Today, only Etheil remained of the Grimwatch’s once fifty Dark Star Knights. Of the two dozen Jinn who once worked designing weapons, repairing the wall’s many apparatuses, and creating and maintaining the mechanics of all the men, only Mordikir remained. Mordikir was an old Jinn. He had been stationed at the Grimwatch before Brandrir was even born. But Brandrir knew that Mordikir only remained out of his love for the men of the Grimwatch and not his loyalty to Brandrir. Brandrir was thankful nonetheless. If not for Mordikir, Brandrir didn’t know what would become of this wall. Even still, Mordikir was overwhelmed with upkeep of the Grimwatch’s inner mechanics and the constant repairs the men needed. The Grimwatch couldn’t even accept new recruits any longer, as Mordikir just couldn’t keep up.
“At least let me go with you.” said Braken. “The night’s hours are long in the Shardgrims. Our enemies abound. Let me come and my sword shall be your right hand and my voice your very battle cry.”
Brandrir placed a hand on the tall man’s shoulder and peered up into his ruby-lensed eyes. “I need you here. I need your strength upon this wall.”
Braken bowed deeply to Brandrir. “I shall see victory in your name, Brandrir Thorodin, King of the Grims.” He turned, his red cape fluttering in the wind, and he strode away down the wall.
Brandrir turned to Aries. “I’ll take the Grimwalk to get past the valley, but after that any fliers will be able to spot me. Have Braken and his men take them out first. Then toy with the ones down there for a while, but don’t let them retreat back up the valley toward us. Just pelt them with arrows for a while.”
With a giant, metal hand Aries took down her black hood, letting her hair fall over her narrow shoulders. “No heavy artillery? For real?”
Brandrir hated to disappoint his lieutenant. He always saw her as the daughter he never had. He was thirty-five and she was in her early twenties, but for some reason he felt a fatherly type of fondness for her. Still, he didn’t tell her everything. Many of the men of the Grimwatch were like family to him—Braken was like an overprotective big-brother; Syrus like a crazy cousin—but all families had their secrets. And Brandrir had been hiding his fair share, though he knew some, like Braken, had come to suspect certain things. Etheil alone knew exactly how dire things had become, and that was mostly because Brandrir made Etheil keep track of all the records.
Brandrir peered over the ramparts. There were probably two-hundred Kald amassed in the deep bowl at the foot of the wall. It was a well-known deathtrap and it never ceased to amaze him that the demons continuously disregarded it. “Maybe turn on the fire first. We haven’t used that in a while. Get their hackles up. Keep them occupied as long as possible.”
“Then the artillery?” She banged her giant fists together.
Brandrir turned around and looked at her. Who was he to deny such a cute, little face? He smiled. “Sure, Aries. Then the artillery.”
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The Grimwalk had not been accessed for over a decade and it showed. The narrow passageway that burrowed through the mountain was cut at a subtle, downward slope and its walls were dripping with cold water and marbled with strange fungus. The floor was not stone but was instead made of rusty, grated-steel, beneath which was darkness. The floor rattled and bowed more than Brandrir liked as he and his men made their way, giving the feeling that it might collapse and plunge them into the trench beneath. Although there were gaslamps on the wall every fifty-feet or so, most of them were not operational and the ones that did work had glass so fogged with dust and grime that they provided only soft spots of light to trace the way.
The passage was too narrow for men to walk even two abreast, so Brandrir alone headed his line of soldiers. Captain Etheil followed close behind with Solastron, his giant, sapphire-blue wolf, on his heels. Solastron’s shoulders were waist-high even on the tallest of men. Amethyst stripes decorated his coat and his aquamarine eyes gleamed through the darkness. Lieutenant Syrus kept a swift pace with the big wolf, trying to engage it in impossible conversations as he was wont to do, and twenty good soldiers jogged in tow, their steel boots echoing as one through the dank corridor.
