Tim Lebbon: Dawn

When the first machines reached the last line of defense they turned around and started battling their way back down.

Their lines shattered, the Shantasi took on the machines in a free-for-all that had only one possible outcome.

Kosar and Lucien emerged from behind their sheltering rock and entered into the fray. Down the slope to their left, a small machine lay on its side, several legs torn away by Shantasi slideshocks. The Krote still sat astride his mount’s back, and its remaining limbs whipped at the air, decapitating one woman and slicing a man across the thighs. A warrior drew an arrow against the Krote, but a fist-sized chunk of metal flew from the machine and crushed his chest before he could fire. He fell, the bow and arrow trapped beneath him.

“I’ll go for that!” Kosar said, pointing. “You try to keep this bastard thing distracted.” Without waiting for a reply, Kosar ran. He kept low, skirting far around the machine to keep out of range of its limbs. He checked left and right, making sure that no other Krote was closing on him. If that happened he would have little hope; he did not even have the Shantasi Pace to enable him to outrun some of the machines. He clutched A’Meer’s sword and wished she were here with him. Stop thinking and start fighting, she would say. So he ran, attention focused on the fallen Shantasi with the bow and arrows.

Behind him, he heard Lucien roar. He did not turn to see why.

He reached the fallen man and tugged the bow from his grasp, trying not to look at the ruin of his chest. Then he rolled the body onto its side and grabbed a handful of arrows from the quiver. The man let out a groan.

Kosar fell back and pushed himself away, shouting out in surprise.

He sensed the Krote’s attention move on to him. He ducked just in time to avoid being struck across the head by one of the machine’s spinning limbs. He rolled backward, rolled again and came up into a kneeling position.

Lucien was hacking his way closer to the machine. A limb struck him on the arm and knocked him sideways, but he stood again and swung his sword. It met a metal whip and sparks flew.

Kosar strung an arrow and aimed at the Krote. The Krote turned back to him and raised his hand, fisted and pointing at Kosar.

Crossbow on his wrist, Kosar thought, but he could not let it upset his aim. He took a deep breath, let it out and loosed the arrow.

The Krote’s bolt scored his cheek as Kosar’s arrow found its mark. The Krote fell back, dying, and the machine paused in its fight, slumping down onto its belly as if relieved of a burden.

Lucien grinned at Kosar, his red face lit by fires springing up across the hillside. Kosar smiled back and breathed deeply. He could smell the fleshy fuel of those flames.

The Monk backed away from the machine and came to Kosar’s side. “Where now?” he said.

There were fights all around them. Up the slope Kosar saw a group of Shantasi harrying a machine while another warrior closed in from behind. She carried something in her arms-it looked like a rock-and she dodged several of the machine’s flailing limbs to place it against the construct’s side. The Shantasi turned and fled, leaving the Krote swinging his sword and raging at their cowardice.

The rock came to life. It glowed, like molten stone, and quickly ate its way into the machine, spitting a hail of bloody stone dust above it. The Krote looked down just as his ride reared up, and as it fell on its side the Krote was trapped beneath its stiffening limbs. Three Shantasi darted in and finished the Mages’ warrior, and the glowing stone ate its way fully inside the stricken machine.

“A young grinder,” Lucien said. “I wonder how they took it from its parent.”

“O’Lam said there was more, but not much.” The darting shapes of Shantasi using Pace caused smoke to swirl and eddy across the hillside. Another explosion blossomed around a machine as a swarm of flies was ignited. A yellow wolf-Kosar had heard of the pallid wolves, but never seen them-loped across the hill and leapt at a Krote astride a machine, spitting acid and showering her with venomous blood as the machine sliced the creature in two. The Krote screamed and died on her mount as it ran rogue.

He thought of Trey, Hope and Alishia, and closed his eyes in a brief plea to the Black. Let them be all right.

Someone screamed close by, a long, loud wail that ended suddenly with the sound of metal cleaving meat. Kosar did not look for the source of the cry. “It’s hopeless,” he said.

“It always was,” Lucien said.

Around them, the battle played out across the lower slopes of darkest Kang Kang. Perhaps the mountains watched and smiled, enjoying the fresh blood spilled and sucked down into its soil. There could have been eyes on its higher slopes observing the explosions, ears listening to the screams of dying men and women, noses breathing in the stench of blood and soil, cooking meat and insides. Or maybe they had no awareness of the fight at all; the most important battle for three hundred years, meaningless to a range of mountains that defied eternity.

A group of Shantasi joined Kosar and Lucien, several experienced archers among them, and they set on a machine. The Shantasi used their Pace to distract the Krote, while the archers drew a line and brought him down with arrows to the chest and back. The Krote slumped over and shouted, giving his machine one final order, which it obeyed without hesitation. The resulting blue-flamed explosion, fueled by dark magic, melted everything it touched.

Lucien grasped Kosar’s arm and pulled him down behind a dead man, falling on him and screaming as the blue fire rolled overhead.

As the explosion subsided it was replaced by the screams of the injured. Kosar shoved Lucien from him and stood. The Monk sat up slowly, shaking, and then Kosar saw his back. The red robe had been burned away, along with much of his skin and flesh. The white of bones was visible here and there, pale and stark in the moonlight. No blood; the wounds were already cauterized.

“Lucien…”

“I can fight!” the Monk spat. He stood, screamed and ran at a machine coming their way, brandishing his sword, ducking at the last moment and hacking at one of the machine’s thick legs.

Kosar went to fight with him. Any moment could be his last, and soon one moment would. But he was enraged now, encouraged by Lucien’s strength, inspired by the ferocious Shantasi fighting and dying all around. And just when things became hopeless, the land rose up one more time.

THE SOLDIERS EMERGED from the ground. Three of them to start with, manifesting as blank, black shadows, flexing to form individual features, taking in moonlight and giving out a sense of power that sent a chill down Kosar’s sweaty back.

“Mimics,” he whispered, thinking of the last time he had seen them. They had changed his course of action, encouraging him not to flee and leave the fate of Trey, Alishia and Hope to chance. Now they were here again, and he could hope once more.

“Lucien, step aside!” he shouted. The Red Monk glanced back, saw what was forming out of the ground and moved away from the machine. A Krote stood on its back, a battle-axe held in both hands, mouth open in a challenging shout. When she saw the new soldiers, her jaw fell, and she brandished the axe at them.

She sees a true enemy, Kosar thought. And she’s scared.

The mimics flowed at the machine. The construct formed a massive scythe from a molten limb and swung, but the weapon passed through the mimics with a splash, and they went on as though untouched. When they reached the machine’s hips they melted, poured upward and re-formed on its back.

The Krote faced up to the three strange soldiers, and though there was defiance on her face, Kosar saw that she was already prepared for defeat.