“What’s going on?” the bard said.
River’s eyes were wide, her body tense. The rivets on the slave choker around her throat gleamed in the morning light. She turned her head to lock eyes with him. “They’re back. The Ana-nuit have returned.”
“They weren’t supposed to be here yet,” the bard said. “The villagers said we had time-”
River stepped back into the shadows, facing Thane. “Apparently, they were wrong.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Nothing. We’re trapped in here.”
Thane licked his lips. “What if they come in here?” River didn’t answer, but instead turned her attention back to the field. Thane leaned out, gazing over the top of her head. On the field below, he saw a large gathering of undead soldiers. His eyes widened, and he lowered his voice: “There must be a hundred and fifty of them! That’s half again as many as we were expecting.”
River didn’t answer, but her expression was grim. The ghoul who appeared to be the commander was at the front of the group, standing on a chariot. River’s eyebrows narrowed as she studied the charioteer. He was tall. It was difficult to judge his height from that distance, but comparing him to the others -and to Socrates, who stood at the base of the pyramid- the commander appeared to be at least eight feet tall.
His uniform consisted of a long-tailed coat with no sleeves, and a top hat. Long white hair fell down over his shoulders. His left arm was a mechanical framework that made clicking sounds as he moved, and his hand was a mechanically operated gauntlet. The entire framework was attached to his shoulder by thick bolts that went right through the bone. He wore an eyepiece similar to the one Anu-Abas had worn, except that this one wasn’t permanently attached. Instead, it was secured by a leather strap. Altogether, his appearance was that of a giant half-machine, half-corpse, and it sent a chill down River’s spine.
The other soldiers lined up behind him, some on foot, others riding vehicles that looked suspiciously like steamwagons. The ghouls wore minimal armor, mostly patchwork pieces of metal plate, in some cases integrated into the framework of their enhanced decaying bodies. Tiny pistons raised fleshless arms. Coil springs and actuators supported damaged and jointless legs. Armatures with magnifying lenses were attached to their goggles, or screwed directly to the exposed bone around their eye sockets. One ghoul had sword blades instead of forearms, and another had a mace swinging from his left elbow by a chain.
“I am Sergeant Ranash,” the white-haired charioteer shouted, his voice echoing through the village as he glared down at Socrates. “Who are you and what are you doing in my city?”
“My name is Socrates. I am a traveler and philosopher. I came here to study these villagers -the Anu-khim, as you call them.”
Ranash threw a glance around the village. “Where are my overseers?”
Socrates didn’t say anything. Sergeant Ranash raised a scepter and pointed it at him. Socrates took a step forward and lowered his head deferentially.
“Forgive me,” the ape said in a humble voice. “I’m afraid I accidentally killed them. When I saw your people torturing these slaves, I thought they were monsters.”
The sergeant threw his head back, roaring with laughter. “Monsters! I only see one monster here.” He stepped off the chariot and approached Socrates. He loomed over the ape, slowly circling around him, the long tails of his coat swishing as he moved. His mechanical hand opened and closed with an unnerving ratchet-like noise. “What did you do with their bodies?”
“I hid them in the jungle,” Socrates said. “When I realized what I had done, I hoped to escape your wrath.”
“You did this alone?”
Socrates nodded.
“What manner of creature are you? Are you man, or beast?”
Socrates twisted his head slightly as he looked up into the sergeant’s face. The ape seemed strangely small next to the ghoul. “I am an autonomous machine. My creator was a toymaker in the great city of Sanctuary.”
“A machine?” Ranash said, twisting up his grisly features. He leaned closer, staring into the ape’s face. His eyepiece whirled, making tiny click-clicking sounds. “You look familiar to me. You look like the creatures that I hunted in the jungle as a child.”
This statement took the ape by surprise. His eyebrows went up, and he locked gazes with the sergeant. “You remember being a child?”
Ranash sneered. “Yes, I was Anu-khim, once. A slave, like these people. I was born of woman, before I was reborn as a god. Surely the villagers have explained this to you?”
