The question seemed to startle Roberts and his eyes fluttered. “Well I…I don’t know. They never gave one” he answered, but when he saw Ides move to his flank his conviction returned. “Don’t move! I know what I saw! I know what happened, you treacherous bastards, but you won’t burn me!”
Valkyrie was about to argue when his pistol went off. She felt the bullet smash into her armour. Time slowed down and the feeling of the impact seemed to drag on forever. Her sight blurred and wavered. The cries of the legionnaires and the barks of their rifles were far away echoes.
Everything snapped back a second later, the time distortion of her mind like a dream. There was no blood seeping from her armour and no wound, but the sheer attack of the Sergeant was shocking enough to affect her in a way she never imagined possible. She blinked until her sight returned to the way it was and felt a tear try to escape her eyes as Roberts, shot down by the combined rifles of the legionnaires, collapsed to his knees and looked at her like she had killed his world herself.
“You have done this…you have joined them” he accused her. Before she could protest, he fell to the floor completely.
There was nothing she could do to save him, but there were answers she needed. Kneeling down beside the dying Sergeant, she fought back the guilt for what she was about to do and touched her hands to the side of his head and read his lingering memories.
The legionnaires gathered around her and watched the surrounding buildings for further threats. When it became clear the Sergeant had really been a lone survivor, whether by twisted fate or malign purpose, they focused on their Apostle. Valkyrie, searching Roberts’ mind even as he drew his last breath, fought for the information that would complete the puzzle.
At the last moment, she recoiled from him like electricity had passed between them and gasped deeply to fill her lungs from the shock that winded her. She had fallen on her back from whatever struck her and Severus was quick to give her a hand to sit up.
Removing her helm, Valkyrie looked up into the expectant eyes of the legionnaires and let the tear from before finally run down her cheek. Only in their presence did she feel comfortable to show her vulnerability, but the things she had seen in Roberts’ mind wouldn’t have let her choose to do it even in the company of others.
“My Grace?” Severus asked.
She honed in on his voice and focussed on his face so she could speak. “We are in grave danger, Severus.”
The Commander nodded as though it was the most normal thing she could say, given the war they were fighting every day. “Where do we need to go?” he asked.
“Hydron. We have to warn everyone of what we have seen. If we fail, it won’t just mean the end of the Empire, but the end of all of us”.
***
THE GOLEMS SWITCHED their focus and amazement from the pool of water to the green demi-goddess that had walked up to them. She stood at a safe distance, waiting to see what they did. Despite their nature and what they were, against the directives that were hard-wired in their creation to kill every living thing, they just sat with their stone legs crossed and marvelled at her.
They admired her beauty so much that they came across as if they had once known intelligence but were now simple-minded creatures. Gaia couldn’t tell what the truth of them was anymore. When she came to confront them, she had expected a fight. Ria and Fabius flanked her now and did nothing but raise their rifles at the golems, unsure of what they were supposed to do.
“Should we fire, my Grace?” Fabius asked. He could scarce believe he had to ask the question. It felt wrong to doubt something that came naturally to him.
Gaia shook her head slowly. “No…not yet” she told him. Then she directed her speech to the golems, though she knew better than to expect them to answer. “What are you?”
“THEY ARE YOUR DOOM” something screamed in response. A figure appeared between the golems and with its arrival, the two Phantoms remembered themselves and stood up from their trance. Gaia recognised the speaker as the same archetype that attacked the Lion on Fernus, but she had no time to try and understand if that was significant.
The giant golems were already towering over her and the legionnaires who were now firing without instruction at the creatures. The Phantoms lumbered towards them, shrugging off the swam of darts that fired from Ria and Fabius. Without thinking, Gaia focussed her energy and pleaded in her heart for Ardenne to allow her control over its nature.
She felt the energy of the forest respond positively to her and dragged the roots of the largest trees from the earth with her mind. They snapped up in a shower of dirt and tied themselves around the golems, crushing their limbs as they pulled in every direction. The legionnaires emptied their clips to enrage the Phantoms further, making them cause their own deaths as they struggled against the thick roots. In seconds, the golems were viciously quartered by the might of Gaia and Ardenne. A haze of stone dust was the release of their blood, but the gratifying death of the Phantoms was no reprieve.
In their desperation to kill the golems, Gaia and the legionnaires had neglected the very real threat of the new Phantom. Ria and Fabius fired on it without hesitation, but there was no effect. Gaia tried to call upon the water, earth and wind to slay the beast, yet it was fruitless. It smiled at them with its lazy jaws in arrogance, batted away the darts that the legionnaires fired at it and sent several flying back at them. The commander and recon master were too slow to realise its power and were knocked out by their own weapons.
Gaia watched in fear as they collapsed to the floor and realised how possible it was that she was about to die. The Phantom, less deformed than its counterpart on Fernus had been, drew closer to her, snarling with its rows of teeth and salivating at its prey.
“Soooo easssy to deceeivvvve…soooo eassssssssy to killll…” it told her with the same voice as its copy on Fernus. The sound of its speech chilled her to the bone and in a last effort to save herself, she used her abilities to bring a tree down upon the creature. The shadow of it dwarfed the monster in darkness, but when it fell it passed through the Phantom like it was never there.
