Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles

by Larry Correia

  The knights were making fast work of the base’s defenses. Normally the Imperium would have put up a better fight, but they had not expected this, and if Heinrich could pick only one advantage to have in a fight it would be surprise.

  Jake Sullivan, on the other hand, if he could only pick one advantage, would surely choose overwhelming force. And he was demonstrating that philosophy rather well when Heinrich found the Heavy one floor down, twisting gravity in order to fling a group of Imperium soldiers around like leaves in the wind. Heinrich came through the ceiling in time to catch the last bit of the gravity spike, and even that was enough to almost put him through the next floor.

  “How goes it?” Heinrich asked.

  Sullivan paused to shoot one of the rising Imperium with his BAR. The .30-06 was incredibly loud in the enclosed space. He jerked his head down the next hall. “Got a bottleneck.”

  Heinrich gave a quick look. It was a metal pathway. No cover, at least nothing that would stop a bullet. At the far end was a muzzle flash, and Heinrich instinctively went grey as the bullets zipped by. “Want a grenade?” he asked as he reformed again behind cover.

  Sullivan shook his head. “I think that’s where the device is. I don’t want to put any holes in it. We need to grab it before one of those assholes does something crazy.”

  That was always a danger with the Imperium. When they thought all was lost, they would not hesitate to take their own lives in a spectacular manner if there was a chance they could take some of their foes with them. Heinrich thought about the distance he needed to cover and the relative density of the materials. It would be tight, perhaps at the ragged edge of what he could accomplish with the amount of Power he had left, and if he ran out while still inside a solid object, he would be fused within it. A fate which he’d witnessed and knew to be an excruciatingly painful way to die. “Give me a moment, Jake.”

  Heinrich dove into the floor.

  The harder he burned his Power, the faster he could move through solid objects; however, he needed to maintain enough solidity to gain traction in order to move forward. The nearest analogy he could come up with was that of swimming, though that wasn’t right either, but it was the quickest way to explain his abilities to a non-Fade.

  This was the bottom floor and it extended out into the solid bedrock, so Heinrich couldn’t just fade up one floor and drop in behind them. He had no choice but to pass through solid rock.

  So Heinrich found himself in the pitch-black darkness of the foundation. The endless cold of the frozen earth was beneath him. He drove himself through the dark, pushing as hard as he could. The Power was dwindling, like a bucket with a hole punched in it, and when the bucket was empty, he would die. The extra eight pounds of steel and wood were slowing him down, so he let go of the stolen Arisaka. Its molecules instantly fused into the matter around it, a fate he would share if he did not hurry.

  Many Fades died the first time they’d attempted something like this. Of course, he could not ask them why, because when you were fused entirely into solid rock there wasn’t even enough of you left for a Lazarus to question, but he thought it was because they’d panicked. Heinrich had grown to manhood in a city filled with the hungry dead. Panic was a foreign concept to him.

  There was open air above, beckoning, but if he came up too early the Imperium would simply shoot him to death. No. It was better to brave the dark. It was always better to brave the dark.

  Power dwindled to nothing, Heinrich made one last desperate push. He clawed his way through the floor, body solidifying from the top down, until he came out on his hands and knees in a wide-open room. At first he thought the thing above him was a chandelier of some sort, and he blinked at the searing light. As his eyes cleared he realized it was a massive, luminescent globe. Surely, this was the device which had brought them here.

  But there was no time to admire the scenery. There were two Imperium firing wildly down the hall. A third, wearing the red sash of an officer, was ordering a fourth and a fifth to stuff wires into a big metal barrel. The officer was screaming orders in Japanese. Heinrich did not need to speak the language to know they were going to blow the place up.

  Good. I would hate to die trapped in a glacier for nothing.

  They had not seen him yet. He reached into his coat and drew his Luger P.08 from its shoulder holster. Even though he counted John Browning as a personal friend, sometimes carrying a weapon manufactured in one’s homeland became a matter of national pride.

