City of Steel (Chaos Awakens Book 3)

by Heath Pfaff

  Xandrith worked his way back to the front and dropped down into the seat beside Raina. "Are we going as fast as we can?"

  Raina tapped a gauge with a needle that was bouncing back and forth between two numbers that meant nothing to the assassin. She seemed to notice his blank look. "That measures the stress on the drive gears. If we push any further than 4000 on those gears they could start shredding themselves. At that point we won't be moving at all." She pointed to another gauge. "This is our power throughput from the energy coil. We aren't at maximum yet, but the added weight is making it more difficult to get up to speed. The best I can do is adjust our power output higher as we gain more speed and take the pressure off the gears, but if we have to stop in a hurry the entire cart is going to fly apart at the seams. The brakes aren't made to handle this kind of load."

  Xandrith nodded, getting the general gist of what Raina was telling him. The cart was doing all that it could. "The trolls will be on us in a matter of minutes if we don't find some more speed, Raina. If you know any tricks, now would be the time to put them to use."

  "Have people rip the furniture out and throw it behind us. Anything that's heavy that can go will help us get moving quicker." Raina suggested. "I'll push the limits a little harder, but it's a risk."

  Xan put a hand on her shoulder. "Do what you can. I'll see to clearing out the cart." With that, the assassin jumped back to the roof. Everyone was trying their best to get a view of the approaching horde and it took Xandrith a moment to gather their attention.

  "Listen up!" He shouted several times before people seemed to be looking in his direction. "If we want to get away from those trolls, we need to start throwing everything that isn't attached to the cart over the side. We need to lower our weight or they're going to catch up to us, do you understand?"

  He didn't have to ask twice about it. In moments items began to fly off the side of the cart. He opened the hatch into the cart and told those inside the same thing. They were packed in so tightly that it took them a bit longer to get organized, but soon they were ripping up benches, cots, and anything else that they could get a hold of and throwing them out the doors and windows. Xandrith closed the hatch and stood back up.

  A black shafted arrow slammed into the face of the man standing next to him, ripping through his eye to protrude out the back of his head. His remaining eye blinked once and then he fell over dead as screams filled the air. More arrows followed, at first just a couple, but soon they were falling all around the cart in a deadly rain. Those trolls riding upon the quick footed mounts had closed to within arrow range and they weren't wasting any time. Luckily their shots were mostly random fire. Hits were pure luck at the speeds and distances they were dealing with.

  "Throw the dead over the side!" Xandrith shouted. It wasn't a nice thing to do, but this was survival. The loss of the extra weight could only help. To their credit, those around him immediately set about the grim business of throwing their dead friends and family from the cart. Desperation was driving them, but panic was buried just beneath the surface. Xan could see it ready to explode at any moment. A scream sounded from behind Xandrith in the direction of the driver's seat and a cold chill passed down Xan's spine. Raina. Xan turned to go and check on the young woman who'd been forced to take her father's place and nearly tripped over a man pulling the hatchway into the cart open.

  "There isn't room in there." Xandrith snapped at him, but it was no use. With the arrows raining down around them, there would be no way to reason with the terrified. The man pulled the door open and dropped down inside to escape the rain of arrows, falling on the heads of the people crowded in below. Four more people were right on his heels, but Xan didn't have time to fight with them. Chances were that there would be more injuries and deaths inside the cart, but how did you explain that to a group of people being targeted by bowmen? An arrow flew past Xan's right ear, missing him by only a few inches. He cursed under his breath and made his way back to the driver seat. The crowd atop the wagon was thinning. The dead and those foolish enough to cram themselves inside were clearing space.

  The assassin jumped down from the cart's roof and found Raina still working the controls, but there was an arrow pinning her left thigh to the seat. The shaft had passed through the meat of her leg and was embedded deeply in the bench. The shot had been a lucky one. Her position in the driver's seat should have protected her from rear arrow fire, but it had happened anyway. Tears were trickling down her face and her skin had gone a shade of ashen gray, but she clung to the controls with white knuckled determination. Blood was pooling on the seat. She was bleeding heavily, which probably indicated she had a nicked artery.