“Solastron,” said Syrus, addressing the wolf who padded ahead of him, its hot breath smoking in the chilly tunnel. Syrus’s voice was metallic and made a strange buzzing sound through the steel mask that was his face. “I’m going to kill four Kald with a single stroke of my sword today. What say you to that?”
Solastron took no heed of the man’s words and continued padding and panting along behind Etheil.
“Come on,” urged Syrus above the clatter of boots on the grated floor. “I know you talk. Speak with me, we’re practically brothers, you and I!”
The wolf quickened its pace until it was loping along beside Etheil.
“Oh come on!” cried Syrus. “Speak to me my friend! Tell me how many Kald you shall kill with one stroke today!”
Etheil reached out a gauntleted hand as he jogged behind Brandrir and ruffled the thick, blue fur on top of the wolf’s head. “I know, he’s crazy. He thinks you can talk.” As was customary for Knights of the Dark Star, Etheil wore a black shroud over his full-plate armor. Upon his side hung his sword, Firebrand, and the ruby crystal in its pommel shown brilliantly even in the dim light. Beneath the shroud Etheil typically wore black armor with flames painted up each arm. However, at Brandrir’s request, he had changed into his secondary suit which was more befitting of the icefields they were heading towards. It was white with dapples of gray and black. “Pay Syrus no heed, boy.”
Solastron barked loudly.
“Ha! See, he speaks! But I know he has more tongues than that! I know he talks!” said Syrus, shaking a black, steel finger toward them. “I know you know how to talk! One day you will speak with me. I know it!”
Syrus was Brandrir’s most vicious warrior in combat, and was also his lieutenant in charge of the Grimwatch’s infantry. He was affectionately known as the Dog of War among the men, and was quite an imposing figure. Syrus, more than any other at the Grimwatch, had been born with terrible disfigurements. He was the son of a nobleman from Graystone, his mother a maidservant from the country of Escalapius (which never sat quite right with the nobleman’s wife). Syrus would likely have died upon birth if not for his father’s skilled, attending physicians, one of which was a Jinn. Syrus had been born without legs and his arms had been withered, useless, masses of flesh. His face too was said to have been monstrously malformed, and his heart, lungs and internal organs a failing mess. To the attending Jinn, however, baby Syrus was nothing short of a grand challenge; something that would become his pinnacle of design.
And so it was that Syrus was more machine than man. Nobody, save for maybe Syrus himself, knew exactly how much of his flesh was left beneath his metal skin. Other than his chestnut eyes and some chocolate skin around them, no part of his body shown that was not made of black steel. His head was very much like a wolf’s with sharp, pointed ears atop his crown through which he could hear. The mask that covered his face was long and made to look like the muzzle of a canine, and although its jaw did not open, the silver fangs lining it would make the bravest man hesitate to put a hand before him. Through steel nostrils and narrow grates between sculpted fangs, he breathed. It was cold, rhythmic and mechanical; terrifying to those who did not know the man within the shell.
His body was all black steel; thin, tall and nimble. The joints whirred and purred as he jogged down the corridor, his clawed feet clacking on the grated floor. The tank on his back was larger than Brandrir’s own and constantly hissed with steam. His fingers were slightly longer than normal, and each ended in a silver claw that was razor sharp. Upon each of his thighs was buckled a leather harness that housed six daggers in a neat line. Across his chest was a bandoleer that was home to another set of knives. Upon his back he carried two wickedly-curved sabers, strapped side-by-side to his tank, and their long, bla
ck handles poked over his shoulders. To provide a modicum of camouflage he wore a white cape with the same gray and black dapples as Etheil’s armor.
“Brandrir Thorodin, my King!” said Syrus. “Tell Solastron to come speak with me! Tell him we are brothers, for I too am a wolf!”
“Dog.” corrected Etheil. “You’re the Dog of War.”
“Dah! Dog, wolf, we’re both the same!”
Solastron let loose a low, rumbling growl.
“Not the same.” said Etheil.
“Maybe not quite the same.” admitted Syrus. “Dogs are more friendly. Brandrir, tell Solastron to speak with me!”
