by Jason Letts
“Enough of this!” Carlisle howled, cracking open his cane against a table leg and swinging his sword wildly at the winged creature. Sierra wanted so badly to see Carlisle lose half his sword against Nemi’s skin, but the sharpness of it made her wonder if he could survive the strike unscathed.
Neither came to pass, and instead Nemi dove for the bare concrete floor, his skin turning gray on the way. He struck the concrete in between them and caused an explosion that sent all five men flying in different directions. The yells and the dust filling the air told Sierra that this was her chance.
She got up, snatched her phone from the desk, and made a break for the hallway. In the midst of the dust cloud now filling her office, her foot met something: a hand of one of the guards. It had a gun in it, which skittered a few feet away. Sierra scooped it up and noticed it was in fine condition before continuing to the clearer hallway.
“Nemi, sol,” she called, taking a longing look at Skuire’s body.
“This isn’t over!” Carlisle growled at her from somewhere in the dust. He sounded hurt, but not nearly hurt enough. Sierra got into the waiting elevator and hit the button for the ground floor. As she knew he would, Nemi flew between the doors right before they closed and perched on her shoulder.
“You did great,” she said, “but this is just the beginning.”
CHAPTER 21
Lowell took a rickshaw out to the barricade near the western edge of town—a colossal heap of scrap metal, old furniture, and spiky posts tied down with chains that could’ve easily passed for a dump heap. From there he had to jog on foot through the jagged hills speckling the landscape like giant cones. It took nearly a half an hour before he made it to the edge of the range, where he found Milford nestled behind a boulder.
“I didn’t think you’d make it.” Milford kept his voice low despite the miles between their enemies.
“And miss this show? You’re out of your mind.” Lowell grinned, settling in behind a crevasse.
He looked across the bottom of the starlit valley, the long ridge curving to the left on one side and a couple outlying hills on the other. On foot there was plenty of room, but any vehicles would have to hug the cliff for easy passage.
“Are we ready?” Lowell asked.
“Ready and waiting,” Milford replied. A pebble plunked off the mountainside nearby, causing Lowell to look up at the Clawmen stationed on the top of the hills. Lowell pulled out his phone and called his daughter. Although the fighting hadn’t begun, it scared him to death when she didn’t answer until the sixth ring.
“Are you OK? What is going on?” Lowell asked.
“I’m fine. Sorry about that,” Sierra replied. “I’m hiding in the car park underneath the towers because Carlisle forced me out of the building. He was going to kill me.”
Lowell could’ve crumbled a rock in his hand.
“That bastard,” he said, hoping the traitor would find a way to die before the night was through.
“I’m fine. Nobody’s around,” she went on.
“OK.” Lowell regained his focus. “Can you tell me how far away they are?”
“Looks like the leaders are a few hundred yards from the ridge,” she said. At least that was something to take comfort in. It wouldn’t be long before the show started.
“Stay safe,” he told her, and she replied in kind.
Lowell nodded to Milford, who produced a remote control with a long antenna from his sack. The first sign of the Wozniaks came a moment later, the squeaking and screeching of wheels echoing along the colossal ridge. Sierra had positioned them perfectly.
But when the vehicles came into view and reflected the starlight off their shiny steel exteriors, Lowell was taken aback. Unlike the ragtag cars of the ClawLands, the Wozniaks had hulking mobile steel fortresses that appeared powerful enough to take on a train. They had coal furnaces and belched smoke, but they lacked rubber for wheels and instead plodded on spiky steel rims.
Lines of them progressed into the valley two astride, completely oblivious to what waited for them.
“Almost there,” Milford said, massaging a big red button. As he glanced out at the approaching invaders, it took Lowell aback how much hatred he felt for them. The urge to kill them, wipe them out, imbued every breath he took.
“Now,” he said, pressing the button. Lowell jerked his head to the ridge, expecting a firestorm to engulf everything, but nothing happened. Milford beat down on the button.
“What the fuck?” Milford groaned. He toggled some switches, hit the button again, and the sound of something blowing up echoed from a ways to the south. “Unbe-fucking-lievable!”
The squirrely man wiped his glasses off and kissed a ring he had on his finger, then he emerged from behind the boulder and started toward the ridge. Lowell grabbed him.
“What are you doing?” he gasped, his shock doubling when he saw Milford’s eyes were growing watery. He didn’t want to die.
“I crossed the wires. It was a stupid mistake, but if someone doesn’t go out there and trip the switch, those trucks will smash right through town. It’s my responsibility,” he said.
Lowell knew he was right. Nothing else could pierce the armor on those vehicles.
“Milford, you’re worth a thousand of them,” Lowell said, giving a heartfelt nod.
“We’ll find out exactly how many I’m worth in a moment.”
Once Lowell released him, Milford headed for the ridge on the northern side. He wasn’t particularly athletic, and he had a loping stride that almost resembled a gallop. Fortunately the steel trucks had little in the way of windows, and as long as Milford was quiet and careful he’d be able to sneak right past them.
As Milford reached the ridge and began creeping along the edge, Lowell packed up his sack and prepared to run. He couldn’t take his eyes off of the ridge, though, hotly anticipating that moment when the squeak of metal wheels would cease.
