Blaze of Embers

by Cam Baity

  Fritz turned to face them, pointing proudly to the gleaming waste disposal unit as if it were the discovery of the century. Mr. Pynch pushed the lid farther open and chastised Fritz in a caustic stream of Rattletrap. Phoebe almost felt bad for the Watchman, who looked as sheepish as a sentient robot could.

  Squealing tires behind them grabbed her attention. A Rangecart sped into view.

  She grabbed Mr. Pynch by the necktie bandage on his arm and yanked him down as Micah heaved the lid into place, sealing them in the crate again. Panic blanched their faces, lit only by Phoebe’s seed. Shouts from outside reverberated in the metal box. They could hear the stomp of boots and the clack of weapons being drawn.

  “Fritz is toast,” Micah muttered.

  “What do we do?” whispered Phoebe.

  In response, Micah readied the hand cannon.

  “Put yer blasted popper away,” the balvoor grunted. “Offensifying now will jettison us all to the rust.”

  “So what then?” Micah demanded.

  Before Mr. Pynch could answer, they were dazzled by a flood of light as the lid of the crate was flung aside.

  Watchman soldiers. Dervish rifles trained on the kids.

  A blur of movement—in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

  Nightmare sounds erupted. A vile, frothing yowl, coupled with dull crashes of metal. They heard the hiss of Foundry guns firing and the singing ping of ricochets.

  Muffled screams.

  Phoebe couldn’t imagine what was happening out there. Almost as soon as the mayhem had started, it was over. Silence returned. Aside from a quiet, desperate plea that made her cringe. A voice she knew all too well. Begging for his life.

  Goodwin.

  “Please…” he moaned. “Not now…”

  She looked at Micah. He was white with terror.

  Mr. Pynch clutched his sensitive nozzle. His wonky eyes brimmed with tears, and his mouth was twisted in a grimace of nausea as he gagged.

  A wet, oozing sound. Like a hungry laugh.

  Phoebe pressed herself back, as if she could somehow burrow deeper into the crate. She didn’t want to know what was out there, didn’t want to know what was repulsing Mr. Pynch, didn’t want to see. Or be seen.

  “I ordered your death. So you are right to hate me…to want to kill me,” said Goodwin, breath heaving. She had never heard him like this. “But before you do, please listen: Meridian is—” He choked with pain. “Meridian is in danger. You are a soldier…Sworn to protect your country. Help me…help me stop them.”

  Again came that demonic, guttural chuckle.

  “I know you are in unbearable pain,” Goodwin grunted. “The burns have left you raw and exposed….But I fear it is affecting your mind too….”

  They heard a sputtering sound that may have been speech.

  “Nothing is beyond repair….I can help you….” Goodwin’s words drifted off.

  Slimy snorts sniffed the air. The world was suspended by a thread.

  Splattering steps approached the crate, one by one.

  “Please,” Goodwin begged. “You must listen to me!”

  Footfalls plodded closer, each one accompanied by a faint sizzle, like bacon frying. Then the kids were hit by the smell that had so revolted Mr. Pynch—like blood and curdled milk, rust and putrefaction. The steps grew louder. And louder.

  And then the solid steel crate was torn open like a gift.

  “Kaspar, NO!” Goodwin cried.

  Phoebe, Micah, and Mr. Pynch tumbled out and hit the ground. Racked with horror, they dared to look at the monster looming above them.

  It was same man they had left for dead in the Citadel.

  But Kaspar was not a man—not anymore. His skin was a mottled ooze of pustulant red and black, like rotten meat stretched over a bent scaffolding. Serpentine veins of dark metal held together exposed muscle, bonding and breaking apart like solder under a flame. His eyes were black death, sunken into sagging sockets. Instead of a mouth, he had a quivering gash. His arms twisted at horrific angles with too many joints, and his crippled hands were fused, curled like pincers.

  Goodwin was crumpled at Kaspar’s feet, holding his own limp and lifeless leg. At the far end of the disposal site, Phoebe could see mangled bodies and shredded Watchmen.

  A terrible end for poor, innocent Fritz.

  Micah was so stricken with revulsion that he forgot to raise his gun. By the time he remembered, Kaspar struck, knocking the weapon from his hand and sending it clattering away. The monster’s foul slash of a mouth drooled silvery-black bile.

