Into the Storm

  The open space was filling with thick, black smoke, which was pouring out the broken windows. Flames were licking up the walls. It was either break through, retreat, or die. His men looked to him, unsure, but he knew in his heart that he’d earned their faith and forged the Malcontents into a true fighting unit and that they would never question his orders again.

  “Damn it. Find a ram.”

  Several of the men found a big, stout beam, and they drove that into the door. It heaved outward, revealing just a sliver of daylight, and for the briefest moment a glimpse of some lightly armored deliverers pushing against it on the other side.

  There were more of them. They’d be rushing right into another fight. Madigan didn’t know how many casualties they’d taken already, but there would be more. If they pushed on, what else would they face? Was this an elaborate plot or had they simply blundered into the enemy for no good reason? Was this all for nothing?

  He thought about what Lord Durham had asked him in the brig. What happens when there is a bigger problem presented to you?

  “Again!” Madigan shouted. The four men holding up the beam got a running start and crashed it into the door, which bulged and cracked. He gained another glimpse to the outside—longer this time, as one of the Menites was temporarily knocked down. He spied a Protectorate warjack waiting behind them before the door was forced closed again.

  Will you be so quick to sacrifice your men to solve it?

  “Again!”

  The door burst open.

  Madigan was the first one through the breach.

  As soon as he managed to dispatch the final Exemplar in the burning factory, Enoch Rains intended to set out after the rest of his platoon. He’d already sent his squad after Lieutenant Madigan. He simply hadn’t expected a crippled, severely injured Exemplar to put up such a fight, but that was the power of faith.

  The Exemplar was weaving, dizzy from a dozen weeping wounds, but one wrong move and the swordsman could still take his life. Behind him flames popped and crackled as they consumed the walls. The heat was so intense that the interior of his armor felt like an oven. He needed to leave now or he’d be cooked like a lamb in a pot.

  His opponent lunged, but most of the strength had gone out of him. Rains parried. The Exemplar was slow to lift his sword, so Rains struck him violently in the side of the helm with the pommel. Dazed, the man went to his knees. Rains lifted one leg, put his boot on the Exemplar’s chest, and kicked him back into the fire. The screaming didn’t last very long at all.

  CRASH!

  Rains didn’t see the ceiling collapse, but he certainly felt it.

  A flaming beam struck him in the helmet. A crushing weight put him down, and then the floor was breaking all around him, nails tearing through termite-eaten wood, and Rains was sliding downward in a shower of red sparks. The basement rushed up to meet him.

  Everything went black.

  Madigan tore through the Protectorate troops like a man possessed. A Menite spun away in a shower of blood. Another was disemboweled by the perfect stroke of his storm glaive. Madigan moved forward, slashing at his foes. The chest of one was opened to the ribs, the head of another removed. When the rest piled on, he triggered the biting burst of electrical energy and sent the deliverers reeling back, burning.

  His men charged through the door, spilling into the sunlight, slaughtering Menites. Smoke billowed out around them. They were in a clear area between buildings, and on the other side of the lot was the base of the water tower.

  The Protectorate warjack came thumping toward them. It was a light ’jack, armed with a wickedly spiked mace bolted to one hand and with a cannon for its left arm. The cannon was already aimed at them, but the machine’s marshal must have not given the order for it to fire into them. He’d probably hesitated, not wanting to kill his compatriots holding the door. That had been a mistake, because now they were all going to die.

  “Throwers, fire on the ’jack!” Madigan bellowed. A pair of storm throwers ignited, striking the warjack with two continuous streams of power. “Everyone fire!” Every Stormblade who had followed him through the factory fired simultaneously. A terrible roar exploded around them as the energy of all their storm chambers followed the paths cut through the air by the throwers. The arcs appeared as blinding, instantaneous flashes, and then they were gone.

  A single voltaic discharge wouldn’t do much to a warjack, but if you fired a dozen at once, you were bound to get lucky. The ’jack was blackened, shuddering as the voltage coursed through its damaged systems, but it takes a lot of hurt to put down a warjack, even a small one. “Charge!” Madigan yelled.