Squinting, Lowell could just make him out in the darkness. Milford stopped in a narrow nook and was tinkering with something, his arm jerking until he vanished inside a ball of fire. The wave of brilliant oranges and reds ripped through the bottom of the ridge, engulfing the entire valley, making the area brighter than day for a few precious moments.
Even from so far away, Lowell felt the heat on his face. Following the fire were tons of plummeting stone crashing into the valley like a sand castle succumbing to a wave. The entire cliff collapsed, engulfing the armored trucks, knocking them over, and burying them underneath twenty or thirty feet of rubble.
The hills around Lowell came alive with cheers and laughter. Only a few of the trucks made it through ahead of the explosion, and the rest behind would be completely obstructed by the new impasse. Odds were excellent that the vast majority of them would have to proceed on foot.
Lowell gave a salute to the men positioned above and began the trek back to the barricade. He didn’t make it very far before the front running trucks made it to the hillside, where they were greeted with more showering rocks and fire balloons. The exchange of gunfire crackled in his ear, urging him to hurry back. The men on the hilltops had zip lines strung up to aid in their return, and if Lowell didn’t move fast enough he might be the last one back.
But it seemed as if the men on the hill persevered against the remnants of that first wave and were maintaining their position until more came along behind. When Lowell made it around the barricade, hundreds of the townsfolk were eager to hear about the explosion, but they couldn’t revel in the early victory for too long. Stray groups of Wozniaks and Illiams threatened the northern and southern ends of town, requiring constant vigilance. The bulk of the Illiams’ force was still missing.
Over the next several hours, the men on the hilltops briefly engaged the advancing Wozniaks before returning to the barricade. Letting them have the hills was a risky move, but trying to hold them would leave the town mostly undefended from other angles.
Soon legions of them were camped out among the hills just ou
t of range, leading to a tense standoff that made Lowell anxious. They were right on his doorstep, no doubt waiting for somebody else to create an opportunity for them. On the Bracken side, soldiers milled about behind the barricade. Stew tents had been set up for the hungry, though there wasn’t much in the way of supplies for a long siege.
Lowell pulled out his phone and again called Sierra.
“Any sign of the farm folk?” he asked, getting a sigh in response.
“I don’t have anything on the Illiams except for a few intercepted messages that didn’t say much of anything. They’re out there but they could be anywhere from the Boiling Sea to the Cetaline Mountains,” she said. “What worries me more is Bolt & Keize flying in quickly.”
Lowell put away the phone and pushed through the crowded masses behind the barricade to find someone who knew what was going on. The Illiams had a shorter trip here than the Wozniaks, who had been present for hours. Finally he made it to the makeshift command center a few blocks closer to the center of town, where a councilwoman slurped stew and scanned a map positioned under a light.
“Have any of the scouts come back?” Lowell inquired, getting her attention.
“A few. We think the north end is mostly clear but can’t be completely certain,” she said.
“And the scouts on the southern side?”
The look on her worn face told him everything he needed to know. It’d been much too long since somebody should’ve checked in, and Lowell suspected they’d been caught or killed. He didn’t like shifting his attention from the obvious threat to the ephemeral one, but they couldn’t be caught wide open to the south, where gently rolling hills stretched to the Magadrian River.
“We’ve got to have soldiers at the ready by the stone wall,” he said. The wall he referred to was used for little more than keeping livestock out of town, but it was high enough to give cover from gunfire and channel invaders to one of a couple of roads leading in.
The councilwoman agreed, and soon Lowell led a couple hundred of the freshly minted soldiers to the south end of town, where wooden homes gave way to a slope, the stone wall, and a massive expanse of impenetrable darkness. He directed them to spread out along the wall, keeping each other in sight and keeping quiet. Some rattling echoed from the west side, but apart from that it seemed they were preparing for an invasion of fireflies.
Lowell stood behind the wall near the slope, begrudgingly accepting that this was the best they would have, when he noticed a light in the distance. He almost ignored it and walked away, thinking it was a star on the horizon, but it grew and took on the familiar tones of fire. It was difficult to gauge the distance, but the ripping flames grew into a blaze that might’ve only been a half mile away.
Scratching his chin, Lowell wondered if the Illiams had really given away their position by lighting a fire or if it was some kind of decoy. But the sharp squeak of metal coincided with the entire blaze launching into the air, soaring in the sky closer and closer until it passed overhead and slammed into the roof of a two story home.
“Catapults!” the soldiers yelped, taking cover as the flaming debris spilled off of the smoldering roof. Stunned, Lowell stood there and watched until a flaming ear of corn rolled down the slope to his feet. It figured that the Illiams had so much food they wouldn’t mind burning some.
When he turned his gaze out to the field in dread, a half-dozen fires speckled the landscape.
“Hold tight!” Lowell yelled. “I’ll get reinforcements and then we’ll go out and storm them.”
There was no telling how many of them were out there, but Lowell assessed that a few hundred of his own men wouldn’t cut it. A sky full of flaming arrows would inspire the Wozniaks that their time had come, meaning they’d be defending two fronts at once. It struck a gloomy note in Lowell’s heart, but he raced up the slope and past the ignited building to help pull more soldiers over.
