????[The Old Man]
In his hospital prison, a dying old man watched the screen wink out and laid back in his bed.
“There's a disappointment,” he rumbled. “Must be an attack on the base. Ahh my boys will handle it.”
“I'm sure Jalgoz can handle it,” the man standing at the corner of his bed asked. His voice was deep and soft, like a very large man trying to fit into a bus without disturbing anyone.
Of the four who had chosen to guard the dying old man in his final days, only one spent much time talking. His position was the upper right corner of the bed, near the dying man's head. There was something of a similarity between the two men. Both had long white beards, and both looked ancient old, but even though the one in the bed was dying it was the standing man who looked haggard and ragged, his face downturned and sad, his beard drooping and scraggly.
“You think I didn't notice what you did there, Birger?” The dying old man asked.
“Gonna start complaining when I'm honest with you now, captain?” the standing man—Birger—asked.
“No,” the dying man sighed. “No of course not. I know you don't think much of those boys.”
“Jalgoz is fine,” Birger shook his head. “He got a lot of you in him. The other three...well. Let's just say I'm not surprised Jarlo bit it the first time he fought a real knight.”
“They're my blood, Birger,” the old man said. “All I've done and all I've seen, they're all I've got to leave behind me.”
“I know that captain,” Birger said quietly. And oh, how cruel a universe it was where that was true. “We all know.”
“Jalgoz will handle it,” the dying man in the bed said firmly, as if daring the universe to contradict him. “But I would have liked to see him finish off that knight. What do you say we level this place, put a little fun back in our lives?”
The doctors and nurses froze, the guards above leveled their weapons. The old man in the bed laughed, a laugh which—predictably—turned into a hacking cough. All his laughs seemed to these days, as if every moment of joy must come with a reminder that he was dying. That before too long a legend would pass. It was enough to make a man weep, and despite his miserable appearance Birger was not a man prone to weeping.
“You shouldn't do that to them, captain,” Birger said. “They're keeping you alive.”
“Only because they're scared of me,” the dying man pointed out.
“And they should be,” Birger smiled. “Pits of hell, captain, I'm scared of you.”
“And with good reason!” the old man grinned. “My grandsons will be fine. I know you don't think much of them, but they're strong boys. Smart boys. Well, mostly. I can laugh in the devil's face when I get to Hell, no regrets dangling off behind me.”
“When you get to Hell you'll mutiny,” Birger snorted. “And be running the place by the time I join you.”
“I'll save you a drink,” the dying man laughed. “Alright Birger, I'm not so proud I can't admit I'm worried about my grandsons. But they're good boys. Strong. I think I'll sleep again. Wake me when they call back.”
The old man closed his eyes. Birger ought to have hated to see him that way, hated to see a once mighty titan reduced to this. But that was life, you lived it and then you died. And the old man had lived longer, and done a lot more living, than anyone else in the universe. If a peaceful death, content in the legacy of his family, was what that man desired than that was what he would have. Any god you cared to name knew he'd taken whatever he wanted most of his long, long life after all. Once he was gone it might be time to...reassess the old man's legacy. To have a short, frank, and possibly lethal conversation with his grandsons. But the old man didn't need to know that, not on his deathbed. He was sentimental about family.
Birger glanced up at the guards walking above, still eyeing the bed nervously, their guns clutched a little tighter. Cowards. Vermin. If his captain had been healthy they would already be dead. For a moment, Birger considered killing a few of them.
But no. That might disturb the captain's sleep. Birger settled in to watch over his captain's deathbed once again.
ANDRY
Andry wished they'd had a third aircar.
But the enforcers had only left two behind when they retreated from the village, and those two were being taken out to intercept the raiding parties. He could see them peeling away from the village, each carrying a team of armed villagers and two knights. So Andry, alone in his jeep, rode out towards the bandit base in the hope of finding his sister and rescuing her. Or, if Tyram had already tried to get her out, rescuing Tyram too. Well considering it, at least. Oh and probably Rinmi too...
