Jone’s mind caught up with her host’s body, and she heard the screams.
The fact that they were alien screams instead of human ones didn’t matter; the shrill sounds carried the same terror either way. Rote’s claws dug into a low stack of stones as she peered through the billows of smoke, tension rippling around her burning core.
Hidden away in her head, Jone felt a similar sense of alarm. “Rote! What’s going on? Is someone hurt? In trouble?”
“You could say that.” The spirit didn’t speak the words this time, but Jone heard them nonetheless. “If not now, soon. Listen.” Rote fell silent and focused, drawing Jone’s senses along with her.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Heavy, rhythmic impacts carried through the stonework, emanating from the ruins to their side. A constant, energetic rumble drifted through the curtain of flame and smoke...a steam engine? Here? Another scream punched through the ambient creaking of the landscape, a strange, piercing kreen punctuated with acute fear.
The next scream came from only a few feet away. The thuds approached the other side of the nearby wall. Jone tensed.
A trio of gleaming, transparent sylphs burst from a ruined doorway in a panicked flurry. As one, their shrill, strange voices called out in fear and alarm.
And an enormous golem exploded through the wall behind them in hot pursuit.
A towering monstrosity in the thickest armor Jone had ever seen, it blew apart the damaged wall in a careless shower of broken stones. As it shrugged through the ancient barrier, the golden sylphs shot away, their delicate figures dancing quickly along the air currents like living lightning.
But they were still too slow.
The golem’s heavy hand swung down, far too fast for something of its size. Its fist smashed through the cluster of small spirits; one managed to spiral to the side just in time, while another reeled as the blow clipped it and struck the earth, dazed.
The third crashed to the ground from a direct hit. It fuzzed weakly and reached out to the others with a desperate hand—only to disappear completely as a massive boot crushed it against the earth.
“No!”
Rote winced as Jone’s cry cut through their minds...and looked away. But the Arcadian could not. Instead, she pushed her awareness outward, directing it toward the golem and its unfortunate victim, straining to perceive the scene.
As a reward, she got to watch as the war machine ground the little spirit mercilessly against the earth. Its scream intensified, piercingly loud, echoed by its two companions...and then cut off abruptly in a puff of energy.
“Rote!”
The other two sylphs fell silent, their large, sorrowful eyes glowing brightly in the dark. Rote stared at the blackened dirt, trembling. Ancient stones splintered and cracked under the spirit’s clawed grip.
The golem moved its boot, revealing a footprint—and a small golden spark of energy, of life, that hovered just above the earth.
Her core, Jone realized. She strained and reached out toward the spirit, desperate to help, but there was nothing she could do. Not by herself. “Rote! Do something!”
“Like what?” The spirit didn’t move, but Jone could feel her seethe. “You’ve seen a glimpse of what these things can do,” Rote’s thoughts shot back, rapid-fire and sharp. “In my memories. I… I’m not what my family before me were. I don’t stand a chance.” Her rage burned low as she hung her head in shame and predetermined defeat.
Meanwhile, the mechanized monstrosity knelt and held out its other hand, open to reveal a series of gemstones set into the oversized palm. Jone could only watch helplessly as the little spirit’s flickering remnant was drawn toward one of the stones, lighting it up from the inside.
The other sylphs watched, mute and mournful for a moment, before they shot away into the smoke.
“That never stopped me,” Jone replied.
A medium-sized citrine gleamed brighter and brighter as the sylph’s spark drew close. With a snap, the stone sucked in the glimmer of energy, and Jone could see the little spirit’s confused face within, as if trapped within an unbreakable cell of yellow glass.
With creaking joints and thunderous steps, the golem moved to pursue the other two.
And with a burst of smoke and motion, Rote blocked its path.
“You’re right,” she snarled, the words sliding between sharp, clenched teeth. “This goes no further.”