“They have spoken very little to me,” Socrates said. “They fear me.”
Ranash seemed to accept this answer. He turned to face the soldiers standing in line behind him. “Take this machine into custody. I wish to study him further. Aku-habas, renori de kobla-ho. Desi-sada.”
Two soldiers came forward to take Socrates by the arms. The moment they laid hands on him, there was a shout from one of the nearby buildings, and the crew of the Iron Horse came racing out with their weapons drawn. They were armed with muskets, scatterguns, and bows. The Ana-nuit soldiers raised their weapons, but Ranash held his hand in the air.
“Hold fire!” he commanded. The soldier standing next to him repeated this order, bellowing it out at the top of his lungs. Ranash glanced over his shoulder at Socrates, raising an eyebrow.
Socrates gave him an apologetic smile. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
“I see,” said Ranash. “What a mystery you are: a machine that looks like a beast and lies like a human. Your creator must have had a sense of humor.”
The ape’s smile faded and he took a step forward, but the soldiers tightened their grip on him. “Mana-tho,” one of them said in a snarling voice, and pressed his weapon to the automaton’s head. The interpretation was a mystery, but the meaning was clear enough.
For a few seconds the two groups faced off, no one speaking or moving. There was a rustling noise as Micah stepped out from among them and approached the sergeant. Micah was the only crewmember without a weapon, but this didn’t seem to concern him as he walked past the guards and up to Ranash. The halfling tilted his head back, his long chin jutting out as he stared up at the skeletal giant.
“Release Socrates,” he said. “And evacuate this village. You have five minutes to clear out, or we will kill all of you.”
The soldiers glanced back and forth at each other. They broke out in hysterical laughter. Even Ranash couldn’t help grinning.
“You are a brave little half-man,” he said, staring down at Micah. “What a strange creature you are… the size of a child, but… you are a man, aren’t you? Your features don’t seem human, though…” He lifted his gaze, looking over the rest of the group. His gaze lingered when he saw the Tal’mar.
“Such a strange group,” he said. “So many human-like creatures, and yet not human. It would be a shame to kill all of you. I have a feeling you have much useful information...”
Sergeant Ranash took a moment to consult with his second in command. The two creatures conversed in hushed tones for a few seconds, and then Ranash raised his mechanical arm high in the air. “Spare the little one,” he said. “Kill the rest.” His clockwork hand made clicking noises as he closed it into a fist. The soldier behind him shouted: “Open fire!”
The crew of the Iron Horse began firing their weapons. Thunderous explosions of gunfire shattered the still. Bullets, arrows, and scattergun pellets struck the Ana-nuit. It seemed they had the upper hand, until they realized the bullets were passing through the soldiers’ bodies or bouncing off their mechanical enhancements harmlessly. The arrows thudded into decaying flesh, but didn’t even phase the clockwork monsters.
The ghouls immediately returned fire. They raised their weapons, targeted the crew, and squeezed the handles. The air crackled with lightning. There was a loud buzzing noise and, strangely, electric shocks burst like fireworks in the air all around them. Cries of shock and dismay went up among the ranks as
invisible waves of energy rolled through the formation. Clockwork soldiers dropped to the ground, convulsing.
A rogue energy wave blasted the sergeant. It tossed him unceremoniously through the air, and at the same time struck Socrates and Micah, hurling them backwards across the lawn. The chariot flipped over on its side and began to leak a strange, sulfur-smelling liquid. The instant the liquid made contact with wood, thick smoke went churning up, and it burst into flames.
The soldiers back in the ranks did not immediately perceive what had happened to their comrades. They rushed forward to protect them, raising their energy weapons to target the crew. They released a second volley, unwittingly unleashing new torrents of wild energy.