Brandrir couldn’t help but smile a little, though he did not slow his pace. They had many miles of corridor to go before they would exit out upon the Shardgrims. “If I could command the beasts of the wild to speak our tongue, I should think I’d make a better druid than king.” said Brandrir between smoking breaths. He led them about another hundred yards when Solastron began barking, his menacing notes echoing down the corridor.
The wolf slowly padded to a halt.
“What is it, boy?” asked Etheil, stopping next to him. Solastron barked again. The gaslamps that lined the corridor all began to dim until they only burned with tiny, blue points. Some of them even flickered out.
Syrus looked up and down the corridor. “Why they cut the lights on us?”
Brandrir held up a hand, signaling everybody to stop and remain silent. He listened for a moment and then a smile curled his lips.
Etheil hunched over, resting his arms on his knees as he panted. He puffed his long, golden hair from his blue eyes and looked at Brandrir. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’ll bet Aries just turned the heat up on the Kald.” said Brandrir. He walked over to the nearest gaslamp and placed his ear to the glass, listening. The little blue flame it held wavered, threatening to go out at any moment. The steady hiss of gas flowing through the pipes beyond the walls was nearly nonexistent. Brandrir tapped the glass with a metallic finger. He had swapped out the red plates on his mechanical arm for ones colored white. He had many variations of his phoenix armor, and being that red would stick out like a fire in the darkness upon the Shardgrims, he had changed into one that was painted with patterns of white, gray and black. Upon his side, in a black scabbard, hung his sword, Raze. Even in the darkness of the cavern the obsidian power crystal in its pommel gleamed.
Brandrir looked back at his men. Etheil, Solastron and Syrus aside, there were twenty other soldiers with them, all wearing plate armor with winterland camouflage and matching cloaks around their shoulders. They were both men and women, all with varying degrees of mechanical parts, mostly hands or arms or the occasional leg. “Aries and Braken have started the offensive. Let’s move quickly. We still have at least five-miles to go.”
After about ten minutes of jogging down the corridor the lights began to come back to life. Shortly thereafter they could all hear the muted thunder of Aries’s artillery being fired. With each boom Brandrir could see the storerooms emptying. Luckily he counted only two. He wondered how many more incursions it would take before they were out of munitions completely. He hoped that whatever they found out in the Shardgrims might prove useful; might allow him to make an appeal to his brother, or better yet, allow him to finally end the battles for a while.
Brandrir puffed out a long breath as he jogged. Hopefully Braken would take out all the fliers and Aries wouldn’t let any Kald escape in a retreat. He didn’t want any company once they got out onto the icefields. He had no idea what might lay beyond the confines of the Grimwalk. For all he knew there could be an entire army of Kald waiting. Even if there wasn’t, traversing and scouting the Shardgrims was going to be difficult enough without Kald retreaters spotting them.
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Aries poked her head out of one of the wall’s steel crenelations and peered down the dizzying length of the wall. In the basin below some two-hundred Kald had formed up into lines as their emissaries approached, heralded by the cloud of flying Kald above them. “Two more minutes,” she said, turning around. She looked at Braken and his thirty soldiers as they ducked behind the ramparts with bolt-throwers in their hands. The heavy guns were all outfitted with longer barrels and were meant for accuracy over great distances. “You ready?”
Braken nodded. “Tell us when.”
The top of the wall was a good sixty-feet across and upon the south-facing side were various alcoves stocked with supplies and weapons, as well as buildings that led down into the guts of the wall that was the Grimwatch itself. One particular alcove, the control center, was very large and contained a number of rusty, steel levers, wheels and cranks. Three soldiers, all in black, steel armor save for their various mechanical limbs, stood there awaiting orders. One of them, Aries’s sergeant, had a red pauldron over his right arm.
“Sergeant,” called Aries. “Raise the pipes.”
The man with the red pauldron raised his right arm, much of it brass-plated steel. “Raise the pipes!” he ordered in a booming voice.