Yet, when it reached Gaia and clutched its hands around her throat with alarming speed, its physicality was suddenly very real again. “I…will not…scream for you” Gaia choked out between breaths, yet looking into its featureless eyes she felt a very real dread. She tried to wrestle free from its hold on her, but her hands were not strong enough to tear its grip away. She regretted now never having asked another Apostle for help. If she lived this through, never again would she assume that two golems meant what they seemed.
The Phantom picked her up off the floor with a single hand until she hovered above the ground. It was a gesture of its power and her futility. “I havvve a messsssage…” it told her, cocking its head to one side. Its eyes squinted as though it was trying to understand what was going on in her mind.
“Give it, postman!” Gaia spat.
Its maws opened wide and a strange, guttural sound emanated from within. She realised it was laughing and wished heavily that her levity hadn’t drawn the noise out of it.
“The Dark God issss reaching full strength again…It’sssss why I can do thisssss…to an Apostle” it told her, waving her about in the air and choking her almost to death. “He wantsss you to know that your doom is clossssse at hand, that the whorrre goddessss that created you was not strong enough to prevent Hissss dominion of your pathetic raccccce. He has His own disciplesss now…”
With its message delivered, the Phantom threw Gaia against the waterfall with the ease of a man throwing a stick. She crashed against the rock and dropped into the pool’s shallow waters. Blood welled down her face from the impact. Pain almost overwhelmed her and she felt ready to black out, but before she did, she looked through her hazy eyes and saw the Phantom take a bow at her. It stood, revealing its grim smirk once again and then disappeared from sight completely, leaving her to fade into unconsciousness.
Chapter 15
AFTER THE
BATTLE had ended, Novus reverted from being Phoenix to her human form. She felt tired, but not from the physical demands that the fight had visited on her body. It was a mental weariness. The battle had come quickly and spiralled almost out of their control. They had been too close to losing the city’s last defensive line to the Phantoms.
For a long while she stood on the roof of a bunker that overlooked the primary and secondary trench systems. There was destruction and death everywhere; the skeletons of Warhounds littered the battlefield, interspersed with dead Guardians from a dozen different legions. She had to force herself to recognise fallen Fireblades and when she saw those she felt closest to, there was a mix of regret and resignation in her heart.
This is what war means, she thought to herself. Sooner or later, this is the only end for all of us. It was a morbid sentiment, but looking at the aftermath of the conflict that had nearly cost them control for Kraxus, she couldn’t avoid it. Eventually Akurei joined Novus at her side. She could see the Apostle’s rigid posture and knew better than to say anything without first being prompted.
It felt like an eternity of silence between them lasted before Novus finally spoke. “What is there that I can do to end this war quickly, Akurei?” she asked, not tearing her gaze away from the sight in front of them. “How can I save my legion from extinction?”
Akurei looked at her, unsurprised by what she said. Phoenix had always cared about the Fireblades, even if it seemed she spent more time with Waterfox than with them recently. “Nothing, my Grace. We were meant for this” she replied emotionlessly.
Novus slowly turned to look at the Commander. The legionnaire’s eyes blinked once, purposefully, but her expression was stoic. “Is that all you think you can be Akurei - a soldier?”
Now it was Akurei that stared at the battlefield and hoped to find answers. For a reason she couldn’t fathom, her mind drifted back to the Battle of Pheia and she recalled the face of a legionnaire from another legion. If she remembered correctly, he had been from the 617th. She had saved his life, though it almost annoyed her to do so, and the way he had looked at her in that moment was beyond anything she had ever expected.
He had seen her as a beautiful saviour, and something about her had almost paralysed him into action. To be seen as something more than a soldier, more than an instrument of war had made her question the fate of the Guardians, yet as the years followed, the war had robbed her of that appreciation. No-one else had looked at her again in the way the 617th legionnaire did.
Thinking of her Apostle’s question, she couldn’t help but feel there really was nothing but conflict for her, that the legionnaire’s reaction on Pheia had just been something she stupidly read too much into.
“It’s the purpose we were created for, there is nothing else. War is all we know” she finally said, giving Novus the slightest of smiles, but in it was finally all the emotion that she needed to release. Secretly, Novus could tell, Akurei wanted more to life than duty.
“But when all this is over, what then?” a voice asked. They turned to see that it was Florian, the Recon Master of the Fireblades. The surprise on their face of his silent arrival made him feel guilty for intruding on their private conversation, but he felt compelled to continue.
“I do not think our lives should be considered so mechanically and never-changing…there is more to this life than conflict and bloodshed. The humans have shown us that truth I think, if little else”.
Akurei chuckled. “Florian, you always have found a way to see things I can’t” she said to him. “I know what you think you’ve seen in the humans, that peace is something they have known…but how can we ever enjoy it?”
