Bows? thought Aries. She turned to Braken, “Why aren’t you reloading?”
Braken’s red goggles looked upon her. “We’re out.”
“I know you’re out. Reload!”
Braken shook his head. “No, I mean, we’re out.”
Aries was confused.
“The storerooms.” said Braken. “There wasn’t but two-hundred bolts left. We each took six. We’re out.”
“Oh, you mean out-out.” she said. Her little pink lips screwed up as she silently cursed. She looked across the way to her sergeant. “Artillery!”
Within the alcove, at the side of the wall, was a small brass box. The sergeant depressed a button and shouted into it, “Artillery!”
Aries popped her head out of the crenelation and took a quick survey of the situation. Between Braken’s men and the archers within the wall, almost all of the Kald below were already dead. However, the retreating emissaries and fliers proved to be problematic. Grimbows were too slow and they’d be out of range before they got them all. “Sergeant,” yelled Aries, not taking her eyes off the retreaters. “Quickly!”
Aries could feel the steel wall vibrating beneath her. At either end of the wall massive towers were built into the very sides of the mountain where enormous hangar doors painted with orange rust stood. They creaked and squealed as they spread opened, snow and ice breaking away and tumbling down the mountainside. From each tower bay, giant, steel tracks rumbled out, protruding a good hundred or so feet out of the towers. Then, emerging from the titanic doors, rolled enormous cannons, each mounted on a steel platform with a contraption of man-sized gears and chains that allowed it to turn and swivel in all directions, including straight down should the need ever arise. Each cannon was a good thirty-feet long with a barrel ten-feet in diameter. These were bolt-throwers built to an enormous scale.
“Left-side, take out the fliers!” yelled Aries as the sergeant repeated her commands into the box. “Right side, take out the ground units! Quickly!” Normally Aries would not concern herself with retreaters, but Brandrir had made it clear that he didn’t want any escaping. Any that did would end up flanking him and his men once they came out of the Grimwalk. Worse, they might see them come out of the Grimwalk and then the secret would be out. They would have to flood the corridor with molten steel, sealing it forever.
On Aries’s left the giant cannon rumbled out to the ends of the tracks. They seemed to bend slightly under the weight and she had to admit it looked rather precarious. However, she herself had fired the monsters a few times and knew that the Jinns’ engineering was perfectly sound. The gears on the cannon’s platform screamed as it slowly turned and twisted, the barrel raising slightly as it took aim. On her right the other cannon did much the same, only its barrel pointed slightly downward. “Fire when ready!”
Aries watched in anticipation. The seconds ticked away like minutes as she watched the retreaters getting ever farther away. “Fire already!”
KA-BOOM! went the left cannon. There was a flash of bright red and yellow light and a plume of fire from the cannon’s mouth. The wall shook violently and Aries was sure she could feel her brain rattle in her skull as a wave of heat washed over her. KA-BOOM! went the right cannon.
Aries punched her fists together excitedly as she watched the cloud of fliers in the distance practically explode in the air. “Yes!” she whooped. That was the longest shot she had ever seen the cannons make. The giant, steel projectile kept on sailing and a moment later it impacted the side of the canyon a few miles off. Giant fragments of stone and ice crumbled and fell. Unfortunately, there were at least a couple dozen fliers still in the air. She cursed.
Below the fliers she saw the earth burst into fragments as the second projectile hit, tossing tons of snow and dirt into the air. She could see the distant, running emissaries all skid to a halt. The shot missed. The explosion had happened at least a half-mile ahead of them. She cursed again. “Reload! Reload!” she screamed. She turned to Braken. “Can you take them out?”
The big man shook his head. “They’re way too far out of range. Even for a bolt-thrower.”
“Fuck!” she spat. She turned to her sergeant across the way. “I said reload! Hurry!”
Aries could see her sergeant take a hard swallow as he looked at her. “They’re out, milady.”
“What do you mean, out?”
He swallowed hard again.
