Call of the Chosen- Broken Kingdoms

by Michael DeSousa

  She took in a deep breath. “It is not the height that bothers me—”

  “I know,” Ed said. “But if you can’t, I need to know.”

  She touched her forehead, and whispered to herself what Ed imagined was some prayer. She then said, "I never believed I would actually touch a piece of the Almighty. But, yes; if it can't be helped, Colonel. ...and thank you for asking."

  He gave her a nod and a reassuring grin. "Alright then, just one more thing." Sorry Glen. "Gene and I are going to go down and take that steam-driver. Glen, if you’re done memorizing, I want you to go back—"

  "No way, Ed. I'm here already, I—"

  "We will pick you up," Ed whispered.

  "Ed—"

  "It’s Colonel, lieutenant," Ed reminded his friend. "I'm sorry, Glen. This is too important. You need to get back and start drawing what you've seen here."

  "Colonel," Glen seethed through his teeth—

  "If you die here, and another group of us tries to recapture this place without the help your memories could provide, what the hell do you think will happen?"

  Glen clenched his jaw before looking over to Gene. "You better take care of him, priest."

  Gene nodded. "You be careful too. Winning a debate with myself wouldn’t be—”

  “Sane?”

  “Satisfying, I was going to say."

  Glen smirked and appeared as though he wanted to say something clever but didn't. He slid backwards and began his trek back to the bottom of the gorge.

  "Once he gets far enough, we move," Ed said.

  "And then?"

  "We pick up Glen and Ninn if we can find him."

  "And then?" Ed furrowed his brow. "Do we go to Alecka, straight to the battalion or back to the city garrison? The Princes’ reinforcements must still be days away."

  Ed grumbled, looking at the Ladress horizon and hoping he would see that flying monster, but he didn't.

  "Where would you go," Ed asked. "If you were invading with an overwhelming force."

  "History can tell us," Gene replied. "The Empire in the past always struck quickly and harshly. And their victims submitted within days."

  He nodded to himself in thought.

  "The city," they both said.

  “At least Alecka and the battalion will be safe,” Gene added.

  “Yea, and if Ninn really is as fast as ‘horse legs’ maybe he’ll get to Adleson and they’ll evacuate Sosh’r.”

  Ed watched on as Glen made his way to the bottom of the cliff face and back inside the gorge floor. He then strolled toward the middle, positioning himself in a clearing far from trees or rocks. "Alright, he's ready," Ed said, turning back to steam-driver.

  But, then he heard shouting coming from Glen's direction. Glen was waving his arms and shooting his hand-cannon into the air. "Imperial bastards," his muted shouts reached them. "Murders! Savages! You call yourselves civilized! One man! It’s all it’s going to take! I’ll take all of you!"

  “Can’t leave that idiot alone for a minute,” Gene whispered.

  "What the hell is he doing," Ed cursed, darting his eyes between the camp and Glen. Two of the massive man-shaped units turned their arms toward Glen and began slow long strides toward him, along with five regulars flanking both sides. "He's going to get himself killed."

  "A distraction," Gene suggested. "To give us an opportunity. But if he dies….”

  Ed cursed again. “He’s not going to die because I’m going to kill him.”

  “The steam-driver,” Gene nodded. “Look. No one is near it now.”

  Ed hesitated. The enemy was closing in on Glen. "Damn it. Now isn’t the time to be stealthy. Let's go!" He flung himself onto the steep descending rocky mess, tripping and tumbling, before righting himself up. He glanced quickly behind him. Gene was doing much better, though much slower. As he neared halfway, he heard shouts from the camp. The units closing in on Glen halted, turned and began trekking back.

  Thud. Whistle. An explosion rocked Ed off his feet. Tumbling again, he managed to right himself before slamming hard against the stream-driver's metal paneling, denting it with his shoulder.

  "Gene," he shouted after her. “Run!” She was being too damn careful, maneuvering herself between root and rock. Thud. Whistle. "Get down!" Another explosion launched her into the air.

  As she fell falling face forward with her hands out, Ed heard a low hum and saw a glimmering sheen of a ward spell wrap her body before she met the unforgiving ground a few feet in front of him. He raced over, tossed her over his shoulder and raced back to the relative protection of the steam-driver’s side. "Are you alright," he asked, putting her down.

