“What’s gnawing you?” T asked, twirling a chain in his hand. He threw it at a crate and ducked, grabbing his head as the blunt hook bounced right back at him. “Ouch.”
“Retard,” Jay noted as a bruise grew on T’s forehead.
“Glad to hear you finally admitted your flaw. Don’t worry, I am sure even a Normie can find a job,” T said, coiling the chain around his forearm. “How about scraping shit from toilet seats?”
“And put you out of business? Never.” Jay grinned. “By the way, I heard that the Sunblades released a new card pack.”
“No shit?!” T cried, facing Jay. “What’s its name and element?”
“Troll King. Green.” Jay took himself by the chin and looked up. “While you were sulking, I asked one of the noble pups about it, and they showed it to me. Legit cards, no printed shit. Its strongest card is called Mind Goblin.”
“Mind Goblin?” T repeated. “What…”
“Mind goblin these nuts?” Jay asked innocently.
“Asshole!” T roared, swinging his chain, and the other laughing boy ducked under it. “Screw you! I walked right into that one!”
“See, I was right about the retard part!”
“Double screw you!”
The wolves brought them into the mobile fortress, leaving them in the care of a white-furred sage. The woman had introduced them to other kids, but after T heard of several boys talking about their parents, he began to sulk, and Jay secretly escorted him away to cheer him up. T had used that weird power of his to summon a clone who was currently occupying a toilet, while the boys sneaked into a hangar on the lowest level and lied to the technicians about getting permission.
Jay wasn’t sure if they were believed, but a friendly mechanic gave them a tour of the area, during which they pocketed this chain and a hook.
This kingdom of machinery was awesome! Assembly lines snaked from one hall to another, carrying damaged suits of armor, while mechanical arms floated around them, dancing akin to sand snakes. Then they stabbed, and sparks flew, and a seam replaced a gash in a plate. Occasionally they brought modules with them, as the technician explained, and installed them after extracting damaged parts from the suits.
And the sounds! He had half expected it to be noisy in here, but the cracking and grinding of the outside never reached here, and glowing generators emitted a pleasant, almost reassuring hum, and the pounding of automated pistons filled his heart with awe at the knowledge of how much stuff was manufactured here. Engineers, retainers as they called themselves, even showed and later let them assemble a simple batch of automatic pistols using one of the consoles.
When T had asked why they didn’t do it themselves, the shift supervisor, a dark-skinned woman in orange overalls who had four fingers replaced with multipurpose augmentations, had sat the boys down and let them assemble a gun by themselves. They had followed the instructions to the letter and finished in five minutes, winning a bottle of soda and chocolate. While the two ate, the woman had shown them how much faster the assembly was.
Jay loved this place and immediately pleaded for permission to stay here and do serious things instead of playing, and the supervisor sent one of her own to ask their teacher, who was probably freaked out after T’s clone had disappeared. Meanwhile, the workers took the boys to the break room and closed the door.
“Are you going to answer the question, or shall I whip you?” T sent the chain spinning.
“No need to show me them dominatrix moves. I was thinking of Halina,” Jay admitted and dropped onto the couch, throwing protective goggles at T before he could blind himself with his damn toy. After a second of thought, he put the goggles on as well.
“Lovebirds,” T teased. “Bet you think of sitting under a tree and holding her hand, chatting about…”
“Envy is bad, T,” Jay laughed, picturing the scene. “Keep up the heroics, and I’m sure you’ll find a girl, too.”
“I am not doing heroics.” T frowned, and the chain stopped; its end dropped to the ground. “Heroes accomplish stuff. They save people and don’t let others die. Even if they lose, they’re not useless like me.” He pursed his lips.
“Don’t sell yourself short; you saved our bacon out there.” Jay tried to cheer him up, but T started to pout again. “Why the chain, anyway?”
“Range.” T blinked and hurled the hook at the wall. He smiled, catching it safely as it bounced back. “Knife gets me caught all the time.”
“Then use a pistol.” Jay shrugged.
“No one is giving me one!” T kicked a table, and the boys rushed to save their soda from spilling. “Listen, I thought it through.”
“Just like you did with the soda,” Jay complained, wiping the table clean. It felt wrong to mess up the place when everyone had welcomed them so warmly. He reached out and grabbed the chain, pulling T closer to him. “See? What if this happens?”
“Won’t be a problem!” T assured him. “When I split, my other self carries everything that I had on myself. So if everyone tries to drag me closer, my clones will lacerate the bastard’s neck until he lets me go. It’s a perfect weapon!”
“Which gave you a bruise.” Jay checked the reddish skin on his friend’s head. “Use a grenade. Imagine a clone popping up; it rushes to the bad guy, and boom! No more bad guy!”
“And where will I get a grenade? I tried to nick…”
“Wait, you tried what now?”
