Shield and Crocus

by Michael R. Underwood

Sapphire

  An hour into the mission, the real threats showed themselves. Sapphire and the rest of her team were positioned to hold the gap left by the blown vault door. The five Freithin marked out a concave semi-circle kill pocket inside the vault, daring anyone to close to within melee range of the group. All the while, Ghost Hands deflected the projectile fire, protecting the Freithin’s formation. They’d felled thirty guards around them with this technique, though they had also spent a full crate of explosives scattering groups along the way.

  First came the Stalker Model II automata. The Stalker IIs were deadly melee combatants designed by COBALT-3, with flexible coiled bodies, modular weapons, and an insectoid aesthetic—antennae, armored carapace, and six legs. They were only as tall as an Ikanollo, but bristled with weapons and were as fast as a Pronai. Thank the City Mother there’s only two of them.

  Sapphire leaned over to dodge under a whirling bladechain and continued hammering away at the carapace armor with her hand-axe. It wouldn’t give, even to the alchemically-sharpened edge. She left the axe stuck between flexible joints and engaged the Stalker hand-to-blade. Maybe I can just dent the slippery thing until it can’t move.

  Ghost Hands was busy holding off the latest squadron of guards and their crossbow fire, leaving the other Stalker automata to her Freithin Shield-bearers. Sapphire kicked the Stalker back to the wall and went on the defensive for a moment to watch her kin. The Freithin were strong, capable, but the Stalkers were designed to kill Shields, and their programming for fighting Sapphire was close enough that it kept the four Freithin on the ropes by itself.

  The other Stalker spun its upper body and pushed the Shield-bearers back outside its blade-reach, then pressed towards Duma and caught her across the inside of her wrist, deep enough that she’d probably never use the hand again. What good was a one-handed baker?

  Duma stepped back and Weja dropped out of the line as well, pulling off one of her scarves to make a tourniquet. Red blood stained Weja’s brightly colored scarves, ruining the shear material.

  [ Ghost Hands?], Sapphire said in her own mind while fighting the Stalker automata. She hoped her teammate could pick through the psychic static of the guards down the hall and the four desperate Shield-bearers.

  [Yes?], came the response, uncertain.

  Sapphire connected with a right hook to the automata’s face, knocking it back a step. [I have to take out these Stalkers, or they’re going to tear our people apart. On my mark, I want you to encase the Stalker I’m fighting inside a force sphere, to contain an explosion. Got it?] Sapphire backed up towards one of the crates, giving ground. The Stalker advanced, tracing intricate patterns with its blades that left no openings.

  [The other field will have to come down for me to be able to do that.]

  [ I know. I’ll call the order to hit the ground, and you switch the fields.] Sapphire cartwheeled over the crate, retrieving a small explosive that came with an adhesive patch, one of First Sentinel’s designs.

  The Stalker automata cut Sapphire along the leg as she flipped then slid around the side of the crate to press her. She set down on her good foot and stuck the explosive to the automata as it attacked. Sapphire dropped onto her back and tossed the stalker over her head towards its metallic twin.

  “Hit the ground!” she shouted, and saw the shimmer of Ghost Hands’ field switch to a sphere around the two automata.

  [ Can you hold in both?], Rova asked.

  [We’ll see.] The automata picked at the explosive with mandibles and blades, confused. But the adhesive stuck, and the shimmering sphere filled with fire and shrapnel, contained.

  Crossbow bolts flew through the air where the field had been, but most went far too high, aimed for Freithin hearts and heads. One of the shots struck home, and Sapphire saw a bolt take Jeku through the collarbone. Sympathetic pain exploded in her head, and she rolled on the floor for a few moments, oblivious to everything but the pain of a blood-bonded kinsman’s life being snuffed out not ten feet from her side.

  Half of them gone: Jeku, Fuhn, and Ove. Wonlar, I hope you make this worth their sacrifice. From Wonlar, her thoughts went to Aegis. He was only two districts away, at the doctor’s estate. But he might as well be across the continent. If he was hurt, there would be nothing she could do.

  The five of them got to their feet. One half of one automaton remained, twitching and flailing blades with its quickly fading energy supply. Sapphire kicked the broken machine out of the vault towards the surprised guards.