  "We're picking up speed." She told Xan, not taking her eyes from path before her. She was following in the tracks set by the wagons that had passed before. She didn't look down, but her voice was shaking when she spoke next. "I'm getting cold and I feel a little sick."

  Xandrith wasn't entirely certain what to say. Raina was going to die if she didn't get some medical attention. She needed a healer. A healing mage would be even better, but they were still hours away from reaching the safety of Forge, and that was if they managed to outrun the trolls. Xandrith peeked over the top of the wagon. The trolls were slowly falling behind. He sat back down heavily, pulling his cloak off and throwing it over Raina's shoulders. She gave him a brief look of thanks before her eyes snapped back to the precarious road ahead.

  "I think we're losing them!" Someone called from behind Xandrith, but the assassin didn't respond.

  "You've done well, Raina. Because of you these people are going to survive." Xandrith told her, glancing at the arrow in her thigh.

  "lt's what pops would have done if he'd been here." She answered quietly.

  Xan nodded. "He'd be proud of you."

  Younger Xan appeared above them, sitting atop the cart roof with his legs dangling over the driver's area. "We can't just let her die. Can't we remove the arrow and sear the wound closed?"

  Xandrith shook his head. The arrow had likely sliced an artery as it passed through her leg. Removing the arrow would make the bleeding worse, and without knowing exactly where that artery was there was no way to repair it. If Xandrith had still had some of his magic he might have been able to do something, but he was helpless now.

  The other Xan slammed his insubstantial fist against the roof of the carriage. "Damn it! I hate this. I hate these feelings. When I was just a piece of metal I didn't have to feel these things. I don't want to be like this anymore!" He popped out of existence in much the same way he'd arrived, leaving Xandrith alone with Raina again.

  "I was shot with an arrow once." Xan said, leaning back against the driver's bench. His mind flashed briefly to his first sighting of Kassa, wielding a bow she’d turned out to be terrible with. "Hurts."

  Raina laughed weakly. "It did at first, but not so much now. I guess I'm tougher than you are."

  Xandrith chuckled, the laughter a difficult to maintain facade. "You probably are. I'm not nearly as tough as I look." The lack of pain was just another bad sign.

  They sat in silence for a time before Raina spoke again. "I should show you how to work these controls. I'm not sure how much longer I can do this."

  Xandrith slid closer across the seat. "I would like that, Raina. Show me how this thing works."

  "It's actually quite easy." She began. The lesson lasted nearly twenty minutes, and by the end of it Raina was slumped against Xandrith. "Do you think you've got it?" She asked.

  "I do." Xandrith answered. Raina sighed into his shoulder and went still as the assassin began working the controls in her place.

  Hours passed with Xandrith at the controls and his eyes glued to the tracks in the snow ahead of him. Raina’s body sat stiffly against him. There were screams and arguments in the cart behind him, but Xan didn't have the time or the patience to think about that knot of humanity. All that mattered to him was reaching Forge, and at long last his destination was coming into view. At first g
lance it appeared to be nothing more than a jagged cliff face backed against the side of a mountain the stretched high into the frozen sky, but as the carts bore down upon the cliff it soon became apparent that some spectacular architects had been at work.

  Two massive steel doors opened into the cliff face, each as tall as any thirty men standing one atop another's shoulders. The doors themselves weren't open all the way, but had they been swung wide an army could have passed through a hundred men abreast. Xan slowed the cart as he drew near. Armed men stood near the entrance. They waved Xan down as the cart drew near.

  "Are there any others?" They asked, obviously expecting more.

  "No." Xandrith replied. The men were looking at the slumped figure of the girl at his side, and the black shaft of the arrow protruding from her leg. "The other carts were too damaged to move. There is a large horde of trolls not far behind us."

  The man's eyes went wide. "And you led them right to us?"

  "They were already watching this pass. Either they knew you were here, or they would have followed the cart tracks here just as I did. I recommend you let us inside and get these gates closed. They'll be coming soon." Xandrith wasn't in a mood to argue.