  The ones with the explosives were the most dangerous, so they had to be stopped first. He walked toward them, gun extended in one hand. The closer the better, as he really did not wish to accidentally shoot the contents of that barrel. He was within ten feet before they spotted him, and he paid that alert Imperium soldier back with a single round through the face. The next absorbed two rounds before he was convinced to let go of the explosives. The officer turned and snarled something, and Heinrich gunned him down mercilessly.

  The two soldiers turned toward him as he aimed at them. There was no way he could Fade through any more bullets, and there was no way any of them could miss at this range. He fired as they did, pulling the trigger wildly until the toggle locked open on the empty Luger.

  The room was quiet. The air was choked with carbon. I am not hit? Heinrich blinked, but refrained for checking himself for holes. He’d struck one in the cheek and took the base of his head off. The brains sliding down the wall confirmed that. Then he realized that he was still alive only because a doughy three foot tall albino demon had launched itself onto the other soldier and was beating him mercilessly. Heinrich looked up to see where a heating duct was hanging broken from where Ian’s Summoned had crawled through, probably devoted to the same task that Heinrich had just risked his life to accomplish.

  Heinrich walked over to the little demon. It looked up at him with four blazing red eyes. “Ian, if you can hear me through this beast, the drinks are on me.”

  The demon nodded in a very human like manner, and then went back to pulverizing the soldier’s skull with its two doughy fists.

  Art to come

  Sullivan at pole

  Chapter 6

  Dear Doctor Kelser, if you are really a doctor at all. Forgive my impertinence, but it must be said. You are a fool and a fraud. It was with great amusement that I read your recent paper detailing your new theory on the origins of magic amongst the population beginning the mid portion of the last century. Atlantis? Really? You cannot scientifically explain the origin of magic so your first assumption is that the lost continent of Atlantis must somehow be involved? Did your medical degree come from a box of Cracker Jack? Every reasonable man of science understands that magic comes from crystals.

  —Orson Flick,

  Letter to the editor, Scientific American, 1921

  Axel Heiberg Island

  Toru knew right where to go.

  He had lied to the Grimnoir about having never visited this base before. Toru had passed through once, accompanying a supply drop, mostly as an excuse to get away from the embassy for a time.

  Only a washed-up Imperium officer would end up in charge of such a horrible duty station, but at least the last one had some vestige of professionalism, or had at least managed to act convincing in time for Toru’s inspection. This current commander was pathetic in comparison. From the speed of the assault, it appeared the Grimnoir might not even take any casualties. It was shameful that Imperium men would be steamrolled so easily. Regardless of how inept this officer may have been, there was still something that Toru needed from him before the Grimnoir killed everyone.

  While the main body of Grimnoir were distracted, Toru took a side passage and made his way down a ladder. Utilizing his Power, moving with lightning quickness, Toru crossed the basement level of the facility in seconds. A powerful enough Brute could run down a gazelle, and Toru was the best of the best. He intercepted an Imperial soldier on the way. It did not please him to do so, but Toru snapped the man’s neck with
a single quick strike before the warrior could even begin to react. It is for the best, my brother.

  The officer’s quarters were next, and Toru intercepted the young men as they woke up and went toward the sound of the guns. No Actives would be wasted on a post such as this, but all Imperial officers were branded with at least one kanji, so they could prove dangerous enough to thwart his mission. Toru fired his Power and lifted the steel tetsubo.

  Toru killed them all.

  Blood dripped from the spikes on his club. Toru turned in a slow circle. The walls were painted red. Broken bodies lay in piles.

  It is for the best.

  The commander’s chambers were locked, so Toru kicked the heavy door from its hinges. An unshaven, bleary-eyed Imperial captain was still trying to get his shirt on. Toru looked in disgust at the garbage strewn about the room and the empty sake jugs, and then broke every bone in the captain’s hand when he reached for his pistol. Toru grabbed him by the neck, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him hard into the wall.

