by Chris Fox
Aran looked up from the carnage to see Thalas standing next to a trio of curved metal spires, their tips forming an archway. Within those silver spires, a bright blue glow had begun to coalesce. There were shapes within, vague and indistinct.
Then those shapes—the battalion’s Marines—burst out one by one. Each was armed with a Ternus assault rifle, and a set of armor identical to those on the corpses. That made Aran shiver. They could very easily become enemies, if they weren’t protected.
The Marines fanned out in the room, each squad taking up cover and setting up firing lanes on the doorway.
32
Fodder
Aran removed his helmet, shaking sweat from his forehead. His breathing had returned to normal, and the adrenaline was already fading. The fight had taken more out of him than he’d like—particularly since that had been the enemy’s entire goal.
“Who’s in charge of this…rabble?” Thalas asked, surveying the platoon of Marines with a critical eye.
“I am, sir. Captain Davidson. We’ve met. Several times.” Davidson stared Captain Thalas down, his body language tight and aggressive. “This ‘rabble’ is the 707th Company. We’re ready for your orders. Sir.”
Aran blinked, recognizing Davidson as the man who’d kicked his ass on the way to the commissary. His nose had a single small bandage across the right side, the only evidence of the fight.
“You know him?” Nara asked. She’d removed her helmet, and sweat had plastered her dark hair around her face, framing it into a perfect oval.
“Yeah. He kicked the everliving shit out of me when the sergeant sent me to get potions the other day.”
“Ah, I figured you’d made some friends when I saw the bruises. Bord said they were a lot worse before he took care of them.” Nara gave him a sidelong glance. “You’re…kind of a smartass. And you have this smug I’m superior to you thing going on. So, uh, I can’t say I’m surprised they kicked your ass.”
Aran barked out a quick laugh, shaking his head. “You know, I like new Nara a whole lot better than old Nara. You’re a lot more honest.”
“You want us to do what, sir?” Davidson’s voice thundered, interrupting their conversation.
Aran turned to see Davidson getting in Thalas’s face. Thalas seemed completely unruffled, though he did eye Davidson with a mixture of distaste and annoyance.
“I believe my orders were quite clear, Captain. I want you to start ordering platoons through that doorway. Each time a platoon goes through, we’ll bring in another from the Hunter. Repeat this until all fodder are through that doorway. Am I clear?”
“What did you call us?” Davidson blinked. He cocked his rifle and turned to his men. They wore ugly looks, and Aran could smell the violence frothing just under the surface.
“I called you fodder.” Thalas took a step toward Davidson, eyes narrowing. “If you do not execute my order, immediately, I will execute you. Then, I will have your second carry out that order. I will continue to execute fodder until you follow orders. So tell me, Captain, will you follow orders? Or must I give command to another?”
Suddenly Aran understood exactly why Davidson and his men had assaulted him. Could he really blame them? He wasn’t even aware that his feet were moving until he was nose-to-nose with Thalas.
The captain eyed him balefully. “What is it, Private?”
Aran kept as tight a rein on his anger as he could. “Sir, sending our Marines through that door will result in near total casualties. We’re assaulting a heavily fortified position, and every time one of our troops goes down the other side gains a soldier.”
“Leave the strategy to me, Private,” Thalas said. The words dripped venom.
“Sir,” Crewes rumbled, limping over to join them, “I know you don’t like having subordinates question you, but sometimes it’s smart to listen to the people under your command. Men die in war, but it shouldn’t be like this. Sir.”
“I will make this single allowance for your impertinence, Sergeant.” Thalas’s expression grew even blacker. “We send the fodder in, knowing the enemy binder will use them against us. We do it for the same reason they send fodder: to bleed their resources. Converting corpses into minions takes both time and a large amount of magic. We send in our fodder, so by the time we reach the binder they are weak enough to be killed. I realize the callousness, and I salute those men who sacrifice their lives.”
