Jone’s eyes darted around the chaos of the enemy encampment. By now, part of the enemy force should be moving toward and around the ridge, looking for the supposed “enemy unit” controlling the mortar; most of the rest would be divided and put out of commission by her two allies. But where was their mark?
“Well, where would you go if you were him?”
Jone nodded thoughtfully, and her eyes fell on the munitions tent.
She rushed across the packed earth, past rippling fires and residual explosions, then threw aside the tent flap and rushed into the largest structure in the encampment—
—only to be too late as layers and layers of heavy of armor closed around what could only be Nicholas de Crequey. Jone recognized the distinctive dark mop of hair and rugged jawline from the wanted poster she’d committed to memory, but only a moment before an inch-thick helmet came down and an amber visor sealed his face away.
The Marquis had a war machine.
“No wonder he robbed so many caravans successfully—but you’d think someone would have mentioned it to the authorities!” The voice’s alarm was palpable, tingling along Jone’s nerves.
She agreed with the sentiment.
A golem-suit was a war machine, a siege engine capable of dismantling fortifications and entrenched defensive positions simply by walking up and destroying them. It wasn’t meant for hand to hand combat…but it could certainly do that, too.
And this was the most advanced one she’d ever seen.
Metal grated on metal as the construct rose to its full height, and eight feet of towering, steam-powered steel accented in gleaming brass peered down at Jone. Its entire frame shuddered from the force of the compact steam reactor riveted onto its back. Gears spun and leaked hot steam at its joints, showing its age, and claws bristled from the fingers on one hand. The other appendage was clawless, instead sporting some sort of strange projectile weapon attached to the back of the forearm, three long barrels and an integrated ammunition dispenser. The entire device was attached via metallic tubes to the reactor on its back. Four larger, barrels that Jone couldn’t identify sat on each shoulder.
Jone panicked and slung her last black glass sphere into its face, barely remembering to close her eyes in time. It was a direct hit, but by the time it was safe to pry her lids open, its amber visor was already lightening once more from where it had automatically turned opaque to protect the driver. Jone cursed and dove around the construct, whipping a dagger from her belt and jamming it into the gears at the elbow of the clawed arm.
The Marquis responded by pivoting hard at the waist and slapping her through the tent wall.
Jone rolled and reeled, tumbling clumsily to her feet with sword in hand, then falling again; her ribs hurt like the Abyss, but didn’t seem broken, only badly bruised. From what she could see, most of the brigand band still in camp was routed, fallen, or missing; her eyes fell on the Lady Bellamy, smoothly running someone through with her elegant rapier, then kicking them to the ground.
“Sam!” she bellowed as loudly as she could, dirt from her tumble choking her lungs. “Golem!”
The woman turned just in time, steel grey eyes wide, as the war engine lumbered through the side of the tent, tearing a massive hole with its passage. It immediately laid eyes on the stand-out figure of Bellamy, her bright white blouse and glittering corset easily visible in the flickering firelight. There was a roar of pressurized steam, and four small grenades launched from one of its shoulder mounted weapons, directly at Bellamy.
The raven-haired Lady leapt away, evoking a half-visible protective symbol, like a shield, with magic that Jone hadn’t known she had. The hasty spell shattered under the impact, the force of the explosion throwing Bellamy a good thirty feet away, her trajectory only narrowly failing to impale her on the jagged end of a splintered tent post.
The Marquis de Crequey’s amber visor tracked her flight, and Jone could feel the vibration in the ground as it prepared to launch the other set of steam-propelled grenades from its other shoulder. The voice screamed wordless warnings in her head as Jone grabbed the only explosive grenade she had and flung it at the golem’s shoulder, then dove for cover.
The ensuing quintuple explosion blasted the breath from her lungs, replacing it with a harsh burning sensation and the odor of alchemy. It also sent her rolling uncontrollably across the ground, singed from heat, hearing banished, eyes blurry and ears ringing.
“You can still hear me!” The voice told her excitedly. “And you should really stand up now. Don’t go dying on me again, okay?”
