Secrets of Silverwind

by Sanders, Richard L.

  Antares was humbled by her words. That she’d assert so much confidence in him, and defend him, despite all he’d done. Despite how he’d crippled the world and brought about so much death. That she could choose to believe in him, and declare that belief publicly, was moving. And made him all the more determined to live up to the faith she had in him. A faith, he hoped, was not misplaced.

  The room filled with conflicting voices once again.

  Jaden, no longer restrained by the guard-captain, stepped to the center. He looked Kira directly in the eyes, only a few feet away. “Do you know who this is?” he asked, as if Antares weren’t there.

  “Yes. He is the man who will stop Rigil. He’s Antares of Andar.”

  “How can you say it like that? This man killed your parents.”

  “No he didn’t,” snapped Kira. “Rigil did.”

  “Antares was an instrument of their deaths. He enabled Rigil to overpower them. Without Antares, your parents would still be alive. So it’s his fault too.”

  “How dare you hang a burden around his neck that isn’t his. He never hurt my family, he never even saw them.” Her words were fierce. Antares was grateful for her unashamed acceptance of him, even though he wasn’t sure she was right. He’d never hurt her family directly, but he had enabled Rigil.

  “Kira, I am shocked,” said Jaden. “How are you so blind? Everything is Antares’ fault. Can’t you see that, everybody?” He turned and faced the majority of the people. “The fact that Citadel is upside down, and turned into a machine of war is his fault. The fact that we’re here right now, afraid, arguing, trying to make the best of a horrible situation, it’s all his fault. If he’d never been born, none of this would’ve ever happened.”

  Antares winced at the words but couldn’t deny the truth behind them.

  Kira’s face reddened and her eyes narrowed, but she kept her voice even. “The past cannot be changed, and yesterday will never come again, but tomorrow is the product of what we choose to do today. If we choose to do nothing, then we cannot complain about the outcome, because our blame could only fall upon ourselves. But if we set aside yesterday, and think about what we need to do today, we can save the world. I’m only asking you to try.”

  “Then perhaps you are asking too much,” said Jaden.

  “If we refuse to have hope, then we've lost already," a hint of desperation showed in Kira’s voice.

  “I will never trust Antares,” said Jaden flatly. There were cries of assent.

  Kira frowned and her eyes filled with sadness but her voice remained strong. “If you think you are too great to do small things, then perhaps you are too small to do great things. And both great and small are needed today.”

  “I can never undo what I’ve done,” said Antares, adding his voice to Kira’s. His tone was tender and compassionate, regretful yet resilient. “But I can try to make things a little bit better. I’ll never ask you to forgive me, but I am asking you to help me. If you don’t want to come, I understand. As I said, if I have to… I’ll go alone.”

  “Not alone,” said Kira. Her voice was bittersweet and as gentle as a whisper as she took his hand. He looked into her eyes, they were sad but perseverant.

  “You mean to stay with him?” asked Jaden, his acidic voice could not mask his envy.

  “To the very end.”

  “But… why?”

  “Because it's the right thing to do,” said Kira, her piercing eyes were focused intently on Jaden. "And sometimes the right thing to do isn't the safe thing."

  “I’ll go,” said Emon from nowhere. “My enforcers can choose for themselves. But if anyone is going to go, I want it to be me. I owe Rigil an ass-beating and that debt is certainly overdue.”

  An argument exploded between the different enforcer Combines. Those from Skyhaven were most resistant, not wanting to follow Antares, especially without the blessing of their government. Most of the enforcers from Silverwind were loyal enough to Emon to commit to joining the attack, and, to Antares’ surprise, every enforcer from New Andar was willing to join them too.

  “I will go,” said Captain Grayson, on behalf of her elite platoon.

  “What?” Jaden spun to face her.

  “This is what we’ve been waiting for,” said Captain Grayson. “This is our chance to take Citadel back, and that is my first duty. Just as yours is to your city. A city that is being actively bombed by Rigil. Perhaps you should think about that.”

  “Second company will go,” said a young Skyhaven officer, several around him voiced their assent.

  “It most certainly will not,” an older, higher ranking Skyhaven officer said. His markings looked like that of a general. “No soldiers from Skyhaven will go, and anyone that does will be court-marshaled to the highest degree.”

  “And when we return we will surrender voluntarily,” said another Skyhaven soldier from another part of the room. “But we will go.”

  “Don’t you realize if you go you won’t return at all?”

  “Not just court-marshaled,” said the leader of parliament. “But also imprisoned. We can’t afford to lose half our defenses on some ludicrous campaign. Following a mad man into the lion’s den, it’s asinine!” The reaction to her words was riotous and the room filled with chaos. Everyone was shouting and arguing, mayhem impossible to follow. Even the queen made no effort to control it, her face was as conflicted as the words being thrown about.

  Kira tugged at Antares’ hand. He looked at her and a smile formed automatically on his face. She led him away. They walked through the chaos together, apart from it. Not belonging. They slipped through the crowd and out the door. Accepting that whoever would come, would come. It was out of their hands now.

