I arrived at the gate to find a growing crowd of Avonside militia and Eleos knights. In the middle of the knights, Ryn, Grace, Adam, and Troy all stood, having an intense discussion with a guy in the militia uniform.
“Hey,” I called as I trotted up to them. “Steel Ones?”
Troy cleared his throat and nodded affirmatively. “Yes, They’re about two hours away from arriving here. We plan to et them out in the valleys, keep them from destroying anything important.”
“Okay,” I nodded, glancing anxiously from face to face. “What do I do?”
“Did you ever finish that big shield spell you were working on?” Ryn asked hopefully. “If you can take care of shielding our people, it’ll free up to fight properly.”
“I did, yes,” I said, relief flowering in my stomach. Thank god, I didn’t have to teleport around throwing explosions and shit. That was definitely Ryn’s wheelhouse, despite how bad she was with conflict. Since these were just dumb robots, I was actually rather excited to see her unleash her full potential.
“Aweso!” she grinned, turning to everyone else. “We have a plan, then?”
“I don’t know why you’re smiling,” Otho called as he arrived with the obrec rangers. “We’re all about to die.”
“Very optimistic,” Ryn snorted sarcastically. “I have faith in everyone here. Plus, all of our combat-ready knights have prototype magitech rifles equipped with canisters from the uh… what was it called again?”
She asked the last of Claih, who stood with her finely crafted rifle on her shoulder. “Faerah Conflagration. They explode in fire and molten iron shrapnel.”
“Right. Sounds like a smart realm to use for this fight,” the magenta mage smiled, and with a flourish, she ford a blade of darkened energy. “As for magic, I don’t have any problem unleashing everything I can possibly throw at robots. I am… excited, honestly.”
“Let’s rein that enthusiasm in just a little,” the older looking dude in charge of the militia said seriously. “This is a battle for life and death, not a ga.”
“For you, maybe,” Ryn muttered under her breath. I think I was the only one who heard her, and I found myself nodding slightly. The way she and I had been working our butts off for all of these people, and then the reception so of that help had received… it made want to disappear into my grove for a few months. Let them see how long they lived without us.
Carefully, I stepped over to my mage sister and took her hand, then leaned in against her arm. Ryn was just a normal trans girl underneath all the power, sa as , but she was under so much more pressure. Everyone looked to her for this and that — for dicine, for safety, hell, even for mundane shit like coffee.
“It’s ti to get moving, everyone,” Troy called to the massed crowd — taking the reins. Everyone seed to be looking to him as our leader, even the obrec and avonsiders. “We’re going to make our way down through the southwestern valley for fifteen minutes. Once there, you’ll get your orders regarding the ambush.”
He turned and began to walk, confident that the rest of us would follow.
Ryn turned to as we walked and gave a grateful smile. “Thanks, Cat.”
“We’ll teach them,” I whispered. “We’ll teach them to treat us with kindness or to fear us. They get to choose which.”
“Oh, trust ,” Ryn muttered cynically. “After this, it’ll be the second one.”
Ten minutes later, when we were almost to the site that Troy and the militia guy had chosen for the ambush, a subtle pulse fluttered past, causing both Ryn and I to twitch. We shared a glance, and I saw her eyes cloud with mage sight. Sothing ahead of us had used magic.
The valley was like many in these mountains — a fast-moving river twisted its way across the bottom, carrying snowlt. From that river, the ground rose, the picture of an exponential curve, until the rock and earth could no longer sustain the ascent against gravity. Hardy pine trees clung to the banks of the river, while tough scrub sheltered within any available depression on the slopes. Then there was the wind, which scoured the upper faces clear of anything taller than a foot.
“Troy,” Ryn called, drawing his attention from the militia dude. “Magic ahead, powerful.”
“Friend or foe?” he asked, striding across the windswept mountain grasses towards us.
I shook my head and glanced up at Ryn. "We can't tell. It was a single spell."
"Felt like teleportation, though," she told us, opening her mouth slightly as if she could taste the scent of it on the wind. “Short range, obviously. Possibly a combat blink.”
