Godsend (The Circle War Book 1)

by Matt King

  He didn't trust the sudden silence. He held his breath waiting to see if the storm was really over. When he planted a hand to push himself up, a slow rumble beneath the surface shook the tips of his fingers. Shit. What now? The Horsemen pulled him to his feet just as the ground began to split and shift.

  Bodies made of rock and earth rose out of the valley floor. They were like a kid’s clay sculpture come to life, clumsily packed together, with thick arms and legs and four stubbed fingers on each hand. Everywhere he looked, huge mounds of soil swelled. The Orphii emerged by the hundreds. One of creatures stepped out of the ground only a few feet away. It stood as tall as a house, its body a solid mixture of rocks and jagged ore held together by a network of silvery metal veins. One quick glance at August and the Horsemen was all it gave before it marched toward Galan’s legion. The creature's mouth showed no teeth, but its eyes glistened like diamonds.

  A second, more powerful series of tremors ripped through the earth. With a loud groan, huge sinkholes formed in the ground, shaking the valley with a violent quake as three towering versions of the Orphii pulled themselves to the surface. Standing at full height, their heads stretched nearly to the top of the dome. The cracks between the boulders of their skin glowed with heat, cooling to a dull red ember as the magma solidified. A single oval eye in the center of their forehead scanned the field. They were walking mountains, shaking the ground with each step as they announced their arrival with a challenging, guttural roar.

  He felt like a tourist gawking at skyscrapers. Even the smallest Orphii dwarfed him. On the other side of the battlefield, the tanks moved closer, each one large enough to run over a tree without hesitation.

  How much of a difference could he make in a war fought by giants?

  When the last of the Orphii emerged, the ground was left pocked and scarred like the surface of the moon. There was no warning or fanfare for their attack. As soon as they arrived, they moved on Galan's troops in a deliberate, lumbering gait. They were outnumbered ten to one, and as far as August could tell, the Orphii had no weapons.

  Doesn’t matter now. The fight’s here whether they’re ready or not. He could feel the tension of the Horsemen behind him, ready to enter the fray. August pointed toward the oncoming army, who closed in on the middle of the field, less than a half mile away. “You stay together!” he shouted over the din of the Orphii's march. “We find out who's leading their army and we take them down!”

  The first shots from Galan's tanks lit the dome with streaks of red, aimed at the rocky giants. A few bursts hit their marks, but the Orphii seemed unfazed. The Mountains, as August decided he was going to refer to them, responded by picking up handfuls of earth, melting them into solid boulders between their fingers, and hurtling them toward the opposite end of the field. The impacts left behind balloons of fire.

  The Mountains might've been able to withstand the blasts, but he and the Horsemen were sitting ducks in the open. He led them toward the trees, hoping that they might be able to flank the first wave of troops marching through the valley. Gunfire scorched the broken asphalt at their feet. They made it to the shadows of the forest without taking a direct hit, only to stop in their tracks once they got inside.

  A line of red lights hovered in the distant darkness. Whatever it was, they were getting closer—fast—and there were a lot of them.

  Backup. We need backup.

  August returned to the field and flagged down a mob of Orphii close by—two closer to Bear's size and one as big as an oak.

  “Over here!” he shouted. “This way!”

  The Orphii turned, moaning something in reply.

  He cut back into the trees when they changed direction to follow. The Horsemen waited for him, their masks trained straight ahead as Galan's troops stepped into a patch of light beneath a thinned-out section of the forest.

  They were a mixture of hideous creations, all of them more machine than human. The walkers—those on two legs—had faces that were covered in solid plates of steel, with a pair of black holes where their eyes should have been. Coils of tubes extended from the backs of their heads, connecting to circular ports on their arms and shoulders. They walked ahead of a horde of spider-like creatures; human torsos rising from arachnid bodies. Their thin legs stabbed at the ground as they navigated the leaf-covered floor. One of them caught sight of August and hissed. The walkers took notice and changed direction, focusing their black eyes on him and the Horsemen.