He wondered if there'd really be time for that much rescuing? He might have to cut Tyram off the schedule.
He couldn't believe the way he was thinking. Aurina was in the bandit's base. Jarlo had made what they planned to do to her more than plain. How could he be making jokes? And the answer, of course, was that he'd caught it. The infection they'd brought with them. It had taken a little longer to incubate in him than it had in the rest of them, but Andry was beginning to show symptoms and he was still well enough to recognize it.
Somehow, in the battle against the bandits, Andry had caught fairy tales. And even as he reminded himself his sister could be dead or worse by the time he arrived, somewhere in the back of his mind the ratty old jeep that still stank of bandits was a white charger he was riding in on to make the rescue.
Idiot, he called himself. But under the worry the confidence was still there, and he cursed himself for a fool to the sound of distant trumpets calling the lines to battle.
VERRO
“I see them,” Verro said, leaning out the side of the air car.
“What really?” A villager with a pair of binoculars asked, peering through.
“I'm sure,” Verro smiled, pointing to his golden yellow eagle eyes. “We're well ahead of them.”
“Then we can cut them off!” their pilot shouted back at them, a stocky woman with tattoos all over her arms. Apparently she kept some kind of livestock, and had come from quite a few towns away to fight the bandits. She was one of only two people in the village with any aircar driving experience.
“Do a low pass,” Verro said. “We can fire at them from above. I see three jeeps and...and I don't recognize that third vehicle, big dome on the back some kind of ammo truck maybe. Careful, they'll have weapons too. Sasha, you don't have a ranged weapon so...”
“Who says I don't?” Sasha said, hefting her spear. “Just give me a position to throw from.”
“I....uh, okay.” Verro scratched his head. He hadn't been happy with her getting up, and neither had the doctors. They hadn't been happy with J'vann either but maybe that was more like they didn't believe in J'vann. He was limping, but they were all convinced he should have taken months to heal and the business with the flowerpot still infuriated them. Verro couldn't blame them, auram enhanced healing was one thing but J'vann's arm and leg had been in shards.
But it was Sasha's recovery that had him worried. She wasn't healing implausibly fast. The wound to her side hit nothing vital but it had been ragged, dirty, and deep. She should probably have been in bed for at least another day or two, three to be safe. But she'd pointed out this was war, small but still a war, and she was well enough to fight. And she'd had a point. Besides, how badly could she hurt herself throwing spears out the side of an air car? With a little luck they wouldn't even have to land until all the bandits were down.
“Alright,” he said, readying an arrow. “We'll pass them in a second. Everyone get ready to shoot.”
“Yeah!” the villagers cheered, raising their guns. Sasha hefted her spear behind them. They passed over a hill and brought the bandit vehicles into sight. The villagers needed no command to open fire, raining bullets down on the bandit convoy. There was a sound like the air tearing open next to Verro's ear and a bolt of lightning smashed into one of the jeeps, the fuel tank exploding to consume vehicle and passengers in a raging fireball.
Verro turned slowly to Sasha, his eyes wide.
“What?” she asked, holding up an empty hand. There was a shimmer of auram and a spear appeared in it, identical to the one she still had slung in her belt. The head started spinning like a drill, electricity crackling around the edge. “You didn't think I was going to just throw my spear away did you? I can make a lot more duplicates of the spear than I can of my whole body. I can convert the energy it's made of too. I'm not really good at it but electricity's easy.”
She threw the crackling spear, another lightning bolt tearing a pit in the dirt just in front of another bandit jeep and making it tip over. Verro shrugged and added his arrows to the assault, reminding himself not to underestimate anyone who called themselves a Knight. The bandits were scattered now, their vehicles destroyed, but they were returning fire. And one vehicle was still moving, the weird domed one he hadn't been able to recognize. It's top sectioned seemed able to rotate, turning towards them and raising a large gun barrel.
