The next morning, the group breaks camp and starts heading for the next town. The temperature was starting to drop, which was a small blessing for everyone trying to get back in shape after their time in the city. They could travel with less and less breaks, and didn’t soak their gear as much.
The woods were a rich, thick, dark green, dotted with balding brown foothills. Rachel and Dill bring up the back, with Touch and Anea in front, and Arch zipping up ahead and back again as a scout. Rachel would occasionally look behind them, partly to get a view of the large snow-capped mountain dominating the hazy blue backdrop of the forest, and partly to make sure they weren’t being followed, intentionally or otherwise.
They chose the foothills because it was more isolated from the main roads and towns that were heavily populated with wandering working parties and merchants, but they weren’t the only people who liked to avoid a crowd, and they always had to assume someone had spotted them and reported their position to the authorities at all times.
As they hike up yet another bald foot hill, Rachel turns and overlooks the area behind them. She can see the shimmer of the river bend down to the right, obscured through the trees. She catches a blur of something in an exposed bend of the trail running through the woods and hills over to the left, nearly three kilometers from where they were now.
“Hey! We need to double time it. Now!” Rachel shouts.
Touch doesn’t hesitate. He grabs Anea’s hand and bolts down the trail. Whatever Rachel saw, it wasn’t natural. It was gray, reminding her of metal, even if it didn’t shine. And it moved. They let the weight of their packs throw them down the smooth hill at a breakneck speed.
“Over there! I want a view!” Rachel says, pointing to the top of a hill with a good vantage of the trail they were on.
“Right.” Touch says. Anea was already slowing down. Touch scoops her up, pack and all, and holds her close with one arm as he lumbers off the trail and up the hill Rachel indicated.
“I don’t feel anything!” Anea says over Touch’s shoulder.
“It might be out of your range.” Rachel replies.
“There isn’t much background static in the country. If you can see it, I should feel it!”
Ten minutes later, they are up the hill. They dropped their packs out of sight with Dill and Anea. Arch, Rachel, and Touch flatten themselves under the shade of a tree. Not word nor sound passed between them for another five minutes.
Then they see something pop out over the top of the hill, low to the ground, gray, fast. It was followed closely, nearly shoulder to shoulder, by a similar creature. They stop at to the crest of the hill for only a moment. Turn their head to the three on the higher mound, then start off in that direction at a blinding speed.
“Run!” Touch’s voice pierces through the breeze.
It doesn’t occur to anyone but Anea to ditch their pack as the other two snatch up theirs and start sprinting down the hill, Touch again holding Anea’s hand on their way down.
“I still don’t feel anything!” Anea’s voice trembles as they make their way back onto the winding trail. The woods were too thick and rocky to wade through safely. Rachel turns as Dill lets out a chirp from the top of her pack.
“Shit!” The creatures were gaining fast. There was no outrunning them.
She untwists herself to see Touch pulling out a thick bronze and silver cylinder from his pack as the greenery blends into a claustrophobic tunnel.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” He says as he drops alongside Rachel.
“But my tablet!” Rachel shouts. Her stomach drops. Stupid. They were running for their lives, and the first thing she thought of was her fucking tablet.
Touch looks at her.
He throws the cylinder to Rachel, unsheathes his sabers, and tosses his bag into the brush as if he had been practicing the motion his entire life.
“Keep running! Protect Anea!” Then the stone man turns on his toes and starts in the other direction.
Everyone stumbles to a halt. Arch whines and barks as he looks back and forth to Touch and the rest of the group. Then he disappears into the undergrowth, toward Touch.
Rachel stands petrified as her friend runs down the long strip of trail. She couldn’t just leave him. But what if one of those things made it past him? She couldn’t leave Anea alone.
I’m the one they want.
But she couldn’t drag Anea into the fight.
She frees Dill and drops her pack as those things come into sight.
“Keep running! All the way to town!” Rachel says, tossing the cylinder to Anea. She pulls out her stylus and brings it to life.
“No, wait.” Anea mumbles. Dill chirps frantically.
Then those things were on Touch. He shouts as the lead one lunges at him. Touch side steps and swings, his dull blade glancing off the metal dog’s neck. It throws its tail to the side as it passes, clipping Touch in the shoulder and sends him stumbling to the dirt.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The other dog looks straight at Rachel as it moves forward. Then it jerks to a halt. Touch’s hand clamped tight around its ankle.
“No. You’re dealing with me.” Touchstone rumbles to the dog. Then he lets out a shout as the first dog clamps its jaws over his shoulder. The second hound tries to pull away at first, then spins around and snaps down on Touch’s ankle. Then the two mechanical beasts pull away from each other, claws digging into the ground as they try to pull the stone man apart.
Arch sprints out from the underbrush and the whole forest flashes a brilliant bright white as he releases all his pent up energy on the hound at Touch’s shoulder.