  26

  It had been over a day since the meeting at Skyhaven capitol, and now the dusk was settling over the coarse road leading towards Citadel. Antares walked the path, flanked by fourteen other enforcers. He kept an eye on the nearby forest. Knowing the TAC teams were hidden in the mesh of branches and leaves, moving parallel to Antares’ group. They’d ditched the vehicles and were now on foot.

  At his side was Kira, every bit the hardened enforcer the others were. Their group was a force to be reckoned with, from Silverwind, Andar, and Skyhaven. Each had come, some of them unlawfully, to help free Citadel. Antares thought of the irony, how his rag-tag army resembled that of Caythis’ five years before. A group of deserters who chose to follow their hearts and give up everything for a chance to stop the terror. Except this time, instead of leaving Citadel, they were invading it.

  In numbers their force wasn’t large, but that didn’t matter. They had firepower and magic aplenty, and would make tactical use of relative superiority. Their objectives were simple: breach the city, incite the populace, destroy the skytechnology, and eliminate Rigil. Antares expected Rigil’s forces to be thin and demoralized. Many of them would probably defect. And, even if they didn’t, there was one more joker in the deck. Old intelligence gathered from Citadel spoke of a group known as GENESIS. A resistance cell that had, all this time, opposed Rigil’s occupation. Any attack on Citadel was bound to gain their support. It would be bloody, but removing Rigil was possible. And Antares was willing to do whatever it took.

  They were about half a mile from the city when it was fully in view. It was a tight, urban circle. High rising structures loomed over the walls like long, stretched necks, shimmering just a bit in the dim light. The stone architecture forming the wall and edges was similar to how Andar’s had been, though more majestic. And the tall buildings had the modern styling of Silverwind. A large gate was sealed ahead, one of four main gates. One for each district.

  An armored vehicle with a mounted gun hovered in their direction. A patrol group, including several men and two trucks, followed. Just as Antares had expected.

  “Follow me, step slowly, and remember, hands on your heads,” said Antares.

  The trucks screeched to a stop in a cloud of dust, their noisy engines idled and the sol
diers began piling out. They trained weapons on Antares and his group—high-power rifles and grenade launchers. At the front were five enemy enforcers, their magic was impossible to guess because their armor was uniformly black. No doubt they were enforcers who'd helped overthrow the academy five years before. Enforcers who’d allowed Rigil to betray Antares, leaving him to fight Caythis alone.

  “Keep your hands on your heads,” their leader said. “And explain your presence here. This is Citadel territory.”

  Antares noted the anxiety on the enemy soldiers’ faces. They’d never come up against enforcers before, most likely, and their own enforcers were outnumbered three to one.

  “We’re defectors,” said Antares. “Outcasts. We’ve left our governments to join Rigil’s cause. We're tired of the old ways. Evolution calls for an end to suppressing the natural source of power. And now we’re here and demand an audience with Rigil.”

  Antares borrowed the rhetoric from a letter Rigil had sent him years before. It had always been Rigil’s philosophy that the enforcers had a right to rule, and civilian governments didn’t. As he saw it, the enforcers had been endowed by nature with tangible power while the governments were merely the corrupt offspring of social interaction. A collection of the uninformed, ignorant, exploited masses, too stupid to see the big picture, manipulated into supporting the vainglorious ambitions of an elite few.

  “You don’t get to speak with Rigil,” said the enemy enforcer. “You get to speak with me. And I’d better like what you have to say, or else… Now tell me, what is your name?”

  “My name isn’t important,” said Antares. “All that matters is that I’m the angel of death.”

  “What?”

  A scream filled the air as rockets roared from the forest, slamming into the trucks—transforming them into fireballs of debris. Another rocket struck a group of soldiers, sending body parts everywhere.

  The enemy returned fire but it was sporadic and poorly targeted. They were confused and too busy scrambling for cover—not finding much—to fight back. Antares drew his sword in one fluid motion and activated it. He charged the nearest enemy—a black-clad enforcer, and cut him down.

  Kira and the other enforcers joined the fray. Some with swords and others with a firestorm of mixed magic that easily overpowered their remaining enemies. They dropped like flies. Those who ran, hastily retreating toward Citadel’s gate, were cut down by sniper fire provided by Captain Grayson’s elite soldiers.

  The armored vehicle turned its heavy turret toward the forest and opened fire blindly at the hidden TAC teams. They responded with a volley of rockets that disabled the vehicle's turret and forced the machine to crash into the ground, mostly destroyed. A hatch popped open and the vehicle’s operators scrambled out. Snipers dropped them as they ran.

  In seconds, it was over. And the way to the gate was clear.

  Antares and the other enforcers raised their hands and blasted the gate with their combined magic. The force of the water, accelerated by the wind, slammed into the gate like an enormous battering ram, while fire melted away at the gate’s strength and integrity. It collapsed almost immediately, exposing the city.

  A storm of bullets began crashing into their armor as soon as the gate went down. Antares gave the order and they went prone, crawling closer to the gate. Still blasting magic, when they could, at their main targets. Meanwhile Captain Grayson’s snipers and the TAC specialists continued picking off their enemies.

  “This is the easy part,” said Antares. “Once Rigil has mobilized his main army and his better enforcers, we’ll be outnumbered severely.”