  They fell on the ’jack, hacking at it with their glowing blades. The Protectorate machine swung its mace and a Storm Knight went flying through the air, broken.

  As much as his blood roared to jump into the fray, Madigan had a platoon to run and a mission to complete. He surveyed the area. The base of the water tower was in view, but he couldn’t see any Menite forces near it, particularly no strange mystery ’jack. It had to be around the corner. His Stormclad and his Stormguard halberdiers were coming up the exterior of the factory, but there was no time to wait. More coughing Storm Knights came out of the burning factory, Rains’ men by the looks of it, though there was no sign of the apostate himself. Cleasby came out last, covered in blood and missing his helmet. Madigan signaled for them to follow.

  They rushed to the tower’s corner, rounded the edge, prepared for a battle, and . . .

  And nothing.

  He could see where the thick pipes ran up the metal scaffolding. He could see valves and a giant mechanika pump but no sign of any Menites—and certainly no Groller Culpin.

  “Culpin must have already filled it,” Madigan snapped. “We have to figure out how to dump the mixture before it detonates.”

  Cleasby ran to the valves. It took the bright young man only a moment to reason out the complex controls. “This one.” He grabbed a large iron valve control and struggled to turn it. “Help me.” Madigan took hold of the other side and threw his weight into it. The valve creaked and groaned, and then it was free. They spun it quickly. There was a rushing noise as gravity fed something through the pipe.

  “Did we stop it?” Madigan asked.

  “No idea. If it’s lighter than air, the tower could already be filled and ready to detonate.” Cleasby cocked his head to the side and listened. “Wait . . .” He followed the big pipe, then found a smaller secondary valve attached to it. He turned it, and a clear liquid spilled out onto the ground. Cleasby knelt and touched the stream, then frowned. He touched one finger to his tongue. “It’s water. There’s nothing but water in there. The tower’s still full.”

  It was like a physical blow. Madigan looked at his bloody, battered Stormblades. “Culpin was never here.”

  We did all of that for nothing.

  The masked visage of the Creator of Man appeared before him, displeased with this wayward servant.

  Apostates are to be burned.

  Yet all Rains could wonder was what was beneath that mask . . .

  Consciousness came back gradually.

  He struggled to breath. He could hear only a terrible crackling, popping noise and the rushing of wind. The air was very hot and tasted like smoke.

  Rains realized he was buried beneath something. He tried to move but remained pinned by the crushing weight on his chest. It was too dark to see through the holes in his visor.

  “Rains!” He heard a scraping noise, and then orange light filtered through his visor. “You alive?”

  “Wilkins?” he gasped. “Help.”

  “Hang on.” There was another noise as some other debris was pulled off and thrown aside. “We’ve got to get out of here before the whole place falls on our heads.” Wilkins grunted as he strained against something heavy. It scraped against his armor, but then Rains could move his hands again. A moment later he was free of the debris. He flipped his visor up so he could see. Immediately he wished he hadn’
t.

  This appeared to be the basement of the factory. A sea of flame roared above them. As Wilkins pulled him up, rats scurried past their boots, fleeing the flames. “Never easy,” Rains croaked.

  “No, it isn’t,” Wilkins agreed as he took up his sword and Precursor shield. Rains had no idea where his own sword had landed. “That’s the life of a soldier. Come on. This way.”

  His body ached, but he didn’t think he’d broken anything. He was so filthy every joint of his armor was grinding as if it were filled with sand. A horrible crash thundered through the building as more of the roof fell, and then they were awash in hot ash and poison vapors. Another minute and the whole place was going to come down. Wilkins pushed on, crowding through layers of cobwebs and hanging fabric.

  “Where are we going?” Rains shouted to be heard over the roar of the fire.

  “Morrow will show me the way!”

  “So we’re going to die.”

  “Morrow wants you to live for some reason, Rains.” Wilkins had a maniacal grin. “He guided me to you here. No idea why. I don’t question his divine will. So shut your blasphemous face and run!”