  He came up against his first enemy unsure whether he'd be able to cut through their armor. The wires and hoses coming out of the backs of their heads seemed like a good spot to start with. He ran headlong for the closest walker. The machine raised its arm, producing two thin barrels firing streaks of yellow beams. August dove behind a tree for cover. The shots tore through the low branches, leaving behind the smell of burning wood.

  When the walker was close enough, August came out low, sweeping the leg and taking the machine to its knees. His staff sang a warbled call as it sliced through the neck. The blade cut through cleanly, spinning the head into the leaves. Sparks jumped from the collapsing torso, but the body continued to move. Its arms tried to push it back to standing.

  The hell?

  He brought his staff high to stake it through the chest, but a cable grabbed hold of his wrists mid-swing and nearly wrenched the swords from his grip. The lines traced back to a spider's mouth. The machine hissed, trying to pull August closer to a pair of spinning drills at the end of its arms.

  With no traction in the carpet of leaves, he was quickly losing the tug-o-war. His heel ran across a root. He used the little bit of friction to pull back with all his strength, snapping the spider’s cord in half. More snaked out of the thing’s mouth. He ran forward, ducking beneath the swipe of a drill to take off the left arm first, then the right. Not taking any chances, he finished by ripping a swipe across the rib cage. The spider’s upper chest clanked off the segments of its body as it fell to the ground. Unlike the walker, it didn’t keep moving.

  The inside of the carcass smelled like chlorine. Just below his cut were pieces of brain matter suspended in the rib cage, broken into segments and connected to a mangled sea of wires.

  August looked around for the Horsemen. They were running headlong into a trio of walkers.

  “The chest!” he yelled. “Hit ’em in the chest!”

  Two of the Horsemen swung around the side of a machine, pulling it to the ground by its tubes. One brother held the head in place while the other drove his blade into the torso. The machine lurched, then fell still.

  Something exploded back on the field. August couldn't see much beyond the stand of trees, only glimpses of a fireball in the wake of a blast. An Orphii stumbled through the blaze. A group of machines surrounded it within seconds, peppering the Orphii's body with gunfire until it disintegrated into a pile of rubble.

  There was no time to avenge the loss. He could only hope that the rest of the Orphii on the field could hold their own while his group fought back the flank. The Horsemen stayed close. They moved like they were connected by a string, one never far from the others as they danced around the slow-moving walkers. The trees helped to keep the machines from ganging up on them in numbers.

  A spider climbed up the thick trunk of a pine and launched itself toward an Orphii fighting nearby. The Orphii took hold of the machine and swung its fist through the spider's chest. It dropped the carcass to the ground and stepped on the remains until nothing was left but a jumble of metal and arcing wires.

  More explosions rocked the border of the woods, slowing their push. The tanks were tearing the Orphii to pieces and he had no way to signal Meryn’s army to retreat to the forest. The blasts were getting closer. Through a break in the trees, the pulsing red lights of a tank appeared near the edge of the woods up ahead. Its red eye moved in quick circles around the top of the dome.

  Then, suddenly, it stopped.

  August froze as the light focused on his chest. Along the sides of
the tank, the red light began to swell. A high-pitched ring sizzled in his ears.

  So soon, he thought, and then the tank fired.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Unable to stay in bed any longer, Bear pushed back the sheets and swung his legs around to sit on the edge of the mattress. There was no use pretending sleep would come. As tired as his body was, his mind wouldn't let him rest. He thought about arrangements that needed to be made—calls to relatives, penning an obituary, as well as the general chores of the farm—but those were only surface worries. What lurked beneath were the things he didn’t want to think about anymore, things he knew he couldn’t run from forever. Go ahead and turn a blind eye to the storm if you want to, his father had told him once. Won’t make a difference to the rain.