Out-out, of course, she thought, rolling her eyes. She dashed off down the wall toward the left cannon, her giant fists swinging as she ran. At the end of the wall was a steel door set into the very side of the mountain. She didn’t bother to open it, and instead smashed through it with one hit from her right fist. Her feet slipped and stumbled on the fallen sheet of steel and she scrambled up the steps toward the tower.
The tower was more like a hangar bay and was downright cavernous. Through the open doors the chill winds swept and blew Aries’s hair against her face as she stood in the shadow of the cannon, screaming at one of the sergeants. “Are you sure you’re out? Did you check all the stores?”
“I’m… I’m sorry, milady.” he said. “But—”
Aries pushed him aside and scrambled toward the center of the hangar where a smaller set of steel tracks came up out of the floor and followed a path out the bay doors and to the cannon. These tracks were the ones that carried the giant shells that the cannon fired. It should have at least a couple on it ready to go, but it was empty. Where the tracks disappeared into the floor was a large hole with a steel ladder leading down, but Aries simply jumped down the twenty feet. She landed on her two fists which pounded the floor with a boom, but saved her legs the trauma. Here there were some more soldiers standing about, all with startled faces from her unexpected entry. The tracks led to a large, empty chamber.
“There’s no more,” said one of the men, pointing.
Aries ran across the room to a giant, steel crank set into the floor. She was short, so turning the thing was difficult even with her gigantic hands. As she spun the crank, the warehouse began to spin away from the tracks as another empty room made its way around. “Fuck!” screamed Aries. She spun faster. The second room turned away, bringing into view a third, just as empty, and finally a fourth room. This warehouse, however, had a steel door in front of it. Aries spun the crank until the room was locked into place and then she scrambled over to it. She heaved up at the door and it lifted about an inch before making a loud clank and stopping. Aries heaved with all her might, the hydraulics of her arms hissing and buzzing and the tank on her back screaming as it spewed billows of steam.
“It’s locked, milady,” said one of the men. “Only Brandrir himself has the key to unlock that one.”
Aries spat a curse and looked around. The door’s locking mechanism was beneath the floor. The key slot was on the wall beside it, so there was no visible lock for her to actually smash. “Apollyon below!” she screamed.
Aries lifted at the door again, straining to break the mechanism that locked it beneath the floor. “Lift!” she screamed, and a number of the men rushed over and began heaving up at the door.
“It’s no use!”
“Lift!” she ordered. Her face was turning bright red as she strained. The gears and hydraulics of her arms groaned. She could feel something starting to give. “Lift damn it!” she grunted. She felt something bend, and then there was the terrible sound of metal crunching and gears shredding. Aries yelped as her right arm at the elbow suddenly bent backward, then fell limp.
She stumbled, falling on her back. She struggled to get up, her right arm spitting fluids and making terrible grinding noises at the elbow, but never actually moving. With her left arm she pushed herself to her feet.
“Milady…”
Aries scrambled back to the ladder and grabbed hold with her left hand, its giant grip denting the metal. She heaved with her legs and her only working arm un
til she was up and back into the hangar above. She tore across the room and back down the stairs and past the door she had bashed open, and back out onto the wall.
“Horses! Get the horses ready!” yelled Aries, waving her left fist at the sergeant as her right dangled uselessly at her side. He immediately ran to the small box on the wall and hastily spoke some commands. “Lifts! Get the lifts!”
“Aries,” began Braken, falling into a run beside her. “What’s wrong with your arm?”
“We gotta give chase,” she said. “There’s no more shells.”
A number of soldiers began working in teams to wheel large, steel-framed boxes toward the north-face of the wall. Each were connected by a number of heavy chains that disappeared beneath the floor of the alcoves they were stored.
“I’m coming with you.” said Braken.
“Hurry with those horses!” yelled Aries.
The soldiers slammed the metal frames against the north-face of the wall and then began working on securing them to the crenelations with heavy chains. From the opposite side of the wall ten horses were led up and out from one of the larger barracks. They were Icelandic Great-Hoofs. They were big and stark-white but for the black markings beneath their eyes and the black stripes at their ankles. A number of men worked frantically to saddle them up.
“Is that it?” asked Aries. “Ten?”
