The God Mars Book Four: Live Blades

by Michael Rizzo

  Her eyes are an impossibly bright green, metallic. I think I see something moving—crawling, weaving—under the skin of her face. The gore on her skin vanishes, as if absorbed by her pores.

  Her two companions—Erickson and the white-haired one—come running out of the forest.

  “We’ve got more coming…” Erickson sounds winded, but also invigorated. “Why…?”

  The green-suited fighters have surrounded us, bows drawn.

  “We need to go!” Terina insists to the green men.

  The one who attacked the Bug and got thrown lowers his bow. I realize his mask is different from the others: They have roughly-made faces hammered out of metal and painted to match their camo, eyes amber-tinted mirrors (probably made from goggle lenses or helmet visors). His is finely crafted: It looks like an old man or demon or both; beard, brows and hair made of leaves; grinning. I’ve seen something like this in old Earth history files, art. He jerks his head for us to follow him.

  I grab up my lost rifle, and we’re running again.

  Chapter 5: The Gods of Mars

  Erickson Carter:

  My mind races and reels. I am simultaneously in control of myself and not.

  This dance of violence, with the sword as my intimate partner, has become a seemingly endless cycle of depletion and replenishment. I expect it’s the same for my two hapless companions in this misadventure: We spend ourselves running and jumping and fighting—stronger and faster and surer than any human body should be—and then the swords feed us when we score hits, draining energy, fluids, nutrients, elemental materials… (I remind myself that some of these robots have parts of still-living human bodies in them—we’re consuming them as well. The sword makes me not care.)

  But I can’t stop. I tell myself it’s because people are in danger, my friends. I know that isn’t all. I wonder what the sword will want when this battle finally ends.

  The machines fall easily enough. Their metal is little resistance to my new “companion”, and the sword somehow provides an impressively effective shield against bullets, not unlike a Guardian Sphere (though Sphere fields don’t draw power from what collides with them). For all the violence I’ve dealt, I’m physically unscathed. In fact, I’m feeling stronger after every kill I make, despite how quickly my amplified efforts seem to drain me in between.

  Now we’re chasing after something (someone) new, hopefully friend rather than foe: Mysterious warriors in green costumes that resemble Shinkyo Shinobi suits, though very hand-made in appearance. Their masks are hand-hammered metal approximations of human faces, very much like Mycenaean-era funeral relics from Earth history. Except for one, their apparent leader: he wears the relief-sculpt of an ancient European “Green Man”. Their weapons are primitive but finely crafted: bows, swords, javelins, stout Seax knives. They wear only light armor: Torso, shoulders, forearms and shins.

  They lead us north and west, pausing for the slower of our numbers to catch up. This delay results in the occasional bot catching up to us as well. The three of us take turns intercepting them like this is some game, sport.

  We run for a few kilometers, up and down low rocky hills that take us briefly up out of the green, giving us glimpses of the bigger world: The rustle of more bots pursuing us. And smoke rising with the sound of gunfire from a distance ahead, from a range of low mountains a fraction the size of the Spine Range. (Thankfully, I hear and see no sign of battle behind us, from the slopes we came from. I hope that means all the machines have chosen to follow us rather than hunt down the rest of Abbas’ people.)

  It’s up one of these rises that our new comrades pause, but not to let us catch up. This time, they silently survey the apparent battle ahead of us. They only start running again when bot guns try taking shots at us from range.

  I linger long enough to test a theory: I raise my blade, and in short order the inaccurate long-range fire is coming straight at it, bursting on whatever field it’s generating, the kinetic energy feeding the weapon. The blade is drawing the bullets to it.

  I don’t want it to stop. I want to go find the bots and feed properly, feed more. But I have to stay with those I’ve promised to protect.

  The woman—Jak—has already moved on. Elias is waiting for me, giving me his usual look of disapproval and impatience. But I can tell: he also wants more of this. None of us has put our sword away once yet.

  Time to run again.

  After all: there’s more violence where we’re going.

  As we approach the foothills of the lesser range—what should be the northern edge of the North Blade, where it’s narrow at the eastern end—we come across bodies, all in variations of our guides’ green costumes. Their blood is still fresh, their wounds a mix of gunshot and more horrific stabs and hacks that were probably inflicted by Bug bots. The dead include women and children. I see no sign of wrecked machines.