  The captain was red-faced and struggling to breathe. He blinked rapidly and begged for mercy like a peasant. “Please don’t kill me! I surrender,” the captain squealed in a manner that offended Toru’s philosophy about what it meant to be a warrior. It was easy to see what caliber of officer would be sent to a dead-end post such as this.

  “I am Toru Tokugawa,” he stated. The captain’s tear-filled eyes widened. “My name is known. Good. You will activate your emergency communication spell to the Edo court now.” Toru squeezed just a bit harder, letting the captain know the price for noncompliance, then he dropped the man to the floor. “I need to have a word with them.”

  Every Imperium base in the world was equipped with prepared kanji so that a quick message could be sent back to the high command. They bypassed all levels of the military bureaucracy and went straight to the top, to the Chairman’s inner circle. They were to be used only in the gravest emergency, and using one for anything short of an apocalyptic crisis unnecessarily would mean a death sentence for the officer activating it.

  Trained as an Iron Guard, Toru knew how to prepare such a spell himself, but when he’d tried it months ago, it had simply not worked. He had hoped to send a message home, warning them about the false Chairman, but his particular spell had been purposefully blocked somehow. The imposter was obviously trying to limit the contagion of the rogue Iron Guard.

  Toru understood now that even if he could get a message to high command, it would be pointless. No one would believe him. Who among them would doubt the word of the Chairman? It was for an entirely different reason that Toru had decided to send this message.

  The captain hesitated, so Toru used the blankets from the man’s bed to wipe the blood from the tetsubo. That was all it took for the captain to wet himself in fear. The worm crawled away, wincing as his broken hand touched the floor. A screen was moved from the far wall, revealing a large mirror, and the captain went to work activating it. His spellbinding was sloppy, as would be expected just from looking at him, but these mirrors were created by Unit 731 Cogs, masters of the individual kanji. Even an imbecile could make one of their spells work.

  Toru waited, watching himself in the mirror. His reflection stared back, splattered with the blood of good Imperium men who should not have had to die. It was a waste of precious resources. That was on the imposter’s head, not Toru’s. The captain was jabbering on the whole time, begging, pleading, groveling . . . If Toru had been in a merciful mood before, the pathetic display of cowardice would have removed any lingering doubts. The mirror flashed and a new, familiar scene appeared on the other side. He had seen this view of the Imperial Court many times before.

  A functionary appeared in the mirror, obviously confused as to why the most isolated base in the world would be calling for the high command, but then he saw Toru standing there with the captain cowering at his feet, and his mouth fell open in surprise. Sick of the captain’s piteous mewling, Toru raised one boot and stomped on his neck, silencing him forever.

  “I demand to see Okubo Tokugawa. Bring me the Chairman.”

  The shocked functionary stared on in silence. His mouth moved, but no words came out.

  “Tell him that Toru Tokugawa wishes to speak with him.”

  The metal globe was six feet across and floating six feet off the ground. Sullivan couldn’t tell what it was made of, but he had to admire the remarkable craftsmanship as it slowly rotated under its own power. The continents didn’t look quite right; they were sort of stylized. He didn’t know if that had been necessary for the kanji spells carved all over it, or if it had been because the Chairman had liked for his gizmos to have a certain artistic flair, but either way, Sullivan had to admit it was kind of pretty.

  “This floor is locked up tight. Only a few of us wounded,” Diamond reported. At some point in the fight he’d gotten blood on his glasses, so the Mover took them off and cleaned them on his coat sleeve. “We’ve got a few pockets of resistance left, but they’re pinned down.”

  “Keep ‘em that way. Don’t waste any of our boys trying to dig them out. We got what we came for. How about our path out?”

  “We control it. Some of the guys got hit, nothing too severe. I sent them all back to the main floor to that funny air lock room. Dianatkhah is seeing to them.”