This second barrage was so powerful that several weapons exploded in their users’ hands. The ghoul soldiers screamed as their bodies disintegrated. Arcs of electricity went dancing across the field, tendrils forking this way and that, striking out like serpents. The clockwork soldiers fell, shaking with convulsions, the mechanical frameworks on their bodies arcing with electricity. Arms and legs flailed uncontrollably. Jaws snapped open and shut until the ghouls’ teeth shattered, and their bones broke into pieces. Joints and brass body parts melted, leaving the ghouls lying helpless in puddles of molten metal.
Some struggled to regain their footing as their bodies lurched and hammered uncontrollably. Others went still, never to move again. The entire spectacle only lasted for about a minute, and it ended quite suddenly with an eerie calm. No one had escaped. The entire battalion had been rendered immobile, unconscious, or dead. The crew of the Iron Horse lay scattered in their path, moaning, limbs still convulsing as the discharge faded.
Sensing her opportunity, River broke into a sprint. Thane reached out to stop her, but she was already gone. With a frustrated shake of his head, the bard took off after her. River drew her revolver as she flew down the stairs. At the base of the pyramid, she leapt onto the field and ran through the bodies of the fallen until she found Socrates in their midst. She dropped to her knees at his side.
River called out his name, shaking his shoulders. “Socrates, wake up!” She slapped his furry cheeks and shook him. “Wake up, we need you now!”
The machine didn’t move.
“Is he dead?” Thane said, hovering at her side.
“I don’t know… the discharge may have overloaded his circuits.”
“Will he be okay?”
River didn’t say anything, but gave him a dark look. Thane noticed Micah lying on the grass a few yards away, and he hurried over to the halfling. Micah stirred as Thane touched him.
“What happened?” Micah said.
Thane helped Micah up to a sitting position and they both gave River a questioning look. She sighed.
“I boosted the generator’s amplification signal, and reversed the polarity,” she said. “Socrates thought it would overload their weapons.”
“It overloaded more than that,” Micah said wryly.
“I didn’t expect the Ana-nuit to keep using their weapons. They were supposed to stop when they saw they weren’t working …”
“You underestimated their stupidity,” said Micah.
“Be careful, little one,” said a low voice.
They jerked their heads around to see Sergeant Ranash looming behind them. He had retrieved a fallen scattergun, and held it trained on them. His top hat was gone, revealing the gleaming bleached white cap of his skull. The silvery-white hair that fell around his shoulders grew from thin strips of flesh along the sides of his head.
Behind the sergeant, a few of the Ana-nuit were crawling back to their feet. River reached for her revolver, but Ranash took a step closer and pointed the barrel of his weapon at Micah’s head. His eyepiece made whirling noises as it adjusted focus and a grim smile came to his lips.
“Drop your weapon,” he said to River, the skin on face pulling into a tight skull-like grimace, “or I will kill your small friend.”
River tossed the revolver over with two fingers. One of the soldiers bent down to retrieve it. The others hurried to collect the scatterguns and other weapons from the unconscious crew.
Ranash stared down at the body of his dead officer. He kicked the corpse, making sure it was lifeless, and then drew his gaze back to River. The lenses on his eyepiece rotated, zeroing in on her. The breeze tousled his feathery white hair.
“You surprise me,” he said. “You’re the first people we’ve encountered who don’t fear our magic.”
“Magic?” River said. “It’s not magic, it’s technology.”
“Yes, but do you understand it?”
“Of course!”
“I think not,” said Ranash, “or you wouldn’t have made the mistake of overcharging our capacitors and blowing up the weapons. If not for that, your plan may have worked.”
He turned to one of the men next to him, a horrific creature with exposed metal ribs and a shiny silver jaw. “Kephir, round up these people and lock them in the cellars. Except for the woman, and the machine. When I am ready, bring those two to my chambers… Take the rest of the bodies into the jungle. Burn them where the villagers won’t see.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Chapter 19
A heavy fog boiled over the rim of Dragonwall, creeping down the mountainside, flooding across the stone terraces. Here and there fires glowed like dim halos up and down the wall. The air was thick with the scent of firewood, and down below, the gas lamps of Stormwatch were yellow orbs in an ocean of black that stretched to the horizon.