The enormous golem, easily two or three times their height, stopped so sharply that it almost stumbled, though its footing was too stable for it to fall forward. Its thin ruby slit of a visor regarded them impassively from a featureless face, as if studying her. The armored engine on its back rumbled endlessly, menacingly.
“There’s only one,” Rote’s thoughts were paired with a tremor, an undercurrent of uncertainty. “I can do this.”
“You can do this,” Jone reiterated back at her. “I have no doubt in you.”
The tremor within them stilled.
The golem slammed down a massive fist to crush them.
Rote was already gone, leaving only a trail of smoke where the blow shook the earth. She flitted around behind her foe, but the war machine tracked her easily enough, twisting at the waist as it threw a backhand blow through her vaporous trail. Rote arced over its arm just in time, sweeping around in a swirl of charcoal, claws and teeth bared.
The golem set its feet and clenched its fist, and a thick plate slid aside on its shoulder.
“Rote! Look out!”
Rote halted just in time as a substantial volley of grenades launched from the golem’s shoulder compartment. The first explosive, a bomb the size of Jone’s fist, landed right at their feet, its explosive shockwave sending a ripple of force and a spark of pain through Rote—and Jone—as she darted back. But as quick as the spirit was, the golem merely leaned forward, and the explosive volley chased them down, carpeting the area around them as she dodged away.
Their back hit a wall. Rote—and Jone—winced as the last three grenades hit them directly, showering them with shrapnel and stinging pain.
And out of the grenades’ smoke lunged the golem, engine roaring, its full weight behind a single, monumental punch.
Rote didn’t see the attack coming; Jone did.
The spirit threw up her arms reflexively—and caught the blow.
The wall buckled behind them, age-old stonework giving way under the war machine's might.
Rote’s rage burned hot, a simmering cinder at her core, and she pushed back.
The golem’s punch and momentum stopped cold.
Joints creaked; sudden cracks in densely layered armor hissed wisps of steam into the sooty air.
The golem dug one foot into the dark earth and pulled its fist back, before slamming its other hand down on top of them like a massive hammer.
Rote caught that one too.
Tritanium layers squealed and screamed as she gripped and twisted the oversized arm; onyx claws cut deep, crafting steaming fissures from scuffed metal plates. Rote spun in place, tearing the golem free from its footing, and slung it a ship’s length away at a forgotten fountain covered in fallen stones.
The war machine smashed apart the rubble and kept going—until it struck a more stable wall with a crash that shook the ruins. Debris fell and dust rose like a curtain.
Rote dropped the golem’s massive forearm to the earth, onyx eyes darting from the torn tritanium to her own claw-tipped hands in shock and awe.
“I told you you could do it.” Jone wasn’t certain why she’d known; her only experience with these golems came from her glimpse into Rote’s own memories.
But she’d had absolute faith in her, nonetheless.
For a moment, the spirit was silent—until that silence was displaced with the rolling swell of her laughter, a cold, almost cruel amusement, mixed with the red-hot rush of righteous vengeance.
“And by the Abyss were you right!” Rote spiraled high into the air, flexing her claws in glee. “It makes sense. When I left here, I was
still so small.”
The creak of metal and the crack of displaced stones echoed through the ruins. Rote spun slowly, the layers of swirling smoke parting at her will as she scanned for the golem.
“Still so weak.”
Jone spotted the fallen golem first; Rote shot toward it like a comet of ash and soot. A blaring horn split the air as it saw them coming, the machine's warning cry churning curls in the thick gray clouds as it resonated through the ruins.
Her friend struck the earth at its feet with a crack of force, the top of nearby walls slowly crumbling to the ground from the impact and abuse. The war machine struggled to rise, missing half an arm and leaking fluids and steam from the mechanical stump.
“Now I am neither,” the spirit stated flatly, re-forming their body as she stared into the golem’s dim ruby visor.
Mutely, the golem raised its remaining hand to reveal the huge, blood-red ruby set into its center.
