Ironshield

by Edward Nile

  Aldren was about to turn and look around when he caught sight of something pale on the floor. Mayla’s hand.

  “May?”

  She didn’t respond. She didn’t move.

  “Mayla!” Aldren rushed to the floor and took her in his arms. He gasped at how stiff she was, how cold. Something wet seeped through his pants, and Aldren caught the shine of congealing blood as it reflected the dim lights from the boat’s dashboard. Her leg had been bleeding out as she steered, all this time.

  No. Aldren shook his head, his lips quivering. His chest heaved, filled with something he couldn‘t process, with a sense of loss and loneliness he never thought he’d know. Out here, far from home, far from anything friendly or familiar. The one person he did know, the one person he’d had on his side in this whole mess, lifeless in his arms.

  “May…” Aldren buried his head in the crook of her neck and sobbed, clutching her tight. Grief and fear took him in equal measure. From this, there was no going back.

  A whisper escaped Mayla’s throat.

  “Mayla?” Aldren set her down and leaned over, pressing an ear to her mouth. Another whisper, so faint against the lapping waves it could have been nothing but wishful thinking. Aldren felt her clammy skin for a pulse, pressed his head against her breast to try to catch a heartbeat.

  The signs were faint, but she was alive.

  And Aldren had no idea how to keep her that way.

  “Wait here.” Aldren stripped off his coat. Tearing off a sleeve, he draped the rest of the garment over her and wrapped her leg once more, pulling tight. Judging by the paper whiteness of her skin, he doubted there was much more blood left for her to lose, but he had to try. He had to.

  “I’m going to get help,” he said, voice thick. Aldren kissed Mayla’s forehead. “I’m going, I’m going to get help.” From where?

  He wandered back onto the deck, looking around at the blackness, straining his eyes to see something. A light, a shape, anything. But he was in the middle of literal nowhere, adrift in a void.

  Sobbing, raving to himself in words that didn’t even register in his own mind, Aldren took hold of the turret, aimed high, and fired, challenging the ocean waves with the hollow booming of his useless bullets, muzzle flashes swallowed by the night.

  He fired until the gun clicked empty, and slumped over it again, shoulders shaking, hot tears mucking up his face.

  Just when I thought I’d stopped being useless. Just when I thought I could do something. He took hold of Clint Kaizer’s document case and wanted to hurl it into the sea. That old bastard with his twitchy trigger finger. It was because of him Mayla was going to die, because of him that Aldren was alone.

  “I’ll row back there and shove this right up his fucking—”

  A light struck him, blazing so bright in the black it hurt Aldren’s eyes. He looked up, blinking. Slowly, his vision adjusted enough to see a great hull of mottled steel emerging from the sea. Voices drifted down.

  Voices shouting in Xangese.

  Chapter 35

  A knock came on Matthew Kaizer’s door.

  Groggy, he rolled over on his cot and looked out the window of the guardhouse he’d selected and converted into his sleeping quarters. Gray light filtered in. Early. Fucking army life.

  “Mr. Kaizer?” A man’s voice came through the door.

  Matthew wrapped himself in his blanket and shambled over. “What?” he grunted, opening the door.

  “Your breakfast, Sir.” The soldier was younger than him, fresh-faced and wide eyed. Probably hadn’t seen any action in the Civil War let alone the Xang conflict. Matthew hadn’t seen any combat either, unless watching his people get mowed down at Quarrystone and running with his dick tucked between his legs counted as ‘combat.’ But he didn’t need to see battle first-hand to know it wasn’t something he wanted. Matthew had killed once before, and that was more than enough. Of course, he couldn’t blame this man, or any of them. Now, there wasn’t much choice.

  “Thanks.” He took the paper-wrapped food from the soldier and gave him a lazy salute. The kid grinned and saluted back before dashing off on his next errand. His red and brown uniform looked new.

  Matthew had a similar one hanging on the wall of his room. They could get fucked if they wanted him to wear it, though. Matthew Kaizer and his father were mechanics, not soldiers. He hadn’t worn a uniform back then, he wouldn’t now. Leave that to James and the others.

  Might as well start the day. From the sounds of it, everyone else already had.

  The weeks had crept Arkenia closer and closer to spring, but up here in Gorrad, the morning air was chill enough to sting Matthew’s face. He wandered out onto the city wall, letting his blanket trail behind him as he bit into bacon and eggs sandwiched between thick slabs of buttered white bread. He wasn’t a soldier, and he wouldn’t fucking eat like one either, unless he had to. Those rations tasted like dog shit.

  Matthew leaned forward on the battlements and looked out on a clear expanse of gravel in the midst of the jagged rocks that formed Gorrad’s natural shield. The Western Liberty, the first Kaizer Warsuit, had been built to traverse that maze of gigantic stones when this city had been nothing more than one of Lytan’s many strongholds. Once the Revolutionaries had this place captured, it had served as a staging ground for the mechanized coup that later freed the country from Imperial rule. Now, great stone bridges wove their way over and between the Gorrad Maze, and across those bridges, a steady stream of trucks traveled back and forth, carrying supplies and people for the efforts being conducted in the wide clearing that sat in front of the city proper. Tents and hastily constructed sheet-metal workshops had been erected all around the space. And in the middle of it, being worked over by dozens upon dozens of men and vehicles, was Arkenia’s sorry excuse for a Warsuit division.