  “Leave them be,” Goodwin insisted. “It is me you want!”

  Kaspar let out a sputtering chuckle. His putrid flesh pulsed, drinking their terror.

  Phoebe’s thoughts raged like a forest fire. Every second this thing savored their fear was a second she could use to escape. But she had no weapons, not even the Multi-Edge. She could make a run for that pile of wreckage, maybe grab some debris and try to fight him that way. No, that was nonsense. But what else could she do?

  Kaspar snarled at Mr. Pynch, who wilted.

  “I said, enough!” Goodwin boomed, his voice tinged with agony. The Chairman pulled himself up to a sitting position, hauling one of his legs like a sandbag. “Come with me. I can help you if you help me,” he said unsteadily. “Our world is at stake.”

  The monstrous thing formed words, barely understandable, each syrupy syllable forced out by tremendous effort. Wet strings of muck dangled from his crater mouth.

  “NNNNOOT…MMMYY…WWWORRLD…”

  He dripped saliva, sending up curls of smoke from the ore. Kaspar cocked his head, and his fetid skin quivered like a scum-skinned pond rippling in the breeze. There was a distant commotion—shouts and an explosion. Engines roared to life nearby.

  What was happening out there?

  Phoebe’s hand had drifted to her skirt pocket without even being aware of it. Throughout her young life, her sniping skirt had been her only weapon against the world. She had outgrown her childish ways, but now, confronted with this terrifying enemy from her past, her old instincts kicked in. And she refused to be afraid.

  After all, she had died once already.

  Leering, Kaspar snared Goodwin by the lapel, spattering fleshy muck on the man’s platinum-threaded coat. The monster hauled the heavy man off the ground.

  Phoebe slipped off one of her gloves and searched her hidden pockets, fumbling over a rubber-band ball, a needle and thread, a crumpled piece of paper. Her fingers grazed a small packet. It took her a second to remember what the thing was. Goodwin’s words to Kaspar flared brightly in her mind: The burns have left you raw and exposed…She looked at the monster’s pulsing red flesh. Unprotected.

  Kaspar reared back and balled his pincer into an iron fist.

  Phoebe tore open the packet and emptied the contents into her gloved hand, careful not to get any on her bare skin. It wasn’t much. But it was all she had.

  “Kaspar.” Her voice was strong, cutting through the violent din that was echoing throughout the Depot.

  The monster whirled, his corpse-rotten eyes boring into hers. He plodded toward her with Goodwin struggling in his lethal grip like a child. Kaspar’s hungry wound of a mouth tore open.

  He came for her.

  BOOM.

  Orei’s sensor rings spun, measuring the breach in the wall.

  The Foundry had been bombarding it for clicks, each detonation raining showers of ore onto the Covenant. And now the end was almost upon them. Another BOOM.

  Fissures snaked across the ore. Weapons were readied, prayers were muttered.

  The Overguard was not afraid. She knew that the Tender of the Forge would blaze her ember and embrace her for eternity.

  The entrance of the underground bunker exploded as a Mag-tank broke through. Puppet slave Watchmen poured in like raging vesper, opening fire on the mehkans.

  A team of shadow black aios dropped down from the ceiling where the Foundry had penetrated. Orei and a column of
armored gohrs charged forward and crashed upon the enemy. Hohksyks clinging to the upper walls spat out a barrage of silvery bolts that punctured their ranks. Those of the Covenant who could still fight spilled in from the sides in an attempt to hold the entrance. The Overguard was a cyclone of scythes, carving her way through the Watchmen, all while measuring the trajectory of bonding rounds coming at her and swirling out of their path.

  But the Foundry’s numbers were overwhelming. There was no way they could repel such a force. Orei drew back to the staging area where the remaining freylani waited, armed with their deadly explosive cyndrl.

  This was the Covenant’s last stand.

  The rest of the warriors fell in beside her, forming a protective barricade around the freylani. They would draw as many of the bleeders down into the bunker as they could, waiting until the perfect moment to detonate their cyndrl. Orei was ready, and she detected the same among her comrades. There was no other way this could have ended. She had calculated the odds of every variable, and each possible circumstance led to this inevitable conclusion. It was a truly noble end.

