The Swords of August

I brushed viscera and gore from my armoured shoulders, which of course just made things worse. My already red armour darkened as the innards of several Vitaru dried on it, encrusting it with filth.

We'd left The General's Lair behind a while back and we'd already crossed into Graywatch via a gateway. The only problem with that was that there was a buffer zone of wilderness. The lush green forest with overgrowth and a low, thick canopy would've been pleasant if we hadn't had the spectre of death lurking behind every branch or bush.

Know thy enemy was a nightmare if your enemy was almost a black hole for hard data. Even just a rushed autopsy or two would've been better than nothing, but no one had the training for that kind of thing, except Carver, maybe. I resolved to get some answers even if I had to kick down Mother Nature's door and hold her at gunpoint. If only it were that easy. Without Carver… we didn't have a lot of sophisticated technical know-how, or the precious tools we needed. We'd try anyway, though.

"How bad?" One of the mercenaries asked, twirling a small dagger idly between his fingers.

"You'll live, but you need a healer. We need to send you back." Leyndal said, grimacing.

I looked over at them. A moderately-sized hole had hollowed out part of his arm. One of the twins, I realised.

"Hey, at least now I can tell you two apart." I quipped.

He gave me a filthy, scathing look. "Do you mind?"

I rolled my eyes, but left him alone, moving off to check on my team.

A swarm of of those insect bug freaks had literally broken down the door and poured in, with others waiting outside to rain down hell upon us. Not that the kill-count really mattered, but there had been a lot of the bastards, especially for just a few Marines and mages.

"Looks like these things aren't one-trick ponies after all." I said, walking up where Larsen was tending to a nasty laceration on Chen's arm. Upon further inspection, it wasn't just a cut, it looked like it had been eaten away at. I winced.

"Acidic bile?"

"Yeah. A direct hit, too." Chen winced, gritting his teeth as Larsen dabbed the area with an antiseptic. "Stings like a bitch."

"You'll be okay though, right?" I asked. I was beginning to worry. If he lost his arm out here, no one could do anything about it. He'd be too injured to put in the field, and I didn't want the mental toll of it weighing on him, either.

"Yeah, the wound isn't deep. Armour held up for long enough."

I let out a breath I hadn't realised I was holding. "Good… well, good. Let me know if it causes you any problems."

"I'll be fine. I'm just glad these guys know what they're doing. Thank God for magic shields. They saved my ass back there."

"All the mages saved all our asses, yep."

I frowned at the memory of colourless bile-like liquid splashing over invisible domes of energy. It had sizzled when it hit the ground. Our armour was great against kinetic impacts, designed for it and built on top of centuries of iterations derived from similar design criteria. The result was something supremely suited to absorbing and enduring kinetic energy and projectiles carrying great amounts of energy.

Against acid though? It hadn't fared all that well. Regular metal seemed to be useless if the way it had eaten away at the tavern door was any indication. The fact Chen was keeping his arm after a direct hit told me that he was lucky, or our armour was able to take a hit. I suspected the truth was somewhere in the middle. It had made it through to his skin, after all.

"Does this change the plan, Riley?" Larsen asked, not looking up from her work. Chen winced again as she wiped with brisk motions over his wound.

"The locals didn't seem too happy about us hitting back at those things. We shouldn't go back there." I cleared my throat, checking my mag count. Down to a hundred and twelve rounds.

"It doesn't change the plan, no. We move out in five. Gather your gear and get ready to move."

"Can't say I'd be too happy about the collateral either, if it was me. I'll get our guys sorted."

"See if our mercs have a way to get us home from the Watch as well, would you? I've got to go have a talk with Leyndal."

Larsen nodded. "Got it. Chen, you mind helping me with the gear?"

I walked off, leaving the two to their duties. Leyndal stood grim-faced, watching as I approached.

"Casualties?" I asked.

"Jordan's dead. Everyone else is unfit for duty."

"Don't you guys have healers and stuff? Can't you just magic everyone back together?"

"Jordan was our healer." He glared at the ground.

That explained a few things. "Shit."

"We're just lucky no one else was killed. They can't make the journey in their condition, even with a healer injuries of this nature will take too long to heal. They must stay behind, or go home."

I nodded, unsurprised. Sending scouting parties and harassing parties to bleed us before we arrived was only good tactics.