  He ran a hand through his hair. On the other side of the window’s sheer curtain, a light flickered above the sill. He knew what it was without having to look. Meryn and August were leaving. Reaching out, he grabbed the string hanging down from the blinds and let them fall.

  He pulled on a clean work shirt to walk downstairs. When he got to the hallway, he paused at his father's room. The door hung open just slightly. He wavered for a good solid minute on whether to shut it or not. He didn’t want to. Something about the act felt final.

  Unable to make a choice, he approached the door instead and laid his palm against the cold wood. The hinges groaned as he pushed it open. Everything was as he'd always remembered it, even after the temporary move downstairs. The bedding was so tightly tucked in place, it looked like no one had ever slept in the room. A Bible sat on the far nightstand with Ray's extra pair of reading glasses sitting on top. As Bear moved through the room, the landscape became less familiar. In all his years in the house, he hardly ever ventured past the dresser drawer. Daddy never said he couldn’t, but it felt like an intrusion. He looked inside the yellow clothes hamper next to the bathroom. It held a few clothes. He made a mental note to wash them and put them away, though he couldn't think of a good reason why.

  A sudden surge of loneliness sent him out of the room, shutting the door completely behind him. His footsteps rattled the staircase. When he got to the bottom, he stood in the hallway, looking from one end of the house to the other, unsure of what to do or where to go. The silence was foreign. He felt like a ghost watching his old home decay. Bear rubbed his face. After a deep breath, he moved to the kitchen.

  The light above the stove cast a yellow haze over the kitchen, merging with a rectangle of moonlight on the tile floor. His eye caught the shape of Meryn’s doorway through the window nearby. He watched it ripple behind the oak tree, its borders flickering. That’s none of your concern, he reminded himself. Still, he couldn't help but feel something each time the face of the synapse flashed red. He told himself it was Shadow feeling the pull. Not him.

  The sound of a car approaching from the front pulled him out of his stare. Headlights filled the driveway, followed by a series of loud shrills from a car horn. He walked out through the back porch just as a black sedan came to a screeching halt. The wheels kicked up a cloud of dust. Bear noticed for the first time the faint sound of air horns going off in the distance.

  “Bear Lawson!” a man yelled as he got out of the car.

  “You mind turning those lights off?” Bear asked. He blocked the high beams with his hand until the driver cut the engine. Lanny Sommers, Burt's son, came rushing toward him, pointing toward the lights over the mountains.

  “We have to evacuate!” he said through heavy breaths. He was carrying more weight around the middle than the last time Bear had seen him. “We're under attack! You have to— What's that?”

  Bear stepped in between Lanny and his view of the synapse. “What can I do for you, Lanny?”

  “Do? Bear, ain't you been watching the news? There's a terrorist attack in the Smokies. I mean, you can damn well see it from here!”

  “So I heard.”

  “So you—” Lanny leaned over, trying one more time to see the doorway behind Bear. “Anyway, I came up from Charlotte to get Dad, but I can't find him. He ain't at home and there's no lights on at the store. Is he off somewhere with Ray?”

  “No,” Bear replied. “My father's passed on.” He had to force the words out.

  Lanny’s panicked breaths stilled for a moment. “I'm real sorry to hear that. Maybe it's just as well, though.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Don't get mad. I mean, with all this, it's good he's in Heaven.” Lanny's eyes shifted. He glanced back toward the road. “You should come with me.”

  “Thank you, Lanny, but no.”

  “We have to get out of here. We're under attack, son. The government said to get as far away from this area as we could.”

  “I'm not leaving.”

  Lanny looked at him like he had two heads. He turned briefly back to the house. “Bear, there ain't no reason to stay here anymore."

  "This is my home, Lanny."

  “Home or not, it ain't nothing but a bunch of lumber with some pictures in it.”

  Bear took Lanny by the arm, steering him toward the car. “You need to go.”

  “Yeah,” Lanny said, quickening his steps to keep from falling over. “Okay.”