“They’re already coming,” the councilwoman reported, giving Lowell a chance to catch his breath. The moment that would decide between victory and defeat was approaching much too quickly.
A dull thudding took to the air, causing Lowell to glance west, expecting signs of gunfire, but the sound had a regular rhythm to it that grew in intensity. Glancing up, Lowell spotted five bulky helicopters against the stars. They were approaching at a substantial height, which meant they didn’t plan on landing anywhere nearby.
The helicopters passed overhead, looking like they’d clear the entire town on the way to the east side. If Lowell felt pessimistic before, his outlook now was nothing short of despondent. He had to tell Sierra what was coming. Bolt & Keize were headed right for the power plants and Bracken’s towers, where company security didn’t make up more than a token defense.
CHAPTER 22
The car park below the plaza hadn’t been a tough space to hide in for Sierra, who settled into a corner with Nemi and worked on her phone, allowing her to relay information about what she saw to the town’s councilors. The wall beside her even had an outlet so she wouldn’t run out of battery power.
But discovering that the entire squadron from Bolt & Keize was headed right for her made her question the safety of her surroundings.
“It’s time to go,” she said to Nemi, pulling the plug from the outlet and getting up from her corner. Where to go next was more difficult to decide. It would be easy for the helicopters to land anywhere around the plaza, which meant they’d be right overhead with a handful of staircases leading down to her. She had to get out.
The beating of the helicopters’ propellers echoed in her ear, urging her past a few cars toward the eastern wall where a passageway connected the lot to the train platform. The door had windows, allowing her to see much of the large bay entryway and across the road to some of the closer plant buildings and the tracks leading northeast on the other side. After flipping off the lights, it seemed a great vantage point.
The map on her phone wasn’t detailed enough to see exactly where in the Bracken Energy complex they were flying, but all she needed to do was look out the window; the helicopters came to a stop and landed right between the towers and the plants. The doors opened, and each one spilled a handful of armed soldiers onto the ground that immediately began to survey the area. Some of them went right for the parking lot where she’d been just a moment ago, others spread out toward the plant doors that would give them full access to Bracken’s generators, combustors, and even the cavern stretching deep into Iyne.
Sierra knew she needed to move, that if one of the soldiers opened the door in front of her she’d be finished, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Last to exit the helicopters was a middle-aged man with short black hair, wearing a dustcoat and a sheathed sword at his side. The dark circles under his eyes were the ultimate giveaway. It was Arnold Keize himself, and he started right for the plant facilities.
Turning so her back was to the bare wall, Sierra pulled out her phone, hoping her dad would know what to do.
“Arnold Keize is here and he’s heading into the plant!” she wrote, staring at the screen. Each second he didn’t answer dragged on, requiring an impressive force of will to keep her from shouting at it. There was no telling what her father was going through across town, but he found a way to answer.
“If he blows up the plant, defending the town is pointless. You have to find out what he’s doing and stop him,” Lowell had written.
Sierra had to read it twice for the message to really sink in. Find out what he’s doing and stop him? That was the opposite of what she wanted to do: run somewhere and hide. The sound of gunfire rattled in her ears, probably the result of a Bracken guard who had wandered into the open. Worried about what Keize would do if he caught her, Sierra didn’t even know who she could trust at her own company anymore. Running into anyone would be a problem.
Getting into the plant to find out what was going on without anyone seeing her seemed a colossal task, one that could easily end badly if all she discovered was a ticking bomb.
After taking a deep breath, Sierra focused on how to get into the plant without meeting any of the prowling soldiers. She’d crawled over every inch of this place when she’d hung around here as a girl, and she’d gotten a good yelling at for going near a maintenance shaft underneath the main tower.
She started creeping through the dark along the corridor toward the train platform. She had on low-heeled loafers that were quiet enough, but if one of the soldiers turned the corner with a flashlight she’d have nowhere to hide. Although she gripped the gas gun, she questioned her ability to hit anything with it.
She groped for the corner at the end of the hall as a train roared by and made the walls shake. Continuing on brought her underneath the train platform, but up ahead the corridor connected to the parking lot. After another few steps she heard the sound of a door creaking open behind her. Someone had followed her in.
Pushing ahead quickly with full certainty that dawdling would get her killed, she continued past the intersection to the lot and turned right at the second one leading underneath the tower. She let her arm brush against the wall until it hit a doorknob, which she opened, noticing a flashlight shining down the adjacent hallway.
If it weren’t for Raiden’s terrorizing, Sierra thought she wouldn’t be able to handle being this unsafe and oblivious of her surroundings. Once inside the room, she used the light on her phone to quickly scan the room and the steel ladder fixed against the wall. It led down a tunnel to a part of the plant she’d never seen.
Exhaling to release some tension, she grabbed a rung and set one foot on the ladder. It was slimy and cold, but she descended what must’ve been twenty or thirty feet until she came to one of the subterranean passageways. Bulbs were strung up along the pipes lining the walls, beating back the darkness, and Sierra took paths leading north to the plant as best she could tell.