  The Foundry spilled into the bunker, a black tide rippling with rifle fire. Mehkans dropped all around—pious followers that had devoted their spans to the Mother of Ore. Orei held a stiletto-fingered hand up for the freylani to see. They readied their cyndrl.

  In three…two…

  Confusion in the Foundry ranks.

  Crunching sounds. Watchmen were falling.

  Orei’s twitching sensors picked up strange signals. Red-hot javelins shot into the ranks, sizzling through the puppet slaves. Looped cables dropped down, snared Watchmen, and yanked them up into the shadows. A swarm of mehkans, slathered in red war paint, descended upon the Foundry forces and took them by surprise.

  Chraida.

  Overguard Orei closed her hand, calling off the suicidal cyndrl attack. The battle was not over yet. She charged into the fray, her roaring warriors by her side.

  Why would the chraida, who stubbornly remained in isolation and rejected the Way, come to the aid of the Covenant?

  The answer came when a Watchman attacked her from behind with its spinning rifle bayonet. Ever vigilant, she pivoted to face the assailant but saw that it was already being neutralized. Red gloved hands at the end of long, rubbery arms wrapped around the weapon and wrested it away. A jumble of red parts formed a cage around the puppet slave’s head, blinding it. Then the Overguard plunged her blades into the Watchman’s torso and opened it in a sputtering geyser of sparks.

  The enemy fell, revealing two unexpected mehkan figures. One was a lumilow, strangely dressed in a bleeder suit that was sloppily painted red. The other was a Covenant acolyte, a diminutive mehkan with a mismatched body also covered in camouflage paint to blend in with the surrounding parched red mesas.

  Not an acolyte anymore—a warrior. The Overguard hardly believed her sensors.

  Dollop gave Orei a bold salute.

  Kaspar lunged at Phoebe. She raised her open palm and blew with all her strength, and itching powder puffed out in a silvery cloud.

  He flinched and choked, staggering back.

  For a second, it seemed like her plan was a failure. The monster tensed his muscles and raised a murderous hand to lash out at Phoebe. Images flashed through her mind—her father, her mother, Micah. She pictured Albright City consumed by fire and knew that she had failed to save it.

  And then Kaspar’s face changed. It folded in on itself, a continental shelf collapsing, eyes scorching with sudden agony. Fury flared in every sinew. He clawed at his flesh, digging for the powder that was inflaming it.

  Gotcha again, she thought.

  His screech made the detritus in the disposal site tremble. It drowned out the crescendo of battle that was rumbling nearer and nearer.

  War cries answered his shriek—mehkan war cries. How was that possible?

  Micah and Mr. Pynch were as stunned as she was. Kaspar gurgled, stumbled away. The itching powder wouldn’t last long, but as Phoebe turned to urge them to run, she looked up. The remaining cables of the NET system that hung over the Depot twanged and went slack. The rest of the purple lights snuffed out as the suspended grid fell.

  Then other thin cords threaded past overhead like pencil lines sketched across the morning sky. Brassy mehkan hoots converged from all directions. Red shapes the color of the surrounding mesas slid along the cables.

  “Chraida!” Micah cried.

  “This be our chance!” Mr. Pynch hollered. “Vamoose!”

  Kaspar howled again and charged toward the voices, blinded by the itching powder. They dove aside, and he slammed into the Dynapak, toppling it over and crashing into a mountain of debris. The metal waste collapsed on top of Kaspar, boiling up in jets of caustic steam as the grotesque monster roiled.

  The Dynapak rolled to a stop and sparks spewed out as a figure emerged.

  “Fritz!” Micah called out.

  Phoebe was relieved. The Watchman must have hidden in his beloved Dynapak when Kaspar showed up.

  “This way!” Goodwin hissed to the four of them.

  The Chairman tried to regain his feet, but his wounded leg crumpled beneath his weight. Without thinking twice, Phoebe ran to Goodwin’s side and tried to lift him. Micah snatched up his fallen hand cannon and aimed it at the Chairman. Then, before she could argue, he grabbed the man’s other arm and helped Phoebe drag him along.

  She and Micah feared—even hated—Goodwin, but leaving him to face Kaspar’s murderous wrath was not something that they could live with.