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Shit. It's not the same kind they used in the last battle, I didn't realize!
“Tank!” Verro barked to the pilot. “They've got a tank! Get out of the way before-!”
But the pilot had started weaving as soon as he'd said tank, and the blast of energy the cannon fired flew past them by inches. Verro felt something else in the blast as well, something intimately familiar, and a chill ran down his spine.
“That wasn't plasma,” Sasha said. “And it wasn't a slug either. That was auram. And if it's shooting auram, it's not a tank.”
“It's somebody's regalia,” Verro nodded in agreement. “Okay new plan. I'll go—”
“We'llgo,” Sasha insisted.
“Alright fine,” Verro said. “We'll go draw the Regalia user's focus, the rest of you land as soon as possible and come help keep the others off us while we're fighting.”
The pilot nodded in agreement and the knights leaped from the side of the air car. The cannon followed them down, the knights landing an instant before it fired and bolting to either side. The auram blast dug a deep pit in the as they raced around the weapon in opposite directions.
Up close it was obviously a Regalia, or at least something more than purely mechanical. The top part rotated like a tank turret but there was no visible seam between it and the main body. In fact there were no seams at all, no hallmarks of any ordinary manufacturing process anywhere on the eerily smooth sides of the dome. Although maybe it would have been better to describe it as a squat cone with a blunted tip. The armor went too low for him to see what it was moving with, Verro wouldn't have been surprised to find out it hovered....but no, no, it was leaving tire tracks. Whatever it was they had to bring it down. He fired an arrow at the side of it, which promptly bounced off.
Well he didn't know what he'd been expecting. It was a tank.
Ordinary bandits tried to get in his way but he shouldered them aside. The worst they could do was grab his arms and hold him down, but with the cannon tracking him that would be bad enough. He shoved and kicked them out of the way, firing repeatedly (and uselessly) at the regalia. Snarling in frustration Verro leaped into the air, delivering a spinning kick that felled all the bandits surrounding him. He landed on top of the groaning pile he'd created, focusing all his energy on the arrow he was forming in his bow. It grew larger and larger, the front of it a spinning drill point.
“I got through a real tank with this once,” Verro muttered. “Maybe...”
No good, it bounced off the side of the Regalia just like all the others. And his unseen opponent had taken the opportunity to take better aim.
“No hey wait!” one of the bandits Verro stood on yelled. “Hold on Toby, wait a sec-”
Verro jumped to the side and the bandits disappeared in an explosion of blood and auram. Whoever he was fighting didn't car much about his own men. A lightning bolt exploded against the Regalia's armor as Sasha entered the fray, the tank turning to track them both as they ran around it different directions, pelting it with their weapons.
“Wait, Sasha!” Verro yelled. “STOP!”
Just before their paths would have crossed both Knights screeched to a halt, a blast from the cannon tearing apart the ground where they would have been standing together if they'd kept going. The user chose that moment to deactivate his regalia, the sides shimmering and melting away.
Revealing a flatbed truck.
Standing in the back of the flatbed was a tall man in a leather vest, jeans, and boots. That appeared to be the limit of his wardrobe. Chest hair that couldn't hide his toned muscles poked out from inside his vest. The hair on his head was black streaked with blonde, done up in an enormous pomade. As they watched him swagger along the flatbed he took a comb from his pocket and went to work on it, carefully guiding any stray hairs back into place with practiced ease.
“So you two must be those knights I heard about,” the man—Toby, presumably—said as he swaggered around on the back of the flatbed. “Well you're just damn unlucky. I always get put on base guard duty, but they finally let me off the chain and I'm here to rock a few worlds.”
“WE are,” an identically dressed and much skinnier man with an enormous pompadour haircut shouted, leaning out the cab of the truck. “WE are here to rock some worlds, because WE are off the chain.”
