Into the Storm

by Larry Correia

  The men exchanged glances. Cleasby spoke first. “How do we do that?”

  “Break everything. Kill everyone.” There were shouts above them as a group of Protectorate guards rushed down a flight of stairs. “Start with those idiots.” Several storm glaives discharged, and men screamed as they were blasted apart or sent flailing over an edge. “Spread out!”

  Soldiers were converging on them from multiple directions. A crossbow bolt cut uselessly across his armor. Madigan spotted the attacker at the other end of a long catwalk. That Exemplar was reloading, and another was rushing up to take a shot as well. I’ll deal with you in a moment. “Cleasby!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Use that gigantic brain of yours to reason out how this place works and shut it down. If it helps, Culpin will be targeting King Leto’s palace first.”

  “How do you—”

  The next crossbow bolt came streaking in and Madigan struck it aside with his buckler. “I guarantee it.” He turned back to the Exemplars and triggered a blast of lightning in their direction, but it crashed uselessly through some pipes. Madigan shoved Cleasby. “I’ve got men who can fight, but only one who can figure this out. Go!”

  Madigan ran down the catwalk. The first Exemplar got his crossbow reloaded, but luckily the bolt zipped by harmlessly. The other dropped his crossbow and lifted his sword, preparing to meet the Storm Knight’s charge.

  They clashed, blades flashing back and forth. Madigan was not nearly the swordsman Vinter had been, but the king had enjoyed using him as a regular sparring partner. The Exemplar was no match for the man of whom King Vinter Raelthorne himself had once said, “He forces even me to work for each victory.”

  Madigan feinted and the Exemplar turned to meet it, only to be surprised when the glaive wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Madigan pierced plate and shoved the sword deep into the Exemplar’s guts. He drove himself into the Exemplar, pushing both of them back, toward the crossbowman. All three of them collided violently. Madigan wrenched the glaive out in a spray of blood, and before the first man could fall, he struck again, this time clipping the crossbowman on the edge of his helmet. Disoriented and severely injured, the crossbowman turned, and for the briefest instant Madigan had a clean shot. He lunged, triggering the power of the storm as he struck, and cleaved cleanly through the Exemplar’s chest.

  “Victory!” Madigan shouted. The men who could hear him all repeated the battle cry. “Victory!” From the noise, the Malcontents were following his instructions rather well.

  If killing people and breaking things was something Storm Knights excelled at, right now they were in their element, totally surrounded by fanatics. Cleasby blocked a flame spear, ran his glaive up the metal shaft, and sliced off several of the Menite’s fingers. The spear dropped, and Cleasby slashed through his opponent’s shoulder with a powerful overhand blow, blasting chunks of smoking flesh in every direction.

  Private Allsop crashed into a nearby pipe, blood spilling down his breastplate, a crossbow bolt protruding from the top of his armor. “Pull him behind cover and tend to him,” Cleasby shouted at Private Langston. Then Cleasby ducked a wild swing from a mace and shattered the militiaman’s knees. He hit the ground and Cleasby stomped on his head.

  “Don’t you have something more important to be doing?” Acosta shouted.

  “Yes.” He’d spotted a sign giving directions to something called the central pump control. That seemed like a reasonable place to start, but then there’d been all these Menites in the way . . . “I need to go that way and down a floor.”

  The Ordsman reached down and picked up Private Allsop’s dropped storm glaive, so he had one in each hand. The swords were too long for such use, but Acosta spun them both through the air so fast they made a whistling noise. Testing complete, he shrugged. “This’ll do.” He got ahead of Cleasby. “Stay behind me. You, aristocrat.” He bumped into Thornbury. “Come, my friend!”

  Thornbury was firing his glaive at the crossbowman who had shot Allsop. “What?”

  “Try to keep up. Kill anyone who gets past me. Protect Cleasby at all costs. He is more important than you are.”

  “What?!”

  Acosta took off at a run, crashing through several militiamen, swords swinging back and forth, searing and cutting, throwing blood and sparks. “Follow me.”

  “Well, you heard the Thamarite madman,” Thorny said.

