Yngve, AR - Darc Ages

by Darc Ages (lit)

  A green and red latticework of laser-beams danced across the fields and streets, hitting soldiers, ricocheting off shields, cracking into houses. In just minutes, a large contingent of enemies managed to cross the narrowest part of the open place and enter the city streets.

  Darc took cover behind his shield and helmet, and fired a few random shots into the haze at the foot of the outer breach. He couldn't quite see what he hit; the enemy used smoke torches to weaken the aim and impact of the defense. He looked for Dohan - the armored knight was already away in some other corner of the nearby city block, leaving dead and fallen enemies in his wake. Several more Pasko soldiers fell on the cobblestone, but more and more managed to cross the open place and spread out in the narrow streets. The combat went from wild shooting to hand-to-hand fights with swords, bayonets and spears.

  Forced to leave his cover, Darc scrambled for a two-story house, lasers bouncing off his helmet, and darted into an open door. He slammed it shut, overturned a cupboard in front of the entrance, and headed up the nearest narrow staircase. From an upstairs window, he might have a chance of taking out a few enemies...

  When he reached the top of the stairs, something solid smashed against his helmet. He stumbled to the floor and rolled around on his back, with his rifle ready to shoot the attacker. It was a woman who had ambushed him - she stared down at him, holding a broomstick in her hands.

  The raven-haired woman gasped: "Don't shoot! I thought you were the enemy!"

  She helped Darc to his feet; his head was aching, but fear kept him alert.

  "Get into the catacombs with the others, lady! What are you doing up here?"

  "I was delayed," she blurted out - her guilty face was concealing something, but Darc had no time for questioning.

  He squatted at a window, opened a pane slightly ajar, and began to aim at the scene outside.

  "Is there a way to reach the shelters without going out the front door?" he asked, not looking back. He fired, missed, fired again, missed, hit a Pasko trooper, and ducked when several pulses flashed past his head. "Get down!"

  The woman, though frightened, was not dumb - she ducked on her knees and hands before he told her to.

  "Too late now anyway," she said desperately. "The shelters are sealed off until the battle is over! Oh Goddess, we're going to die!"

  Darc ignored her, and moved over to another room where he could get a better view. From a window, he suddenly glimpsed Dohan - flying past above his head.

  Chapter 19

  The armored knight came screaming down from the air, cushioned on the whining jet streams from his massive backpack. He repeated his battle cry from the Summer Joust. As Dohan swept down onto the street, he burned one enemy soldier with his jets. The man caught fire - another enemy was crushed to the ground by Dohan's elephant-like armored feet.

  Dohan swung his broadsword into the nearest row of attackers, knocking down a sergeant with the tremendous force of his motorized endoskeleton. Dohan became a different man in his armor - not a pleasant man, but he did not care. The battle had a cause, the cause offered glory and honor - and redemption for his previous escape. As with his father, there was a part of Dohan that became intoxicated by the power of the armor; he was injected with a ruthless, controlled fury, partly a product of his long training.

  This was his first real battle, and he was unable to stop and think - only the feverish intensity of staying alive, tracking the enemy's movements, and the kill, mattered to him. The invaders retreated as Dohan headed a fierce group of his riflemen forward, pushing them back toward the breach. He shouted orders, and they were obeyed without hesitation.

  From the castle, Lord Azuch Fache watched the battle at the northern wall through his binoculars. It was only an hour since Dohan's unit had left the hangar, but his group had already halted the enemy's advance into the city. Azuch whispered a grateful prayer to the Goddess... and to the Singing King.

  He turned his wheelchair and addressed the others in the war room: "Report! I sense the enemy are holding back, they may be preparing for a second charge!"

  A signalman read a flag message from a watchtower far outside, and answered while reading: "Lord Fache, Tharlos Pasko has been sighted, and his armored knights. They say three, maybe four knights. And they are accompanied by some - no, wait - black dogs - no, correct that... giant black spiders! "

  Lord Azuch Fache could not believe the report. Then came another report, confirming the first one. He mumbled another prayer for his friend Dohan - a desperate one this time...

