Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

by Larry Correia

  There were two new Grimnoir. Both of them were old men, nearly ancient by her standards. Mr. Rawls was the first black man that she’d ever actually spoken with and he seemed really nice. He was a Reader, like General Pershing, only he had a whole lot more Power. His hair was white and his skin was dark as night. His suit was covered in ash, and the fact that he’d jumped right in to help look for survivors made her like him even more. He wasn’t afraid to get dirty. She was willing to bet that he was a very nice grandpa to his grandchildren.

  The other one was named Mr. Harkeness. There was something about him that didn’t sit right with her. He was old too, but he’d dyed his hair black, like he was trying to disguise his age, but he was too dried out and wrinkly to be vain. His eyes were cold, his face narrow, and he talked funny. He was European, not from the warm, loud, laugh-a-lot side of Europe like Grandpa and his family, but from the cold, harsh, serious side of Europe. Mr. Browning and Mr. Garrett were on litters in the middle of the floor, and he was kneeling between them, checking their vitals.

  “Are you a Healer?” she shouted hopefully over the engine noise.

  “Something like that, child. Not nearly that strong though. Please, let me be.”

  Mr. Harkeness had seemed sullen ever since she had first spoken with him. The very first question out of his mouth was if Jane was alive. When she’d told him that Mr. Madi had taken her away, he had given her the sternest glare, like he held her personally responsible for her friend’s loss. That wasn’t fair at all. She’d killed an Iron Guard and shot Madi and a couple of zombies and kept Francis from getting squished and kept Mr. Sullivan from getting a bullet in the back of the head. She’d done her very best and she wasn’t even officially a Grimnoir yet. She’d like to see the fancy-pants European do any of that.

  Her friends were all staring out at the destruction, bouncing back and forth in the rusty truck bed, all except for Mr. Sullivan, who was watching something else, something far away in the distance, where only he could see. Delilah’s body had been wrapped in a blanket and he knelt next to it, protectively. She’d sworn to kill Mr. Madi, but she figured it was going to be a race now between the two of them as to who got to kill him first. Mr. Sullivan looked real mad. The truck bed smelled like manure, and that made her feel a little more comfortable, like home. Either way, as long as Madi died, that would make Grandpa and Delilah happy in heaven. Maybe they would kill him together. That seemed fair.

  A bunch of volunteers waved at them as they went past. They looked glad to see someone alive and that gave them hope to keep digging with their shovels. Lance was talking to Mr. Rawls, telling him about what had happened. Apparently Mr. Rawls was the one who had been assigned to come out here and take General Pershing’s place.

  “It seems like we’ve done this once before, doesn’t it, Mr. Talon,” Mr. Rawls said sadly, putting his arm over Lance’s broad shoulders. “Only this time, the toll was much worse.”

  Lance caught Faye giving him a curious look. “Last time the Imperium found us, they burned my house down. That was three years ago, in the attack where Black Jack got cursed. Isaiah and Kristopher here were some of the knights sent to reinforce us,” he explained. “We tracked them down and killed the lot of them, but we lost some good men in the process.”

  “Poor Jane, always so gentle and naïve. She volunteered to stay and minister to Pershing. I told her it was too dangerous. Pershing was always getting into trouble. Look where that got her. And my granddaughter took a liking to this one,” Mr. Harkeness muttered, poking at Mr. Garrett’s belly. “Girl never had any sense . . .”

  That made Faye angry. Mr. Garrett was a very nice man. He was unconscious so she felt the need to stick up for him. “Jane loves Dan a whole bunch.”

  Harkeness snorted. “And this lump told me he’d protect her, keep her safe. Fat lot of good you all did.”

  Heinrich was sitting across from Mr. Harkeness, one leg dangling over the side. When he lifted his face, Faye saw a look very similar to the one he’d had when he’d shot her in the heart with his Luger. His voice was totally flat. “Say that again, Scheisskopf, and see what happens.”

  “That’s enough, Kristopher,” Mr. Rawls barked. “These knights have been through too much.” Mr. Harkeness frowned, and went back to his work. “It isn’t their fault your granddaughter was lost.”