  Rains realized they were following the same path as the rats. That was probably a good sign. They reached a crumbling stone wall. The vermin were scrambling through a large hole in the bottom. “Morrow couldn’t show you to a door?”

  “Morrow must want me to make my own,” Wilkins snarled as he kicked the wall hard. The mortar was old and cracked and some of the stones fell away. He kicked it again and again, and more stones broke free. The burly soldier took a few steps back, raised his shield, and slammed his entire mass into the wall. He burst through and fell with a splash.

  They’d broken into the sewer. Rains went through the hole and helped Wilkins up. They stood knee-deep in muck, but the pipe sloped upward, away from the burning factory, so it could have been packed with Cryxians and it would have been an improvement. The two of them sloshed their way through the muck and headed for the surface.

  The air was thick and moist, stinking of corruption and chemicals, but at least he could breathe again. Smoke was trailing up with them. He kept his visor up, as no soldier wants to vomit inside his helmet.

  “Sunlight! Praise, Morrow, I think that’s sunlight,” Wilkins gasped.

  Sure enough, they were almost free. They came up to a rusting metal grate with a drainage ditch on the other side. It took several solid kicks for Rains to tear one of the bolts free, then the two Storm Knights squeezed through and rolled into a muddy ditch.

  They lay there for a moment, staring up at the sky, coughing so hard it was like ripping their lungs out and then desperately catching their breath. A giant pillar of smoke reached toward the heavens. With one final giant a rumble, the factory collapsed.

  “Morrow really sent you to rescue me?”

  “I don’t know what he was thinking,” Wilkins laughed. “Sending me to risk my life to help a Menite spy of all things.”

  “You rotten son of a—”

  “I jest!” Wilkins said, turning solemn. “Listen, Rains, I swear I heard his voice, clear as day. Go down that hole and save Rains. Just like we’re talking to each other now. I suppose that promise I made to help you in your search was recorded in his book in Urcaen . . . His ways are mysterious, but I have faith that he’s got a purpose for you, brother. Thank you, for being vital enough to his work that a humble servant like me had the opportunity to hear his holy words.”

  Rains didn’t know what to say to that.

  Wilkins grunted in pain as he struggled to his feet. “Too bad you lost your storm glaive. Madigan will never let you hear the end of that. I don’t know if Thorny will be able to get you a replacement by seducing any more quartermaster’s assistants.”

  “I don’t think he’d mind trying, though.” Rains got up. He could see the tenements they’d traveled through to get here, and the water tower was nearby. They needed to get back to their platoon. “Where are—”

  Wilkins suddenly held up one hand, indicating the need for silence. They both crouched low, keeping their helms below the top of the ditch. He turned to Rains and mouthed, “’Jacks.” Rains heard the thump, thump of giant metal feet a moment later. The rhythm was wrong to be their Stormclad, and they both knew it.

  Deep in enemy territory, and I don’t even have a sword.

  “This way,” Wilkins whispered. He sloshed through the mud and climbed up the side of the ditch, where the weeds gave him some purchase. He stopped at the top, watching something at the end of the street. Rains came up alongside. The ’jack was easy to spot, about a hundred yards away.

  It was styled like a Protectorate ’jack, but it was too bulbous. “Looks like it’s a modified Reckoner,” Rains said. He had heard the Protectorate had broadened their warjack arsenal in the recent battles. The Reckoner had a wide upper body and was heavily armored; he’d also heard about a variant called a Castigator that was outfitted with a flame hurler and small tanks filled with Menoth’s Fury. Even that description didn’t quite match, as this ’jack had huge tanks covering most of its body, and he saw nothing that looked like a flame hurler. It seemed quite ungainly, but it could probably carry a huge amount of fuel. No one would waste a cortex for carrying water.

  Wilkins kept his voice low. “That’s the one Madigan was looking for. Look at its marshal.”

