Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles - eARC

  There were hundreds of gasps from the crowd. Truly, the imposter intended to give the masses the display of heroism they’d hoped for. Toru’s hands lifted the helmet back into place. The forces controlling his limbs were careful not to twist his head off, because an accidental beheading would be an underwhelming finale. Kanji flashed before his eyes as the tetsubo was hoisted from the ground.

  Toru charged.

  He was so angry he could taste it. The charge was clumsy, full of Power and show, but useless. It was an embarrassment to his skills. The blustering fury would look intimidating to the onlookers, though, which was all Dosan Saito cared about. The imposter easily dodged the tetsubo, again and again, then he reached up, channeling Brute strength and slammed Toru across fifty feet of grass.

  He hit the earth and dug a divot. Toru willed himself to spring right back up, but his body took its time, making a great display of how terribly hard the Chairman had struck him. LIES!

  They circled. Toru saw half a dozen different angles of attack, but his body would not listen. He attacked wildly, spinning, swinging, with big flashy movements and overhead blows that blasted showers of dirt high into the air.

  The Chairman’s face was expressionless, nearly bored as he moved far faster than was humanly possible. He was demonstrating to those harboring doubts that he truly was the greatest wizard of all time. Behold as I toy with the terrifying Toru. Then the Brute magic switched to that of a Massive, and the imposter froze in place, willing his body as hard as steel.

  The tetsubo impacted with a hit that radiated down the shaft, through the armored gauntlets, and through Toru’s bones. The crowd came to their feet.

  But when the dust cleared, the Chairman was still standing there, completely unharmed. He lifted one hand and a gout of fire leapt from his hands, engulfing Toru. The Nishimura suit sounded an alarm. Toru wanted to fight through it, but his body flailed back wildly instead. He was struck with ice, then lightning. Gravity changed, and Toru was falling into the sky.

  The imposter leapt, intercepted Toru in mid-air, and slammed a golden, glowing fistful of magical energy into his chest. Toru hit the ground so hard that everything went black.

  * * *

  If he hadn’t been a master of gravity, density, and mass, Sullivan was pretty darn sure he would’ve passed out seconds after jumping off the Traveler.

  Jake Sullivan had done some dangerous shit in his life, but surely this took the cake.

  He began spinning, harder and harder. Blood rushed through his system. Sullivan just concentrated and willed himself dense. Blood goes where I tell it to go. It was a good thing he was so analytical under pressure . . . I’m going clockwise. He adjusted gravity’s direction slightly, pulling himself gradually out of the spin. That’s better.

  He could’ve made himself light as a feather and slowed himself down, but spending extra time in a place with no warmth or atmosphere wasn’t a particularly inviting idea. The runes Browning had carved into the Spiker armor were glowing, keeping him from freezing, but he didn’t have a whole lot of faith in the fragile oxygen tank. What the hell? Let’s see what this thing can do. He tucked his arms into his sides, put his feet together, pointed his helmet at Shanghai, and increased gravity’s pull.

  It was like being launched from a cannon.

  Sullivan streaked through the upper atmosphere. The sky went from black to dark blue. It felt like he could see half the Chinese coast from here. He picked out the blue line of the river and followed it with his eyes. Shanghai was the cluster of grey and black lines in all that organic green, brown, and blue. The city covered a big area, but he had plenty of time to pick out landmarks and tug himself toward the correct destination.

  His Power was burning hot, analyzing all of the forces, pulls, and friction, but his new magic seemed to be keeping up. Earth was pulling him in, so he reached out, took hold, and willed it to pull even harder. This was what a speeding bullet felt like. Sullivan’s body was moving faster than sound waves.

  He’d have to check the record books, but he was pretty sure he was the first man to go faster than sound. He’d read a Popular Mechanics once saying that was impossible, because a man’s innards would blow up if he went that fast, but Sullivan figured he was about as pliable as a bar of iron right about then, so there really wasn’t much that could hurt him.

  Except for hitting Shanghai at six hundred miles an hour. That would probably do it.

  He had to admit, it was scary as hell, but it was kind of exhilarating.