“But not enough to actually learn the names of our officers.” Davidson spat on Thalas’s boot. “The way I see it, if we’re going to die anyway, what’s the difference if it’s fighting you or fighting them? I can’t really see a way that makes them any worse than you.”
Thalas’s armored hand shot out, seizing Davidson by the throat. He hoisted the captain slowly into the air and raised his sidearm in his other hand. He turned to face the Marines, holding their officer before them. “Let this be an example to the rest of—”
Aran barreled into Thalas from the side, knocking the captain to the deck. Davidson tumbled away, scrambling back from the augmented combat.
“This is mutiny,” Thalas hissed, knocking Aran away and rising into a crouch. He pulled his spellblade from a void pocket. “And there is only one way to deal with mutiny.”
“Wait,” Crewes bellowed, stepping between them. “Captain, don’t do this.”
“So you’re standing with him then?” The captain’s eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, guess I am.” Crewes scowled at Thalas.
“Listen,” Aran said, though he doubted there was any getting Thalas to see reason. “There’s another way. Nara still has a potion of invisibility. We can launch a quick, surgical strike to deal with this binder. We sneak past their defenses and put them down fast and hard. It uses less resources, and you can save the fodder for the assault on the planet below.”
Thalas glared hatefully at Aran. “You assaulted an officer in a time of war. After I have executed you for treason, I will take your plan under advisement.”
Aran never saw Nara move into position, but he did see her strike. It was exactly the same move she’d used on Yorrak’s guards, right down to the pink spell fired from her spellpistol.
The energy washed over Thalas, and he blinked in surprised, turning to face Nara. “What did you c-casht?” he slurred. Then his eyes closed, and he collapsed to the deck. A moment later, he gave a tremendous snore.
Aran gave an appreciative laugh. “Nicely done.”
Even Crewes smiled. “He’s going to kill us for this. I mean that literally. But until then we get to fight smart. Aran, your plan is solid. Take Nara and sneak up to the command level. It will be at the top of the mezzanine, a big glass sphere. Find the binder, and kill them. Our only hope of saving our asses is killing that binder. Maybe the major will be able to talk Thalas down, if we pull it off.”
“Sir?” Davidson asked tentatively.
Aran realized the man was addressing him. “I’m pretty sure you outrank me, Davidson. In fact I distinctly remember you pointing it out after you planted a boot in my face,” he said, laughing.
“What I said back in the hangar was bullshit. No Marine outranks any tech mage. Ever.” Davidson shook his head bitterly. “Listen, I just wanted to say thank you. For saving our lives. It’s bad enough that most of us were conscripted. If we’re going to die, we at least want our deaths to matter.”
Aran clapped Davidson on the shoulder. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. You’ve been given a raw deal. All the Marines have.”
“You’re the first tech mage I’ve seen ever acknowledge that fact.” Davidson offered his hand, and Aran took it.
“I don’t want to interrupt your date, but we have a binder I need dead. Go make it dead. Now,” Crewes roared, so loudly it echoed.
33
Three. Two. One
Nara snapped her helmet back into place, relieved that it insulated her not only from the violence, but from the hostility boiling up all around her.
The corpses she could to
lerate, and the Krox—but the absolute lack of empathy Thalas had just demonstrated shook her to the core. It underscored how little she mattered, and that she only mattered that little bit because she happened to have the right magic.
Who were they even fighting for?
“Are you ready?” Aran asked. He’d already donned his own helmet, and stood near the doorway.
“No, but every moment we stand here I’m less ready, so we may as well go.” Nara moved to stand near Aran, then willed her suit to use the second potion loader. Warm, purple-pink energy filled her. It passed through her like a conduit, flowing back into the suit as a spell. That spell rippled outward around them, and the energy flowed out to establish the sphere of invisibility.
“Okay, I’ll take point,” Aran said. He didn’t wait for an answer; he merely glided forward a meter or so above the deck.