  Kriegers, mostly, being built by men with a third of the experience needed and given half the time the work required. Matthew had had to tweak his father’s designs just to make even these simplified Kriegers possible, and they were still too complex for these amateurs to get completely right. Each of them would require two operators, a driver and a gunner. There was no way around that. Which, Matthew supposed, suited Arkenia just fine. Right now, they had more men than steel.

  Just another way of saying we’re fucked, he thought, tearing a chunk of bread and meat free with his teeth. Steel’s what we need, and a lot of it. Decommissioned Warsuits wouldn’t cut it. Half the metal was too corroded to be of use. All over the country, automobiles were being seized and brought to Gorrad to be stripped for metal. The smelters were working non-stop, the red glow and clang of hammered steel going all through the night every night. Matthew knew, because he could hear it from his quarters. Ill-suited as the situation was to a good night’s sleep, he turned down offers for an apartment further in the city. For what little it was worth, he had to be here.

  The eastern coasts were being patrolled constantly, the few war ships Arkenia had left on alert. Not long now. Less than a month until Xang would be at their doorstep -by the intelligence Samuel Mutton received- with the full backing and support of the Lytan Empire behind their treachery. That was assuming they didn’t push their attack ahead of schedule.

  Matthew crumpled up the empty paper as he chewed his last bite and tossed it over the side to join yesterday’s litter. If you were here, Dad, he wondered. Could you do better? Would you?

  An alarm sounded from the southwestern edge of the construction field. Matthew pulled his spyglass from where he kept it wedged between a pair of battlements, and gazed out in that direction. Figures had emerged from between the rocks, their long hair flowing in the wind along with their robes as they bowed to the soldiers who forestalled them. Among those who moved to respond to the uninvited guests, Matthew thought he recognized one man by his black Industrialist uniform. The man to whom the largest of the partially built Warsuits belonged.

  *

  Ironshield was being resurrected, piece by agonizing piece
.

  No matter how many days James spent down here, watching the work, helping however he could, he still had trouble believing that the pile of bolts slowly materializing into his Warsuit were the genuine article. But he’d seen Ironshield in the Helmsburg graveyard, and that hole-riddled shell was the very same armor he saw now in the cold morning light.

  “Alright, let’s set this heavy cunt down,” Arnold said through labored breaths.

  James helped the man lower the beam amid a growing collection of scrap being prepped for the smelters and wiped his brow. Arnold’s face had a tendency to redden when he exerted himself or got angry. Often times he did both at once.

  “Go get some water,” James suggested.

  “Bah.” Arnold waved the notion off. “Rather whet my whistle on that good Gorrad ale come lunch time. Throat can wait ‘till then. But you go ahead, Commander Sir.”

  James frowned. He considered arguing with the man, again, about his non-existent rank, but considered it a lost cause. He was whatever his comrades decided he was, and that was just how it was going to have to be. Instead, James stretched his joints and looked back toward Ironshield. Or, more to the point, to the slender, black-clad figure perched on a piece of scaffolding built around the Warsuit, looking over something on a clipboard and motioning to the men and women working welding torches and power wrenches all over the hollow machine. Ironshield’s engine block was in one of the shanty warehouses at the edge of the camp, too valuable to leave to the elements as it was rebuilt.

  Tessa Kolms. James’ Tessa. Alive and giving orders, fully in her element as Arkenia mobilized to war. She’d been among the most vehement about not giving up the Industrialist garb, her and Ivan both. Whether James had agreed with them or not, he’d rather piss off the whole army than cross those two by donning the red and brown.

  No, not for this fight, he thought. This one is ours. The Industrialists have earned our time to shine.

  A klaxon wailed to the southwest.

  “Shit,” Arnold spat. “It’s too early for a fight.”

  James rushed in the direction of the alarm even as soldiers, alert and armed, converged around a group of newcomers filing in from between the rocks of Gorrad’s Maze.

  Tribespeople. Even without their gear adornments, James would be able to tell from which tribe by the way they bowed, making obeisant gestures toward Ironshield. K’Tanis.

  Copper-skinned men and women laboring throughout the camp took notice. People of the Y’Abet and M’Lata tribes, peoples who’d pledged to the South in the Civil War and fought cavalry skirmishes against the machine-worshipping K’Tanis.

  James thought there would be a fight, but the other tribespeople either raised their right hands in the sign of peace, or ignored the newcomers entirely and focused instead on their work.

  “Just what we need.” Arnold spat. “More crazy rusties bowing and scraping, gettin’ in the way.”

  “Shut up and get water.” James rolled his sleeves down and strode toward the tribe.

  “James.” Na’Tet came up alongside him.

  “You good to translate?” James asked. “’Cause if they’re here to help, we can use it.”