  The Spiker armor was holding up, because John Browning was the greatest inventor in the history of the whole wide world. It wasn’t just on his body, but the magical connection made it practically an extension of his body, and when he went dense, so did it, and steel was a whole lot tougher than flesh to start with.

  But then the oxygen bottle ruptured with a pop. That was a bad sign. Sullivan held his breath and pulled even harder. By the time he needed to take a breath, he’d damn well better be someplace where there was actually air to fill his lungs.

  Once he’d gotten the ocean on the right, he oriented himself toward his target. He’d memorized a map of the city, and all it took was a bit of concentration to shift gravity’s pull every few seconds to correct his course. He used the river as his compass and shifted gravity’s center toward the correct end of the town.

  There was a horrible whistling noise screaming past his helmet. Sweet, sweet air. Cold enough to hurt his teeth and so thin it was barely there, but it was still air.

  There were small shadows beneath him, and they quickly grew into Imperium airships. There were black puffs of smoke as they fired upward at the Traveler. Surely he was too small of a target to have been noticed, but that didn’t make him any less comfortable flying between the shells. He went through the smoke. It was tempting to steer himself right through one of those warships, but a man had to know his limitations, and he didn’t know if he could go that dense.

  He was past the screen of ships so fast that they’d probably never even known he’d been there at all. Shanghai was close enough he could pick out individual neighborhoods. Gravity’s center changed to the Imperium Section. A few seconds later and he picked out the rectangle of the main compound, then the green square of the parade ground in front of their palace.

  The speed was so great that he was worried if he lifted his arms away from his torso they might get ripped off. He let go of three or four extra gravities of pull and immediately began bleeding speed. He got his arms up, one armored finger running across the back of his other hand. The rune was already prepared. If this worked, Captain Southunder would receive his voice loud and clear. It came from his mind more than his vocal cords. “I’m almost there. Turn Fuller’s machine on!” He hoped that would go through, but there wasn’t time to mess around if it didn’t. Sullivan switched hands and went to the rune on the other side. Now this one had to work, or he was screwed.

  The ground was rushing up to meet him and he had just set the world air-speed record. It was time to throw the brakes on. Sure, folks jumped out of airplanes using parachutes, but he was a Gravity Spiker. What did he need with a parachute? Sullivan was positive his trajectory would take him directly into the Imperial courtyard. The moving sea of colors down around the green square was people. The place was packed with bodies. Good. The more witnesses the better.

  He changed gravity’s direction. Now instead of pulling him toward Shanghai, it was coming from above. He imagined that the Traveler was the new center of the world, but he was gentle, just one gravity at first, and then another, and another. Timing was everything. As his momentum died off, he slowed. Not too slow, though, because he really didn’t want the Imperium army to take up skeet shooting, and if they hadn’t seen him yet, they were bound to soon.

  He was still going a couple hundred miles an hour when he felt he was in range to activate the second spell. There was a matching rune engraved into the inside of his helmet, right in front of his mouth. Fuller had come
up with this one, basing it on the magic of a Babel he had once met. It had worked fine when they’d tested it, but he hadn’t been flying through the air at the time.

  Dr. Wells had simply pointed out what they’d always known. To the Imperium, the Grimnoir were the bad guys. They were the Imperium’s boogeyman. In every piece of propaganda, the Grimnoir were evil incarnate. It seemed so obvious, but then Wells had asked, why would you ever take a villain at his word? In what possible way would the Iron Guard ever believe a warning from the Grimnoir about the real Enemy?

  By telling them something so easy to believe that they wouldn’t even stop to question it.

  It was time to play the villain.

  Please, dear God, let this work.

  Sullivan ran his finger across the rune and activated the spell.

  First Shadow Guard Hayate watched the duel with increasing unease.

  Iron Guard Commander Goto stood next to him at the window. “Hah! This is excellent. The Chairman is taking that traitor apart.”

  Hayate tended to stroke his chin while thinking, a habit he’d picked up long ago. “Have you ever seen Iron Guard Toru in a fight before?”