The thing twitches, but doesn’t stop. Arch, hunched over and panting, makes his way toward Touch’s pack, before falling over.
Rachel breaks into a sprint, only to be jerked back by a tiny hand at her arm.
“Wait. Please. Arch is fine. He’s fainted. Touch isn’t scared. He, wants this? Wants the challenge.” Anea pleads.
Please let me be right. Please don’t let my guess get him killed.
Rachel looks back at Touch. He’s keeping his muscles taut, his limbs and torso bent, fighting against the dog’s tug of war. With his free hand, Touch pounds his saber futility into the head of the dog at his shoulder again and again.
It releases him and twists its head for a better angle. Touch is dragged a couple of feet. The first dog hops over and snaps at his throat. Touch works his blade across the inside of its mouth instead and pushes himself out of the way.
The blade snaps in the hound’s hydraulic jaw immediately. Touch contorts out of the way as the creature bears down on his neck, instead catching the clamp on the meaty part of his trap. He uses his opposite hand to smash his pommel into the eye of the creature repeatedly. It cracks, then caves, and Touchstone feels precious circuit boards and sensors give to his wrath.
The second dog releases his ankle and pins his arm under its claws. Touch responds by thrusting the jagged end of his half saber up under the interlocking plates of its thick neck. The thing steps back, off his arm, which Touchstone immediately wraps around its neck and pulls it close, wrapping his legs around it next, while he thrusts and twists deeper into the neck.
The thing staggers and pulls away, then it stutters and falls over, pinning the stone man underneath. The first dog releases its grip and turns to run, but Touch latches on to its back leg with both hands and pulls the leg up over his head. The creature digs into the ground and tries to pull its leg back.
The axle joint buckles, snaps, then shears under the strain of being pulled perpendicular to the way it's meant to go. The dog stumbles away, then lumbers back from where it came in a three-legged sprint.
---
“I thought I told you to run.” Touch states impassively, casually, offhandedly, after they get the metal beast off of him. He wasn’t measured or controlled, just devoid of excitement.
“We knew you could handle it.” Anea says.
“Hmm…”
Arch walks over to Touch and nudges him with his snout. Touch cups his face in his hand and pets the fox.
“Are you okay?” Rachel asks.
“I’m fine, just a sore shoulder, and ankle.” He winces, then smiles, as he rolls his arm around, testing his mobility.
Everyone gathers around as the two catch their breath.
Touch sips some water and looks down at Arch as he nibbles on his treat.
Then he takes a deep breath in… and out.
He turns to the giant robo-dog that had what’s left of his saber stuck in its neck.
“Now, let’s see who sent you…”
Rachel and Anea go back for her pack as Touch works on prying open the machine, leaving Arch and Dill to act as lookout.
“What could Winston Industrial have to do with any of this?” Touch tosses a thick, bent chrome computer chip over to Rachel as the two rejoin the group.
“They’re allies of Ari-Corp aren’t they?” Rachel eyes the laser etched company logo on the chip before tossing it back to Touch. “I trashed their last two mechs, maybe they reached out for more.”
“I’d hardly call them allies. More like a neutral party. And they don’t sell their tech directly to other corporations. They lend them out to their private security and pimp ‘em out as mercenaries.”
“Pimp?” Anea asks.
Touch’s eyes widen as he looks away. “It mean’s they rent them out as hired help.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“It has something to do with sex, doesn’t it? I’ll just look it up later.”
“On what?”
“Your tablet.”
“It’s locked.” He says, squinting his eyes at the little girl.
“2825.”
“Fuck.”
“Anyway,” Rachel cuts in, “what you’re saying is, there is probably a mercenary, or a team of them, chasing us. Apparently with a way to track us down?”
“Right.” Touch says. Then he kneels down over the head of the robo-dog, half of its face plating ripped off, revealing a metal skeleton stuffed with hydraulics, sensors, and circuits. He motions for the two girls to follow suit. It smells of heated plastic and grease.
“So, what can you tell me from all of this?” Touch says, looking at Anea.
“That you already know the answer, and we don’t have time for a lesson. We need to move before the bad guys catch up.”
“For real Touch, just tell us.”
The stone man sighs and rolls his eyes.
“Fine. It wouldn’t be hard to follow our trail based on hearsay. So that would get them close. The fact that we haven’t thrown them off means they’ve either been keeping tabs electronically, or they are smart enough to know where we’re really going.”
He runs his finger to the tip of the snout.
“To close the distance, they send these guys ahead, and find us through these sensors, which I’m guessing mimics a dog’s nose, which is why we were spotted on the hill immediately-”
Touch stops as Rachel stands up, and a bright pink flare comes to life in her hand. She swings it outward as her dark, opalescent blade materializes away from the others.
“So cool…” Anea says with big eyes.
“Five minutes to scrap it, then we double time all the way to town.”