“I can get more, milady,” said the sergeant. “But they’ll have to be prepped and brought all the way up. These ten are the only ones on standby.”
Aries growled some expletives under her breath.
“I need eight good men!” yelled Braken to his soldiers.
All thirty stepped forward.
Braken would have smiled if the metal grill of his mouth allowed it. “Give me the eight strongest and best equipped among you.”
Aries ran over to one of the lifts the men had installed at the side of the wall. A soldier handed her the reins to a horse and she led it inside, followed by Braken and his horse. Eight soldiers quickly grabbed their horses and started loading into the other lifts. With a groan of steel, the men pushed the lift forward until Aries and Braken were hanging over the edge of the wall. Then, to the slow clinking of chains, the entire cage began to make a jerky descent.
Aries peered out upon the mountain valley as they lowered. Already the fliers were out of sight. The emissaries could be seen, but they were far and only getting further. She growled and inwardly cursed there being no other way down into the north. The wall was impenetrable. There was no way in, and no way out. The mountains closed off the east and west, and the wall blocked the north and south. One could sail around the land-bridge that the wall protected, but the Kald were not sailors or ship-builders. They could try to fly over the wall, but Kald fliers were few in numbers and even fewer ever made it past the defenses. No, the only way past the wall was to go through the wall, and since Aries was not ethereal, being lowered down was her only option. Normally the slow descent was welcome. Getting to the bottom usually just meant a bunch of nasty cleanup work after a battle. Unfortunately, at this moment, cleanup was not on the agenda and time was of the essence.
“Hurry!” screamed Aries. She banged her working fist against the thick, steel bars of the cage. “Faster!”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
“What is it, boy?” asked Etheil as Solastron’s pace came to a slow padding down the dimly lit corridor. His black nose was held high and his nostrils flared as he engulfed the air. His aquamarine eyes looked up at Etheil and he made a number of high-pitched whines.
“He is sad.” said Syrus. “You are sad, right?”
Solastron paid the warrior no attention and lurched his head down the tunnel, sniffing. Then suddenly he erupted into ferocious barking and tore off down the corridor.
Brandrir scrambled after the wolf, followed by Etheil, Syrus and the other twenty soldiers, their boots all rattling the grated floor. “What’s wrong with him?” asked Brandrir between smoking breaths.
“Not sure.” said Etheil. “He must have smelled trouble.”
Solastron kept the others in a breakneck pace for about three-hundred yards until they came to the end of the tunnel. It was blocked by a wall of raw stone and Solastron bounded up, slashing with his obsidian claws, scraping chunks off with every growl. On the left side of the wall was an old, rusty lever and Brandrir quickly threw it down. From somewhere deep beneath them came the loud clunk and clank of steel mechanisms working and the wall slowly began to sink into the floor, flooding the tunnel with bleak, gray light. Solastron did not wait for the wall to fully open. He bounded up, his hind legs kicking as he squeezed himself through the hole and dashed away.
Seconds seemed to spread out into eternity as Brandrir and his men waited for the wall to open enough for them to get out. From beyond, Brandrir could hear the screams of men and the clash of steel. He could hear Solastron in an angry frenzy. The unmistakable hiss and screech of Kald floated among the commotion.
As the door sunk ever further Brandrir tore Raze from its sheath at his side. He swiped his right thumb over the activation rune on the hilt and the silver blade immediately turned into a smear of humming steel that resonated with a deadly purpose. He tapped the bottom of his mechanical left arm with his right wrist and the tunnel filled with the smell of ozone as a disc of yellow energy spread out, creating a crackling shield upon his forearm. Brandrir felt heat pour over him as Etheil ignited his Crystallic Sword, Firebrand. The tunnel glowed and flickered with the sword’s fiery light.
Syrus drew his sabers from his back and the rest of the soldiers all drew their swords. Crystallic weapons were a rare commodity reserved only for Knights of the Dark Stars like Captain Etheil. However, being the former King of Duroton’s son, Brandrir was lucky enough to have his own Crystallic Sword. The same type of power crystal that fueled Raze and Firebrand was also installed in Brandrir’s arm to give it the energy shield. It also helped power his mechanical arm, giving it extraordinary strength, even amongst the others with mechanical arms.