Leyndal was just sitting there, thinking or doing some unseen magic or something, so I figured I had time to ask him a question.

"There's something that bugs me, no pun intended. Why the hell are a bunch of bugs so smart? What's driving them? No stupid animal is going to be so strategic or tactically competent."

"And you think I know?" He scoffed. "If I knew what was behind this attack I'd just kill it. No, it's bad luck, the work of mindless beasts who know nothing but how to destroy." Bitter words from a bitter man. I could relate.

I held my tongue, instead making a placating noise. "Then I suggest we go and find this sword-soul and what it knows. We'll move soon, be ready."

He nodded gravely, and I turned away to check on the last group of men and women in our retinue, before I continued on to the guild-run portals.

"Haedrian." I called. The six of them—well, five of them now—were all huddled at the base o f a large deciduous tree, discussing something quietly.

"We're moving soon, right?"

"How do you know that?"

"Not hard. We aren't being paid to sit and chat. So?"

"Yeah, we're moving soon. A couple wounded are being sent back to safety. Are you all good to go?"

"We are, but what in the Twins were those things? And more importantly, what kind of weapon is that? It creates explosions with no light or fire?"

I shrugged. "Kind of, yeah. It throws a specially-designed spike at extremely high speeds using… I'm not even sure how to explain magnetism to you, but essentially yes, explosions with no light or fire by throwing heavy objects very fast."

Haedrian grunted, looking thoughtfully at the weapon in my hands. "Best use it on the enemy then."

I actually laughed at that. "Don't worry about that, I plan to. Little buggers have caused me enough trouble as it is, dragging me all over this godforsaken world without a decent night's sleep, let alone a cup of coffee."

"Coffee?"

"A strong stimulating drink." I shook my head. "Nevermind that. We're moving out."

I oriented myself roughly north-northeast, and started walking with eyes peeled. I set a moderate pace. The wounded would be taken back to the city's gate and sent as directly as possible to Ebonwreath, no matter how much it cost, but the rest of us had to get moving.

I called over to Larsen on a private channel. "Is he good to make the trip?"

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"It's his arm, not his leg." Larsen responded.

"I'll bet you I can still bench press twice as much as you." Chen grinned.

"Right, right, what was I thinking? Forget I asked." I grinned. "Carry on."

We made good time, and I'd almost given up hope of being hit before we reached the first temple, but as so often happens on alien planets, something went wrong. We were about two klicks out, moving through the depths of a deciduous forest when my seismic sensors started screaming.

"Activity underneath us, everyone up!"

"Scatter!" I projected my voice, adding my words to the warning.

We scrambled for cover every which way. Surprisingly, the mercs were the only ones besides Chen, Larsen and I to use the trees as a vantage point.

I hopped up into the sturdy crook of a tree and watched the ground. Nothing but a soft breeze stirring the grass.

"What the hell? Where are they?" Chen muttered.

"I don't know. Anyone see anything?"

"Nothing."

"All clear."

"Got nothing over here!"

I waited, tense and quiet. The others waited too. I played back the data, examining it more closely. At least forty of them, and that was the low end. We could take them, sure, but I didn't think a ten to one numbers disadvantage was something we should tangle with willingly. Eventually after almost a minute, we were forced to move and take action.

"I think they're gone." Haedrian said.

I dropped down from the tree I was in and the others did likewise.

"That was a shitty ambush." He continued.

"Not an ambush. Movement. They're setting up for something ahead of us." Larsen said, surety in her voice.

"It makes sense." I agreed. "These things love ambush and swarm tactics. What's the bet they're about to use both? I don't buy that they were just travelling somewhere. They're maneuvering."

As it turned out, we didn't have to wait long at all to find out what kind of tactics they were about to deploy.

"Adria, Ash, Tarek, rear security. The rest of you with me." Haedrian barked.

I'd already given my instructions non-verbally—orders and objective markers floating on Larsen and Chen's HUD's. Besides the artificial assistance, their training had them moving as a unit.

I projected my voice a little louder than I normally would, anxious to get to somewhere defensible. "I'd greatly prefer not to be caught in the open with our pants down. Double-time it to the temple and find an entrance. We can make a stand there. Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious, weapons free."