Jone felt the shock as the stone tried to connect with them somehow and cried out in wordless agony as the gemstone pulled at Rote’s body—and her own mind. Smoke, static, and whorls of energy curled toward the stone as it tried to draw them both in. She felt herself stretched toward the stone, her mind under foreign pressure, a sensation she shared with the spirit she inhabited.
Tiny bits of both of them tore free as Rote resisted; Jone lent her what faith and aid she could as the spirit raised one hand—
—and the ruby snapped in half, spraying crimson splinters.
“You must not have heard me,” the spirit growled. Jone could feel her rage pulsing in their breast, threatening to carry her along with its flood. “Never again.”
Rote clenched her fist, and every single gemstone in the golem’s gauntlet shattered at once. A yellow spark floated free of a broken citrine. Glittering shards rained down as the tritanium around the stones cracked and warped, metal peeling back as Rote bore down. Jone’s senses reeled as, in a charcoal flash, Rote suddenly floated an inch away from the golem’s featureless mask.
“You never should have come here,” she hissed, smoke trickling from between her teeth. “And now, you will never leave.”
Onyx claws shredded tritanium like parchment, peeling away the layers in bulk, just like in Jone’s vision of the three great spirits. And just as similarly, her inhuman friend showed little mercy, grinning in glee as she tore open the war machine's chest cavity and exposed the pilot.
Jone barely caught a glimpse of the Elizabethian operator before the woman burst into flame.
The Arcadian tried to pull her senses in, to look away as the human pilot blazed bright and disintegrated, her scream of terror and torment lingering on the air longer than her life.
When she dared to look again, Rote held the golden spark of her fallen fellow in her palm.
“What…” Jone trailed off and started over. “Can you help her? What did they do to her? Is she—”
“They were capturing her, of course. Binding her,” Rote’s thoughts interrupted her own. “Your people typically take the little ones first. They are the easiest to subjugate, and can be fit into more devices. Even if their lives do burn out quicker.”
Jone wanted to be sick. She stared at the fallen Elizabethian golem. “Don’t lump me in with them...I’m not...I don’t DO this.”
“You are all complicit,” Rote replied, her smoky voice momentarily as cold as the void. Then, slowly, the icy pressure around her core relaxed.
“But…” the spirit hesitated. Then sighed. “You’re right. You and you alone have shown compassion for our plight and have taken even a single step to help us. I shouldn't be so hard on you, I suppose.” Her breath stirred the air with a chuckle. “I guess it’s just habit.”
Jone projected irritation at her as hard as she could.
“Cut it out. Rotesy’s working.” The spirit pushed her back toward Jone’s corner of their shared mindspace, and Jone watched as her friend concentrated on the sylph’s spark.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
A tremor of tension grew around the flickering core in her hand, then exploded outward.
Jone felt it as a surge of energy departed their body and left weakness in its wake. But before her eyes, the glowing sylph re-formed, dancing spirals of light sprouting from its core like vines and veins until its body was whole once more.
It stared up at them with sparkling, citrine-colored eyes.
“You’re safe now,” Rote hissed, her body vibrating. Jone could feel her trying to hide the tremor of weakness in her voice. “Go rejoin the others.” She glanced aside at the charred bones of the incinerated golem pilot, and they crumbled from the force of her contempt. “This one won’t bother you again.”
The shining sylph stared at Rote in awe. It opened its mouth, as if to speak—
—then darted high into the air as a distant boot-stomp rumbled through the earth.
“Another one?” Rote shrugged aside their body’s weakness with a grin. “Don’t mind if I do—”
Jone’s extended senses caught another ripple of movement, this time from the opposite direction, approaching as quickly as the first.
“...Two?” She could feel the spirit’s hesitation as a tremor of her friend’s fear crept back in. Slowly, Rote floated into the air, as if to leave.
“No.” Jone dragged at the spirit’s body, trying to slow her down. “You can’t just run! They’ll find her again! Or if not her, one of the others.” Jone pushed their attention toward the fallen golem. “You really think that another of your kind won’t pay for what we’ve just done if we leave now? You told her she was safe! That was a promise!”