  “Keep moving,” said Kira.

  Once they were close, they stood up and charged into the city. Summoning an enormous spray of magic to provide cover. Behind them, the TAC teams and other soldiers followed. Upon entrance they sprinted for the best tactical positions they could find. Antares and his enforcers shielded them as much as possible with a blanket of magic.

  They entered the commercial district with momentum on their side. The main guards were on the run and Rigil’s military was in chaos.

  Antares’ force was careful to take positions that prevented their enemies from utilizing bottlenecks to slow the advance into the city. They took cover in buildings and made use of rooftops to support their street-by-street push. TAC snipers found good positions and helped continue the chaos by taking out soldiers and police.

  Now that they’d established a foothold in the city, they’d have to either dig in and buy some time or else keep pushing and help comb the city, district-by-district, for the skytechnology infrastructure. Emon was leading a separate group into a different section of the city. They would enter discretely and begin the search. Antares’ group had to draw Rigil’s attention in the meantime so Emon could move swiftly.

  As Antares and the main force made progress through the commercial district, they encountered increasingly more resistance. A steady outpour of soldiers took up positions against them and dug their heels in. New arrivals were more organized and better equipped, including black-clad enforcers who actually knew how to fight, and that rallied the enemy’s morale.

  Both forces clashed and it wasn’t at all clear who would prevail. Antares’ soldiers had better positioning but were outnumbered.

  Fires licked buildings, roads were showered with debris. Bullets, rockets, and hand-grenades were exchanged in the fighting—with limited effectiveness, creating a noisy, smoky haze of confusion.

  Emon’s voice crackled over the radio. “The tunnels are blocked.”

  “Can you get through?” asked Antares.

  “Negative, they’re completely sealed off.”

  Antares had been afraid of that. The freight tunnels leading under the city were useless to Rigil because he had no trade relations with the other cities. Making them little more than an unwanted liability. Failing to seal them would’ve been an egregious security error.

  “We’re going to try to force our way in with charges,” said Emon.

  “Not very subtle. I think they’ll notice you if you do, no matter how much noise we’re making over here. If they find you, they’ll bottle you in.”

  “Understood, but the plan’s changed anyway. If we can’t get through here… we’ll have to backtrack and use your entrance. That’ll waste time and further delay our district-by-district search.”

  “You’re right. Keep me informed,” said Antares while ran to better cover. He blasted magic at an enemy truck barreling down the road, it exploded. This caught some unwanted attention and a heavy machine-gun turned his way, forcing him to duck low.

  Captain Grayson’s voice came over the radio next and her news wasn’t better. “Our position’s been compromised in the east towers. We’re falling back a block.”

  Slowly but surely they were being squeezed out of their superior position as Rigil’s commanders traded heavy casualties for ground.

  “We need to either regroup or else split up and head to different districts,” said Kira. “If they don’t know where we are, and we seem to be coming from everywhere, that might exaggerate our numbers. And confuse them.” She was about a hundred yards away with a small part of the army. She seemed to be having better success than Antares.

  “We can’t regroup,” said Antares. “There’s no way we could search every district if we’re all together. We’d be too easily contained. We need help. And if we split up—”

  A deep roar filled the sky, echoing off the mountain. In the distance, part of the city collapsed. A few tall sky-rising buildings on the western end crashed to the ground in a massive outpour of smoke that shot along the streets, obscuring everything.

  “Was that you, Emon?” asked Antares. “Did you get through? Report!”

  “No we didn’t get through, the damn tunnels collapsed! And took out some supports and foundations. We even lost a man, we’re not getting through this way.”

  “Regroup with us,” said Antares, keeping calm despite his distress. This f
ailure might mean their whole operation was in ruins.

  “We’re already on our way.”

  More soldiers were streaming out from around ruined vehicles, spraying automatic gunfire toward Antares’ position and lobbing grenades. One went off nearby and blew a chunk of wall into his chest plate. It knocked the wind out of him and he crashed to the ground with a new set of bruises. Pain screamed from his breastbone as he climbed back to his feet. He returned fire with a wave of magic. He ordered the rest of his force to fall back for better cover, they’d lost this road.

  “This is Survey One Actual, Antares, do you copy? Over.” This new voice belonged to the leader of the survey team that had been sent to scout and capture the broadcasting tower on the nearby mountain.

  “I copy. Did you take the repeater tower?”

  “Affirmative. We’ve hijacked the signal and are now spreading freedom’s message to anyone in Citadel who’s listening. A call to revolt is being broadcast on all major frequencies.”

  “Good work. Let’s hope it amounts to something.”

  “Lights are coming up the road. Could be trouble. We’ll hold this tower at all costs to keep broadcasting our message.”

  “Good luck.”

  “We’ll report again in five minutes, Survey One Actual out.”

  An explosion rocked the building next to him, forcing him to retreat again. He and his men fell back and returned fire. Their defensive position was slipping away.

  “Kira, give me some good news,” he said.

  “We’re still holding over here. I sent a team of three to do a hit-and-run strike from the east. That seems to have confused the enemy force that’s been pushing on us.”