Outside, Brandrir could hear the clash of swords upon swords. He could hear Solastron’s savage snarls as he tore something apart. Brandrir was about to leap up and squeeze himself through the partially opened wall when his nose caught a familiar scent. He had smelled it just a few nights ago. Wet rust. It was pungent and distinct, even over the ozone produced by his shield.
The stone finally sank enough and Etheil jumped up onto it and leapt out onto the icefields, quickly followed by Syrus. Brandrir gazed down into the darkness of the corridor as he ushered the other twenty soldiers out. He was looking for it. Whatever that iron-clad being was that had attacked him some ten-nights ago was here. He knew it, though he couldn’t see it. Was it an assassin sent by the Council? Was there another coup planned against him? Perhaps it was Tarquin and his men trying once again to find the Mard Grander? Etheil, for some reason, seemed to think the being was a revenant—a creature not of life and not of death. Brandrir had no idea how his Captain had come to that conclusion, but part of him felt that he was right.
As the last soldier exited, roaring out a battle cry, Brandrir pointed Raze down the corridor and bowed his head slightly. He couldn’t see the being, but he knew it was there and he wanted it to know he’d be back. He turned and dashed out onto the snowfields.
The corridor exited out of a jagged cliff-face that rose thousands of feet to the tops of the mountains whose peaks were lost within the gray clouds that blanketed the sky. At the other end of the valley, a good two-miles off, spread a line of rugged mountains heading south. But here, upon the flat icefields at the end of the valley, red blood stained the snow everywhere. Men in black armor lay strewn about with their fallen horses, being slowly covered by the wind-driven snows.
A flash of cobalt dropped from the sky in front of Brandrir and he was confronted by one of the demons. The air around him grew co
lder, the snow tinkled as ice spread out from the thing’s bestial feet. Its great wings, like those of a bat, spread wide as it opened its blunt maw, revealing needle-like teeth crusted with frozen blood. It let loose a long, smoking hiss. Its body was slender and serpentine, covered with cobalt scales that shone like lacquered steel dusted with frost. Its yellow, piercing eyes glowed with unnatural light as they found Brandrir. Its clawed hand had slender blue fingers stained with slushy clumps of blood and it gripped a wicked, curved sword that was thick with an opaque layer of rime.
The thing lashed out with its blade and it cracked against Brandrir’s energy shield. He spun in, Raze thrumming through the air. Steel shattered; bone cracked. Brandrir spun back with his shield raised as black-red demon blood, as cold as liquid nitrogen, spat and crackled against it. Before him, two halves of the demon lay crumpled in the snow.
Brandrir shot forward to a pair of wingless Kald. Before they even had the chance to face him Raze had cleanly severed their necks from their torsos. He felt the heat of Firebrand somewhere to his left; he could hear it rush and roar as Etheil swept it about the battlefield, scorching the enemies before him. The Knights of the Dark Star had power over gravity. In combat their auras swept up debris. Brandrir watched as snow and ice swirled in an eerie, waist-high disc around his Captain who danced and moved about the field, falling the Kald around him.
Seven more Kald swooped from the sky, their feet crunching into the snow, sending webs of ice out as they circled Brandrir. He moved in on them, his sword a flurry of resonating steel. He could feel their auras engulfing him; could smell the frostbitten air all around him. Cold penetrated his armor and flesh, chilling him to the very bone. His movements slowed as he turned aside sword after sword, the demon steel sundering from his invincible blade. A Kald kicked out with its foot and Brandrir swept his sword up, lopping the appendage off at the knee. Demon blood sprayed his armor, instantly coagulating on its surface in gruesome clumps of ice. He turned and one of the Kald he had disarmed was upon him. It reached out with its clawed hands and Brandrir tried to get his sword up but the thing was too quick. He felt its icy hands wrap around his neck. He screamed out as its arctic fingers bit his flesh as surely as ice itself.
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