of its wake enough to knock the approaching RebEarthers over; two figures rolling down the slope only a few metres away, cursing as they disappeared into the ember-twinkling undergrowth.

  Something dropped from the ship, crashing through the trees, the impact heavy enough to shake the ground. Smoke wreathed around it, turning it into a massive shadow, monstrous and awe-inspiring – and utterly familiar.

  "What is it?" Joy wondered, eyes wide.

  "It's Hammersmith showing he's got a sense of humour after all." And perhaps a sense of decency. "It's a Helreginn Class cataphract suit."

  * * *

  The heavy armour felt good around his limbs, its connection to his primer like a sense recovered. It wasn't as kitted out as his own Helreginn armour had been, but close. It carried the arsenal of a small army, its armour strong enough to withstand nuclear fire, but better yet, it came fully-loaded with hostile scripts – better than the ones Cassimer already had stored in his primer, better than anything he had ever seen, as sharp as any Tower blade.

  He took a tentative first step. The earth trembled. In the shadow of a tree, so did Joy, staring up at him with the terror felt by all who came so close to a cataphract. He was used to it, but not from her.

  The betony flower was in his right palm, pressed between his skin and the armour lining. He held his hand out to Joy. She took it, her hand so small in his metal gauntlet, and he closed his fingers gently around hers to make her understand that cataphracts weren't the trampling behemoths they seemed. They were precision, they were efficiency, and they were a shield meant to protect people like her.

  "You know what to do?"

  She nodded.

  "Don't stop for anything, and don't be afraid."

  "I'll do my best."

  "You always do."

  He closed his eyes and extended his awareness as far as it would reach. The Helreginn's auxiliary power cells activated, streaming wireless energy in a miles-wide field.

  Inside century-old car wrecks, dashboards lit up, starter engines sputtering. The seaside town glowed with constellations of personal computers and phones. Surveillance cameras, appliances and alarm systems whirred to life inside ruins. A few metres into the forest, an exercise wristband around the mossy wrist of a skeleton began to play music.

  And at the edge of the town, the entire arsenal of Talien Castle stood to attention.

  Earth wasn't dead. It slumbered, awaiting command.

  He took a deep breath, clearing his mind to his purpose, and said:

  "Wake up."

  75.

  JOY

  Burning trees lined the road. The sky spat sparks against the armoured vehicle's window slit. Joy gripped the steering wheel just like she'd been taught in Basic Training, but Achall's boulder-strewn plains had never been this terrifying, not even with the drill instructor in the passenger seat – and she'd had all ten fingers.

  The headlights cast pale cones into smoke that the fire glow had turned orange. The road was pitted, visibility close to zero, but the onboard navigation system retraced the RebEarthers' journey. They had come from the town; as long as she managed to stay on course, she'd make it back there.

  Constant was taking a different route. The sounds of gunfire grew more intense yet more distant as he drew the enemy's attention away from her.

  A tree toppled across the road, fiery branches scraping the vehicle's hood. She accelerated, pushing on, grinding branches and trunk into splinters underneath churning tracks. The RebEarth vehicle was no Epona, but it was powerful enough to chew up terrain like it was nothing, in spite of the giant bootprint that dented its grill. Constant had torn the roofs off the other vehicles, but he had tried to go easy on this one. A small crack in one of the gunner windows let in smoke and heat, and the floor was tacky with blood, but otherwise, it was in good condition.

  The orange smoke turned yellow, then sun-bright, and then she was clear.

  RebEarth vehicles were parked up along the road ahead. She accelerated once more, barrelling past the enemy contingent. She had just enough time to notice that they were loading crates of flora and trying to force a captured deer onto a truck – and a RebEarther had just enough time to raise his hand in greeting before realising that she wasn't one of them.

  Bullets pinged off the back of the armoured vehicle, but she kept driving, smashing through scattered wreckage, because she'd promised she wasn't going to be afraid, and if she took her foot of the accelerator, she might notice how tight her hands were around the wheel.

  A checkpoint waited at the town limits. RebEarthers sat in cover behind armoured vehicles in much better shape than hers, mounted guns ready to fire.

  "What do I do?"

  She hadn't expected a response, except perhaps from Imaginary Finn, but as though he'd heard her, Constant's voice was suddenly in her ears.