  “We will get her back,” Lance vowed. Heinrich and Francis nodded, so Faye did too. Sullivan was still staring off into space.

  “Sadly, there are more important things at stake than the life of a single Grimnoir,” Mr. Rawls said. “General Pershing was keeping me informed about the Geo-Tel situation. We must secure the last piece before it is too late . . . You were Pershing’s men. Who did he entrust with the location?” There was no response. Faye looked around. She knew, but she didn’t think she was supposed to say. “Look, I know he kept it secret. The General was paranoid, for good reason, but he’s gone now. The elders have sent me to fill his shoes, and they’re some mighty big shoes to fill, believe me. I rode with him before most of you were born. I was a young Buffalo Soldier under his command, before either one of us was recruited by the Society. I feel his loss as much as anyone, but you must understand how important this device is.”

  “Oh, I think we do,” Francis said, gesturing at the scorched earth all around them. Buzzards weren’t even circling, because everything dead was too crispy to eat.

  Mr. Rawls’ laughter was genuine. “This? Francis, my boy, this is nothing. The Geo-Tel cut a swath through Siberia that you can’t even imagine. I was one of the knights of New York, and we came this close”—he held up thumb and forefinger nearly touching—“to losing the whole east coast. When there were many pieces scattered and unknown, then Pershing’s way made sense, but now there is only one. The single most important mission of the entire Society is to find it.”

  “And destroy it,” Lance said.

  “Of course. The elders were foolish when they thought they could keep it to maybe use it themselves one day. We should have smashed it to bits back in ’08. If the General confided in any of you, we must know. The world depends on it.”

  The truck reached the edge of the blast zone. The black ash just stopped in a perfectly straight line. On one side was death and on the other there was yellow summer grass, seemingly undisturbed. Police cars were parked on both sides as the road reappeared. Soldiers hurried and moved wooden barricades out of the way as the driver shouted there were survivors to take to the hospital.

  The gear box ground as the truck rolled forward. A police car got in front of them and turned on its siren. Reporters tried to take their picture as they went by but the Grimnoir kept their heads down. The group was silent, and Faye thought about raising her hand, but she hesitated. General Pershing had shown her exactly where to go to find Southunder.

  “The only thing standing between the Chairman and the deadliest device ever conceived is a single Grimnoir, who probably doesn’t even know that his old companions have all been slaughtered. We must get to him before it is too late.” Mr. Rawls pleaded, “You are not betraying the General, you are fulfilling his final mission.”

  Sullivan started to laugh. It was a low chuckle at first, but then it turned into a full belly laugh. He was at the rear of the truck, and the shocks creaked under his weight as he turned. “You all are too rich.” He had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve. “Damn near as self-righteous as the Chairman.”

  “Pershing told you?” Mr. Rawls said incredulously.

  “Because he knew better than to trust anyone else. Yeah, I know how to find Bob Southunder.”

  “You must tell us then.”

  “Pershing gave me a job. I intend to do it. I’ll find Southunder and the last piece. That’s my duty. Not yours.”

  “You can’t hope to do this on your own. You’re just mad with grief, son,” Mr. Rawls said.

  “Maybe. But that don’t change nothing.”

  “If the Chairman finds out where it is, he’ll sen
d his Iron Guard against you,” Mr. Harkeness said coldly.

  “I’m counting on it. And when they come, I’ll be there, waiting,” Sullivan stated. Faye could tell he meant it. If there was anything she knew about Mr. Sullivan, he was a man who kept his promises or who’d die trying.

  Mr. Rawls was upset. “This isn’t a game. Tell me where Southunder is. That’s an order, Grimnoir.”

  Sullivan paused, took Pershing’s ring from his pinky and tossed it into the truck bed. It rolled to a stop next to Mr. Browning. “I never took no oath.”

  Mr. Rawls’ thick white eyebrows scrunched together as he glared at Mr. Sullivan. Faye could almost feel the Power crackle through the air around them. If Sullivan wouldn’t talk, then he’d just pick the truth out himself. She’d felt how strong Mr. Rawls was. He’d been able to talk to her mind through hundreds of feet of solid rock.