  A Flameguard blocked the catwalk. Acosta’s movements were almost too fast to follow, and then the headless Menite corpse was flipping over the railing. Acosta kicked the severed head into the feet of the next soldier, tripping him. Glowing blue from the light of two storm chambers, Acosta leapt over the falling man, launching himself at the next in line while Thorny stabbed the fallen Flameguard to death. By the time Thorny was finished, Acosta had sliced the last Flameguard’s hand off and was fighting an Exemplar, swords flying back and forth in a blur of steel. Cleasby fired, knowing Acosta’s body was insulated. The shock disrupted the other swordsman long enough for Acosta to hamstring him, come up under his torso, lift, and hurl the Exemplar over the railing.

  It was a very long way down.

  “Take those stairs!” Cleasby shouted.

  But Acosta didn’t take the time to use the stairs. Instead when he saw the Menites directly below, he vaulted over the railing, and fell right into their midst. He hit the ground with blades whirling about in a blur. Protectorate died left and right as the Ordsman twisted back and forth, constantly slashing and stabbing, in a continuous dance of limb-severing death.

  Thornbury and Cleasby ran down the stairs and crashed into the tangled, bloody mass melee. A mace struck Thornbury in the shoulder, but he turned, slammed his visor into the Menite’s face, knocking him back, then impaled the man on his glaive. Cleasby hacked into a zealot’s ribs while reading the directional signs. “Right. Turn right!” He tried to yank the sword out, but the dying Menite was holding on, so he pulled the trigger and blasted the body clean off the sword with a burst of blue energy. For the briefest instant, Cleasby thought bones might have been visible through the man’s skin.

  “Right.” Acosta rounded the corner and disappeared. Lightning flashed. Men screamed. A Flameguard helmet rolled by, and from what he glimpsed, Cleasby thought there might still be a head inside it.

  “When this is over, I’m telling my father the Mercarian League needs to hire that lunatic,” Thornbury gasped. “Whatever it costs.”

  “I don’t know if you can afford him.” Cleasby spied the yellow sign for the central pump control room. “There!”

  Acosta kicked the door in.

  This was the heart of the Great Dome. The circular room was a forest of pipes that were bigger around than a man, with a great brass valve on each. Waiting for them in the middle of the forest was a lone warrior.

  “Bastion,” Thornbury warned.

  The huge warrior walked toward them, easily several inches taller than Pangborn. He was adorned in the helm and heavy armor of the Bastion order, except while their plates were covered in Menoth’s scripture, this armor was covered in dents, scratches, and decades of battle damage. He extended his arms wide, and in each hand was a curved Idrian sword. “I am Madra Zevrhan, Exemplar of Menoth.” The swords suddenly burst into magical yellow flames. “I am an instrument of the Lawbringer’s righteous judgment.”

  “Great,” Thornbury said. “I ever tell you how much I hate bastions?”

  “That is no mere bastion . . .” Acosta came to a stop. “That is a proper test.”

  “You will die now, interlopers, and go to Menoth’s judgment with my name upon your lips.” The helm turned quizzically, almost as if he were confused. “But there is a foul taint of corruption upon one of you.”

  Cleasby and Thornbury automatically stepped away from Acosta.

  “Unexpected. My orders can wait,” the bastion continued. “Such darkness must be expunged from this world.”

  “I am Savio Montero Acosta.” The Ordsman spun the tw
o galvanic blades and took up an unfamiliar fighting stance. “I accept this challenge.”

  “There is no challenge for one whose soul has been purified by Menoth.”

  “Then maybe I will take your soul and see for myself . . .” Acosta answered.

  The Protectorate warrior snarled and started toward them. Cleasby raised his sword, ready to fight.

  “No!” Acosta said. “He is mine. You two do what must be done. I believe my Lady has a lesson she wishes me to learn from this Madra Zevrhan . . .”

  More Menites were coming from above. Madigan hurried up the metal stairs. His armor felt too heavy. His arms ached and his chest burned. The fever had left him weak. He climbed onto the next landing just in time to dodge a clumsy spear thrust. He simply bashed the militiaman in the side of the head with his buckler and let him fall down the stairs. Something black flashed by his visor, falling past him. Grenade! Madigan turned aside as the fire bomb detonated on the stairs with a roar. The unlucky man he’d pushed down began screaming as his robes caught fire.