The two soldiers—one with a mechanical left leg and the other with a mechanical right shoulder and hip—ran to the back of the alcove where a large, rusty wheel with a number of handles stood. Behind it was a huge, iron gear at least twenty-feet in diameter with an equally large chain wrapped over it. They each took a side of the wheel and strained as they began turning it around, the man on the left pushing up on it as the man on the right pulled down. With a squeal and metallic clamor the giant gear and its chain began to move.
Aries looked down the wall. The Kald began breaking their tidy formations as randomly placed pipes broke up through the snowpack at their feet. Each was about two-feet in diameter with a steel, pyramid-shaped cap to break through the snow and ice. Beneath that were four brass nozzles bent and pointed horizontally. The pipes rose to about three-feet and the Kald began frantically bashing at them with their weapons.
“Gas!” ordered Aries, and the sergeant bellowed the same command to his men.
The two soldiers ran from the giant wheel to a pair of steel cranks. They began spinning them.
Below, within the sunken basin, Aries could hear the hiss of gas starting and the Kald began panicking. “Light ‘em up!” she ordered.
The sergeant slammed his mechanical fist down on a large, brass button. Although from this height Aries couldn’t hear the pops and clicks of the igniters within each of the pipes going off, she did hear the rush as some four-hundred nozzles roared to life, spraying fire out in all directions. The Kald began to scream and hiss as their bodies were seared. Others moved in quickly, bashing at the nozzles, trying to bend them or break them to prevent their fiery breath from wreaking more havoc. Aries raised one of her giant, black-steel fists into the air. “Shooters, take aim!”
Braken and his thirty men all turned, revealing themselves between the crenelations. Bolt-throwers were raised and Aries could hear the clicks and clacks as safety switches were disengaged.
“Fire!” she screamed as she brought her fist down. She ducked behind her rampart and placed her enormous hands over her ears.
In unison the men fired. JINK! The sound of so many bolt-throwers going off at once shook the wall. There were some distant screams as Kald fell from the air. Then the shots became more erratic as the soldiers took aim and began firing at their own paces. Aries spun and took a quick peek over the wall. By now many of the pipes had been broken or damaged and only a few fires here and there posed threats. The surviving Kald were now in a frenzy and they began to move in on the wall, howling and screaming their rage.
Aries looked at her sergeant. “Lower the pipes!” As the men began cranking at the giant wheel Aries popped herself through the crenelation and pounded on the steel wall with a massive fist. Boom! Boom! it sounded on the wall. “Archers!” she yelled.
About ten feet below
her were a number of narrow slits. Thick arrows with broad, razor-sharp tips began to poke through them. Due to the sheer height of the wall, the bows and arrows used by the archers had to be powerful. Their weapons were known as grimbows and they were metal, spring-assisted contraptions with flexible steel wire instead of string. Only the strongest men could draw them, or more typically, those with powerful, mechanical arms. Like the grimbows, the arrows they fired were large, made of thick shafts of wood. Their nasty-looking tips all began tilting downward as the archers within the wall took aim. Then, with the sharp, metallic zipping sound that only grimbows made, they all loosed their deadly payload upon the Kald clambering up the wall.
Aries looked out into the distance as Braken and his men kept taking shots at the fliers. With their numbers so dwindled many began to retreat back down the valley and she saw the armored emissaries running as well. She cursed. The Kald, like swarming insects, tended to disregard their own numbers and press attacks even when all hope had failed. Rarely did they retreat. But of course they would retreat during the one battle that she couldn’t allow them to. Grimluck, she thought. Always the damned grimluck.
“Braken, take out the runners!” she yelled.
There were a few sporadic JINKs as bolts were fired but many of the weapons were now out of ammunition. Bolt-throwers didn’t tend to hold very many of the heavy, devastating rounds they fired.
Braken turned and yelled at his men. “Bows out!” and the men began tossing their rifles and taking the grimbows from their backs.
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