  A new shape appeared behind the guards, a shifting mass that undulated over and through the group to cohere momentarily in front. Protean, Sapphire thought, recognizing the Smiling King’s quicksilver killer, the most dangerous of his Spark-touched army. They’d faced a metamorph when they destroyed the Rebirth engine, but Protean had more power, more mass, and more experience.

  Sapphire would not let that thing take any more of her people from her.

  The thing’s features shifted constantly as it talked, one voice bleeding into the next. “Come peacefully and you will be granted the bliss of rebirth at the hands of the Smiling King. Resist, and the ending of your story will be written in blood on the walls of this mint.”

  “Nice to see you too, Protean,” Sapphire said, then turned to her Shield-bearer kin. “Stay close, and always pay attention. Protean can transform into practically anything, but it has to maintain its mass. Any of you still outweigh it, so use your size and don’t let it scare you.”

  Her words rang hollow as the Spark-touched drew itself up, becoming tall but gaunt. Its fingers elongated into claws, its teeth multiplied into a jagged maw. It let loose a scream that wavered between three octaves.

  “Close with it, get in under its reach,” she said, taking position at the head of the remaining three Freithin Shield-bearers.

  The guard’s commander shouted an order. “Advance!” as Protean lunged forward.

  [Ghost Hands, keep them out of the vault!] Sapphire shouted in her head, barreling forward into Protean’s attenuated form to wrap her arms around the narrowed torso. Talons dug into her back, but she kept her momentum, driving the two of them into the wall.

  “Go for its arms!” her back was ablaze with pain. Igaz, Duma, and Weja joined the melee, bracing Protean’s arms against the wall while Sapphire worked its belly with quick jabs. Then Protean shrank, arms withdrawing from the Freithins’ grip and sprouting from lower in the Spark-touched’s torso, reforming as four squat arms with large hands. Its belly sprouted sharp spines and Sapphire let go, stepping back to assess the situation while Protean grappled with her Shield-bearers.

  She felt Ghost Hands’ desperation. The Qava was straining to maintain the force field as the guards tested its strength with hammering blows.

  Move fast, Wonlar. We can’t last forever.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  First Sentinel

  Because what I really need right now is a good bout of running for my life. I must have missed that appointment on my calendar. First Sentinel pivoted off a hand-hold on a corner and swung himself around into the next hallway, eleven guards on his tail. First Sentinel discovered, to his chagrin, that the junior priests’ quarters had been converted into a barracks. Not wanting another delay, he opted for stealth.

  It half-worked, and he’d made it almost two-thirds of the way up the tower. But now he had a tail that stretched down a full level. The blue-tile walls painted with centuries-old murals of Audec history raced by as he ran. These halls were meant for reverent pacing and walking meditation, not cat-and-mouse games.

  Crossbow bolts soared over his head and within an arm span of his back, ricocheting off the ceiling and the walls nearby as the Shield ducked and weaved. First Sentinel worried how long his painkillers would last. He had dryswallowed another set of pills halfway up the tower, but when the gashes and flesh wounds from tonight caught up with him, his half-ruined leg and the endless weeks that had lead up to the mission would probably be the end of him. If I slow do
wn now, it’s all over.

  First Sentinel tossed his second-to-last flash-bang behind him at the next T-juncture, and poured on the speed to clear the hallway by the time the guards regained their vision. First Sentinel had avoided the direct way to the next level, instead circling around through the washroom and its two entrances, one of them by the next set of stairs. It may mean I end up with a few of them in front of me, but it’ll be better than facing the lot all at once.

  Adrenaline and fatigue played a wrestling match, urging him onward and dragging him down as he turned the corner into the sparely-appointed washroom. The junior priests were given little more than chamber pots and simple sinks, and the tyrants had neglected to improve upon those amenities.

  First Sentinel looked both ways as the washroom emptied out into the hallway, and saw a clump of six guards halfway down the hall.

  “There he is!” one said. Damn.