Nara rose into the air as well, following Aran as cautiously as she could. She was already learning her strengths, and head-on combat wasn’t one of them. Fortunately, Aran excelled at it. He tended to rush in. That allowed her to hang back, she could generally throw a critical spell at the right moment.
She wished she knew which spells, of course. But she’d settle for panic-casting at opportune moments. It had worked so far.
The room past the door was littered with corpses, about half of which were actually dead. The other half lay on the deck with slitted eyes, waiting for someone to pass by so they could leap up and attack. The fact that they didn’t react to Aran and Nara reassured her, and she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding once they’d passed.
They drifted up the corridor, exiting into a mezzanine—or she assumed the big, open marketplace was a mezzanine. She’d never heard the word before today. Dozens of stalls dotted both sides of a raised floor that curved out of sight in the distance. A set of stairs led to a level above it, and a second set to a level below.
“Up there,” Aran whispered over the comm.
Nara looked up to see a five-story building dominating the center of the mezzanine, placed like an axle at the center of a wheel. Large bay windows ringed the very top, allowing whoever sat there to view the entire mezzanine with relative ease. Whoever had built this place loved control.
“Shall we?” Nara whispered, pointing up.
Aran nodded, rising slowly into the air. The light filtering down from the ceiling revealed how much damage Aran’s armor had suffered. A crack ran the entire length of the faceplate, and more of the surface was scorched than wasn’t. He seemed to be moving fine, but Nara worried how much longer his armor would protect him.
They drifted quickly past each of the five levels, peering through the windows as they rose, Most were opulent apartments she guessed belonged to dignitaries or wealthy corporate magnates. From here, they could oversee their acquisitions, and watch the little people conduct day-to-day business.
“Moment of truth,” Aran whispered, accelerating slightly. He rose over the building’s ledge, and Nara quickly followed.
They hovered outside a wide bay window, looking into a lavish office. Shelves that appeared to be real mahogany flanked a simple glass desk. A redheaded woman with dark skin sat with her feet up on the desk, eyes wide and unseeing. A tiny trickle of drool leaked from one corner of her mouth, and her chest rose and fell slowly. A faint residue of power surrounded the body. The aftereffects of some sort of spell, Nara thought.
“I wonder what she’s doing.” Nara moved to the window, peering through the glass.
Aran landed next to her. “Maybe controlling the corpses somehow?”
“The spell does have a spirit residue. Either way we’ll never have a better chance.” Nara withdrew her pistol. “How about I put a hole in the glass, then you unload everything you have on her?”
“Sounds workable. Go in three?”
She nodded. “Three. Two. One.”
Nara shot the glass with a void bolt, disintegrating a two-meter circle. Aran rolled through, flipping to his feet and unloading a level two bolt on the catatonic binder. The bolt hit the woman directly in the heart. It unraveled her blouse, scorching the skin underneath to a charred black.
Aran was already firing again, aiming for the same spot. The woman’s eyes, twin pools of orange flame, snapped open. She sketched a sigil in the air, a counterspell that zipped into Aran’s void bolt just before it hit, then she rolled backward out of the chair, using it as light cover.
“How did you reach me without being detected?” she hissed, glaring at them over the chair.
“She’s stalling,” Aran roared, sprinting wide around the left side of the desk.
The binder tracked his path, ignoring Nara.
Nara smiled and moved silently to the right, lining up a shot with her pistol. Concentrating, she channeled something that drew from the dream magic inside of her and fired a bolt of intense violet from her spellpistol.
It hit the binder in the back of the head and disappeared instantly. The binder screamed. Her hands shot to her head, and light poured from her mouth and eyes.
For a moment Nara felt elation, then it fell to ashes. The flood of light slowed to a trickle, then flickered out. The binder turned her hate-filled gaze in Nara’s direction.
She’d resisted the spell.
“An untrained binder in a tech mage’s armor. Interesting. I may let you live, just so I can rip your story from your mind.”