  Her masked had cracked revealing the lower half of her mouth, strands of silver hair stuck against her damp cheek. "I'm fine. I'm fine," she repeated. By now, the clamor of the camp became an uproar with shouting orders and feet storming and whistles and horns blaring all around them.

  Ed searched for a door on the steam-driver, a latch; he found it and pulled, but nothing. It wouldn’t open. He felt around the paneling, searching frantically for the door’s edge. Found it! He dug his fingers into the recess between the door and frame of the stream-driver and tried prying it open. He felt the metal give to his fingers and burrowed deeper while rocking the stream-driver on its rubbered chained wheels with his weight. Come on! The metal gave way again, and again he dug his fingers further until he found the other side.

  He grinned, closing his palm around the door’s edge. With one great heave, he bent the door open, shattering whatever was locking it.

  “Get inside,” he told Gene, but she returned with wide eyes and hanging jaw.

  “You’re that strong. Colonel, where in the mountains were you born?”

  If it had been another time, Ed would have laughed, but not with the enemy pressing in. Instead he roared, “get your ass inside!”

  She jerked from her daze and jumped in, followed by Ed bending the door back as best he could.

  He darted his eyes, searching. "There! The firebox. Gene."

  Gene opened the firebox, a strange blue-dyed small stove attached to some kind of machinery in the back. She waved her glowing hand over the coals inside the oven, igniting them to life.

  Ed kept searching. Quick! Quick! Pedals. Two. Steering...a wheel? With the firebox blazing, Ed threw his weight onto one of the pedals. Nothing. Then the other. Nothing. He searched again —a pressure gauge, its indicator rising. Damn, it wasn’t enough yet.

  "Get out." shouted voices from outside. The enemy. Soldiers with their own long barrel style hand-cannons pointed between the openings in the paneling. Others held their polished gleaming swords ready. Out through the two front windows, he could see those two man-shaped monstrosities staring him down, the third presumably behind them. A bit of overkill for two special operations members, but at least they weren’t ignoring them any longer.

  “Gene,” Ed whispered as he released the steering and splayed his fingers to display his palms out toward the windows.

  Gene, shovel in hand, shook her head, a frown descending from her exposed chin. Apparently, her magic was out of the question.

  A woman wearing a blue and black officer’s uniform appeared at the dented door which hung now on one bottom hinge and threatened to topple over. He wished he hadn’t done so much damage to it. Maybe it would have stopped two of her soldiers from removing the door completely. Though it gave him some satisfaction that the two men carry it away, having to drag it.

  Wearing a captain’s rank on her lapel, a bemused soft expression on her face, she held her hands behind her back and with a calm voice said, “You. Mage. Don’t move. It’s no use…,” she scanned Ed’s uniform. “Colonel. You have no idea how to operate this thing and you might get yourself killed if you try. Now, surrender or you will get yourself killed." Just then a gem flared its blue light, stealing Ed’s attention. The required pressure had been met. A little too late. The Captain slapped her thigh to steal back Ed’s attention on her. “Be
ing my prisoner is a bit better than being dead, Colonel,” she said with an ominous inflection on the word ‘my’ and ‘a bit’ while sporting a self-satisfied smirk.

  But Ed bit his tongue, searching around him. Up above was a handle, a metal sign that read, ‘Axel Engage.’ Sounds good enough. He pulled on the handle. Stiff.

  “I don’t want to have to kill you,” she sneered, her hands going to her sidearm, a rapier ceremonial sword.

  Ed gradually pulled harder, hoping not to pop the handle off in his hand. A loud nauseating grinding shook the rear of the steam-driver; black and blue smoke bellowing out—

  The Captain drew out her blade but before she could climb inside, Ed slammed both feet on both pedals. The entire vehicle screeched violently toward the right, knocking the Captain underneath as the wheels sent up black smoke, rocks and dust spitting in all directions.

  "Shoot!"

  Ed lifted his foot off one of the pedals; the steam-driver bolted forward like a ferocious lion freed, almost whipping him to the floor. “It’s fast,” he shrieked, watching as they overtook the regulars and even those man-shaped machines were too slow to react as the steam-driver careened passed.