“Ah keep your shirt on Kody,” Toby said. “All you do is drive the truck.”
“Yeah 'cus without me your Molehill Regalia can't even move,” Kody shouted back. “If I don't drive the truck you gotta sit still all day.”
“I ain't denying your contribution little brother,” Toby told him. “I'm just saying I'm doing most of the work.”
“YOU try driving with a great big metal--”
Verro raised his bow and fired. Toby tucked his head forward, dodging the arrow almost completely. The edge of it clipped some of the hair off his head.
“Well shit,” Sasha said, readying her spear. “I thought he was just an idiot, but he dodged your arrow like it was nothing.”
“Gonna take more than an arrow to kill me,” Toby chuckled. “I mean I....I...” the bandit's eyes caught the shreds of hair lying on the back of the flatbed. “AHHH! You got me! My hair! My beautiful hair!”
He started slapping the back of his head.
“I'm maimed!” he wailed. “Am I bleeding? I think I gotta be bleeding. Are you insane? This hair is one of the eight wonders of this galaxy! It's high fashion manliness on an interplanetary scale! Are you kinda guy who goes to an art gallery and pisses all over everything, you jerk!?”
“Okay,” Sasha said. “Maybe he's a lucky idiot.”
“I'm gonna kill you!” Toby declared, the sleek metal walls of his Regalia once again appearing around him and the truck.
“No Toby wait!” Kody shouted from the cab. “You're too far back! If you do that now...”
The materializing walls of the Regalia sliced the back of the truck in half. Panicked, Kody slammed his foot down on the accelerator sending the cab of the truck spinning wildly out of control down the field on its two remaining wheels. Kody appeared not to notice at all.
“I'll drag your ass behind a bike until there's nothing left of you but gravel!” Toby declared as his Regalia formed over his head. “I'll cut of your mmm mmm mmm, nnn! Mmn nnn nnn! Mmmm!”
“We can't hear you when you're inside that thing, dumbass!” Sasha yelled.
“Mmmm mm, nnn nnn mm nn?”
“We said we can't hear you!” Verro and Sasha both yelled. There was a clanging from inside the huge immobile Regalia and the top swung open.
“I said I was gonna ahhh!”Blood spurted from the slice Verro's flying arrow cut through his ear. “That's it! You assholes are (clang!) mmm mmmm nnn mmmm nnnn!”
Reasoning that even this moron wasn't stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice Verro didn't try again, though did leave the question of what they weregoing to do about it. They ran around it in circles, dodging the cannon's muzzle whenever they could, until they heard the sound of an engine coming closer.
“It's the other idiot!” Sasha warned, the truck cab looming closer in Verro's vision. He rolled aside and the vehicle blasted past, going up the sloped side of the regalia and getting stuck on the cannon.
“Mmmm mmm! Nnnn!”
“No it's your fault!” Kody shouted back.
Sasha and Verro used the distraction to charge the Regalia, climbing up it's smooth sloping sides and blasting them with their weapons. They didn't seem to be doing much damage but the attacks seemed to upset Toby anyway.
“Mmmmmmm! Nn!”The turret spun rapidly, slapping the truck cab away to roll off into the fields again and throwing Sasha and Vero off onto the grass. The scrambled away from the turret before it could target them and the truck cab came back, blasting straight for the Regalia again. This time when it hit the cannon was facing the other way, so there was nothing to prevent the truck cab from going right up the smooth metal side and flying through the air, only to crash down front first in the dirt with a popping tinkle of exploding window glass.
“Toby you asshole!” Kody growled as he dragged himself and a rifle out of the ruined truck cab. “Once they're dead I'm gonna cut you open!”
“Here!” Verro said, clambering up the side of the Regalia again and pointing at a random spot. “Maybe if we both hit it at once a whole bunch of times?”
“Oh great!” Sasha said. “Advanced military strategy!”