  The man speaking to Xan looked back over his shoulder at another guard who simply shrugged. Getting no help from that companion, he looked to another who made a point of not meeting the first guard's eyes. No one wanted to be responsible for making the call to let them in and close the gates.

  "We have injured and dead. We're tired, beaten, and death is on our heels. You can debate what to do with us all you want, but let us do it from inside the safety of these gates before we have a thousand hungry trolls making the decisions for us, alright?" Xandrith was done with being patient. If the man didn't let them in soon, the assassin had every intention of driving the cart over the top of him and his companions. This last effort seemed to do the trick though. The guard ordered his companions to stand down and Xandrith pulled the cart inside the gates.

  The massive steel doors began to draw together in the cart’s wake. They moved with an eerie silence. There was no churning of chain wenches or grunts of men manning a mechanism to pull them together. They drifted together as though swept into place by a gentle, unseen current. Once closed, the metal seemed to fit together seamlessly. They didn't meet flush in the center, that would have created a flat surface that would be easy assailed by battering rams. Instead they formed an outward, arrow-like point that would be far more difficult to break with traditional siege equipment. It was clear that Forge Haven had been built by men of tremendous vision.

  The gates towered overhead, easily as tall as any fifteen men standing top to bottom on each other’s shoulders. The steel had been intentionally dulled so as not to reflect light, but it was clear that no forge had shaped those doors. Whatever had been used must have been a marvel of its own for the steel was seamless and smooth, as though it had formed naturally in the shape it now held. Guard posts of equally spectacular steel were set along the sides of the doors, and a walkway ran over the top that would give a defending force a dangerous vantage over anyone foolish enough to cross the threshold.

  Inside the gates the lighting was provided by torches that seemed to burn with their own, strange white light. The flames didn’t flicker or shift at all behind the glass windows containing it so that Xan wondered if they were made of fire at all. Xan imagined that the light was radiating cold like a chunk of ice brought in from a frozen lake. This pale light was unnatural and seemed to cast everything in an otherworldly aura.

  "Are you Trast Gleamsteel?" A voice startled Xandrith from his consideration of the gate as he sat in the cart’s front seat, not yet able to relax into the safer environment of the Forge. He looked down at an unfamiliar armed man. This hadn't been one of the men standing outside the gate. The fellow had drawn his sword, and there were three equally equipped armed men standing with him. This didn't settle well with the assassin.

  Xandrith wanted to stand up and put himself in a more defensible position, but Raina's body still lay against him. He wouldn't do her the injustice of letting her fall over. Even in death she deserved more than that.

  "I am the man these people know as Trast Gleamsteel." Xandrith admitted.

  "Gleamsteel, we, with the authority of Forge Haven's law enforcement division, have been ordered to take you into custody. You are charged with conspiracy to infiltrate the Forge, and conspiracy to murder the good men and women of Forge Haven." His words were spoken calmly and coldly. Xandrith wondered how long it had taken them to decide he was the evil party. The men and women on the other carts must have gone immediately to the authorities when they arrived. They needed someone to blame for all the bad things that had befallen them, and Trast was perfect. Certainly it couldn't be a coincidence that the trolls had found them on the road after they'd decided to take Trast with them? They'd already been suspicious of him.

  Xan took a deep and steadying breath. He had nowhere else to go. The gates were sealed and he was surrounded by armed men. "Fine, if that's the way it has to be. However, I will not leave this bench until I know that this woman, Raina, will be given the proper services she deserves. If it wasn't for her this wagon would have been left to the trolls."

  The man in charge seemed confused. He either hadn't expected to be met with demands, or he had expected to be met with greater resistance, Xandrith couldn't be certain. He took a step forward, raising his sword in a threatening manner.

  "You will step down from the cart now, or we will drag you from where you sit. This is a serious matter." Xandrith read confidence in his words and the ease of his sword stance. He was ready to back up his threat, maybe even eager to do so.