  “He is no Iron Guard!” the commander roared. “How dare you?”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Hayate said soothingly. It would not do to have to get himself into a duel because he’d hurt some blustery Iron Guard’s tender feelings, not that he would have been in any danger of losing, because Hayate would simply cheat and have the man poisoned first. “My apologies . . . I have seen the traitor in combat before. In comparison, he seems off today.”

  “He is probably just overwhelmed with shame, as he should be, there in the magnificent presence of his father!”

  He was not sure, and Toru’s words kept running through his mind. The Grimnoir were capable adversaries, but they were few in number. Why would they throw away so very many of their warriors in an assassination attempt against a man they had repeatedly been shown was immortal? Such a waste of resources was not like them. He had enough respect for his longtime opponents to know they had to have logical reasons. Had Toru somehow convinced them of this delusions, and if so, how?

  Hayate was surprised at himself. Truly, the Chairman was correct. Toru’s words were poison.

  A soldier ran into the room to give a report to the Iron Guard. “Sir, we just lost contact with Zuiryu. Other ships report seeing a large explosion at its last position.”

  “What!” The control room sprang to life. This was dire news indeed. There had only been four of the death-ray-equipped Kaga-class vessels built so far, and they’d already lost one last year. The Auspicious Dragon was the most capable vessel in the entire region. “Was it attacked by that unidentified dirigible?”

  “We do not know, sir. Telescopes confirm that the dirigible is still up there at an extreme altitude. The Navy has launched one of their experimental demon interceptors to deal with it.”

  Curious. Hayate glanced back out the window. The Chairman was still whipping Toru like the Brute was a disobedient puppy. He noticed a flash of reflected light in the air high above the grounds. There was an object falling. “There is something up in the sky.” He pointed.

  The chief of the Tokubetsu Koto Keisatsu squinted. “Is it an aircraft?”

  The Iron Guard, fuming about the potential loss of such a valuable vessel, turned to look. “It’s a bird.”

  “No . . .” Hayate leaned forward. “I believe that is a man.”

  Suddenly there was a great noise, a boom like thunder, so hard it rattled the windows. The crowd shifted, thousands looking upward as one. Even the Chairman paused in the administration of his beating and looked to the heavens.

  A terrible voice came after the thunder.

  “Attention Imperium. This is Jake Sullivan, knight of the Grimnoir.”

  It was a fascinating magical effect. Hayate had clearly heard the words in Japanese, but since he could also speak Mandarin, Cantonese, English, French, Dutch, German, and Russian, it was as if he had heard it in all of those simultaneously. If he had spoken other languages, he had no doubt he would have understood it in those as well. Truly, that was a masterwork of spellbinding.

  “Shoot him down!” Iron Guard Goto commanded. His men were scrambling. “Go! Movers prepare to deflect incoming!”

  “I’ve got a message for the warriors of Dark Ocean. The Pathfinder has returned.”

  That was such an unexpected message that many of the Iron Guards temporarily froze in place, shocked. It was not often they heard those names invoked.

  The shape in the sky was getting closer, gleaming metallic in the sun. It was clearly man shaped. “Your Imperium schools have been infiltrated. Its monsters are hiding among you right now!”

  Then there was another voice, just as loud as the first. Okubo Tokugawa shouted back at the new challenger. “Do not listen to him! The Grimnoir are evil!”

  “The Chairman says we’re evil . . . Well, he’s right. We are evil. I know the Pathfinder’s here because I AM THE PATHFINDER! I answer to the Enemy. I’m bringing it here right now. You hear that, Dark Ocean? I am your worst nightmare.”

  “No!” The Chairman’s voice shook the world. “Destroy him! Kill him!”

  “Go look to your Imperium schools and see. We’re already there. We’re all over the Imperium. You want a fight? Come get some!”

  The Chairman extended his hands and lightning blasted upward into the sky.