  Tharlos stayed outside Damon City, behind his lines. He had decided it was time for sending in the new reinforcements. Tharlos ordered his four new knights - faithful Kobanites enlisted from the lower nobility - to enter the fray. They gladly obeyed, partly because of their ingrained fear of the Wastelands.

  As they stampeded through the gash in the outer wall, Tharlos turned to his newest recruits: three black robots, each two meters tall. They did resemble giant spiders, and Tharlos admired the craftsmanship.

  Each identical robot had a round, shiny black bulk with eight thin legs sprouting from its underbelly. Their heads were also devoid of necks or humanoid features - the green eye sensors were four, placed around their black metal skulls. Razor-sharp mandibles clicked impatiently as they listened to their owner's directives. Glittering solar cells on their backs provided them with extra power.

  Following the instructions he had received from the secret manufacturer, Tharlos barked directives at the robots with painstaking clarity. " Order one: You will attack all enemy knights in sight, until they are dead. Order two: You will also fire at random at all enemy soldiers. Order three: If you see an enemy with very white hair and white eyebrows - you will attack him until he dies. Are your orders understood?"

  The giant insectoids rattled their legs - which he took as a "yes" - whoever had designed them, had favored fighting abilities over speech capacity.

  Tharlos pointed an armor-clad finger at the wall ahead, and shouted: "Charge!"

  The three machines marched forth at the half running speed of a grown man, constantly communicating with each other in a bird-like twitter. Pasko's soldiers stared at them with mixed emotions.

  Darc managed to hit and injure at least four enemy infantrymen - he didn't try too hard to kill them - before his rifle batteries ran out.

  The enemy had retreated to some houses and the barricades around the gash in the wall. The fighting had gradually decreased in intensity, even as couriers brought new battery cells to the riflemen - scores of soldiers lay dead or wailing for help in the streets. The stench of laser-scorched flesh lay heavy in the air, and small fires were spreading from a nearby city block.

  Darc suddenly felt an urge to puke at the whole sick carnage - but he didn't dare lowering his guard. He took off the helmet and wiped his sweat-drenched face. The raven-haired woman handed him a cup of water, which he gratefully drank.

  For a moment, Darc allowed himself to really see the woman who had been huddling behind him all the time. She was a quite voluptuous, almost plump woman, perhaps thirty years old, her most marked features a prominent nose and wide red lips. Her skin was pale, not just with fright; the long black hair was in tatters. Her wide, flowing skirt was of a heavy, dark-red material, and it fronted a low-cut cleavage. He assumed she had to be the daughter or wife of a wealthy merchant, judging by her thin necklace of electronic circuitry and light-emitting diodes - a rarity among commoners.

  "What's your name?" he asked, throwing occasional glances outside.

  " Shara - Shara Rawiman. Your hair - it's all white ..." She stared at his scalp, bewildered but focused. The few wrinkles in her face suggested much more character and courage than she cared to reveal.

  "They call me Darc," he said with a weary grin, "but don't believe all you hear about him." He cut off her attempt at a reply. "I've got to move out of here and charge up my weapon. Come, help me pry open one of those sealed windows down there."

  As t
hey peeked outside from the street plane, the battle clamor began to increase. From the metallic thumping, jet engines and rattling noises, Darc could tell that several knights and something else had entered from the breach. He gestured at Shara to follow. She put on a cloak and they crawled out through a back window, sneaked across a narrow vegetable garden, and climbed a low brick wall. Shara's expensive skirt was ripped open as she heaved her legs over the top of the wall.

  A curse escaped her lips as she fell over and Darc caught her: "King's shit!"

  Darc thought briefly: All money and no class. Darc and Shara cautiously took to the backalleys, heading for the distant cathedral spires, where they had a chance of finding shelter. Darc had never fought with a sword, and was not dumb enough to try it now - if he found another cartridge for his rifle, he could continue shooting from a safer location.

  Shara did not value Darc's fighting competence highly, but she had no choice but to follow him. She was hoping Darc would not understand he had surprised her during a burglary. The torn dress and the jewelry were not hers; even her prayer to the Goddess had been a bluff.