  “Na’Tet is…”

  “Alright, what’s the deal?” James rounded on Na‘Tet, stopping the man in his tracks. “What happened, between you and your people? Last time we ran into your tribe, they were ready to kill you. Now you’re nervous at a time like this? Just what did you do, ‘Tet, that was so bad?”

  “It is not what Na’Tet did… It is what Na’Tet intends to do.” Na’Tet’s downcast eyes roved over to the side. James followed his gaze, to a Krieger rolling its way by.

  “A pilot,” James said, comprehension dawning. “You want to fight in a Warsuit.”

  Na’Tet nodded. “Na’Tet’s ambition is his shame. It is a sin to try to become a Speaker, to dare reaching for the Gods.”

  James slapped a hand on Na’Tet’s shoulder. “Come with me. Hey!” he called over to one of the men walking alongside the Krieger. “Tell Renalds to come find me.” He pointed in the direction he was heading, where the K’Tanis were gathered.

  They bowed lower when they saw James, only to recoil visibly on sight of Na’Tet. James thought he recognized one of the younger men, a warrior with a spear bearing a jagged scrap metal blade, bolts still affixed to it from its previous life as part of a Warsuit or a motorcar. “Snowbird, right?”

  Snowbird bowed. “An honor to meet you once more, Holy Speaker.”

  “Damn, and here I brought ‘Tet along to translate.”

  “You still trust the heretic.” Snowbird noted. “That is your choice, but—”

  “I trust my Warsuit pilots,” James interrupted. “Ah, Renalds!” He waved as General Isaac Renalds arrived, looking annoyed.

  “Edstein, what do you want?” The Southerner didn’t take well to working with his former enemies. About as well as he took to being made an instructor for the newly minted Krieger teams. James figured the man would be used to it, having been teaching recruits at Talenport since the war.

  “I have some new blood for your crew,” James slapped Na’Tet on the back and pushed him toward the general.

  Renalds’ eyes widened. “Just what is the big idea—”

  “’Tet’s worked closely with Kriegers, Sir,” said James, injecting a slight deference in his voice in hopes of sating the man’s ego. “Saved my life with a power lifter, once. He’s about as qualified as any of the others you’ve got over there, and more than some.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Edstein.”

  “Do you want me to take it up with Mutton?” James asked. “Because I don’t know if that’ll work out how you want.”

  Renalds’ eyes narrowed. By the way his face puckered, James would have guessed he’d just sucked on a particularly sour lemon. “Come on, then.” He waved Na’Tet over.

  Na’Tet stood frozen in place for a moment. The K’Tanis looked at him in slack-jawed amazement.

  “Go ahead,” James said, keeping his voice low. “You’ve got a lot to learn in a short time.”

  Na’Tet bowed. “Holy—”

  “‘Tet.”

  Na’Tet straightened. “Thank you, Sir!” He ran off after Renalds.

  “Hold up.” James raised a hand to stop Snowbird and the rest from running after their fellow tribesman. “You folk can go congratulate ‘Tet later. Right now, there’s a lot of stuff to move and we could use the extra hands.” He jerked a thumb toward where Arnold was leaning on a scrap pile where he’d left him. “See that guy with the flush looking like he’s about to keel over? Go help him with the heavy lifting for a while. And welcome to Gorrad.”

  Snowbird bowed. “The Iron Gods will walk again.”

  “Seems that way,” James replied. He stayed put while the tribespeople and the soldiers who’d intercepted them walked off. “Sure does.”

  **

  Mayla Yin opened her eyes and had no idea where she was.

  She jerked forward, but stopped herself before she sat up, feeling things dig into her skin. Her blurred vision slowly cleared enough to make out the clear tubes that fed her veins from bags hung from metal racks. Mayla twitched her fingers over the blanket draped atop her. Coarse, by most standards, but soft compared to much of what she’d slept on in her life. From the cheap material of the bedding, to the antiseptic smell and the needles poking into her, Mayla guessed she was in some sort of hospital. Or, something made to seem like a hospital. She’d learned all too well that a torturer’s chamber and a doctor’s office weren’t all that different, assuming both were experts in their field.

  “Relax,” came a voice she recognized from her bedside. “Wouldn’t want you to tear something, after all we’ve gone through to get you here alive.”

  “Aldren?” Her voice came out as a dry croak, forced from a parched throat. “Where…” Her eyes widened as she recalled the light shining down on them. Half-dead, she’d managed to open her eyes just enough to notice
the metal beast, as though it were a dream. But it had been no dream. “They… we…” she clenched the blanket in both hands.

  “A Quarish freighter,” Aldren said. His face materialized from the blurred mess of Mayla’s adjusting vision as he leaned over and put a hand on one of hers. “Scared the shit out of me too, but they helped us. Even had a doctor on board. Which was good, since you needed stitches and fluids.” He chuckled dryly. “Who’d have thought we’d have the same blood type.”

  “So, we’re on a boat?”

  “We were,” said Aldren. “It’s been a while.”

  She focused in on his face then. There were fresh lines of exhaustion beneath Aldren’s eyes along with sunken, dark splotches. His usually clean-shaven jaw was coated with stubble, and what hair showed from under his cap looked greasy and unwashed.