  "They're coming," Gene said. “They’re loading up their other stream-drivers.”

  "I see Glen up ahead. We'll have to do this as quickly as possible."

  When Ed got close enough, he slowed the steam-driver down beside Glen. “Get inside,” Ed roared, resisting the temptation to curse him out.

  Glen’s head poked inside, looking at Gene. “Ed’s mad, isn’t he?”

  Thud. Whistle. "Glen," Ed barked as an explosion rocked the steam-driver. Once inside, Ed shifted all his weight onto the right pedal as far as it would go. Black smoke reeled from the rear as they sped down the gorge.

  "They’re slowing down,” Gene said with a deep exhale. “They…they’re stopping.”

  Ed breathed a sigh of relief. "Glen, take over here," he commanded. "Gene, I'll shovel in the coal. Tend to your wounds."

  "Thanks for the surprise, Glen," Gene said, sitting down on the metal serrated floor. "And for the sprained elbow."

  "Well, I—"

  "Did you want to get yourself killed," Ed roared, gripping hard on shovel’s handle. "I should kick your ass right out the military for doing something so stupid!”

  Glen recoiled, his eyebrows crunching together. "Those big ones would have surrounded you long before you figured out how to use this damn thing and that would have been the end of it.”

  "You don't know that," Ed shouted. "Damn it, Glen. I got enough to worry about than you doing your own damn thing all the time." The shovel handle cracked under his grip before he shoved more coal inside the firebox, glowing a bright fiery red. Too hot, probably, but Ed didn't care. Shoveling coal was all that kept him from punching his friend across the face.

  "I… alright, I'm sorry, Ed.”

  Ed stopped shoveling. He took in a sharp breath, trying to relax from his anger. “You can’t keep breaking the rules all the time, Glen. This isn’t like back home. This is war now. They’re here.”

  “Yea, I know,” Glen replied quietly. Ed recognized it: Glen’s sudden quiet reservedness. Ed must have said something that stung, but he wouldn’t take it back. No, not now; not after this. “Where should I drive this thing," Glen asked.

  "Head back to city," Ed answered. "And watch for Ninn." Ed then sat and checked himself for bruises; he found nothing. They should have killed them but they didn’t. Were they afraid of damaging this horseless carriage? “Gene, you alright?”

  She stretched and flexed her arms before casting some kind of spell on one. “Yes, thanks be to the Golden Lady.”

  Ed took in an another slow deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting a smirk stretch on his face. He did it again; his unit was safe. His strength and resilience, Gene’s magic and intuition, Glen’s memory and wit. Between the three of them, Ed thought they could accomplish anything, but what the Empire brought today was far more than he could have imagined.

  "We accomplished a first," Gene said, wrapping the exposed part of her face with a makeshift scarf she tore from her clothes. “We stole a piece of the Empire.”

  "Yea….," Ed drew out, smiling. "Maybe if we figure out how this thing works, we can make some of our own."

  "Without committing sacrilege," Gene quickly added.

  "Not possible,” Glen said, uncharacteristically somber. “Those Shards are much more complicated than this steam-driver suggests. We would need one. The boiler system, we can make, but it’s not very practical. Just listening to how it runs, seeing how fast we are going. Hell, you guys should have blown up the boiler a while ago with how you handled it back there, but it’s still going. Something else is at work here, keeping this thing together.”

  “Is that reverence I hear in your voice Glen,” Gene asked.

  “It’s…respect.”

  “The power of the Almighty,” she whispered before closing her eyes, and resting the back of her head against the paneling wall.

  After a moment, Glen spoke again, "We're out of the gorge now. If we keep this up, should be in town in an hour or so."

  "Damn." Ed stood, rubbed his forehead as he paced. "That floating monster is going to do a lot of damage when it gets there."

  "I wouldn’t think so," Glen said. "It's huge and it can’t hide in the sky like that. People will be out of there long before it reached the city."

  But, Ed wasn't so sure. His stomach knotted. Something was wrong, his instincts told him. "The city will be destroyed," he found himself saying. "And, Ninn's going to die." But how would he know? He couldn’t ignore that feeling anymore, gnawing at all the more now that they were all out of danger –that déjà-vu.