She had no words with which to reassure the disembodied voice as she struggled to her feet. Staggered footsteps shook the ground as the golem stomped and fought to correct its balance; as the smoke cleared, one arm hung limp, layers of steel armor blown away from an entire shoulder, revealing red-hot twisted metal edges and the blackened flesh of the exposed driver. The Marquis’ angry, human eyes peered out at her from behind cracked amber.
Golem-suits drew power from the operator’s magic, at least as far as Jone remembered. They needed that and the steam reactor to operate. Take out either one, and it would malfunction. If only she could get behind it, perhaps...
Stubbornly, Jone started toward it, but froze when the one working arm whipped up, triple barrels spinning up with an ominous whirr. There was nowhere in the middle of the camp to hide or take cover; the girls’ explosive assault had seen to that.
Crequey smiled at her from behind the visor, nodding a brief salute of respect.
A short blade of black-as-night obsidian flew out of the night and embedded itself into the golem’s arm, cutting through the barrels and steel armor, slicing with contemptuous ease all the way down to the flesh of the man beneath.
Another chain explosion rocked the hills, resounding from the rise above. It seemed Crequey’s men had finally found the little mortar, along with the rest of the explosives Lady Bellamy had attached to it and sprinkled liberally around the area.
The golem’s steam reactor stuttered fitfully, and the great war machine dropped to a knee, crippled by its master’s sudden loss of followers.
But it was still capable of fighting, still capable of killing.
Jone darted toward it, grasping at the only opportunity she might get, but Nicholas pushed himself to a knee, lifting his arm high overhead, ebony blade still stuck in it, ready to pulverize her.
Esmeralda leapt onto the machine’s back from out of nowhere, flinging herself upward. She hissed painfully as one hand latched onto the hot steam reactor, then tossed herself acrobatically onto the back of the golem’s neck. Sensing her presence, Crequey pivoted, trying to throw her off, but she didn’t budge. Instead, the wild, dark-skinned warrior wrapped her strong legs around the golem’s thick neck, put one of her one-shot pistols to its amber faceplate, and fired point-blank.
Chips of amber spiraled away as the man inside reeled, and Esmeralda ripped pistol after pistol from her bandolier, firing them with both hands into his armored face, laughing like a fiend all the while. As the woman ran out of spare guns, Jone took hold of her second chance, lunged in and yanked the obsidian blade from the Marquis’ arm—and took a chunk of his arm with it. He howled in agony and shock, loud enough to be audible from outside the suit, and Jone cut a hunk of steel and connective tubes from the golem’s shuddering generator as she dashed past.
Esmeralda wedged a firebomb into a crack in Crequey’s visor and flipped to the ground.
“Get down,” the voice said, and Jone complied.
There was the shudder of a blast, then the heavier quake of the golem crashing to the earth.
Jone rose slowly, sore. The siege engine’s faceplate was completely blown away, the Marquis’ battered face badly burned along the jawline, but still recognizable. The rest of his body was now trapped in tons of lifeless, unmoving steel. She walked over and put the black blade to his throat, Esmeralda joining her. She passed the woman the handle to her blade, staring down at Crequey. “Su
rrender,” Jone said simply.
The Marquis stared up at them, coughing out a wisp of smoke. His eyes were a showcase of pain, but hardened into resolve. “Whatever you hounds of the bitch queen want,” he spat, “you won’t get from me.”
A hum of power emanated abruptly from the golem’s chest.
“Oh, no way,” Esmeralda snapped. Her hand whipped across, cleanly taking off the Marquis’ head, leaving Jone with a moment of shock. The emerald-eyed fighter grabbed the head by its mop of hair with the same hand, shoved Jone away, then tackled her to the ground.
The golem detonated, disintegrating everything in a ten foot radius with a hot sizzle and whoosh of intense heat, but very little sound.
She and Esmeralda lay there for a long moment, staring at one another, panting and—for Jone at least—simply feeling thankful to be alive.
They only paused when boots approached: thigh-high, finely-crafted, somewhat singed boots. “Thanks for checking on me,” Lady Bellamy commented dryly, rolling Esmeralda over with a foot. “Can we go now?”