  First Sentinel tossed out a handful of caltrops to bar their way before bounding up the stairs two at a time. It wouldn’t slow them by much, but if luck stayed her hand, he could lose them on the next level. If memory served, there were only two levels left, then he would reach the hall of the City Mother, which took up the top third of the Tower.

  * * *

  First Sentinel kept ahead of his tail all the way through the lower ritual rooms and the senior priests’ quarters. Where are the priests if not here?

  Yema replaced most of the real priests a long time ago with his warlock Guard, and by what First Sentinel could tell, those warlocks were all going to be in the hall itself. Another hurdle before I can do what I’ve actually come for.

  The spiral stairs around the curved edge of the tower gave way to thirty-foot-tall double doors, painted in the brightest emerald green and inlaid with silver. The doors were thrown wide open, letting First Sentinel see into the hall. Most things looked larger when you were a child, a simple difference in scale. This place looked just as big as it had decades ago.

  Stretching up into the starry sky, the hall took up the entire width of the tower, with wooden rafters winding up the side, mixed in with old stone abutments and pathways. They’d been replaced and renovated countless times over the years, constantly under repair.

  At the center of the room, atop a greystone platform circumscribed by golden runes, sat the largest emerald in the world, perfectly cut to twelve sides. Just over a yard wide, the jewel was the vessel of the City Mother, guardian goddess of Audec-Hal.

  Countless burgundy threads spread from the City Mother, the power that had kept the city docile for decades. One thread was the strongest of them all, wrapped a dozen times around the emerald, smothering its natural emerald light. This one thread had controlled the City Mother since shortly after the destruction of the Senate building. Wrapped taught, the other end of the thread arced through the air to the heart of a solitary figure.

  The figure was cloaked, the cloth darker than midnight on a moonless night. The hood of his midnight cloak was pulled back, revealing a bald skull with tattoos inked in every color.

  No. Not him.

  Magister Yema, holder of the thousand captive hearts of the warlock Guard, master of the sorcerous arts, and controller of the City Mother. He was wreathed in burgundy threads, wearing his braided threads of power like a crown.

  Nevri had ended the rule of the Senate, but it was Yema who had robbed the city of hope, taking the City Mother under his control and turning her connection to the populace into his greatest weapon.

  Around him were fully a hundred of his warlock Guard, each bound to give their life for his.

  They were waiting for him.

  And on the other side there’s me. no allies at his back, his belt of tricks all but exhausted. And I’m likely to pass out any minute.

  He had to get close enough and try to break through to her, hope that his decades of resistance and devotion have made him strong enough for the task. That maybe, just maybe, he’d hear her. With Yema so close to match his power, freeing the City Mother might be impossible.

  But if he ran, the warlocks and the other guards would catch up to him. And even if they didn’t, the forces returning from the other missions would. The distraction missions were not designed to be stable on their own.

  Yema started laughing, and the warlock Guard circled in, brandishing wicked knives and glowing wands.

  His only choice was to make his final stand and free the City Mother, even if it killed him. Hopefully it’d kill Yema, too.

  Aria, I’ll be seeing you soon.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Aegis

  Things would have been fine if Qazzi Fau hadn’t shown up and brought ten of his top assassins. First, they shattered Sabreslate’s reconstituted wall. Then the black-clad killers filled the sitting room, taking Aegis’ team apart with the death of a thousand cuts.

  Qazzi taunted Aegis as they fought, trying to bait the younger fighter into a mistake. “Where’s that decrepit old man you call your leader? Still nursing his wounds, or is he off slinking in the shadows somewhere, playing the hero?”

  Aegis took the insults and threw them back, the repartee just another part of the battle. If he just brushed them off, it could dishearten the Shield-bearers. He had to fight back with words as well as steel.

  “The ‘old man’ has survived everything the tyrants have thrown at him for fifty years. You’d be lucky to have his longevity, but I don’t see that happening, given your choice of allies.” his shield slashed and parried, the steel sometimes seeming to move of its own accord.

  Aegis kept Qazzi away from the rest, but in doing so, he couldn’t split focus to command his team. Aegis heard Sabreslate’s raiment lash out at the killers, smelled the sourness of spilled blood. But whenever he tried to look sideways to check on Nore or Aung, Qazzi was on him instantly, spinning his twin sabers in blinding patterns. The assault was already tiring Aegis’ shield arm, countless shocks turning his muscles into jelly.