“But everyone watches the weapons hawkishly. They are worse than Miss Williams and her no-knife policy!” T landed on the chair and gulped down a glass of soda, then chewed on a sausage. “She thought I’d cut myself,” he complained. “Can you believe that shit? She kept checking my arms every morning. Stupid. Why would I want to cut myself? I want to stab them!”
“T,” Jay said softly, sitting nearby. He knew little of his friend’s past. T was stingy with details and guarded his past stubbornly, but his occasional whimpers during sleep had told enough. “I can listen.”
“Don’t change the topic.” T pointed a fork at Jay and then tried to steal his sausage from the tray. The boys’ forks clashed, and T backed off, not using his full potential as a New Breed. “You. Halina. I thought we were friends. Did you seriously think I’d be jealous just because you found a girl?”
“It’s not that, dummy!” Jay’s smile disappeared. “I asked an operator to call Houstad, since her convoy should have been there.” He clenched his fingers.
“Should have been?”
“They made it,” Jay quickly reassured him. “Miss Williams was worried sick, but most of the group is there. Except Halina. She entered Houstad, but the place is almost empty, and no one knows where she is…”
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“I’m in,” T said, scratching his nose. “What? She told the wolves of us. Who knows, if not for her we might’ve been skinned. I owe her that much. And besides…” He smiled mischievously, elbowing Jay. “Don’t want to see you cry that your girl…”
“She is not my girl,” Jay said hastily.
“…Gone missing. Okay, big brain, any ideas on how we are going to slip awaaa….?” A whoosh of the opened door interrupted him.
An armored figure stomped inside, one of the white wolves assigned to watch over their group, and the chief engineer followed the sage. Keen crimson eyes glanced over the boys.
“How did you wind up here?” the wolf asked in a pleasant, warm baritone.
“We got lost,” Jay lied instantly. “We turned left from the restroom and followed the same corridors as usual, but this time there was a stairwell and we had no idea, so we…”
“The right way was to the right,” the wolf said without a hint of annoyance, then blinked and crossed the room faster than Jay could breathe. The cape flapped behind the armor as cold fingers touched T’s jaw, moving his head toward the light.
“Kiddo didn’t have it when we left them here,” said the supervisor.
“You left the children unattended.” The crimson eyes shifted, looking at the chain. “Did you try to chain them, you hoodlums?”
“No!” Jay, T, and the woman yelled in unison.
****
The thick adamantine door rippled; the image of the Twins holding up the sun on it glowed brightest yellow, and a seam appeared on the previously solid surface. It slid to the left and right, allowing First to enter the Hall of Remembrance, the holiest place in the entire Order. Cool air poured from within, enveloping the approaching Grandmaster, and the rime cracked beneath his feet.
Automatons rushed to attend to him, reverently touching his skin to read the genetic codes, and red light scanned him from head to toe, searching for any abnormality. His identity confirmed, the turrets designed to disintegrate an intruder disappeared, and the ancient mechanism illuminated the place with the brightest light.
Precious artifacts of the Order and the Sunblade rested here. Gems fashioned by the Twins’ own hands glittered around the crystal that held the body of his own daughter, Marina. Her lifeless paws rested over the gaping hole in her chest; the crystal and the cold forever held the brave knight-captain in the stasis that kept her body from rotting.
First placed a paw on the crystal, silently asking for forgiveness for the past grievances. They often argued over her choosing a Wintersong woman for her partner, and he never really came to accept it. But he understood the nothingness of his resistance on the day when a gravity beam had pierced the chest piece of his little baby and snatched her from him and the Wintersong lady. They had wept together, all grievances forgotten and forgiven, sending the person dearest to them here.
Coffins, decorated urns with ashes, and similar crystals shimmered in the long and narrow hall, each containing either his direct child or their immediate offspring. Here slept the original Wintersong, Summerspring, Ironwill, and his other siblings, and just knowing it stirred his heart, troubled by their absence.
“Your descendants are worthy,” First swore warmly. “If you had just seen the passion and dedication they exhibit in protecting the weak. But then again, you never doubted them.”
He patted a long capsule in the middle of the hall. Its occupant wasn’t dead, and inside the viewing screen, another Ice Fang, bearing striking similarities to First, breathed faintly, kept in slumber by the cold and technology. His third son had grown weary of the world after outliving his children and left to have a two-century-long sleep, hoping to awaken to a kinder era. First strived to bring it about for his son’s sake, never blaming his child for a choice many considered selfish.
“May you dream happy dreams, Cesare,” he whispered softly and looked up. “I beseech thee to forgive this rude intrusion of mine, King Father, Lady Mother.”
At the far end of the hall, taut chains suspended a sphere in the air. Soft, blue light from a gravity engine shone on it from below, aiding in holding its weight and its occupant undisturbed by any collisions. Two arms, two silent guardians, were embedded in the Sunblade emblem. Enormous in size, the sheer elegance of their fur, the smoothness of their curves, the perfection of their skin and muscles put even First’s own body to shame.