  But Sullivan was stronger than any old ocean cliff. Unbreakable. He closed his eyes as Mr. Rawls tried to force his way into his head, a look of terrible concentration creasing the big man’s square face. “Get out of my brain,” Sullivan said. She turned to Mr. Rawls; sweat was rolling down his face and veins were popping out in his forehead. The whole truck creaked as Sullivan stood up. He calmly drew his .45, took a magazine from his pocket, stuck it into the grip, and racked the slide. Raising the gun, he aimed it at Mr. Rawls. “I said, get out of my brain or I spread yours all over the road.”

  The Reader gasped as he let go. “What are you?”

  “Angry.” Sullivan put his gun back into the military flap holster on his belt. He turned to Heinrich. “See to Delilah. She’d want to be buried in a place with a pretty view. Have somebody say some words. I think she’d like that.”

  “I will,” Heinrich promised.

  He addressed them all. “I can’t come with you to save Jane. Tell Dan I’m real sorry when he wakes up. Maybe we’ll meet again and maybe we won’t. Faye, thank you kindly for getting us out. Delilah told me she took a real liking to you.” Sullivan nodded at her, and Faye felt herself blush. “Good luck.”

  “What’re you gonna do?” Lance asked.

  “My duty.” Sullivan nodded once and stepped off the back of the speeding truck.

  Chapter 19

  It was during my wandering time that I first met an American. The black ships of Commodore Perry had recently arrived in Nippon. These foreign barbarians did not ask the shogun for permission to open trade; they demanded it from the decks of their warships while ringed in cannons under a cloud of coal smoke that blotted out the sky. There was an assumption of this absolute right. The strongest does not ask, cajole, or beg. It is the duty of the strongest to command and the weakest to obey. I had long made my way by selling my sword, and whatever lord I served inevitably became the strongest, so I was well acquainted with this concept at the individual level. Yet, it was the Americans that opened my eyes to the greater possibilities. As the strong lord must rule over the weak peasant, so must the strong nation rule the entire world. I owe them a great deal as I have tried to apply this lesson ever since.

  —Baron Okubo Tokugawa,

  Chairman of the Imperial Council, My Story, 1922

  280 miles west of San Francisco

  Madi sat cross-legged on the floor of his cabin, attempting to meditate. He could feel the ship rocking. It had taken him forever to figure out how to sit like the other Iron Guards. He wasn’t exactly a limber man, but he’d decided a long time ago that anything they could do, he’d do better, and now he could sit as still as a statue for hours. At the Academy, old master Shiroyuki would come by and crack him on the spine with a bokken anytime he started to slouch. The old bastard had been big on posture.

  Thinking of the old master made him smile. That was his problem with meditation, thoughts just kept coming, and now he was remembering Shiroyuki and his big ridiculous samurai mustache. He’d hated Madi. Not only for being the first white man accepted into the brutal Iron Guard training, but also because he had come to Japan as a prisoner of war.

  He’d been part of AEF Siberia, the Polar Bears, they’d been called in the news. It had been a shitty mission to a cold unforgiving place, mostly to protect American business interests while the Bolsheviks were getting their asses handed to them by the Japs. He’d gotten separated from his unit when his chicken-shit commanding officer panicked and ran. It was an empty feeling, waiting at your post for relief that never came. It had taken three weeks on foot through the coldest damn forest in the world, but the Imperium troops had finally captured him, though he’d killed a whole mess of them in the process.

  They’d dragged him behind their horses for miles but he’d refused to die. Then they tossed him into a deep dark hole and quit feeding him, but he’d lived off of rats that he’d crushed with his Power. One day a new commander showed up and had marveled at the one-eyed Heavy chained in the hole. Apparently the weeks he’d spent evading and murdering them had earned him a reputation as some sort of great white freak show. He was the biggest man any of the Japs had ever seen and he was the only American in the camp, so the new commander had logically decided it would be fun to watch him fight a bunch of the captured Russians for his amusement.