  Our guides pause again, taking in the carnage, but only for a moment. Then they continue to run.

  My sword feeds on my outrage, stokes it.

  Within another few hundred meters, the growth begins to thin as we come up on the slopes. Ahead of us is a narrow canyon, cut at an angle northwest into the mountain, embraced by sharp-crested ridges on either side. It’s maybe four hundred meters wide at the mouth, but it’s been artificially narrowed to about fifty meters by a rough barrier of boulders, part slide, part wall, piled up dozens of meters. It’s been there long enough to have been overgrown with vine and scrub. And approaching this gap we see the signs of a quantum of revenge: broken bots—smashed, torn apart, some buried by intentional rockfall where they apparently tried to take the slopes, others trapped in pits and crushed by toppled boulders. But there are bodies, too: green warriors like our guides.

  And in the gap itself: active battle. But not the slaughter I expected.

  Colonel Ram is there. And his companions Belial and Paul Stilson. They hold the narrowed throat of the canyon, standing in the wreckage of a dozen machines, hacking and shooting and stabbing half that many more.

  Our guides wave us to follow them as they move to flank the action, climbing the slopes of their barrier to get to high ground. Up on the “wall” (which is more of a ridge, however unnatural), amidst the scrub and the rocks, I can see more of them in their green camouflage and masks, aiding the fight with the occasional well-placed arrow, javelin, or slung stone. My five mortal friends go with them quickly to add their guns to the effort.

  I need only glance at Jak and Elias to know we three are in agreement as to our own course. We charge directly into the skirmish, attacking the machines from their rear.

  I can’t help but compare as we engage: we do move at least as fast and Ram and Bel do, but our blades inflict more damage against Fohat’s metal. That, and we don’t have to dodge return fire: What our blades can’t forestall by influencing the machines, they can draw and consume. I see both Ram and Bel hesitate as they watch what we can do.

  “We’ve got more coming behind us!” Jak shouts to Ram as greeting. He seems to recognize her, but then a look of shock—and perhaps dismay—quickly sinks his features.

  “At least six!” Elias estimates from what we can feel.

  They arrive just as we finish killing the ones we came upon.

  Three of the gun-armed Bugs come charging for the canyon mouth, followed by three free-rolling Boxes.

  “HOLD YOUR LINE!” I hear a familiar voice boom from the rocks. I look up to the western crest of the barrier. Up on the end-point, standing out in the open among a good dozen green men, is a ruddy Nomad cloak. My sword recognizes him before I do, feels him: It’s Azrael, who looks like a man, acts not quite like one, but my sword tells me is something else: “THE ANCESTOR”, as if they’re distantly related. In any case, my sword seems to value the distinction, enough to hold us back from attacking him when he suddenly came into our midst during the fight with Bly, when the third sword chose Jak instead.

  Then I feel him reach out, hack… He’s transmitting on the same f
requency as the bots, shifting to keep up as they try to shake him off, lock him out. It makes them hesitate even more than our swords can.

  “Let them see you!” he shouts down to us. “Give them a good look!”

  We three raise our swords in front of us, let the machines know we’re ready for them, eager for them.

  “That’s right…” He’s talking to the machines now. “Good look. I think we’re done for the day, don’t you?”

  The machines stay frozen for several long breaths. Then they start to back up. Slowly.

  “No. We’re not.” The voice that comes from behind me now is all hard simmering rage. Then there’s the blast of a heavy rifle. I feel the shell whip past me. It penetrates and then explodes in the torso of one of the Gun Bugs. I turn and see that it’s Paul Stilson, shooting from the hip. I recognize his gun, the same one he shot Asmodeus with: it’s similar to the one Azrael took from the Shinobi he killed when we first met.

  I hear a scream, a berserk battle cry, see a figure in armor come leaping over the point of the crest past Azrael, flying far enough that he lands almost on top of the right-flank bot, hacking and stabbing with his broadsword. The winged helmet and human-skull-with-piranha-teeth mask tells me it’s Bly, apparently feeling better but in an equally unforgiving mood.