The Twins. All that the Blessed Mother had been able to recover after they had brazenly charged into that battle, ignoring her orders. That saved the civilians.
And how many more had died in their absence? Came a treacherous thought.
No cloning procedure of the Reclamation Army had been able to recreate what had been lost. Scientists working for his house conducted a series of experiments, but the organisms died as soon as they left the growth vats. Today, it was impossible to let the fallen walk again.
“Brother,” gurgled a voice, and First hurried to the sphere, abandoning hopes about tomorrow. The restoration of the Holy Trinity could wait. “Greetings.”
Distraught, he quickly inputted the release codes on the panel controlling the life-support system. The one floating inside the sphere was in no danger, but it eased his everyday troubles. Lines crossed the top of the colorless sphere, releasing the gas inside, which was sucked into recesses. The liquid drained from the inside; the sphere opened, and a hand the size of First’s grasped the edge of the open casing.
Second Sunblade, the weapons master of the Sunblade house, clumsily climbed out, proudly declining the silent offer of help. His sight filled First with anguish at the unfairness of this world.
One of his brother’s arms was almost a body length longer than the other, and veins bulged under the skin, spreading the fur wide. Fingers on this arm were all different lengths and sizes; only the thumb and little finger had enough control to be trusted. The head showed out, one eye so enlarged it threatened to fall out of its socket, the other a beaded, wet orb of crimson, no white visible. Second breathed hard, slurping oxygen, his ribs stretching the skin.
Another arm appeared, clutching the serrated blade in a richly encrusted sheath to the chest. Second used its tip as a walking stick, carrying his misshapen, inelegant, horrible, and swaying bulk to freedom. His left leg resembled a fleshy appendage, its bones bent and twisted at every angle, but it served as an unstable platform. The other leg was rigid, absent of any elasticity, and he placed its knee on the ground and crawled to First, dragging his body with the larger hand.
The flaws of their parents. The grievous secret of the Ice Fang Order, carefully curated and fed to the younger generation in very small doses so as not to traumatize them, was the reason for the strict control of marriages.
Why for me? First asked himself. Why am I the bearer of all the beauty meant for both of us? Why can’t I share?
“Second.” He spread his arms, and his brother embraced him, using the sword to help himself stand.
“I urged them to stop.” Without programs to change his voice, Second sounded wet and slurred, spitting sentences as much as he said them. “Again and again I warned them of the folly they had committed, but Camelia told me not to fret, trusting Leonidas’ plan over my concerns.”
“You are not to blame for what had transpired,” First said. “Rashness is our shared trait, it seems.”
“Parents gave us too much fire,” Second agreed, letting go of him. “Mend the rifts, First. They are our kin. Trinity must be restored and preserved.”
“Preserved it will be,” First said. “Must you go?”
“Foolish question, big brother.” Second tried to smile; his lips quivered, exposing his fangs in a terrifying visage of a forest of blades. Catching his reflection in his brother’s eyes, Second turned away, disgusted by his flaws. “The wretches unbutchered by our fallen sisters are worming their path to Houstad, bringing sorrow and woe. Even if those living there weren’t our servants, I would still race to their aid. For that is what a knight does.”
“A knight also knows when not to engage in hopeless battles to survive and fight another day,” First made the last attempt. “A certain weapons master taught me that.”
“If the combat is hopeless, yes, but my presence there will make enough of a difference for the partial evacuation to be completed.” Second nodded, his head jerking back and up. “I have sent you a file of my recommendation for my replacement, Grandmaster. Pray, give it thought. Her skills are nothing to brag about, but it’s not the role of the weapons master to be a supreme duelist, and the lady has a cool head on her shoulders and has mastered my lessons well, preventing our offspring from getting hurt.”
“That is a valuable quality,” First agreed, stepping aside to salute the limping behemoth, who was about to show his true face to the Order for the first time with his own weapon. Sages and knight-captains, hand-picked by First, stood outside the chambers, waiting to give the departing knight the laurels he deserved. Yet pain gripped the grandmaster’s heart, and he broke the ritual. “I love you, little bear.”
“And I you, peacock.” Second swung his head toward him. “I have never hated you for saving me. You gifted me a chance to see the world, and I decided to fight for it. I’ve met and raised thousands of wonderful warriors. Thank you, First. Take care of the House.”
“Always, Second,” First promised. He kept the tip of his sword pointed at the Twins’ arms until his brother left the hall, then wept, grieving for the lost brother and for his own loneliness.
Soon he would be alone of the first generation, and despite his talents and the advantages his body and lineage afforded him, there was nothing he could do about it.
The battle for Houstad was waiting.