I received two affirmative clicks and a smattering of replies from our non-networked allies. With that, we pushed onwards. There wasn't a path but that didn't seem to slow us down much. We formed a long line of bodies and began searching the forest methodically. By my reckoning, we were getting close. We were within the square kilometre radius of the temple's approximate location, running a grid search pattern.

Despite that, we almost missed it.

"Over here!" Leyndal yelled.

We converged on his location and noticed a massive slab of misshapen rock covered in overgrowth, moss and other greenery.

I quirked an eyebrow. "What the hell is this?"

"An entrance, I think." He pointed to a doorway, or what had been a doorway. On one side of the rock-face a roughly ovoid-shaped circle of moss had grown from rough cracks and gaps in the rock. It didn't look like a door, but it was also didn't look entirely natural.

I shrugged. "If it is, it's a well-hidden one. Shove over, I'm going to have a look."

"You're not going down there, not alone. How are you even going to get in?"

"I'm just having a look." I nudged him out of the way, laying a hand flat on the centre of the mossy ring.

I looked back at Chen. "If this goes to shit, back me up."

I watched as the stone melted away and was replaced by a roughly rendered interior. It was a hallway, more of a short passage really, leading down to a short shaft. Whether it had included a ladder at some point was anyone's guess.

Unfortunately, the 'doorway' was blocked with stone nearly two and a half metres thick—not something I could punch through just because I felt like it.

"Alright, everyone back up. Things are going to get a little noisy. Oh, and you mages might want to erect a proper shield."

Taking my own advice, I put myself seven or eight paces away and assumed a proper firing stance. I raised my railgun, checking its telltales for readiness. The target marker held steady in the centre of our soon-to-be entrance.

"Get ready to move. They won't miss this, not for long anyway."

I vaguely saw some heads bobbing in my 360 HUD before I brought my eyes back to the fore.

My finger stroked the trigger. A crisp, clean break and a tearing roar rushed through the trees around us. As expected, a small, relatively clean hole was punched through the material. I flicked the fire selector to full auto, then backed up another few metres, my aim never wavering.

"Firing."

The tearing roar returned with a vengeance as I emptied half the magazine—a full twenty-five rounds— into the concealed passage.

When the literal dust cleared, I could make out a dark passageway, one with copious amounts of debris and dust.

Larsen let out a shrill, impressed whistle. "Talk about over-engineering. That thing's still standing?"

"Magic." I shrugged.

"Better be. I've talked to engineers who would kill for materials that could shrug off force like that."

I raised an eyebrow at Larsen. "Don't engineers usually care about tensile and shearing forces? Not… railguns to the face, force?"

"The civilian ones do."

I cracked a small smile at that, then turned to the Nighthearts. "One of you have a spell to clear up all this dust and move the debris?"

The uninjured twin stepped forward, gesturing me aside with a gentle flick of his fingers. "Everyone to the side. You don't want to be standing anywhere near where I'm throwing these rocks."

We all took up a defensive formation to one side of the newly unearthed entrance. I could feel an itch returning, not for sugar or coffee or anything so mundane. They were nearby. I swear I could feel it. Call it paranoia, a sixth sense, whatever. It wasn't just that not even a deaf man could've missed my railgun going off, it was something else. I scanned my given sector of the forest, but nothing but swaying grass and trees caught my eye.

I saw chunks of rock go flying into the forest, slamming into—and through—trees, casting deep furrows into the grassy earth.

After a few moments, it was done. "Good enough?"

I turned round to see him indicating a clear and dust-free corridor.

"It is, yeah. Larsen, Chen, clear the hole." They moved off, powerful chest and shoulder-mounted lights blazing a path for them. "The rest of you, talk to me. You got any way of sealing this up remotely?"

Haedrian made a deep humming sound, clearly thinking. "With or without—"

"Just give it to me."

"We could collapse the passage with a few well-placed fireballs from a distance, it'd be risky though, we could get buried."

I frowned. "Too risky, and we could do the job with our railguns if need be. We can't afford to lose anyone else. Find another way."

"There's no other way, not one I can think of." He admitted.

"What I wouldn't give for a block of CX right now." I idly muttered. "Fine. Plan B, then. We'll find somewhere suitable to collapse the roof, preferably without collapsing it on top of all of us."