  His father’s voice in his ear: Stay strong, Selweh. Move your body, not the shield.

  Qazzi continued. “Oh, I intend to live long past the time they burn your ashes and pour them into the river, Aegis. And long enough to kill the next idiot who takes up the name, and the next, until the only people left are smart enough to know their place.”

  “Everyone is born free.” Aegis cleared Qazzi’s swords with the shield and threw a kick to the man’s groin.

  Qazzi knocked the blow aside with his knee. “Not in Audec-Hal.”

  “Especially in Audec-Hal.” Aegis followed the kick with a right cross that caught Qazzi square on the jaw.

  At the same time, Aegis took a roundhouse kick to the ribs. Both men stumbled back, recovering. When Aegis caught his balance, he was out of Qazzi’s range. He took the respite to step back flick his gaze over to the rest of the room.

  Both Aung and Nore were still standing, Nore favoring his right side. They were each fighting two of the killers, blood staining their sleeves and pants. They can take a beating, but not for much longer. The walks siblings were fighting side by side near the entrance, but their teamwork couldn’t compensate for the clumsiness of their strikes. They were being picked apart by Qazzi’s better-trained killers.

  Sabreslate fought in a corner, squared off against three of the assassins. She whipped flexible stone tendrils to keep them from attacking all at once, using her position to protect her flanks. But the tendrils were moving slower than normal, and Aegis could see her mask was drenched with sweat.

  When Qazzi’s team struck, Dr. Herron had run for the door, trying for the hole in the wall, but Aegis had caught the man with a clothesline. The hostage was unconscious on the threshold. He’d served his purpose. It didn’t matter if they got out with him, as long as he didn’t enlist any more help.

  “Don’t mind them, my people are taking care of your people nicely,” Qazzi said as he closed again. He swung low from the left with one blade and swept down from the top-right with the other, trying to drive
Aegis back so he could pull his killers and flank.

  It’s what I’d do if I were in his position.

  Instead, Aegis dove over Qazzi’s lower blade and into the pocket left by the downward slash, covering his back with the shield. Rolling back to his feet, he lashed out with a sweeping kick to take Qazzi Fau off his feet. The blow didn’t land, but the killer had given ground, returning the pair to the center of the room.

  Aegis continued the banter. “Your people look like they’re dressed for bed, not fighting. Or can’t you afford to buy them more than one outfit, with that measly tax share I hear Dlella’s given you?”

  From his new vantage point, Aegis got another glimpse of the fights. Sabreslate’s left arm hung limp, black blood coating her raiment, and Rova’s kinsmen were backed up against the wall, flailing at the killers’ blades. Cao took a sword up under the ribcage and dropped to the floor. Sei screamed in sympathetic pain and Qazzi’s men leapt on her as well.

  You’re done, Aegis. Get what’s left of your team out alive.

  “Retreat!” he shouted, too loud for the walled-in room. Aegis wheeled around towards Sabreslate, putting himself between Sabreslate and the assassin.

  Sabreslate took the opportunity and bolted for the door, her legs still strong. Aung tried to push past the killers, and impaled himself on two of their blades, but kept moving. Nore was wiser, jumping over the downed killers and then bolting through the middle of the room toward the sewer exit in the back.

  Qazzi backpedaled to cut Nore off, but Aegis gave chase, shooting out a leg. Qazzi had to jump into the crate of explosives to avoid the shot. Dlella’s new right-hand man planted a foot on the edge of the crate and bounded back off. Aegis ran by the crate, snatched up an explosive and set the timer to fifteen seconds.

  This was one of his father’s. It would set off all the rest and level what remained of the building.

  Aegis tossed the explosive back into the crate and jumped to tackle Qazzi. The assassin dodged to the left, but Aegis managed to bring the shield down on the tendons above his opponent’s heel. Aegis rolled out of the dive to his feet, satisfied by the sound of Qazzi’s scream. Aegis ran out the room and down the hall to the back room. Sabreslate stood over the sewer entrance, grimacing.