  Dohan Damon took cover behind a wall when he saw the four enemy knights enter through the breach. The quartet, unfamiliar characters he had never seen at a Joust, fired wildly in all directions, then spread out and covered the invading soldiers who carried ammunition to the scattered Pasko troops. And then came...

  Dohan and his men stared at the shockingly new sight. Before they could react, the three black machines aimed and fired, charging forward in a pack. Their eerie twittering sounds paralyzed some of the defenders with fear, and Pasko's infantry saw their chance. In a few seconds, several of the city's soldiers had been hit by enemy sniper fire.

  Dohan shouted: "Smoke!"

  In a lower voice, he told a sergeant that he would take off. His soldiers threw smoke torches, and a thick mist billowed out over the battlefield. Dohan ignited his jet engines and soared above the smoke - the enemy knights heard him, but could not pinpoint his location at once. Their fire missed, was weakened by the smoke, and bounced harmlessly off Dohan's armor.

  Though the infrared eyes of the spider robots saw Dohan through all smoke, they were not built to co-operate with human soldiers; their information was not conveyed to Tharlos or his troops. Two enemy knights took off, and flew up above the rooftops to hunt down Dohan. He quickly landed on a balcony - it barely held under his massive weight - then waited, gun ready.

  Above their heads, the aerial battle continued. Lasers snapped, jet engines screamed.

  Bor Damon dodged the remaining enemy fighter again. Both he and his opponent had been chasing each other for a dangerously long time, and the Sunray's fuel tank was just one fifth full. His tail gunner kept the enemy at bay - the enemy's tail gun did much the same. Bor searched desperately in his memory for some trick from his glory days, when he could outwit a pilot by the flick of a rudder. If the Paskos could preserve their air support, they would still have a chance of winning the battle...

  He shouted a warning to the gunner, then pulled up the plane's nose, throttled the engines abruptly, and pulled the air brakes. The Sunray's speed dropped - the deceleration was painful. Bor could feel his heart miss a beat, his vision dimmed - he braced himself for the feared heart attack, as he let the ship fall toward the city below. He thought briefly: It is in your hands now, my son -

  The heart attack never came. His vision returned in full, and he kept the ship's nose up. Closer, closer they fell - the enemy pilot relaxed, and turned his ship toward the troop base outside the city's walls. Also he was in dire need of refueling.

  Just fifty meters above the rooftops, Bor turned up the thrust to full force again. The Sunray shot upward again, and banked sideways toward the escaping opponent's tail. The enemy's tail gunner had dropped his attention - and too late, he saw the Sunray sweep past his view. Bor overtook the other craft, firing quick bursts at its side hull. He hit once, then lost his aim - the enemy craft slowed down, and got behind him.

  "Gunner!"

  The tail gunner was on the alert before Bor Damon shouted. He fired a fusillade of pulses at the enemy's front windshield as it came into view. The enemy pilot was first blinded, then instantly killed as the cockpit exploded around him. The enemy craft plunged downward and crashed into the Wasteland plains. Bor Damon's gunner cheered - and Bor noticed the warning lamp blinking on his instrument panel. He put the Sunray in a downward spiral, slowing it down for a landing outside the hangar. There was an emergency parachute, but at this altitude it would not make much of a difference.

  Standing against a wall, Darc saw Bor's jetfighter spiral down among the rooftops several blocks away. He waited for the sound of another explosion, as when the last enemy fighter had gone down... no crash was heard.

  Darc sighed with relief - and caught sight of a group of whining metal figures, reflecting the sunlight just one block away. Enemy knights! Dohan was outnumbered and overworked; Darc cursed himself for having run away when he was needed.

  "Look, Shara - I'll take you to the cathedral, but then I got to return here."

  "Yes."

  Suddenly Shara stared past him, and shrieked. Enemy troopers appeared, blocking their escape route to the cathedral. Darc grabbed Shara's arm, and they crouched behind his tall shield. Five riflemen appeared from the opposite end of the street, got into kneeling positions and began firing. Darc stood up, shielding Shara as they rushed across the street and into a narrow alley. Stray laser-beams hissed onto the ground at their feet. They found themselves trapped in a dead end, close to the hot flames of a blazing building.