"Riley, it's clear down here. It's damp and dark and probably smells like shit, but it's clear for at least a few hundred metres."

"Got it. Keep scouting, we're coming down."

"Good news?" Haedrian inquired.

"It's clear. Get your people down there."

"Am I to understand correctly that you are going to seal us inside this tomb?" Leyndal asked.

"Please, another word besides tomb—and yes." The trees around us took on an ominous air to my eyes. Nothing had changed of course, it just felt… slow, thick, almost unnaturally heavy.

Without another word the Ebonwreath contingent filed down and into the passageway, followed shortly by the Nighthearts as I took up the rear.

"Threat detected." A harsh mechanical chirp raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"I hate it when I'm right." I growled. "Marines, we've got company. Fifty-plus hostiles and climbing." I turned and ran right through the opening. I could hear them. That was bad. It was like a stampede, only instead of rhinos or antelope or something, we had killer insect hellhounds and some kind of acid-spitting spider.

My HUD began helpfully highlighting the sea of red icons, fuzzy outlines resolving in clarity the closer they got. Fifty was a rough estimate, but my own put it at higher than seventy, just eyeballing it for a brief second.

"Be ready to collapse the ceiling on these fuckers."

I scrambled down the short, tunnel, infrared false-colour letting me accurately judge depth and distance. Dropping down a long and narrow shaft, I hit the ground hard as my feet slipped out from under me.

My shoulder slammed into the ground as I twisted to aim at where I'd made entry. Rising to my feet with my feet and legs alone, I stowed my rifle and sprinted through the dark passage beneath the earth, barely registering my surroundings until I came to a stop in front of the rest of the expedition.

Chen was on one knee aiming down the centre of the tunnel with Larsen standing just behind him to his right.

"Get a shield in place between us three and the rest of you—and make it strong!" I twisted to put my back to the rest of them, clearing myself from Chen and Larsen's firing lines.

No one questioned me, which was good. I didn't want the overpressure to kill anyone.

The sounds of scrabbling and claw on rock got louder by the second, like we were steadily approaching a waterfall. Except this waterfall was coming to us and it would do a lot more than get us wet.

"Ten rounds—ON MY TARGET!" I roared.

My railgun painted a section of the ceiling in front of us with an invisible beam. I waited a moment too long and sure enough, the dreaded enemy appeared. All chitinous limbs and rage they poured through the tunnel like a high-pressure spillway.

"FIRE!"

One simple barked command and the tunnel shook with the thunderous barrage. We hammered into the rocky ceiling, discharging only thirty rounds between us. It lost integrity almost immediately, but each round only served to widen the fractures, cracks and cause more earth and rock to come crashing down on us. I barely managed to get a glimpse of heavy stone and soil as it pulverised our Vitaru friends, but I did.

Somehow, miraculously, we didn't all get buried right then and there. The three of us did though, seeing as how were the furthest forward. Larsen, Chen and I were all crushed by earth and rock right along with the fuckers we'd intended to bury.

The pressure was immense, but not lethal. Getting out was going to be a bit of a trick, however. I wasn't totally deaf, dumb and blind, thanks to advanced technology of the day, but I was still stuck.

"Well, this is shitty." I was glad to see our comms were still up, though frankly I'd have been shocked if a little cave-in managed to take them out.

"Can you move at all?"

"Can you?"

"No." I scoffed.

"Same story here. Chen?"

No answer.

"Chen!"

"Huh, yeah, what is it, Riley?"

"Snap out of it, man. Can you get yourself free at all?"

"Let me see."

A few moments passed in silence and the weight around me seemed to press in on me even more. "I can't even move my hands. If not for our suits I don't think we'd even be able to breathe."

"If we didn't have our suits, I think we'd already be dead." Larsen said dryly.

Thanks to our close proximity to the magical shield, most of the debris had flattened us to the floor, but we weren't buried in the middle of it like the chitinous little shits we'd been aiming to trap. The dark burial gave me time to think as the rest of our expedition dug us out. I could see them working through my suit sensors and the sight did wonders for my morale. Being buried alive was never pleasant, no matter what century you were from.

My thoughts drifted towards one thing, one idea. These things had a leader, supposedly, one we were going to try and take out while he slept. But what if he was already awake and aware of us? We were aware of him, after all, at least in a tangential way. Did he know we were coming for him?