Despite her complaints the planned seemed to work. After repeated blows to the same place with arrows and spear a dent began to form. The turret whirled above them, but they were too close to the Regalia for it to target—it just couldn't point its barrel down at a steep enough angle to reach them. Things were going well when something grabbed Verro by the leg and yanked him to the dirt. He found himself staring up at the barrel of Kody's rifle. It smelled like ozone.
Well, crap.
“Gotcha!” the bandit said, cocking and firing the weapon. Verro barely got out of the way in time. So it turned out the bandits didhave plasma weapons. They couldn't have many or they'd have used them before, but it was pretty common in any fighting unit criminal or official for what plasma weapons were available to go to the toughest fighters who didn't have a Regalia.
Not good, Verro thought, pulling back an auram arrow. I was discounting this guy as just the driver. But now we've got two bad guys with ranged weapons that can kill us. At least he's not covered in impenetrable...
But that thought drew his attention back to the Molehill Regalia, which didn't look quite so impenetrable anymore. Sasha still rode it, beating the same spot over and over again with her spear, but the smooth sloping sides had cracked like glass. No longer solid and smooth they were a kaleidoscope of shards just barely holding together. Light began to glow from the cracks.
“No Toby!” Kody shouted. “Toby wait! I'm right here....”
“Sasha look out!” Verro shouted, things finally clicking into place. “It's an attack!”
And then things happened very loudly and very quickly.
Sasha leaped off the side of the Regalia. Verro dived for the ground. They were both still airborne when the Regalia exploded, sending auram metal shrapnel everywhere. Kody vanished in a misty spray of blood. Verro was thrown across the field, skidding and rolling on the ground until he finally came to rest in the dirt.
He had a few cuts and scrapes on his arms, and he was sore, but he didn't think he was too badly banged up. He'd caught the bottom edge of the explosion, and the ground had forced most of the damage upwards. Like where Sasha had been when it went off, which was nota comforting thought. He hurried to his feet to see Sasha on the ground, bleeding from cuts all over, with Toby kicking her in the stomach.
“Let her go!” Verro shouted, firing an arrow for the bandit's head. Toby just grinned, the Molehill Regalia shimmering into existence around hum and Sahsa both. Verro cursed, running to the Regalia's side. He was ready to dodge another cannon blast but the action was going on inside the Regalia's smooth, unyeilding walls. Something was making a lot of muffled shouts and bangs anyway.
He heard the cocking of a plasma gun behind him and sighed.
“I thought you died,” he told Kody, tracking the bandits movements by his reflection in the gleaming side of the Molehill Regalia.
“Just wait till Toby gets out of there,” Kody giggled. The bandit was completely covered in cuts and bruises, bleeding all over himself. “I'm gonna show him I don't need a fancy Regalia to take down a knight.”
“Seriously,” Verro said. “Walk away.”
Kody taised the gun. In a single motion Verro turned, crouched, and fired. His arrow pierced Kody through the gut as the plasma bolt fired over Verro's head and bounced off the side of the Regalia. That taken care of, he turned back to try and figure out how to get inside but only a moment later the Regalia collapsed, bursting into sparkling dust that blew away in the wind. Toby flew out of the golden mist, his body riddled with spear holes, followed by three separate versions of Sasha. She wiped blood off her lip as the spare two merged back into the original.
“Wow,” Verro said. “You uh...you okay?”
“Yeah,” Sasha said, rubbing her side. “He kicked me in the wound, but I'm fine. Turns out he didn't have a plan for getting outnumbered in his own Regalia.”
“Well good,” Verro let out a long breath of air. “Good. Come on, let's see how...”
Cheers and applause came from a nearby hill and they looked over to see the villagers they'd brought with them, along with the air car. Lying around them were the rest of the bandits in conditions ranging from beaten senseless to very, very dead.
“I guess they took care of things while we were fighting the idiots.”
“Guess so,” Shasha said. “Come on, let's see what's happening with everybody else.”