  Several Protectorate troops marched with the ’jack. One soldier in particular walked right next to the odd ’jack, directing it by hand gestures as the machine made its way around a crater left from the bombardment. This ’jack marshal wasn’t wearing the armor of a Flameguard or Exemplar or the mask of a priest. He was a white-haired, square-jawed man, old but fit.

  “Think that’s Culpin?” Rains asked.

  “How about we take his head and give it as a present to Madigan. See what he says.”

  “Those are Exemplars with him. You got a spare storm glaive I can use? Oh, and another squad of troops?” Rains asked sarcastically.

  “No, but I know where some are.” Wilkins jerked his head in the opposite direction.

  Rains crawled out farther to see around some debris. It was their Stormclad! Two hundred yards away, Headhunter was marching down a parallel street, being guided by MacKay. Pangborn and their squad of Stormguard were with them. They were moving double-time, halberds over their shoulders, looking for a path through the winding streets to reunite with the others at the water tower, but they were going in the wrong direction to intercept the oddly equipped enemy ’jack.

  The Exemplars had moved out of sight behind one of the tenements. “We’ve got to signal MacKay,” Rains said as he climbed over the edge of the ditch. It was tempting to just start shouting or discharge the storm glaive to get the Cygnarans’ attention, but the pair were closer to the Protectorate than to their own platoon. “If we hurry we can catch up.” He pulled Wilkins up.

  “Good idea.”

  They set out at a run down the alley. Wilkins had injured his leg at some point and was having a hard time keeping up, so Rains paused to wait for him. He looked up at the sound of a scraping noise above, and a bit of brick dust rained onto his face.

  He saw a young woman perched precariously on a second-floor windowsill. She was dressed in light armor with a dark red hood. It appeared she’d been spying on Headhunter and the others, and she’d spotted Rains long before he’d spotted her. She put her fingers to her mouth and gave a sharp whistle.

  There was movement on both sides of the alley. A pair of women appeared, blocking their path. Three more came around the corner from the way they’d entered. They were all dressed in the same white and red as the first, and each carried a pair of short swords. “Oh no.” Rains knew who these women were, and he knew just how deadly they could be.

  “Some lost invaders . . .” The woman in the window seemed mildly amused. “Trying desperately to get back to their friends, and one of the swans doesn’t even have his sword. Sad.”

  Wilkins skidded to a hal
t. “Daughters,” he hissed.

  Despite coming from this land, Rains didn’t much about the insular order. He’d been told they were mostly widows of brave Protectorate soldiers, eager to reunite with their lost loves in Urcaen. Others said they were Feora’s pet assassins. Whatever their real motivations were, they were very effective.

  “We are Daughters of the Flame, invader,” said one of the assassins blocking their way.

  “You heretics will die with that knowledge,” finished the other.

  Wilkins didn’t hesitate. He raised his storm glaive. The Daughters blocking their way leapt aside before the lightning arced. “Get to MacKay!” Rains ran down the alley, past the two Daughters. The one in the window leapt down after them and landed smoothly, a sword in each hand.

  As Wilkins limped past, one of the assassins lashed out at him. He blocked with his shield, but the second Daughter struck from behind. He grimaced as her blade slipped past his plate. Blood splattered the brick as he stumbled.

  Rains turned back.

  “Go!” Wilkins’ storm glaive was humming dangerously. “I’ll hold them.”

  “You get MacKay!” Rains shot back. “I’ll hold them.”

  “I can hardly run, and I’m the one with a sword. Do your duty. Stop Culpin.” Wilkins gave him a sad little smile. Far too much blood was leaking down his armor. The Storm Knight wobbled but steadied himself. “It’s already written in Morrow’s book, brother. Go.”

  Rains had no choice but to flee.

  Several Daughters were stalking up to Wilkins, swords raised. They were cold and professional, except for one, who seemed to be enjoying herself far too much. “Come on, then,” Wilkins said as he lifted his Precursor shield.

  The Daughters froze when they saw the symbol of Morrow on the ancient shield.

  “You . . . !” one of the Daughters whispered.