  " Now what?" Shara shouted in fear and anger, sweat streaking down her face and chest. "You bloody fool!"

  They could hear the shouts of enemy riflemen; the rhythmic stomping of their boots on the cobblestone was fast approaching. Darc spotted an open door leading into the burning house - thick smoke was billowing from it, and even the door had caught fire.

  He rushed over and lifted the burning door from its hinges. With a prolonged groan, Darc ran to the beginning of the alley and dropped the door across the passage. He returned to the crumbling house, fetched a fallen piece of a beam, and added it to the burning barricade.

  Darc and Shara covered their mouths with handkerchiefs, coughing and weeping from the smoke. They quickly retreated to the end of the sealed alley and waited, huddled together. The enemy soldiers arrived. All they could see was blazing fire and smoke, blocking the alley.

  One of them shouted: "They're done for! Move on!"

  The soldiers hurried past the alley; Darc and Shara got to their feet again. Darc pushed aside the burning barricade with his sword and shield, and they sneaked away. Moments later, the burning house collapsed over the alley. Above their heads, the air erupted with noise and lines of laser light.

  Dohan fired from his balcony cover, and hit an enemy knight's backpack from less than twenty meters away.

  The knight's fuel tank exploded, sending him spinning like a firework; he crashed straight through a roof and disappeared. Two other knights were alerted by the noise, and closed in. They made silent signs to each other, and leaped off from a chimney-top - then flew separate ways over the city block where their comrade had fallen.

  The addition of the spider robots to the battle had not led to the sort of success Tharlos Pasko had planned for. Quite the contrary, their unprepared entry was creating confusion on both sides. A few of the Pasko soldiers were so misinformed, that they believed the black machines were intruders from the Wastelands - and fired at them in panic. One robot was badly damaged; it sank down on its belly with a high-pitched whine from its motors, rattling its spindly legs helplessly.

  Single-mindedly, the war robots interpreted the friendly fire as an attack, and promptly defended themselves. With mechanical accuracy, they aimed at the Pasko troopers' unshielded parts - the crotch and the neck, respectively - and fired a barrage of pulses. They took down six screaming, bewildered soldiers.

&nbs
p; Damon's troops saw the opening, and charged again on their own initiative. One Damon soldier skipped very close to a spider, and struck a sword blow at its head. The spider robot's armored head just shook off the impact. With inhuman speed, it jerked forward and caught the sword in its mandibles. The soldier screamed and tried to retreat - the robot thrust its foremost pair of legs out, and knocked his feet off the ground. As the man fell, the huge spider robot leapt over him and dug its sharp mandibles into his flesh. His scream was cut off. Yet, the remaining two robots received so many laser hits from the charging defenders, that they broke down - invulnerable they were not.

  The Pasko troops retreated further and the Damon side sensed that, miraculously, victory was close.

  Meanwhile, Tharlos Pasko raged over the loss of two of his finest jetfighters, screaming curses at everyone about him. He could not hope for victory any longer. Only the chance of seeing Dohan or Bor Damon dead might be his meager comfort, before he was forced to order retreat into the waiting troop carriers.

  Tharlos declined his officers' pleas for retreat, and decided to try holding his lines just a few minutes longer... no matter how many more of his men died. He wanted to see his knights to return with their mission complete: Dohan's head on a stake.

  Two of Pasko's knights closed in on Dohan from two directions, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, from alley to alley. Thus, their jet fuel would not last long, but neither would Dohan's if he tried a wild escape. He waited until one of them passed close enough, then leaped into the air and flew shield-first into the surprised enemy knight. The impact threw them both off-balance - his opponent crashed through a brick wall and broke his neck.

  Dohan bounced off the impact, almost tumbled around, slammed into a tiled roof - then slid down the slippery roof with a rattling noise and fell off. But his jetpack skill saved him again; Dohan had turned off the jet engine when he hit the roof, and ignited it again when he fell down. He hovered down onto the street below, and touched down heavily. Hitting the other knight had exerted Dohan and damaged his armor; its response to his movements was slowing.