  Behind them, the hill of refuse smoked and shifted. Kaspar’s garbled roars turned from anguish to bloodthirsty rage. With the aid of Mr. Pynch and Fritz, they carried Goodwin past the scattered bodies of his colleagues and bodyguards, then tossed him in the back of his own Rangecart.

  “Drive!” Phoebe called out to Fritz, who enthusiastically hopped into the driver’s seat and floored the accelerator. The vehicle lurched to life.

  As they squealed out of the disposal site and around the corner, the smoking mound of rubble behind them exploded—a dripping black arm emerged.

  The Rangecart tore through the warehouse alleys.

  “You’re going to help us get back home,” Phoebe told Goodwin, her voice raised above the rushing wind.

  “Not quite,” he said, gritting his teeth as he adjusted his limp leg. “I am needed here.” The Chairman took the Com-Pak off his singed lapel and clicked the button. “Control Core, I am—”

  Micah knocked the device from his hand, and it tumbled out of the Rangecart.

  “Little pest!” Goodwin snapped.

  Micah pressed his hand cannon to Goodwin’s temple.

  “You ain’t callin’ the shots anymore, fat man.”

  “Puddlemudge!” shouted Mr. Pynch. “Look out!”

  Fritz wrenched the wheel of the Rangecart, and they swerved out of the way as a towering antennae array crashed down into the road only a few feet away. They zipped out from among the warehouses and emerged onto a wider artery. What they saw almost made them want to turn around and take their chances with Kaspar.

  War.

  With the NET system down, the Foundry was vulnerable to aerial assault, and the chraida were taking advantage. The sky was full of the wild mehkans covered in red war paint, streaking like birds of prey. They hurled cables from one building to another and swung ferociously around ramparts, flying past too quickly to track.

  Some of them tossed down what looked like yellow balloons at scores of Watchmen firing from the ground. Their missiles burst into berserk swarms of flying piranha-like vermin that consumed the metal soldiers, eating through their shells and reducing them to skeletal wrecks. Pairs of warriors swooped down with razor sharp cables held between them, clotheslining and shearing through enemies. A band of bulkier chraida had cauldrons strapped to their backs filled with javelins boiling in red-hot liquid ore. Warriors grabbed these scalding lances and heaved them with astonishing accuracy, searing and impaling ene
my ranks.

  Yet the Foundry would not be so easily stopped. Mounted Frag-cannons unleashed a devastating deluge of rounds, blasting chraida from their cables and sending them howling to the ground. Watchmen bombers on hovering discs fired magnetic grenades that sought out their aerial targets and exploded in rippling flowers of fire. Mag-tanks angled their coil-tipped cannons upward and sent off radiating purple bursts, repelling the invaders, sending them spiraling off into the sky.

  The kids and Mr. Pynch were awestruck, but Goodwin’s composure was frightfully similar to that of Fritz—placid, robotic determination. The Rangecart sped around flaming obstacles and falling bodies. A Titan crashed into the lane ahead of them, bashing aside giant freight containers. The lumbering Foundry robot was trying to tear away the chraida warriors that were clinging to its back and plunging their red-hot lances into it over and over. Fritz spun the wheel and whipped down another road.

  Phoebe looked back to see if Kaspar was following them, but the alleys were too choked with smoke to see anything. Ahead was the yawning mouth of the tunnel. They were getting close. Phoebe met Goodwin’s eyes and braved his stare.

  “You will help us,” she said. “We’re going to warn everyone. Makina is coming.”

  “Makina?” The Chairman smirked. “Surely you don’t think that—”

  “Call it what you want,” Phoebe interrupted, “but that thing in Ahm’ral is headed for Albright City!”

  “It is being dealt with as we speak,” Goodwin explained.

  “But you said Meridian is in danger.”

  “It is. But not because of the mehkans.”

  “Then why?” Micah interjected, pressing the gun harder against Goodwin’s head. “You mean the war back home?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  A scream of jets taking off interrupted them. Goodwin gestured to the planes, flying in tight formation.

  “There,” the Chairman said. “Now you can rest easy, children. Those Condors are in transit to destroy your ‘Makina.’”

  “Oh yeah?” Micah scoffed. “How? We saw Her smash your copters like gnats.”

  Goodwin shoved the gun away from his face.