“Excellent!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands twice. At my command, the Enforcers and Montanas created a circular fighting ring, with Aurea, Mors, Bran, and Sceólang on one side, and the mounted soldiers on the other.
“Pick 2 of you to fight first,” I ordered.
A heated discussion broke out among the soldiers, until the leader shouted, “Enough! Hostio, Exspes, you both go first.” The soldiers looked angry, but had no choice but to follow orders. Dismounting from their horses, they both prepared for battle.
“Sceólang, attack mode.” Aurea said apprehensively.
“Attack mode, confirmed. Target, confirmed.” Sceólang responded in a robotic yet feminine voice. Immediately after confirming the command, Sceólang charged at Hostio, forcing him to use his sword to keep her at bay. Aurea took the opportunity to flank Hostio, swinging her claymore at his vulnerable back.
Realizing her intentions, Hostio chose to block using his armored forearm, the heavy armor protecting him from the blade. However, it couldn’t stop the sheer momentum of the claymore, causing a large dent to be formed in the metal. Hostio grunted in pain, and swung his sword towards her midsection. Stabbing her claymore into the ground, Aurea blocked the strike before retreating slightly. Sceólang took the opportunity to open her jaws wide open, latching onto Hostio’s leg. Her jaws slowly crushed the metal armor, and Hostio quickly raised his sword in preparation to stab into her exposed neck. Before he could do so, a plume of blue fire incinerated his leg. Hostio screamed in agony, falling over and nearly fainting from the pain. Aurea made use of the moment to stab her claymore into his neck and twisted, causing a shower of blood to spray into the air. Hostio made a few gurgling sounds before he stopped breathing. Once all signs of life had ceased completely, Sceólang let go of the dead man’s leg and sat by Aurea’s side.
While this was all going on, Mors and Bran were busy dealing with the soldier called Exspes.
“Bran, defend mode.” Mors said at the beginning of the fight.
“Defend mode, confirmed.” Bran responded in a monotone male voice. Bran slowly circled around Mors’s legs, his eyes constantly scanning for possible threats to his owner. Mors held his iceiron steel sword with both hands, positioning the blade diagonally across his body. With a shout, Exspes stabbed towards Mors’s thigh, most likely trying to limit his mobility and weaken him. His plan was foiled as Bran dove into the path of his sword, causing a shower of sparks to erupt at the point of impact. The attack barely left any damage, with the only trace being a long white scratch along Bran’s body.
“How useful,” Mors commented with a pleased smile on his face. Once he had been attacked, Bran identified Exspes as the primary threat, focusing all his attention on him. Mors slashed his sword at Exspes which was deftly parried to the side. Twisting his wrist, Mors executed a surprise thrust, managing to nick Exspes on his cheek. Hissing in pain, Exspes put all his power into an overhead slash, bringing all the weight of his sword down. Mors prepared to defend against the blow, but Bran jumped and latched onto the sword, driving it off course at the last second.
“Damn mutt!” Exspes yelled in frustration, kicking at Bran’s face. While he was distracted, Mors managed to stab through a chink in his armor, cutting into the flesh of his opponent’s armpit. Exspes dropped his sword and tried to run away, holding his injured limb as he pushed his way through the encirclement. I purposefully allowed him to run a small distance away before casually mentioning to Mors, “This would be a good time to try out the pursuit mode, if you wanted to.” Mors grinned, and said, “Bran, pursue mode, target human Exspes, lethal force.”
Bran acknowledged the order, his eyes changing into slits as he bounded towards his prey. Although Exspes ran with the speed of desperation, Bran quickly caught up. Using his powerful spring-loaded legs, Bran leapt into the air and crashed into Exspes’s back, bringing him down to the ground. Bran’s jaws wasted no time in biting down on his target’s neck, crushing the thin layer of metal that protected it. Exspes screamed and struggled, but couldn’t move under the weight of Bran. With a small hiss, Bran ignited the flamethrower in the back of his throat, cooking the human alive. Exspes let out a hair raising shriek as the scent of burning flesh filled the air, before finally becoming still.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Target death confirmed.” Bran said in a monotone voice. He ran back and sat next to Mors, giving no indication that he had just snuffed out a life. “Good boy!” Mors praised, patting Bran’s head. After seeing the flamethrowers in action, the armored me whispered hastily to each other. I heard them say the word ‘hellfire’ quite a few times, and it piqued my interest. Leaning over to Mors, I asked, “Why are they talking about hellfire?”