  Sullivan nodded. Healers were so rare that they only had a single, precious one on this expedition. That was probably the safest place in the whole place to put their wounded. At least they had an exit if something went wrong. “Good. Spread the word to watch out for one of them suicide charges.” The Grimnoir knights had done well. For not having worked together much beforehand, they’d performed better than he’d expected. “I hope this won’t take long . . .”

  “It’ll be done five seconds after you quit asking me how long it will be,” Schirmer said. Their Fixer was their most talented spellbinder, and he’d been preparing the communication spell. Since they’d been unsure how much glass would be available at the site—and unbroken after they took the place over—they had hauled a bag of salt along on the hike. Schirmer had poured the salt out on the floor and was drawing designs in it. Sullivan had turned out to be pretty darn good at that sort of thing, but he had to admit that the Fixer from Texas was better.

  Sullivan checked his watch. Ten minutes from entry to taking over the place. Not a single fatality, just a couple of minor wounds . . . Not too shabby. He turned to Heinrich, who was supervising the looting of the Imperium command center. The knights were grabbing every scrap of paper there, just in case there was some piece of valuable intelligence. That was a lot of paper, and they only had a couple of folks who could actually read Japanese, but it was worth a shot. “Alert the Traveler. Southunder can kill his storm. Have Barns pick us up right outside.”

  “You do not wish to walk back?”

  “I’d prefer to keep all my toes . . . Schirmer?”

  The Fixer cracked his knuckles. “Done.”

  This next part, which Sullivan was the best at involved connecting someone’s personal Power to the designs in the salt. And Sullivan had the most Power of any of them. Just lucky that way I guess. The symbols represented the various geometric designs that made up the living thing they called the Power. Sullivan knew more about it than most people, but even he couldn’t wrap his brain around all the abstract concepts of a critter that weird.

  However, there was one person they knew who seemed to have no problem understanding all of it.

  “Hurry and drag these corpses out of here,” Heinrich ordered some of the knights as he pointed at the dead Imperium. “Our genius does not handle violence well.”

  “He gets spun up real easy,” Sullivan explained as the magic connected. There was a flash of light as the pile of salt was fused into a solid mass. It floated off of the ground as a disk and rotated until the flat surface came to face him. No matter how many times he did that, the trick never got old. It was like looking through a window, and on the other side was
Fuller’s laboratory on the Traveler.

  “Mr. Sullivan! Right on time.” Buckminster Fuller pointed at the four wristwatches he was wearing on one arm. “I was assured you would be prompt in the execution of your duties!”

  Cogs . . . Sullivan sighed. “We found it.”

  “I am eager to see what you have for me!”

  The view was remarkably clear. The strain on his Power wasn’t too bad. Schirmer did damn fine work. “Here you go, Fuller.” Sullivan allowed the communication spell to turn until Fuller had a view of the Chairman’s globe.

  There was a moment of silence as the Cog took in the sight. Fuller’s Power was an odd one, even by the standards of the Grimnoir. He was the only man they knew of who could actually see the geometries of the Power, and even see how it connected to individual Actives. Others of their kind could only feel their own, and then they sort of messed around until they maybe figured out how to draw little bits of magic to bind onto things. For most of them, spellbinding was like blundering your way through a room full of sharp edges and pointy bits in the dark. Fuller was in the same room, but he had the lights on.

  “Remarkable. Astounding. Phenomenal! Brilliant! It is spherical. You know how I feel about spheres!”

  Fuller did have a thing for domes. “I guess that means you like it?”

  All of the knights in the room had stopped their looting to come and see Fuller do his thing. It took a lot to get jaded Grimnoir riled up, but hell, Fuller could actually see magic. Who could blame them? Since Francis Stuyvesant had found the man last year, the Society had made huge strides in improving their spells. Fuller’s weird, super-magical brain had become a bit of a legend in Grimnoir circles.