She bit her lip and looked down at her dirty armour. It bore fresh scrapes and dents from the vicious fighting in the trenches and she wondered how many more battles it could protect her from. Looking at him again, eye to eye, she added “It is a fanciful notion that you have, that we should be like them; independent, free beings, able to love and do as we please, to choose whatever path we want. But we can’t. Not yet. Not until this war is over or we are all vanquished, yet I fear the two mean the same thing”.
Florian shook his head sadly. “It is a good thing that I am Recon Master then, isn’t it? One of us has to have good vision” he joked.
It was enough to crack the pessimistic veneer that Akurei tried to maintain and Novus could see a twinkle of humour and hope in her eyes, the same that her escaping smile had tried to conceal earlier. She wanted the Commander to open her heart to the idea that Florian allowed himself to indulge in, that the legions could one day be rid of their sacred duty, but she understood why Akurei fought the temptation.
All it took was one look at the battlefield to understand Akurei’s feelings and state of mind and Novus felt a swell of pride and admiration towards Florian for being able to deny the misery that the war forced upon them. Despite wanting to help him bring the Commander round to the notion that they could one day be free, she knew what Akurei really needed; and that was to be kept busy.
“Has a war council been arranged?” she asked Florian, breaking them out of the morbid topic. The mention of it perked Akurei’s attention and sure enough, she seemed distracted by the question and her posture returned to the same purposeful state that Novus was used to seeing.
Florian nodded. “It has, my Grace.”
The first thing Novus requested from him after the Phantoms’ full retreat had been to contact Waterfox and the Commanders of the various legions to assemble in the city proper for a meeting. It seemed natural that they should have one and her instincts drove her to order Florian to get it arranged before her feelings paralyzed her for long enough to fully comprehend what had happened to the Guardians that day.
“Where are we heading?” Akurei asked, raising her eyebrow at the discovery of a meeting she hadn’t known about until now.
“Oh, the usual paradise” Florian quipped, making Akurei roll her eyes. “I thought the building we used before would suffice. It’s large enough to accommodate three Apostles and the Command echelons of the legions present” he said more seriously.
Akurei and Novus shared a mutually confused look. “A third?” the latter asked.
If it was possible for him to be unnerved, Florian would have blushed. Instead, he said almost regretfully, “I thought you knew, my Grace. Your sister Solitaire arrived on the surface a short while ago. Jestarr of the 109th informed me himself”.
OZ FOUND NOVUS moving away from the tertiary line towards the Thundertrack that would take them back to the city centre. She was so preoccupied with something else that she didn’t seem to notice him until he came up the slope which she was descending and crossed her tracks. Akurei and Florian shouldered her and were the first to step towards him. When they did, so did she.
“Novus?” Oz asked.
She looked up to find his face, his voice breeching her thoughts. “Solitaire is here” she said distantly. “Did you know that?”
“No, of course not” he replied, as surprised as she evidently was. He felt a twinge of betrayal at their sister’s subterfuge and clandestine movements, but it was a hint of anger that he heard in Novus’ tone.
“We have a war council, Oz. I very much assume she is aware of it. How can she know so much and be so…” Novus began, but even she couldn’t describe Solitaire with one word.
Oz stood aside to let her pass, but as they did he suggested “…Erratic?”
Novus approached the rear door of the Thundertrack and turned to him. There was a degree of earnestness in her eyes that he wasn’t expecting. “I just don’t know anymore. I thought I understood her, but she still surprises me with her actions. She becomes more complex as the war goes on, not less”.
The two legionnaires that accompanied Novus boarded the troop carrier properly and left them to talk. “It is not our duty to solve her mind, Novus. You already bear enough duties, do not let her become another” Oz said. He walked closer to her and laid a hand on her cheek
. It felt smouldering hot, as though she could take form any moment now and become Phoenix.
Novus nestled her cheek into his palm and felt the soothing touch of his cold skin. Had he controlled his temperature to calm her own? She couldn’t be sure, but the fact didn’t need a certain cause to make her love him more.
Her mind was rife with uncertainty lately; the change in the Phantoms’ strategic capability, the separation from the other Apostles, the stress of holding a world that was critical to the success of the war and now Solitaire acting out of direction. She was used to her sister’s unusual behaviour, but she had never arrived somewhere unannounced.
“We should go” Novus said. In truth, she didn’t like to be in need of looking after. She was used to being a symbol of hope in the darkness, not the shadow that her flame carried with her. She turned and climbed into the troop carrier alongside Akurei and Florian. Without a word, but full of understanding, Oz joined her and the vehicle’s engine rumbled into life as it bore them to their new destination.
THE THUNDERTRACK PULLED up to the factory complex where the war council was to be held. Novus insisted that it should be kept away from the control room, which had become a personal sanctuary for her. There were Harlequins from the 109th already present in the main fabrication chamber. When Novus and Oz walked in to see them gathered around a table made out of sheet metal, they immediately asked why Solitaire wasn’t there if her legionnaires were.
“She will be here soon” a Harlequin assured them. He wore a helmet which hid his face, but Novus noticed the Commander pins on his armour and the rich blue stripes on his shoulder guards.
The Deian War: Conquest Page 19