  Madigan pointed his storm glaive at the zealot who’d thrown the bomb. “You’re next.”

  A shout came from above. “No fire, idiots! You hear that? You hit a charger vat and we’ll all be blown to Urcaen!” Madigan looked up. An old man, dressed in an odd suit of light armor, was standing at a railing at the very pinnacle of the facility, shaking his fist over the edge. “No fire bombs, I say!”

  Madigan raised his visor and bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Groller Culpin!”

  The alchemist leaned over the edge. “Who knows that name?” He glared at the Storm Knight. “Wait . . . Do my eyes deceive me, or is that Sir Hugh Madigan? Can it be?”

  “It’s been a long time, Culpin.”

  “Last time I saw you was when we roasted the Hartcliff brats!” He cackled. Madigan had always hated that laugh. “Good times. What’re you doing here? Did King Vinter send you to help me?”

  What? Was the man’s mind that trapped in the past? His thoughts were interrupted when the zealot pulled a long knife from his robes and rushed forward. “You need to stop this,” Madigan called as he sidestepped the clumsy slash and cleaved the zealot nearly in half. “End it, Culpin!”

  “Ha! Leto’s even got you licking his boots now? I thought Vinter had sent you to talk me down, even after I’d clearly explained how I’m doing him a favor.”

  He was two floors above, and every second Madigan had him talking was one he wasn’t using to set fire to Caspia. “What do you mean, Culpin?” More zealots were heading his way, readying their bombs.

  “No fire, you Menite morons! I swear I should have taken those away,” Culpin shouted. Bombs were lowered in favor of short swords. “That’s better!”

  “And here I’d thought you’d converted to the Menite faith,” Madigan said.

  “I’m a man of science and reason, not mindless memorized chants masquerading as devotion. My asylum, the chance to continue my work, and my current bodyguard were provided to me by a Protectorate warcaster with some ambition, who happens to understand a good business arrangement. Now good-bye, Sir Madigan. I’ve got work to do.” Culpin disappeared back over the edge.

  “Culpin!” There was no answer. He closed his visor. “Damn.” The zealots rushed forward in an angry mob, almost tripping over each other to get at him first. Madigan went in swinging. Lightning tore through the mob and men screamed in pain. A neck was opened in a geyser of arterial spray. A leg came off at the knee. A head was split in two. He was struck, and struck again, but his armor held. A Protectorate sword broke, and the man behind it died. A dagger thrust caught him, but he slammed his buckler’s edge into the zealot’s throat, and then hurled him over the side of the catwalk.

  Madigan was standing in a red circle of dying men, gasping for breath, limbs quivering. He looked down to see a wound in his side. He hadn’t felt it when he’d taken it, but he certainly could feel it now. There was no time to tend to it. “Malcontents!” He was unsure who could hear him. “Culpin is at the top!”

  One of the round, black, Protectorate fire bombs was lying in the blood, so he took it. Culpin was afraid of fire inside this place, so if all else failed, Madigan would give him fire to spare.

  The stairs were agony. The wound in his side was deep, and he feared it had pierced his stomach. That was a terrible, lingering way to perish, one he’d seen take dozens of good soldiers before their time, but there was no use dwelling on it when there was so much work still to be done.

  Upon reaching the next floor, Madigan felt a sharp pain in his back. He hadn’t heard the twang of the bolt’s release. Madigan turned and fired at the Exemplar crossbowman, but he had already retreated behind cover to reload. Madigan touched the end of the bolt and pain radiated down the shaft and through his body. It had been a lucky shot, right through the arm socket and deep into the muscle. Blood was rolling freely down his back.

  An Exemplar came down the stairs, two at a time, sword raised. It was difficult to fight a man in an elevated position, especially when you were weak and wounded, but Madigan wasn’t in a sporting mood. He touched his galvanic blade to the steel steps and discharged. The Exemplar jerked as electricity popped through his feet. It wasn’t enough to stop him, but Madigan needed only the briefest distraction to swing the glaive upward, through the crotch joint, deep into Exemplar’s pelvis. Madigan twisted it out and the Exemplar fell. The former knight moved out of the way and let the Exemplar roll past.