Kale stood beside the fire pit outside his living quarters, the mug of mulled wine in his hand forgotten as he gazed into the swirling flames. He heard low voices drifting out of the mist, the sounds little more than a muffled drone.
It had been three days since his return to Dragonwall. Three days without any word from Shayla; not so much as a hint as to whether she was even alive. He had gleaned a few clues about her disappearance, and had a few unconfirmed suspicions of his own. He had half a mind to grab one or two of the workmen while no one was looking, and have a talk with them. It wouldn’t take a great deal of interrogation to learn the truth, he believed. And Kale had a good idea who to start with.
Unfortunately, as concerned as he was about Shayla, her disappearance was a relatively minor issue in relation to everything else going on. After meeting with the queen and sending out a handful of scouts, the reports that came back were disheartening: thousands of ghouls were amassing on the southern border. They had weapons and war machines, and they were smart. They were not like the ghouls Kale had encountered in the past. These creatures were sentient. They had mechanically reinforced and enhanced bodies. This clockwork legion of undead warriors called themselves the Ana-nuit, which roughly translated as the living, or the immortals. And whatever they were planning, it wasn’t good.
The few hundred militiamen and volunteers in Stormwatch didn’t stand a chance against this army. Perhaps they could take refuge in the shelter of Dragonwall and wait out their enemies, but space and supplies were limited, and already refugees were pouring in from villages along the border. The kingdom simply didn’t have the resources to house and protect so many.
Meanwhile, tensions continued to grow inside Dragonwall and among the populace of Stormwatch. Kale’s position, having been granted by the queen, was tenuous. Not only was it a position that many felt he hadn’t earned, there was also a feeling that Queen Aileen was herself not fit to rule. She was, after all, a woman. While the concept seemed foreign to Kale, it was deeply ingrained into their culture, and it was not something that he could change on a whim. He had learned enough about that from Socrates to know such a change could take decades, perhaps even centuries. For now, the people wanted a king, not a queen. One way or another, they were going to get one.
Kale had the option to suppress this rebellion, of course. A handful of beheadings would do the trick, at least for a while, until the rest of the knights and eventually the militia turned against him. Th
is would happen inevitably. Then, he would be out of options.
His other choice was to marry Aileen. That was the surest way to silence their opposition and secure his position as First Knight… Secure! he thought, taking a sip from his mug as he stared into the flames. I wouldn’t just be commander, I would be king!
The door to his chamber opened, interrupting his thoughts. Gavin called out his name.
“Outside,” Kale called. “On the veranda.”
His friend hurried across the room and stepped out onto the terrace. The elderly knight had shed his armor in favor of a heavy tunic and fur cloak. Kale noted that despite his lack of armor, Gavin still wore his broadsword and dagger on his belt. That wasn’t surprising. Gavin was old for a knight, and he didn’t get that way by being careless.
Kale offered his mug, but Gavin declined. “The scout I sent into the crater has returned,” he said. “I thought you’d want to see him immediately.”
“Bring him in.”
Gavin put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. A young man who had been waiting by the front door hurried through the room and out onto the terrace. He was dressed in dark clothing and a cloak, with a short sword strapped around his waist and a satchel over his shoulder. When he saw Kale, he snapped to attention.
“Commander!” he said, saluting.
“At ease,” Kale said, with a wry grin. Through their training, the younger recruits were imbued with an admirable sense of discipline and formality. Strangely, these attributes seemed to disappear entirely as they moved up the ranks.
“Let’s hear it, Wil,” said Gavin.
“Yes, sir! I’ve been riding for three days, but I made my way through the crater, and-”
“Yes, yes,” Kale said. “Did you find the train?”
“Aye.”
“And you gave them the message?”
The scout hesitated.
“Come on,” said Gavin. “Speak up!”
“I’m sorry, sir. The train was wrecked.”
Clockwork Legion (Aboard the Great Iron Horse Book 4) Page 15