  Then his heart sank when it came to him. It feels like déjà-vu, because this all did happen before. He looked at his hands, rubbing his fingers together. They felt so real, the dirt and dust rolling off, the cracked skin and hardened callouses that still stung. So real. He laughed to himself. But this wasn’t real; none of it was. It made sense now. He was dreaming again. But at least he knew this time. Better, he imagined Doctor Alexander saying.

  He sat on the floor, waiting. How long would it last this time? He knew what was coming if he dreamed on. What they’d find when they reached the city. Maybe the Doctor would wake him; he never did before. Ed sighed, or whatever it was in this dream world, and resigned himself. It would end soon. Everything does.

  "Ah, I see pessimistic Ed’s back,” Glen said. “Ninn’s fine. The city’s fine. Everyone’s fine.”

  "No. Ninn...the city; they aren't going to be fine," he said, letting his shoulders slump and head hang down to his chest. "They all died."

  And with that, he awoke to the familiar soft medical bed, the tubes in his left immobile arm, the bandage over his right eye.

  "Ah," a voice –Doctor Alexander— said. "Waking so soon—"

  "Major," Ed mumbled, exhausted.

  "Very good," the Doctor said. "Better, every time. I’m impressed. You’re very resilient, Major. I can say now that you’re out of the woods. A couple of weeks or so and maybe I can discharge you from here."

  "You hear that," Glen's voice sounded from behind the Doctor. "Sounds like your vacation’s coming to an end. Back to work, Major!"

  "If I have work to go back to," Ed said, opening his left eye, sight still blurry, but at least not as sensitive. Yet, he still couldn’t tell if it was day or night by the unusual brightness coming through the shuddered windows and the bluish glow on everything inside. “We were exposure to the Beast… I don’t remember how it happened, but I have to take responsibility.”

  "Ah, Doctor,” Glen said. “May I have a moment with him, alone."

  "Magistrate Gallegos. I better not leave—"

  "It'll only be for a moment,” Glen laughed, slapping the doctor on the back. “I’m not asking you to leave the country." Doctor Alexander glanced over Ed with a frown. He checked his pulse and looked into his open eye.
He hesitated a moment, then left, the door closing behind him.

  "Glen. Quick," Ed said. "Tell me. I lost my position. I’m out."

  Glen sat on the edge of the bed, a strong sweet wine scent following him. "Oh, the pessimistic Ed. Do things ever change? Truth be told, if it happened a week before it did, the plan would have been to discharge you. Yea, you would have been given an honorary post here emptying inkwells onto parchment papers."

  "And now?"

  "Now," Glen continued as he eyed his empty glass cup. "Now, they're talking about doing nothing. A survived exposure to the Beast? Well, that kind of experience is pretty hard to find."

  Ed laughed weakly; his limbs felt so heavy as though under water, a warm soothing pool of water. "A week did that? What could have happened in a week to change their mind."

  Glen smiled through his peppered beard and winked.

  "Bribes," Ed said, frowning.

  "Bribes? Ha! No, but if you’re offering...I'm the one you should be bribing from now on.” Ed neared his eye on Glen but he laughed. “Didn’t you hear what the Doctor called me?”

  “…Magistrate?”

  “Right! I'm made Junior Magistrate,” he said, mocking a salute. “I not only get my own court, my own fancy little useless dagger. …Eh, you want it?"

  "No"

  "I get my own cases, my own judgments." He brought his finger up to his nose. "And, I even get my own vote on major decisions. Just so happened I was the deciding vote on a recent major decision." Glen patted Ed’s shoulder. “You’re still in charge here, Ed.”

  Ed smiled, resting his eye. "Thank you," he mouthed.

  "Wait, no congratulations first? I worked hard for my promotion."

  "Thank you," he mouthed again.

  "For my old CO, anything; for a friend, I wish I could do more. I only ask for one thing in return: heal up."

  "The others," Ed asked. "Forty-three."

  "That's impressive. Your memories are getting better."

  "Glen, I have to know. How are they doing? Are they awake too."

  When Glen didn’t answer right away, Ed looked at him, his smile fading. "I…uh. I better not. Doctor's orders."