  “Well. Fuck.” Azrael sighs.

  Then we’re all charging, screaming like madmen, almost gleeful.

  The machines don’t last nearly as long as I’d like.

  Unfortunately, killing the last bot doesn’t end the day’s conflicts.

  “Now you…” Bly hisses at Elias and I, turning his sword on us. Our blades respond, happy to oblige a rematch.

  “No!” Jak shouts, stepping between us. “Captain Bly, please! It’s me! Lieutenant Straker! Industry Peace Keepers. We fought together. Rebelled together. I owe you my life…” But she still has her sword out, pointed at him.

  She looks at the blade, breathes, and with what looks like great effort, puts the weapon in its scabbard. This seems to make her somehow smaller, less there.

  “Please, Captain… It wasn’t their doing. It’s these swords. They manipulate. They try to make you fight. They want you to fight.”

  “They wanted you,” I try, managing to at least lower my blade. “They wanted to make you a host.” And saying the word “host” strikes me to the pit of my gut. I look at my brother—he looks like he’s tearing himself apart just to stand still. I make myself slip my blade in its sheath. It fights, both physically and emotionally, every inch. And then, when my hand finally breaks free, I do feel weaker, diminished. But the blade is still connected to me, just by being on my person.

  I nod what I hope looks like reassurance to my brother, and he manages to sheath his weapon. He looks like he’s going to collapse on the spot.

  Bly still has his sword out. I want to fight him so badly.

  The green people have stood up out of their cover. They line not only their “wall” but also the canyon slopes all around us, hundreds of them.

  “Please, Captain,” I hear Azrael. He’s skipped down the wall slope and is now walking up to our little argument with his usual casualness. “We have better things pressing. The Pax offer their hospitality. To all of you.”

  Up on the wall, my Nomad friends are standing with the green fighters. Abbas is speaking with their still-masked apparent leader, with Terina as their intermediary. I see them grasp forearms.

  “No,” Bly growls, though he does lower his weapon. “You know we can’t.”

  I realize: He has dried blood caked in the long teeth of his mask. What…?

  “What do yah think I did?” Bly snaps at me. We’re somehow still connected, still in each other’s heads since our first ugly encounter. He points his sword at Azrael. “Your strange friend carried me off, found me ‘food’ to get me back in the fight.”

  “A scouting party,” Azrael explains calmly. “Already dead.”

  “These people!” Bly points at the green warriors. “I drank them! It’s what I do! It’s what Chang made me.”

  “Bly, don’t…” Ram steps in.

  “Don’t what?” he’s near raving. “Give away our little secrets? You think the prey don’t know?”

  “We need to protect them,” Ram tries.

  “And we need to eat their dead to keep doing it,” Bly reveals. “Except for Blue Boy. He’s still the only one on a vegetable diet. But he’s not like us, is he?” Bly’s helmet locks on me. “You are. You three. You’re hungrier than we are! You suck from everything you touch. Don’t you see? We can’t be friendly with these people!”

  I flash on a sickening thought (in a flood of sickening thoughts): We left Azazel and Lux wounded on a field of slain Nomads (and two still-live ones). I expect I know the true reason they wanted us to leave them there.

  “We don’t feed on the living,” Bel defends poorly.

  “We. Eat. People.” Bly growls. “Needs must, when the Devil drives, eh?”

  I look at Ram, a man I respect, even idolize. His face sinks. He’s defeated, weary, sickened by what he’s become. I realize this is part of Asmodeus’ plan, just like Azazel said: Keep them in an endless cycle of protecting, fighting, and recovering. And to recover, they need resources. (And now, I’m no different. My brother… And Jak, who was just unlucky enough to stumble into our childish brawl…)

  “They know that,” Azrael insists. “Just like they know what you’ve done for them. You need to take the next step.”

  “Bly’s right,” Ram agrees heavily. “We can’t.”

  “As antisocial as ever, I see,” Azrael teases him.

  Ram suddenly turns with a jerk to face Azrael. His mouth works, but no words come out. He’s stunned, flummoxed.

  “Hello, old friend,” Azrael greets him easily. “You look… different. But then, I can’t say I’m not showing the miles.”