  "Keep going."

  And she did, even as the mounted guns began to fire. The window slit shattered. She ducked down, showered in glass, as hot rounds slammed into the vehicle's interior.

  The gunfire died down as quickly as it had started. Daring a peek, she saw RebEarthers run from their vehicles, one turning its tracks towards the town. It opened fire again, but it wasn't aiming at her.

  A trio of tanks lurched from the forest, heaving across a ditch to plough into the RebEarth checkpoint. Moss draped their gun barrels, corrosion spotting their bulk so badly that the Talien Castle shield logo was barely visible. The tank in the lead had an open hatch, a skeleton hanging over its side. Red-and-black armour flickered in the tanks' treads as they forced their way across the road, crushing everything in their path.

  Joy drove on through, past ugly smears on the road and the cries of the wounded. She'd reached the town and could no longer rely on the navigation system, but she had something better than that. Life had been breathed into ruins and they whispered to her now, in green arrows on intersection lights, in flashing road directions on digital billboards and through music playing in derelict cars. The town belonged to Constant, and he spoke through it to her, guiding her through the devastation.

  As she turned onto the coastal road, she understood why he had kept leading her westwards. The east side of the town burned as hot as the surrounding woodland. Derelict tanks rolled down the streets, firing into buildings. Rusted exo-suits, containing only bones, took bullet after bullet as they marched towards RebEarth troops, but they were already dead and couldn't die again, Constant their puppeteer. Skeletal fingers inside corroding gauntlets closed around throats, punched through red-and-black cuirasses. Turrets mounted to the Talien Castle headquarters streaked the sky with explosive rounds until a RebEarth gunship unleashed missiles to flatten the entire mercenary compound.

  But that wasn't the gunship she needed to worry about. Ahead, she could see the ship that was trying to breach the submarine pen doors. It hovered close to the waves, its downwash frothing the water. Chunks of rock crumbled into the sea as its chain guns ate away at the cliffside.

  "Hopewell, do you read?"

  "Loud and clear, Somerset."

  "You need to open the blast doors."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Commander's orders." She passed along an authorisation code that Constant had given her. "He'd tell you himself, but he's a bit busy."

  "All right. Okay, sure, but it's bloody insane."

  "Oh, I know. Please have them open in two minutes, and
if you'll excuse me, I'm about to get a bit busy myself."

  She veered off the road and onto the cliffs, the vehicle splashing across rock pools, tearing up a mist of sand. RebEarth troops waited on the flat rocks for their ship to breach. They turned, fired, and then scattered as it became clear she wasn't about to stop. Two men threw themselves off the cliffs to avoid the vehicle, but thankfully, she didn't hit anyone.

  The gunship ceased fire. Its targeting systems recalibrated, locking onto her vehicle.

  "Constant?"

  "Here."

  Where, she was about to ask, when the gunship dropped sharply under the weight of a cataphract suit. Constant had leapt from the hillside onto its roof, and though his massive armour looked small in comparison to the ship, it didn't seem to matter. The ship's force fields flared into a neon vortex around his body, but the suit absorbed the energy, releasing it as he punched his fist through the hull. His shoulder-mounted autocannons fired into the ship, a clutch of grenades launching from the suit. Soft fire rolled against the inside of the ship's viewports. It tilted, skimming the water, but it was still flying, firing wildly.

  She turned into the tunnel across slippery rock, onto the concrete walkway and, thank the stars, the blast doors were being opened. A missile streaked past, impacting against the craggy ceiling. Debris pummelled the vehicle, the shockwave making her armour's shock-absorbent lining tighten around her body.

  With a grinding screech, the ship coursed past her, scraping the tunnel wall. It was too big to get near the doors, but its thrusters kept pushing it into the rock. She drove past, the heat of its engines enough for the vehicle's interior to begin to smoulder. Constant smashed through the cockpit viewport and disappeared into the gunship, and then Joy was inside the Hierochloe station, driving askew along the channel, one set of tracks dipping into the water.

  A chain of popping explosions came from behind, her mirror view filling with blinding light, and she lost control of the steering wheel. The vehicle teetered over the edge of the channel, nose-diving into the dark water.