  That part had been fun. He’d never had any qualms about killing. It was really the only thing he was good at. The regular Russians were easy to beat. He could snap most of them in half. The Siberians were different. Those boys were tough, and he picked up a bunch of scars giving the Japs their show. Afterward, they’d put him back in the hole, only this time the commander had sent down food, honest-to-God real food. It was mostly rice, but after eating raw rats, rice was good.

  That had gone on for another month, until Madi had damn near depopulated the entire camp of other prisoners. When they’d run out of Russians, they’d tossed in some Chinese, five at a time, and when they ran out of those, they’d thrown him in the arena with an angry bear. The bear had been easy. A ten-second surge of Power had turned it into mush.

  He’d tried to escape, a couple of times in fact. The first time they’d beaten him senseless with rifle butts, but the commander had told them to let him live. He was intrigued by the Heavy at this point. The second attempt resulted in the death of nearly a dozen of the camp guards and he’d gone down fully expecting to get his head chopped off, but instead he’d woken up chained back in the hole, the commander sitting on a stool across from him.

  Madi could remember it like it was yesterday.

  The man studied him for a long time before speaking. The commander spoke English, even if he was damn near impossible to understand the way he tried to shout half the words. “Why you still alive, Heavy? Why you not dead while everybody else dead?”

  Madi didn’t need to think about that for very long. “Because I was stronger.”

  The commander had nodded real slow, like that was the wisest thing he’d ever heard, then he had passed Madi a dirty envelope. “My men capture this.” Inside was a typed letter on AEF stationery and he even recognized his old captain’s signature. The letter was real matter-of-fact, about how Sergeant Matthew D. Sullivan was AWOL and a no-good deserter and a coward. That had really left him steamed, since the only reason he was in this Jap prison was because his old captain had been yellow and run at the first sign of an advance. He’d been the one who’d left Madi at his post to be overrun. Madi had survived the Second fucking Somme. What did Captain Cocksucker know about cowardice?

  “You read this?” Madi asked, disgusted. The Jap nodded. “Liars. I’ve never run from nothing in my life.”

  “Your people dishonor you.”

  “Ain’t the first time. Got my brother killed in France. Tore half my face off and they didn’t even bother to fix it all the way . . .” The women told him he was good-looking before the war, but now, it didn’t matter what they said to his torn-up face. He saw their disgust with his good eye. “What did I get? Nothing,” he’d spat. Jake had been the one who’d gotten all the fancy medals and the recognition and the praise after the
war but his little brother had never cared about that kind of thing. He sure had, but all he’d ever wanted was some respect, but they hadn’t given him shit. “Then when I get captured ‘cause of some yellow officer they blame it on me.” He threw the letter on the ground, planning on using it to wipe his ass later.

  “You are great warrior,” the commander stated. “My men told stories of how hard to catch you it was in the forest. How you killed many men. You put fear in their hearts. It is hard to make Imperium man fear. You strong. Strongest should be most respect.”

  “Hell with ’em,” Madi agreed, really studying the commander for the first time. He was tall for a Jap, otherwise nothing special to look at, but he emanated a quiet confidence. Madi could tell he was some sort of Active by the way he carried himself.

  “Yes. You think you strongest? Prove it. Make pact. We fight. You beat me, you free go.”

  He’d had a good laugh. “No shit?”

  “Shit not. I am Rokusaburo of Iron Guard. You beat me, you free. I beat you, you serve me.”

  He figured that the Jap would last even less time than the bear in the blood-soaked little field they’d made him fight all those Russians in, and the next morning they’d led him out there. The whole Jap battalion had shown up and was standing in a big circle, watching, excited. They had bayonets mounted and he was no sucker. When he won over the crazy little man, they were sure as hell gonna stick those long bayonets in him, no matter what, but maybe he’d get to squish a Nip officer in the process. Rokusaburo had been waiting in the middle, shirtless, his body covered with strange intricate scars. He bowed.

  The little man destroyed him.