34
Breathe
The binder twisted to face Nara, leaving her back exposed to Aran. He glided forward, his armor only a few centimeters off the ground. Reaching deep, he pulled from his diminished pool of magic. Black and purple lightning crackled down the blade.
Aran rammed the sword between the binder’s shoulder blades, leaning in with both hands and all the force his suit could muster. The blade sank in, but reluctantly. Only the tip disappeared into the wound. The void lightning crackled into the wound, and a thin streamer of smoke curled from the blackened flesh. Confusion emanated from the spellblade.
The binder’s hand shot out behind her back, seizing Aran’s blade. He fought desperately to yank his weapon loose, but realized the binder was far stronger than she appeared. She flung him backward, and he released his spellblade, tumbling into a disused terminal in a heap. The crack across his faceplate spread another centimeter.
“Ow.” Aran rolled back to his feet, knowing he didn’t have time to lay around.
The move saved his life. The binder had pulled Aran’s sword from her back and was now using it to attack. She slashed at him in a wide arc, but Aran hopped backward, just out of reach.
“That thing is supposed to be bound to me,” Aran muttered, circling wide to buy himself a few seconds to think. “What does that mean exactly? Okay, spellblade. Do something bad to her, before she kicks my ass.”
“Again.” Nara called, unhelpfully. She fired another void bolt, but the binder ignored the impact. It burned away clothing, but left whole unbroken skin underneath. “Uh, Aran I’m not really sure how to stop her.”
“Yeah, I’m out of ideas tooooo.” The last word drew out as Aran fell backward. He avoided the slash, but was now prone with the binder standing over him.
She raised the spellblade, grinning at him predatorily. “It was a valiant effort, tiny human. You wounded me, and that’s something no one has done for over a century.”
The hilt of the sword flared a blinding purple, and the scent of sizzling flesh billowed outward. The binder dropped the weapon with a pained shout, clutching her wounded hand to her chest. Aran’s hand shot up, and he caught the hilt of the weapon. He brought it around in a low slash, but the binder hopped over it.
She danced backward, her features boiling over into rage.
“This is no longer amusing.” She sucked in a deep breath, and roared.
The roar deepened, and her body rippled. She grew, her limbs becoming thicker and heavier. Her skin darkened further, then broke into a sea of midnight ridges. Those ridges gre
w into dark, bony scales.
A pair of impressive wings sprang from her back, and her neck elongated. Within moments, the binder was gone, replaced by a full Void Wyrm. She raised her wings, shattering the windows on all sides of the room.
Aran dove over the desk, dodging a tail strike that smashed the bookshelf behind him. He rolled forward, then leapt through the empty space where the window had been, twisted in midair, and flipped so he could track the dragon’s movements.
“It’s smaller than the ones the Wyrm Hunter fought,” Nara offered, zipping into the air about thirty meters above him.
“Yeah, somehow I don’t find that comforting. I guess that explains why she’s so tough. Any ideas?” Aran dove, barely dodging another tail swipe.
“I have one,” the Wyrm rumbled. She opened her mouth, breathing a cloud of fetid white mist. Aran tried to tumble backward, but knew he was too late.
Nara dove in and seized Aran around the waist. There was a moment of vertigo, then they were thirty meters higher than they had been. The cloud passed harmlessly under them.
“Displacement spell,” Nara said, releasing him. She hovered above the dragon, weaving erratically. “I think I knew it from before.”
“I saw Kazon do that to Yorrak. Fancy.” Aran sprinted low along the ground. He kept a parallel course to the dragon, looking for a way to make an attack. If they couldn’t hurt this thing as a human, what the depths were they going to do to it when it had centuries-thick armor?
Aran glanced up. The station’s observation dome vaulted above them, giving a spectacular view of the planet below. In the distance he could see tiny streaks of white pounding into massive dragons, under fire from the Ternus fleet.
“I’ve got an idea.” Aran shot straight up, narrowly dodging another cloud of pallid white fog. “When we first met, you used a spell that enlarged several people. Is there any chance you can use that on me right now?”