A tiny drop of cold water hit my cheek, and I glanced up at the overcast sky. Was it going to rain? That would definitely make things difficult. Well, for everyone else anyway. My skin had just absorbed the droplet.
Troy didn’t waste ti with a reaction to the news. “How far?”
“A kiloter, maybe more, maybe less,” she replied, and I found myself again amazed by how strong her magesight was. I hadn’t gotten more than a direction from the short burst of energy.
“Fuck,” Troy swore, and turned back to the militia leader. “Less ti than we thought. We need to get everyone up onto the slopes. Now.”
The slopes were littered with rocky debris from the high basalt mountains, many of which were perfect for use as cover. That’s where the massed defenders of Avonside hid now, waiting for our chanical enemies to arrive. Everyone except Ryn, who stood down in the center of the valley, her green and silver robes flying in the wind.
Ti to do my job. It was a simple one, really, but crucial. Closing my eyes, I felt out with the thinnest tendrils of my power, touching on each and every boulder that was being used as cover. As I gained ntal contact with them, I cast a spell, imbuing them with unnatural strength and resistance to heat. It would keep them from exploding under the assault of Steel One lasers, and any impacts they took would be similarly shrugged off.
Ryn saw working, and when I cracked my eyes back open, she nodded in approval. There was no way I could have created actual shields of energy, but this? This I could do. I had to maintain contact though, and each hit would drain energy from my reserves. Eventually, the protections would fail. The rest of the battle was up to everyone else.
A tremor raced through the plant life around us — they could feel sothing coming. Brushing a hand through the coarse grass at my feet, I cast a spell and asked it what it saw, like Ryn had taught . I received flashing images of steel feet crashing down, crushing the vegetation indiscriminately, trees falling, life-giving sod flying.
Withdrawing my hand, I glanced down in the direction of the approaching enemy. Several hundred ters down the valley was a gentle curve and a dip that blocked our line of sight even up on the slope.
The kingbanes slowly ca into sight, first with the shine of steel above the trees of the river. Ice filled my veins as the scale of the colossal robots really dawned on for the first ti. They had to be at least five storeys tall. Four legs supported their massive bulk in a square formation, connected by a small pelvis section that rose into a squat, bulky torso. The top of the ch, which I hesitantly labelled as the shoulders, was a massive slab of pitted steel. It was bevelled to deflect projectiles and housed a sensor array in its center.
Two short arms protruded from the sides of the upper portion, each one ending in an array of terrifying looking cannons. All over its tal body were even more weapons, smaller ones that would probably defend it against any attackers that tried to climb it. It really was a walking fortress, and there were two of them.
Not just that, though. All around its feet were several of the class of robots that we had seen and fought previously. They looked sort of like miniature versions of the bigger ones, but rather than flat angles, they sported curved hulls. I shuddered as I rembered just what a single one of them had done to a village full of people and the soldiers sent to protect them.
The smallest ones, which Otho had called crawlers, were the most surprising, however. They were squat, quadruped things like their larger cousins, but where they differed were the obvious heads on their shoulders. They were kinda flat, with what I assud were eyes on the side of their heads, but it was hard to tell from this distance.
It raised so many questions, and I almost lost my concentration as a rush of thoughts ca to an obvious conclusion. Sowhere, in the vast reaches of space, a race of sentient, probably biological beings had created the steel ones. They weren’t just an evolution of so machine intelligence — long gone rogue from its original creators. No, these things still bore the hallmarks of their creators.
When humans create robots, a great deal of the ti, they try to make them humanoid. Sure, there are others, ones that look like tanks or dogs or whatever, but… these things. I could think of a few much more optimal designs and shapes right off the bat. Surely a machine intelligence wouldn’t make sothing in an image that had so obviously… evolved. I an shit, they looked like crab-centaurs!
My observations would have to wait for later, though. I had strengthening spells to maintain, and I knew right away that I’d need all of my concentration and strength to withstand what was about to happen. God, so many people were going to die.
Reviews
All reviews (0)