  Using his other hand to open the driver side door, Bear guided Lanny into the seat. “Find your father. Make sure he's safe.”

  Lanny turned slowly toward the sparks of light in the distance. He came back blinking slowly as he put his hands on the wheel. “It don’t feel like there’s any such thing as safe right now.”

  Bear stood back as the car retreated down the driveway. When it was gone, he could hear the sirens more clearly. A rumble sounded in the distance. He looked to the sky and saw a formation of jets streak overhead toward the lights in the mountains. A few seconds later, fresh explosions lit up the horizon. He turned away. His eye happened to land on the hill where his parents were buried, side by side. He stared at the plots while police sirens wailed in the background and more planes raced through the sky.

  Go ahead and turn a blind eye to the storm if you want to.

  The synapse flickered beside the barn. As much as it hurt to admit, he felt its pull. He thought of August and Meryn, and about the things Meryn said on the hill. Then he looked back to the house, to the barn, and to the fields of crops spread across the land. He saw the tire swing on the old oak and his eyes fell.

  He stood for a moment, weighed down in thought.

  “I'll miss you both,” he said aloud as he watched the synapse ripple. “And I'm sorry.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  August didn’t register the Orphii at his side until he saw the tree hit the ground.

  One of the rock creatures uprooted a pine and slammed it in front of August to block the tank’s blast. The red beam melted the wood like ice. August stood in place, too stunned to move, as the Orphii gripped what was left of the trunk and marched off toward the hovering metal dome without giving him a second look.

  When he’d finally convinced himself that he hadn’t been turned into goo, August whistled to get the Horsemen's attention. One brother raised his hand in reply and August pointed at the tank. “We’re taking that thing down!”

  Running full sprint, he broke through the tree line with the Horsemen on his heels. The tank hovered above the grass, its hull bleached white by the reflection of the dome. It was as wide as a tractor trailer and at least ten feet tall. As it closed in on the Orphii who’d saved his life, the glowing red ring around the top of the vehicle swelled, building in intensity until it drained around the circumference, merging into a single point of energy that shot toward the Orphii. The creature's rocky arm melted on contact. Hot drips of molten stone rained from its socket to the ground. It howled as it turned to face the tank, whose ring charged again for a second shot.

  There was no way the injured Orphii could get to cover in time. August leapt onto the side of the tank’s hull. The smooth shell gave no footing, so he separated his staff and dug his blades into
the metal to pull himself up the slope. The beam's charge was nearly complete but he was still too far away to reach it. Using a blade as a step, he wedged his foot against the handle and slashed through the ring before the draining light could form into a point. Red light raced toward the gash, erupting in a wild explosion that threw him back into the scrubby underbrush. Heat bathed his armor. His bones felt close to melting.

  The tank stuttered in the air, moving in spurts as it tried to retreat. He fought through the pain still flaring in his chest and ran to catch up with it before it moved too far away. The Horsemen split off to take on a group of spiders converging on the injured Orphii. August climbed back to the sword still impaled in the ship's hull. The ring's explosion left a hole big enough for him to crawl through. He squeezed into the opening feet-first, reaching out to pull his sword free before falling inside.

  As soon as he landed, a hand grabbed him by the ankle. It pulled him off the floor, then slammed him into a wall of broken pipes. He struggled to hold onto his swords as he was tossed around like a rag doll. A heavy fist hit him in the back of the head, then gripped his mask to press him against the floor. The hissing sound of compressing hydraulics filled his ears. He dropped the sword in his right hand and reached behind his head to grab the thing's arm, pulling it forward just as a spray of beams from its gun peppered the floor beside his head. August slipped away. When he saw it was a walker, he took off a leg with a quick cut, then slashed his blade through its chest and face. Beneath the broken carapace, the dead expression of a creature that looked nearly human stared back. Its eyes had been dug out. What little pale skin it still had left hung loosely over a framework of metal rods, pistons, and shielded wiring.