  The top platform was filled with machines and giant panels, each with a map of one of Caspia’s neighborhoods lacquered onto it. Culpin was before one of them, his back turned, quickly pulling levers. There were only fifty feet between them, well within range of the storm glaive’s electrical discharge. The weapon was already humming, charged. Madigan lifted the glaive and fired.

  BOOM.

  Electricity danced around the controls and across the metal grate of the floor, but Culpin turned and grinned, thumping his odd armor. It was a mismatched suit of leather and brass plates. “Do you think I’m a fool, knight? I’m as insulated as you are.”

  “I don’t mind doing this the old-fashioned way,” Madigan said as he started forward.

  “Well, I do!” Culpin made a clicking noise. Coal smoke shot up from behind one of the giant panels as an idling boiler was suddenly stoked hot. Steel feet struck the floor and the whole platform shook as the heavy warjack walked out from behind cover. “Surprised? I built this place with a freight elevator capable of holding laborjacks, and each floor is rated for an additional ten tons of stress. You know I never do anything halfway.”

  Giant club in its right hand, cannon instead of a left arm . . . It was a Protectorate Reckoner, a ghastly, tough monster of a warjack.

  Culpin said, “Now, I’d just have it shoot you and be done with it, but I’m afraid that may be a touch too much gun to be using here in my control room, so I’m going to have to ask you to take this downstairs . . .”

  The Reckoner lifted its club and started forward. That thing was designed to crack Ironclads. Madigan wouldn’t have a chance.

  But maybe Caspia would.

  “I’ve got something for you,” Madigan said as he pulled the cord and tossed the fire bomb into the center of the control room.

  “No!” Culpin shouted, diving aside just before the bomb detonated, showering the maps with burning Menoth’s Fury.

  The club came crashing down. Madigan barely got out of the way, but it didn’t matter. The club smashed through the grate, and the whole world opened up around him as his footing disappeared. Madigan fell, but the grate was already rising up to meet him at an odd angle. He hit and began to slide over the edge. The interior of the Great Dome seemed to reach forever into the bowels of the world below.

  “Hold!” Culpin shouted at the warjack. It immediately stopped, club ready to end Madigan’s life.

  The Storm Knight hung on for dear life as Culpin came out from behind the control panel, shielding his face from the h
eat. The alchemist glared at Madigan. “You simpleton. You just condemned your own city. I was using them! I was intending to destroy every quarter filled with Protectorate next! I intended to rid this kingdom of its internal sickness and its external foe all in one blow. All you’ve accomplished was saving the lives of the very fanatics you’ve been fighting . . . But you’re too late to get what you came for.” Culpin reached for a red lever. “Witness the end of Leto the usurper king!”

  “No!” Madigan shouted.

  Culpin laughed. “Don’t worry. I can rebuild it.” He pulled the lever.

  Cleasby was reading the instructions pinned to the corkboard on the wall as fast as he could, but it was hard to pay attention to engineering diagrams when a giant with two flaming swords was crashing about the room battling an Ordic duelist.

  “Thornbury, grab that valve. Turn it when I tell you.” He looked over and found that Thornbury was staring at the fight. It was hard to blame him. The two master swordsmen weaved back and forth through the forest of pipes. “Thorny!”

  Thornbury jumped. “Sorry.” He rushed back over. “What’s happening?”

  The needles on the pressure gauges were all pegged red. “The holding tanks here are full of the alchemical mixture. It’s bubbling up, building pressure. If the gates are lowered the gas will be forced through Caspia’s pipes in a matter of minutes, and when they’re full, there must be some form of ignition—” A bell sounded from the machine. “That’s bad.”

  “Bad? How bad?”

  That bell had been a warning: the gate had been opened. The alchemical mixture was being forced into the palace district. “Shut up and turn that valve! Clockwise!” Thorny did. Cleasby grabbed another one and spun it hard. Then he reached down, took hold of a big brass lever, and cranked it back. That should do it! “Do the next one as well. Do as many as you can, as fast as you can!”

  Thorny rushed to the next. “What’re we doing?”

  “We’re dumping the main tanks.” Cleasby ran back and looked at the pressure gauges. The needles were dropping. “If there’s no pressure from the alchemical mix, it won’t be forced through the pipes in sufficient quantity to cause as much—”