“Mages with a high enough understanding of the Law of Fire can create a type of fire called hellfire. They say it burns bright blue, and it’s pretty rare to see it. Even though I’m not a fire mage, I have heard a fire mage explain that to create hellfire, a fire mage has to ‘divide’ the air and ignite it with their vitae. I don’t understand it that much to be honest,” he promptly explained.
“[It seems that advanced fire mages have a rudimentary understanding of separating and igniting gasses to make a more potent flame.]”
It was no wonder that the soldiers were amazed when they saw the blue flames. It was rare enough to see a mage create hellfire, but to see 2 mechanical dogs breathe hellfire within moments of each other would be truly shocking.
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I ordered the soldiers to send in their next two men to fight. WIth the aid of their mechanical dogs, they easily dispatched the two soldiers, although Latoria did acquire a few cuts. Another two men were sent out, and once again, both were killed. This time, however, Aurea suffered a large laceration to her arm that bled profusely. Mors was unscathed aside from a few bits of torn cloth, and I assumed that his many years of combat experience proved useful. With 6 of their men dead, the other soldiers fidgeted anxiously. The leader made some discrete hand signals, but his efforts to conceal them were useless. Even if I didn’t have 23 drones watching their every move from every angle, I could tell they were planning something simply based on their facial expressions.
Before I could call out for the next set of men to meet their doom, the leader shouted “GO!” and yanked on his horse’s reins. The other 11 men followed suit, using the size of their battle horses to force their way out of the encirclement. My Enforcers reacted instantly, grabbing at the large animals and tripping out their legs. Over half were knocked down and subsequently subdued. I had the soldiers and horses kept alive, as I still saw some value in them for experimentation and research. The few that managed to escape urged their horses to run as fast as they could, smacking them whenever they started to slow down.
Knowing the Enforcers and Montanas were too slow, I ordered the Laelaps and Falcon units to give chase. The Laelaps were not only faster than the horses, but they were relentless as well. Within 2 minutes, they were already snapping at their target’s heels. Looking back at the men beside him, the leader realized that he couldn’t escape. “I’m sorry,” I heard him mutter through a drone. Unsheathing his sword, he swiftly cut the reins of the man to his right, while kicking the man on his left off of his horse. Without his reins, the soldier couldn’t control his horse, and was soon captured by my robots. The other one met the same fate, but the leader was slowly outpacing my robots. I might have been able to capture him if I really wanted to, but at this point he was getting close to the plains that surrounded Ocaephis. If another person saw my robotic units capturing a soldier, my existence would be completely exposed. Secrecy was my best protection right now, so I chose to have my units pull back and regroup.
“FUCK!” I cursed mentally. “I shouldn’t have messed around so much. Fuck fuck fuck!
“[I doubt it would be too bad even if the soldier reports back to the Governor’s son. If only 20 men were sent to take back the slaves, it means that it wasn’t a particularly important operation. In addition, with the war going on, the Governor’s son would do his best to keep the nobles and populace in check, something that revealing your existence probably wouldn’t be conducive towards.]”
“Yeah, but this could turn into one hell of a shitshow…god fucking damnit I’m a fucking idiot!”
Tying up the men, I checked up on Aurea and bandaged her wound.
“I’ll clean and stitch the cut when we get back home, ok?” I said to Aurea. Biting her lip in pain, she nodded in acknowledgement. I clapped her lightly on the back, telling her, “You did well. If you keep up with your training, you’ll be a force to be reckoned with in no time.”
“Load the items and move out.”
“[Understood.]”