Nicholas Smith - Warriors

“Imulah! Rodger!” Magnolia yelled.

She ran over to them while X limped over to Horn and his mother. Brett and another militia soldier backed away to let the king through.

Horn swung the axe once more, cutting only air. He went down on one knee, bleeding through the gauze that plugged his armor. His two men lowered their weapons and put their hands behind their heads.

“Everyone back,” X grumbled.

He walked up to Horn, who had to know he was defeated.

But as soon as X got close, Horn swiped with his axe again. X stepped back, easily avoiding the blow. Horn fell to his stomach, and Magnolia used a knife to pin one hand to the ground. X used the spear to pin his other hand.

An animal howl of pain followed. He centered his obsidian eyes on X, then Magnolia.

X didn’t finish him off. He had a promise to keep.

Turning, he gestured to Rodger and Imulah. Magnolia grabbed Moreto, dragged her over, and dumped her next to her son.

Rodger joined Magnolia, looking down at the two skinwalkers.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I will be soon,” Rodger replied. “You?”

“Same.”

“Someone hand me a blaster,” X said.

Brett said something to Ton, who handed his over. X flipped open the breech and found a buckshot shell and a flare loaded. He flipped it shut and handed the weapon to Rodger.

“Not until I tell you, Rodge,” X said.

Magnolia helped steady Rodger as, with a shaky hand, he pointed the blaster at Moreto.

X coughed deep. “Imulah,” he said, “I want you to interpret for me.”

Imulah scurried over.

“As king of the Vanguard Islands, I sentence—”

Horn interrupted, talking fast. He followed up by spitting on X’s boots.

X calmly looked to Imulah.

“He said that you are not worthy of the crown, and that’s why all your people will die by the metal gods.”

Moreto mumbled something next.

“She said you may have defeated them here, but the sky people and the traitorous Cazadores will all die soon…” Imulah paused.

“What?” X asked.

“She said the islands are burning.”

“What does that mean?” X asked.

He had a feeling that it meant what it sounded like. That the defectors had reached their home. And X was helpless to stop it now—with Shadow and Renegade sunk, they had no way to make it home.

Moreto spoke again but was silenced by a crack that made X flinch. The flare from Rodger’s blaster burst against the side of Moreto’s head, setting her hair on fire.

Horn let out a scream of agony as his mother wailed. He yanked up on the blades pinning his hands down.

X pulled the spear, freeing one hand.

Swiveling his head, Horn focused a soulless gaze of rage at X.

His mouth opened to let out a scream, but X cut it short with a stroke of the blade across his throat. Horn reached up to stanch the blood as pink bubbles burst from his lips.

Moreto, still burning, writhed in agony.

Aiming the blaster, Rodger pulled the trigger. A dozen double-aught pellets hit her in the chest, silencing her. Rodger dropped the weapon to the ground and leaned on Magnolia, sobbing.

X watched as Horn kicked at the ground, still fighting for life. He bent down over him with the spear still in his grip.

“For Rhino,” he said, and staked Horn through his icy heart.

Leaving the blade in his chest, X walked away, only to flinch as a voice shouted in the distance.

“Boats on the beach!”

X turned away from Horn and Moreto. “Who?” he shouted.

“I don’t know,” the militia scout yelled back. “But Raven’s Claw is still out there.”

“Get ready,” X said. “This ain’t over!”

The soldiers trained their weapons on the boatyard. Ton stuck by Victor, their backs against a brick wall. Both men held pistols.

Brett handed X a blaster.

“Thanks for coming back for me,” X said. He took the weapon and stood next to the militia soldier, with Miles by his side.

“It’s okay, boy,” he said. “Stay close.”

The dog’s tail whipped inside its hazard suit.

Flashlight beams hit the scrapyard. X scanned the shadows for the enemy forces coming to avenge their leader.

The wait wasn’t long. Faint silhouettes moved in the scrapyard. Someone launched a flare.

“Hold your fire!” Magnolia yelled.

In the flare’s glow, a group of Cazador soldiers strode out. One wore a burned and frayed orange cape.

General Forge led a group of twenty men, some holding spears, others down to knives. All the blades were bloody. They ran up, then slowed to take in the battlefield.

Magnolia breathed a sigh of relief and turned to X, smiling.

But she knew this wasn’t over, and so did X.

“We have to get back to the Vanguard Islands,” X said. “The killing won’t stop until all the machines are destroyed.”

“We found survivors…”

Michael’s radio message was garbled and staticky. Les heard most of it. He also heard the panicked screams in the background.

It lasted only a few seconds, but those seconds changed everything.

Fear took his fatigued body hostage as he tried to think what to do. Breaking radio silence could give away his and Sofia’s position behind some metal platforms in a supply yard.

Since landing on the roof of a low warehouse, they had climbed down but were forced to hide in the maze of construction equipment.

At either end of the supply yard, a defector stood inside a small metal kiosk that had shielded them from view earlier. Their visors were dark. Normally, they glowed.

Something was different about their arms, too. Instead of hands, they had sharp blades.

“Defectors are surrounding… can’t escape,” Michael said over the comms. “Must get to the tower.”

Les tried to make sense of the second part, resisting the urge to ask. But he couldn’t just crouch here and listen.

He had to do something.

He hand-signaled his plan to Sofia. She would neutralize the defector at the north entrance of the supply yard, and he would take out the one to the east. They parted, heading opposite directions. He crept between the rows, laser rifle forward, until he got about ten feet from the machine. A pulsing light glowed around the final row of stacked metal platforms.

Les readied his rifle and moved around the other side to fire a bolt into the machine, which must have heard him coming—it had left the kiosk.

Hearing a clank behind him, he ducked just as the robot jabbed a blade down at him from atop a stack of metal platforms. The sharp point of the second blade glowed red hot as it grew like an extendable baton.

Les tried to fire his laser rifle, but the machine jumped down behind him. He dived to avoid the blade, but it punched into his booster. Helium hissed out of the cannister.

He rolled to his back and fired a bolt, but the defector lay slumped to the side, the skull sizzling with an orange hole through the temple.

Sofia lowered her laser rifle and reached down to Les.

“Thanks,” he said. “I owe you one.”

She followed him out of the supply yard, passing the other defector, which she had fried with a bolt to the battery unit. Les slowed as he walked through a gate that opened to a street. It was the main artery through the base, but there wasn’t much concealment here besides a few trees and clumps of weeds growing in the alleys between buildings.

The patrols he had seen earlier were gone—it wasn’t hard to guess where to. He tried to get a view of the warehouse where Michael and Arlo had landed. Just as he rounded the corner of a building for a look, the comms hissed again.