Scalding Spear was almost a straight shot from the base’s western exit, across a rocky valley, traversing the mountain range through a natural pass, emerging on the other side to see the Desert Clan capital in the middle of the environment of its tribe.
In the time before the plague, it had been a solar power plant with a large tower in the middle of rings of panels. The Desert Clan had built a wall around the tower, their settlement inside it and the commander’s lodgings within the tower itself.
It was fortified as Tenakth settlements were always prone to be, their outer wall protected not only by sharpened posts braced between the rocky ruins of the old facility but by the solar panels that made charging the capital a difficult endeavour.
However, the Tallneck was hardly hindered by the ring of panels, its giant feet shattering them as it walked towards the settlement.
And as it had done with Plainsong, it had sent out a signal and embedded the Nemesis protocol in the machines it could reach. Herds of Chargers smashed themselves at the outer wall, shot down by Desert Clan archers, spearing themselves on the spiked posts. Had it just been Chargers and the Tallneck, the Desert Clan would have been able to take the machines down, more accustomed to battle than the peaceful Utaru.
But the Tallneck’s pace path was very close to a Thunderjaw’s territory which was a heavily weaponised machine with disc launchers, lasers and a body that was well planted on the ground.
As Aloy and the others came through the pass in the mountains, they could see the carcasses of machines piled up outside the wall, riddled with arrows. The Tallneck was trying to kick down the gates and wall. The Desert Clan might have been able to destroy a Tallneck but the Thunderjaw was raining disc bombs into the settlement, turning their sanctuary into a giant death pit.
“By the Ten!” Kotallo roared and sprinted into the fray.
“Anyone good with bow and arrow, on the ridge!” Aloy ordered, following him and the other Tenakth. “We’ve got to stop that Thunderjaw!”
The large machine was kicking up so much dust it was impossible to see anything properly once they were on the same level as Scalding Spear. Aloy heard the shout from the lookout that help had arrived and hoped the archers inside the settlement would take care not to hit them by accident. And then it was all dust and machine, bellows from the Thunderjaw and ground shaking stomping from the Tallneck. Aloy knew the weak points in a Thunderjaw’s body. She’d killed many of them over the course of her journey. This one, however, was Nemesis possessed and was much stronger and even faster than before.
But she and her people were equipped with FOCUSES which mean the unseen and hidden was laid bare before them.
“What a glorious contraption!” Nil declared, stabbing his curved Carja blade into the Thunderjaw’s leg, severing tendons and darting away again.
“It’s more than just an aid to killing!” Aloy warned.
“How you take the fun out of it!”
The Thunderjaw would not let up, despite being critically maimed. Aloy darted to where Erend was catching his breath.
“It just won’t stop!” She cried.
“Gotta get Nemesis out of its head.” Erend roared and Aloy looked at him. “What?”
“Get me onto its back!”
With a coordinated attack by the others pinning the Thunderjaw down, Aloy ran for its tail and clambered up onto its back and along its spine. She braced her legs and stabbed her spear down behind its neck, slicing left and right, tearing the connections until the Thunderjaw’s head hung uselessly and it collapsed. Aloy jumped out of the way of being crushed, caked in sweat and dust, staring at the fallen Thunderjaw.
“It’s down!” She yelled.
“Look out!”
The Tallneck reared onto its back legs, arched its forelegs and stomped hard on the wall around Scalding Spear. It marched through the broken defences, destroying the interior training pit, sending the Desert Clan running.
“Take it down! Stop it!”
Ropes with anchors were thrown from the second stories of the outer walls that were not destroyed. Those that were on the ground flung their rappel lines around its legs, trying to stop its march. The Tallneck, unable to make a sound, arched its neck almost to breaking point, rearing onto its back legs and toppled over, crushing the northern part of Scalding Spear’s wall, its head embedded in the sand.
Aloy pulled herself upright, her bow in her hands, the rush of battle still pumping through her veins as she approached the Tallneck’s head. She could hear the cheers of the Desert Clan survivors but she couldn’t rejoice, not when her FOCUS was picking up a power surge.
“What is that?” She breathed then her eyes widened, slapping her FOCUS. “FOCUSES off now!”
She dove behind a piece of broken wall as the Tallneck’s head ruptured, sending out a pulse of purple light and dust showered on them from the force of the explosion.
“What the hell was that?” Nakoa demanded, FOCUS in hand.
“Nemesis override signal,” Aloy put her FOCUS back on, “I think the FOCUS needs to be activated for it to take hold. It seems fine.”
Suddenly howling filled their ears. Aloy stood up, the voice alarmingly familiar.
“Aloy! Help!” She sprinted to where Soka and Gera were with Kotallo. He was thrashing on the ground, his flesh arm wrestling with his artificial one which was aglow with purple light. “He went mad!”
“Nemesis is in the arm! We’ve got to get it off him!”
“We can’t get close!”
“Kotallo!” Aloy nearly screamed at him. “Take off your arm! You’ve got to get it off!”
Kotallo kicked up clods of sand, trying to yank the artificial limb from the stump of his left arm but it was resisting violently. Finally Soka and Gera grabbed it together and held it down as Kotallo released the connections and threw the arm aside, collapsing into the sand, tears of pain streaking down his face. Aloy sank to her knees beside him, tearing part of her tunic off to staunch the fresh flow of blood from the torn skin.