- - -
They took as much loot and supplies as they could—as well as the Marquis’ head, in a thick burlap bag—and made off with them, falling back to their concealed, secondary camp.
Then they collapsed.
Jone slowly looked over at Esmeralda. The girl lay there, panting, grinning, streaked with dirt and sweat and other people's blood. “Did you…” Jone began, her voice stumbling over a series of chuckles, “ride a war golem?”
Adrenaline ran down and exhaustion set in, and they lay there, bursting into laughter that went on and on like maniacs.
Maniacs that were just happy to be alive, and to have emerged victorious.
“I can’t believe Crequey had a war golem,” Bellamy finally said. “How many people took on this bounty and failed, because of that?”
“Yeah, but we didn’t. We succeeded.” Esmeralda flopped onto her back.
“That we did,” Jone mused, mostly content and happy. With the death of the Marquis, something in that great, hollow pit inside Jone felt fulfilled. Just a little. But why? She didn’t like the implications.
“And you called that warning just in time, Jone,” the Lady added. “A second or so later, and things would have went rather poorly for me.” She rolled onto her side leaning up and smiling at Jone.
Jone blushed, but fortunately the starlight revealed little.
“Well,” Jone said, leaning up to peer over her own bust at Esmeralda, “You did much similar for me. That golem of his had me dead to rights, as they say.”
Esmeralda chuckled. “That’s a antique expression there, Jone.” She grinned, teeth white in the dark night. “And I’ll just note that no one had to save me tonight.”
Samantha leaned over, reaching across Jone to tweak the other woman’s nose. “I have saved you plenty over the years. It’ll take you a long time to pay off that debt, woman.”
Esmeralda chuckled, sitting up. “I guess that just leaves Jone in my debt.” She leaned in toward the smaller blond girl and ran her tongue across her teeth. “Twice, I think.” She rose to her feet and walked across camp to their pile of looted goods, going through it as if searching for something.
“I did kind of save you from slavery,” Jone called after her. “So I think that cancels the first one out.”
“We’ll see,” was the woman’s only retort as she buried her questing arms in loot.
Jone glanced over at the Lady Bellamy, only to find herself being studied by those sharp steel eyes. “Um, so. I was wondering.” She lowered her voice a little. “How long have the two of you…”
Bellamy chuckled. “Depends on how you mean that.” Jone blushed. “Many, many years, it seems like. I actually trained a young Thresh myself. Took her in.”
Jone’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Really?”
Samantha nodded. “It wasn’t always as…pleasant as it is now. She used to be more…difficult, I suppose you could say. If you can imagine that.” Jone chuckled. “We had a falling out. But nothing brings people together, makes them value each other, like oppression and loss.” Her mouth tightened into a thin line.
The Queen’s invasion, Jone thought. Drake’s conquering of the mainland. What did they take from these two? But she let the subject drop, worried that she might have already ruined the mood.
“Here we go,” Esmeralda came back and plopped down with an exhausted huff. “Picked up this little guy on my way through the armory.” In her arms, she cradled a large, heavy leather glove as if it were an actual child. The glove looked like some sort of blacksmith’s heavy forge gauntlet, redesigned for war. It was thick leather, fingerless, long enough to go most of the way to the shoulder, and wrapped with various brass belts and buckles. Riveted steel armor covered the back of the hand, the knuckles, and all of the other important spots, and a smooth, half-sphere fire opal adorned the back of the arm barely above the wrist. The stone was semi-clear, almost the size of Jone’s fist, and light swirled within, as if there were movement inside. “First claim, by the way,” the dark-haired woman added.
Jone frowned. “What lies inside?” Her eye twitched, a sudden twinge of irritation, as she stared into the stone.
“I’ll give you one guess.”