Rote hesitated, a smoky ripple in the air. Jone saw the images flicker through her friend’s mind again, of three mighty spirits crushed under the massive boots of multiple golems like the one below, and a vibration of fear bloomed again in her thoughts’ wake.
“Rote.” She demanded the spirit’s attention, and reluctantly, her host complied. “It’s been over two hundred years. You’re not that person any more. You’re not helpless...and you are not alone.”
Below them, the sound of breaking and tumbling masonry resounded as a pair of the massive golems headed directly for them.
Slowly, the tremors around Rote’s core solidified into a heart of rage.
“You’re right.” The spirit flexed its claws, floated down from the sky. “Two hundred years… I am not a child. Not any more.” Beneath them, a structure bust apart as the first golem arrived, already scanning the sky for them.
Rote shoved aside billows of smoke with a wave. The golem saw them immediately.
“I am older now...and I am not alone.”
Another war machine exploded onto the scene, spraying shattered stonework. The first golem blared a horn of warning and pointed at them with a raised fist.
Rote dropped down between them.
Another flicker of memory stirred, this time Jone’s own, and she wished she could smile.
“Got your back,” she whispered, her disembodied voice a curl on the wind.
2
Inferno
Steam engines roared as both golems surged to attack.
The first goliath to arrive was the first to strike. A heavy, wickedly curved blade folded out of its ungemmed forearm as it lunged; shoulder plates slid apart to reveal an oversized, steam-powered autogun, its triple barrels already spinning up.
Rote sunk low to the earth, ducking the blow intended to behead her. The autogun burst into life, belching a storm of lead as it tracked her, its continuous roar an assault on the spirit’s senses. As Rote darted aside to avoid its fire, Jone pushed her own senses free of their shared form.
“Rote! Duck!”
Her host immediately darted low to the ground—but in the wrong direction, and an instant too slow. The second golem’s main hand, shaped in the form of a massive hammer, slammed down and clipped the spirit’s slender shoulder.
Rote’s arm shattered into smoke, and Jone reele
d from the shock.
“Not good enough!” The spirit’s thoughts shouted back. “I can’t—”
A burst of autogun fire tore through her side and cut off the words, reverting them into an animalistic hiss of pain. That same pain converted to agony in Jone’s head as well, as if coursing along nerves she no longer had.
Rote darted around both war machines in a circle, getting momentarily clear of their pincer attack. Her wounded side trailed streamers of wispy ash as she stayed barely ahead of the autogun’s river of lead.
Meanwhile, Jone struggled to merely clear her thoughts.
“Concentrate!” Rote hissed aloud. With a surge of will, she re-formed her arm, and some of the pain faded. “I know it hurts, but you have to stay with me!”
Determinedly, Jone pushed the sensation away. Rote needs me. I won’t fail her. As Rote danced away from the autogun fire, Jone re-centered herself and took in the fight anew. Why aren’t they chasing us? They have us on the run. They should press the attack, unless…
...They’re buying time.
“There!” This time, Jone kept her alert sharp and to the point, drawing Rote’s attention to the expanding metal rack along the second golem’s shoulders—and the cluster of dart-shaped explosives bristling from each one.
With a whoosh, the cluster of steam-powered explosives launched, all at once. “What do we do?” Time seemed to slow down as Jone’s focus narrowed to the strange missiles, to the gleaming runes carved on each explosive tip that homed unerringly in on them, no matter which way the spirit darted and dodged.
In response, Rote shot high into the sky—and went still.
With a wave of her arm, the darkness came alive.
Shadows like glossy ribbons stretched out from behind the explosive-launching goliath, snaring missiles mid-flight with a thousand clinging fingers. And like ribbons, those tendrils of darkness stretched taut and stopped the quivering volley of explosives a few feet from their face.
Hero of Arcadia Page 2