  There was another horrendous boom, much closer and stronger now. The windows cracked. It was as if the man falling through the air had suddenly accelerated. He fell quicker than any bomb, streaking downward impossibly fast. No amount of concentrated magic from the Movers could turn that aside. He hit the ground so hard it caused a massive explosion of earth. It obliterated a huge circle of the parade grounds. The Chairman disappeared beneath a rolling cloud of dust.

  “In the name of Dark Ocean, protect the Chairman! Go!” The Iron Guard were running for the exits, trying to get to their Chairman’s side. One leapt through the cracked window, launching himself into the crowd four stories below because it was the most direct route.

  Hayate scowled. “Fascinating.”

  “Are you mad?” the leader of the Iron Guard shouted. “That is how they destroyed the Auspicious Dragon! We are being attacked. The Enemy has returned! We must protect the Chairman!”

  “Indeed.” Hayate stroked his chin as he thought it through. Perhaps Toru had not been mad after all. It was either a brilliant deception by the Grimnoir for some unknown tactical reason, or something much, much worse. Either way, the truth would be discovered and justice would be satisfied. “And the Chairman is an immortal super wizard. Do not dishonor him by thinking you can protect him when he cannot protect himself.”

  “But—”

  “Remember your training, Iron Guard! Preventing the arrival of the Enemy is our greatest single mission. You heard the invader. We have been infiltrated. Send word to the schools.” Hayate turned to his own aide, who had been trying to appear even more innocuous than his master. “Dispatch shadow strike teams to every Imperium school. Investigate everyone. If anyone tries to stop you, kill them. If we are turned away, firebomb the schools to ash.”

  And with those words, the sacred eradication mission of Dark Ocean began anew.

  UBF Traveler

  “It isn’t working.”

  “Damn it!” Schirmer hit Fuller’s infernal device with a wrench. “How about now?”

  “Nothing,” Fuller said. He was so excited that the inside of his bubble helmet had fogged over, so he was having to put his head at a really weird angle to see the instruments.

  Schirmer whacked it again. “Damn it!”

  Lady Origami found it fascinating that the greatest magical mind in the world and a man who could build any mechanical device out of junk and spare parts were reduced to beating on their invention like chimps with rocks. “What is wrong with it?”

  “I failed to take the current lack of
thermoenergy available in the omnilocators into—”

  “It’s frozen,” Schirmer translated.

  “Oh? Is that all?” She placed her gloved hands on the machine’s housing. She’d never understood the science behind how magic worked. She had grown up in a home where her extremely pious father had believed magic was the interaction between the spirits which dwelled in all things. So his talented daughter was simply gifted in talking to the fire spirits, and that was how she had thought of her Power ever since. It seemed to work well enough for her. “Yes . . . The fire inside is very dim. Should I wake it up?”

  “Uh . . . Yes, please, but gently,” Fuller answered.

  “Sure.” She concentrated. Fire dwelled inside everything. Sometimes it just needed to be agitated. Within seconds, the interior of the device began to glow with a warm yellow light. The electrical lights began blinking on Schirmer’s instrument panel. The ball on top of the device started spinning. “How is that?”

  “It’s working! It’s working!” Fuller exclaimed as the device began to emit an ominous hum. “Thank you!”

  “Begin sweeping,” Schirmer ordered the two UBF men. “Aim it at Shanghai first, then work it up and down the coast, then inward. I want to hit every school in China!”

  She was disappointed. She had hoped the magical beams it released would be visible. But nonetheless, it was a good thing that she had come down to see off her Heavy. Whatever would these people do without her?

  BANG!

  Everyone lurched and nearly fell as the Traveler shook from the impact. Lady Origami fell and slid across the floor, but her safety line kept her from falling out the open door. One of the UBF men was not so lucky, and he went rolling over the side. His line snapped taut, so he did not fall the seventy-five-thousand feet to his doom, but instead he was dangling, flapping in space, ten feet past the ramp. Schirmer grabbed that rope and began tugging the screaming man back from the abyss.

  She sensed the intrusion into her ship. Demons made their own sort of fire, deep within. This one was tiny, but it was inside the Traveler now, and it was growing. When the Imperium vessels could not climb high enough to shoot them with bullets, they’d started launching demons at them instead.