Esmeralda grinned. “What, never seen a fire gauntlet before? I guess they were never that common, even in military usage. Especially not until the last few decades, at the most.” She slipped a hand deep inside. “They typically have some sort of fire-based spirit, like a mephit or a tiny efreeti, bound in them. That’s what gives them their power.” She flexed her open hand, the inside of the stone swirled, and a flame burst into existence in her palm. “Neat, huh?” She smiled over at Jone, but that smile faltered when she saw her expression. “What—”
“It’s not right,” Jone said, a touch of anger in her voice. “It’s slavery. I didn’t know it had spread this far, but that’s still what it is.”
Esmeralda blinked. “It’s just a…” She glanced at the back of the gauntlet, as if checking its contents. “Mephit, I think. And not even one of the cute ones. Ugh.”
“Just like you’re only a person?” Jone retorted. “You were a slave what, a week ago? How can you possibly be okay with this?”
Irritation glinted stubbornly in the girl’s dark emerald eyes. “They’re just creatures. Like a deer, or a sky-shark, or a highland garm. What does it matter?”
“Well, they are enslaved, chained and bound to their devices,” Bellamy cut in. “They’re shipped in from the Core, the Lost Temples in the New World, by the boatload these days. But most real study is done by Elizabethian arcanists, and not shared with the likes of us.” She shrugged. “Which is to say, we don’t really know shit.”
Jone and Esmeralda looked back at one another, locking eyes. Jone didn’t back down from the other woman’s intense, fiery gaze. “Okay,” Jone said. “Try using it again.” Esmeralda raised an eyebrow, readying a retort, but Jone cut her off. “Trust me. Just try it.” She didn’t know where her hunch was coming from, but she went with it anyway.
A dry, sarcastic expression plastered across her face, Esmeralda raised the glove again and tensed her fist. Flame sputtered to life.
Then sputtered right back out, wiping the smug look from her dark, exotic features. “Wait, what in the Abyss?”
“Now let me see it.”
The Lady Bellamy scooted close as Esmeralda reluctantly handed over the glove. Jone took it and…simply held it. She didn’t know what she was doing, or what she was supposed to be doing.
She blushed in the dark, suddenly feeling stupid.
A tingle ran down Jone’s spine. The fire opal abruptly blazed bright, then cracked down the center. A burning, ash-eyed mephit with a wingspan similar to Jone’s spread hands crawled out. She could make out joy on its alien little features; the relief of finally being free, after who knew how long.
“How interesting…” Bellamy whispered, adjusting her glasses and leaning eve
n closer.
“Uh huh. That’s great. A great way to ruin an awesome weapon, that is.” Esmeralda rolled her eyes, gesturing at the glove. “Do you know how much those things are worth on the black market—”
The imp-like figure spread its wings, hissed at her, then crawled back into the stone, which flickered to abrupt, blazing life.
“...or not,” Esmeralda finished, blinking blankly at the glove.
Now it was Jone’s turn to smile smugly at her companion.
“Simply amazing,” Samantha said quietly. She looked up. “You know Es, you really should hand this over to Jone.”
“But—”
Bellamy frowned. “She has taken less than her fair share every time to date. So technically, she had first claim all along…even by your own rules.”
Esmeralda sighed. “Fine. Note here and now that I call the next one, though. Before anyone decides to break it.”
Jone resigned herself to having that argument when the time came. She unhitched one gauntlet, then the other, then her breastplate, suddenly too tired to wear the restricting metal, and tugged the new glove on. It felt comfortably warm, and—
She paused as the buckles tightened themselves firmly but gently around her arm. She smiled, but she didn't know why.
“That really is amazing,” the dark-haired girl was right next to her, peering down at the glove in her lap. Her emerald eyes snapped up and caught Jone’s, the smaller girl’s breath catching along with it. “You’re pretty amazing, in fact.” She smiled like a predator, and Jone’s heart started racing. “And that’s me saying that. I don’t impress easily.”
“She really doesn't,” Bellamy cut in from where she sat next to the heat stone, now peering at a book in the dim.
Jone flushed all the more. “I, um, yes, well, and thanks—”
Esmeralda slid even closer, leaning over Jone’s legs, her face close and her warm breath even closer. Another shiver ran down Jone’s spine, followed by a building heat below the waist. Was her breath supposed to be getting heavier?
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