  Xandrith stood slowly, easing Raina's body to the bench as he did so. He drew the cloak he'd lent her over her face. He did his best to lay her down respectfully. She was still pinned to the seat by the arrow that had killed her. The men at his back shuffled and bristled aggressively as Xan went about his work, but he wasn't leaving the poor girl slumped over and undignified at the end of her brave course. Even in death she deserved better than that. The assassin was just finishing up when a heavy hand reached up and grabbed him by the arm. Xan's patience snapped like a dry twig bent too far.

  The hand on his arm made for a perfect fulcrum point to pivot on as Xandrith launched himself from the bench of the wagon in a flying arc that landed him behind the guard who'd laid a hand on him. He broke the hold as he landed and shifted his own grip to the man's wrist, shoving the guard's arm hard against his own back. Xandrith kicked out at the back of the guard’s knee and there was a terrible pop as bones and joints broke from their normal range of positioning. The assassin drove his free hand into the base of the guard's skull, knocking him unconscious. His body toppled to the ground as the other guards looked on in horror. Xandrith straightened his spine and stood up to his full height, knowing that his horns would give him an even greater appearance of size. His face split in a grim smile that invited anyone to challenge him.

  A guardsmen to his left attacked, charging in with his sword in the lead. The attack was timed well and positioned expertly. His stance was flawless, but he clearly wasn't trained to fight a man of Xan's particular skill set. The assassin stepped into the thrusting sword, turning his body with the motion of the incoming blade. The weapon's edges were running horizontal, so Xan gave himself an extra inch of distance. As the blade slipped past his body, Xan drove his knee upward against the flat edge of the sword. This caused the point to fly upward, carrying the guard who'd already committed his momentum with it. Xandrith shifted his own spin and countered the guard's force with his fist, driving it into his skull with blinding force. The cartilage in the man's nose fractured and Xandrith didn't doubt that the bone behind it had been fractured as well. Xan's attacker crumpled.

  Xandrith flicked his hand a few times, the blood coating his knuckles sprinkling to the ground at his side. The other guards were approaching cautiously, their weapons
readied. They shared looks back and forth between them, acknowledging that they intended to attack as one. Xan readied himself for the attack. Had he held his temper in check, the situation wouldn't have gotten so far out of hand, but he was committed now. It seemed he could get himself into plenty of trouble even without troll aggression ripping apart his patience. Regardless, Xan didn't intend to go down without a fight.

  He drew the fighting knife from his hip and the bone dagger from its scabbard along his side. Normally that blade would remain hidden, but he'd need the extra weapon if he hoped to survive the coming assault. Somewhere in his peripheral vision he noted that the people from the wagon were spilling from the cramped interior, dragging bodies and injured out with them. A line of onlookers stood behind the assassin, none willing to take sides in the spectacle about to unfold. It was as though they hadn't seen enough death and destruction yet that day. They needed more. Xandrith pushed them from his mind and focused on the moment.

  The dam of tension broke and the guards charged in, swords leading the way. Steel rang against steel as Xan turned and twisted through their attack, spinning their blades away from him and back against their own ranks. He could have killed them. There were openings in their attack patterns that could have been exploited to brutal endings, but Xandrith restrained himself. Maybe that was the real difference between himself and the troll, restraint. Instead of striking with the point of his dagger he wrapped a helmeted head with the hilt and the full force of his spinning arm. One guard went down, and then another. They fell like leaves in autumn until Xandrith was left with one scared man holding a shaking sword and looking fearfully at his fallen comrades. The assassin towered above them with his chest heaving, his blades held at the ready, and his eyes flashing dangerously.

  Another man approached, running down the metal roadway with a strange device in his hands. It looked somewhat like a cross bow and he raised to his shoulder as he ran. It didn't have the arms of a crossbow, and Xandrith couldn't see a string on it. It looked as though it had a small version of the energy-storing devices that the mechanna used attached to its bottom. Xan didn't know what to expect, so he readied himself to dodge a projectile at the first sign of danger. A flash of light exploded in front of Xan, and before he even had time to shut his eyes the world vanished into nothingness.