  He peels away his mask and cowl. The skin and hair has been burned away from half of his head and neck, revealing metal and thick hose-like cables. He’s a machine, some kind of android. All this time. I realize: my blade knew.

  “You’re usually not so speechless,” Azrael nudges Ram, who’s still in dumb shock. Bel steps up to him, curious, fascinated.

  “My blade…” Elias finds words. “It called him The Ancestor.”

  “That’s because we’re both AI,” Azrael tells him. “Though what they are is impressively beyond me. I suppose that makes me an antique to them, a relic of their history. Quaint, even.”

  “Dee?” Ram finally manages to speak again.

  “Short version: Been here since the Eco problem. Thought you could use a little help. Didn’t have a chance to call you before the Bang, sorry, but then I was too busy trying to deflect a nuclear extermination. Then I was a bit fried. Now I’m better. The end.”

  I think I actually see tears form in Ram’s eyes. They do know each other.

  “And you… You’re a bit like me now,” Azrael tells him with a smile.

  “It’s… It’s been an experience…”

  “I expect so, though I have no frame of reference.”

  “You’re Dee?” Bel asks in awe. “The Dee?”

  “Well, a Dee,” Azrael corrects. “Catch up later. Our new friends are offering to feed you. As in make you lunch.”

  “Where’s Wei?” Jak demands.

  “The good Specialist is safely on his way back to your Mobile Command Post with a Pax escort,” Azrael assures her. Then, almost as an afterthought, he puts his cowl back on, hiding his exposed machinery.

  “I think we can fix that for you,” Bel offers.

  “I’d like that. Thank you.”

  A delegation of Pax, including the one in the Green Man mask, leads us deeper into the canyon. They still haven’t spoken to us, and we let Colonel Ram take the lead. He maintains the silence, communicating with our hosts only in respectful nods and little bows. Our weapons have been sheathed and shouldered, while theirs remain in hand but lowered. (Sheathing my blad
e was a definite act of will. Funny: It’s made itself a scabbard, but doesn’t want to be in it.)

  I’m certainly grateful that they haven’t demanded we surrender our weapons—I’m not sure that I could, that the sword would let me, and that would have provoked another fight (which my blade would have been very happy to oblige).

  Either slope of the canyon, like their defensive wall, is lined with green-suited and masked fighters, watching over us as we pass. The canyon floor beyond the “gate” starts scrubby and laced with vine, but the growth gets lusher as we go deeper and the canyon begins to narrow. I begin to see signs—barely visible—that may be cave entrances all along the steep rocky canyon slopes, perhaps a well-hidden village.

  Ram, Bel and Azrael continue to walk at the head of our group, followed by our Normal members, while we three sword “hosts” bring up the rear, along with Bly who has begrudgingly joined us—Jak walks by his side. I begin to sense a kind of silent conversation—signals passing between Ram and Azrael on a closed link—and I get flashes of memory, as if they’re sharing their stories, “catching up”.

  It’s as I’m trying to eavesdrop that I notice my vision has enhanced the two alt-world immortals—Ram and Bel—as if targeting them.

  “BEWARE THE SERVANTS OF THE TETRAGRAMMATON.”

  I glance at Elias. He appears to have received the same internal message. A look back at Jak confirms that she did as well.

  I have no idea what the message means, no idea what a “Tetragrammaton” might be, but I feel a fresh urge to draw my blade, if only for a moment.

  The green gets forest-dense again toward the dead end of the canyon. We lose sight of the slopes (and watchers) around us. Our guides weave us through the trees and vines. The growth gives way to overgrown rocks, a head-high and higher maze of winding crags so narrow we must pass single-file. I see some of the Pax moving almost effortlessly above us, pacing us easily despite the sharp treacherous crests of the maze “walls”, scurrying smoothly and nearly silently from rock to rock. Ahead of us, I see the terraced cliffs of the canyon terminus, and catch glimpses of caves that must be manmade in their neat geometry, like the pillbox slits of bunkers, only tall enough for a man to stand up in (and men do: scores of green suited and masked warriors are arrayed in the wide rectangular openings, waiting to receive us). The caves are all artfully fit into the terraces and layered rock—from space, the cliffs likely appear solid, the caves invisible.