She couldn’t speak. All words seemed useless. To ask if he was okay sounded like the stupidest thing in the world to say.
“Aloy, you’ve got incoming!”
Aloy lowered her head, still surrounded by a haze of dust and broken structures.
“What now?” She demanded from Alva who was on the ridge with her bow.
“The Tallneck’s signal was in range of more machines…and there’s one really big one! Get out of Scalding Spear now!”
“Everyone!” Aloy ordered. “Out! Now, go, go, go!”
“Slitherfang!”
The ground rumbled and tossed itself about before it broke apart inside what remained of the exterior wall. A Slitherfang, a giant machine in the shape of a serpent, shot into the air, curling its body up and around the tower of Scalding Spear. Tighter and tighter it wound, squeezing until the tower shattered and it hit the ground, slithering out of the debris of its attack.
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Soka, Gera and Aloy dragged Kotallo behind a solar panel.
“Stay down.” She ordered, standing up.
“Aloy…” He held her arms, fear in his eyes for the first time since she’d met him.
She pulled out of his grasp, putting an arrow into its cradle. The Slitherfang hissed and writhed, its body knocking Tenakth and volunteers off their feet, its tail ending in a dangerous spike. It snapped at her and Aloy moved out of its range.
“I hate these things…” She snarled. “I really, really, really…”
It sprayed purple fluid from its mouth. She cowered behind a wall then saw it stab towards her with its tail. Hands grabbed her and hauled her out of its path. Aloy struck the ground, winded as she turned to see Tunk standing, his body run through. He looked down at the injury, blood on his fingers and looked at Aloy with a look of bewilderment on his face.
It was a fatal wound.
“No…”
He dropped to his knees, gurgling as blood trickled out of his mouth then slumped into the sand.
Aloy didn’t even have the chance to mourn when the Slitherfang lunged for her again, its tail thrashing through the remains of Scalding Spear. It was not much more than rubble now. She scrambled for cover though there was little enough left that could be considered safe. Nil was already there, looking more battered than she’d ever seen him.
“Aloy! We have to go!” Erend barked. “There’s nothing left to defend!”
“If we run, it’ll chase us down,” Nil’s face was scratched badly and he spat blood out of his mouth, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to go out like that.”
“Aloy! You’ve got incoming! Nemesis Chargers and Bristlebacks inbound!”
She could feel the pulse of the machine hooves, the thunder through the ground as a combined herd of Chargers and Bristlebacks coming towards them.
“Higher ground! Get to higher ground!”
She clambered onto the roof of a fallen building and saw the dust cloud approaching. Metal glinted inside of the haze and the artificial sound of machines replicating real animals echoed. From behind they could hear the Slitherfang attacking any of the Tenakth that were still standing.
Aloy closed her eyes. “You win, Nemesis…I can’t…”
“Something big is coming!”
“Oh what now!” Erend demanded, clambering up beside them.
“I can’t tell,” Aloy shook her head as a new machine, as large as a Thunderjaw, entered the desert valley, kicking up an enormous dust cloud, “my FOCUS can’t scan it at that range.”
“Whatever it is, it’s fast!”
“And big.”
“Thunderjaw? Maybe?”
It was pounding the ground, running at speed, reaching the Charger and Bristleback herd before it reached Scalding Spear. Then it leapt into the air and they got a brief glance at its unfamiliar form before it slammed into the stampeding herd and crushed half of them.
“What the hell is it!”
The carcases of Chargers and Bristlebacks went flying through the air, some ripped in two and others smashed together so hard they were all but flattened. Giant sprays of sand scattered over them and they ducked their heads, spitting out mouthfuls of dust.
“I can’t get a read on it.” Erend blustered.
“Faster than a Thunderjaw.” A Bristleback went soaring overhead to land on the other side of Scalding Spear. “Stronger too.”
“Fireclaw?”
“Bigger!”
“Hey…who’s watching the Slitherfang?”
Aloy’s eyes widened and she spun around, stunned to realise she’d forgotten about the machine serpent that was closer than this unknown machine. It had been snaking towards them but had been equally distracted by the newcomer to the fight. It hissed, spraying purple acid towards the dust cloud but it struck a shield not unlike Aloy’s old shieldwing.
“HEPHAESTUS…” Aloy frowned and slapped her FOCUS, trying to hear Alva properly. “It’s HEPHAESTUS!”
“It’s…what?” She gasped as Slitherfang was smacked in the face by a Charger and drew itself up to its full height. Its tail rattled and the gears in its neck turned rapidly as the dust began to settle.
“Duck!”
The Slitherfang lunged for their exposed position but the new machine threw itself over the wall, grabbed the Slitherfang around its neck and dragged it backwards, rolling across the space where the training pit once was in the middle of the settlement.
The new machine was a little like a Fireclaw. HEPHAESTUS, when it was one of Gaia’s subfunctions, had designed machines based on animals from the APOLLO database. The Fireclaw had been based on a bear, possibly a polar bear which was the largest of all bear species. However, while this new machine had elements of Fireclaw/Frostclaw design to it, it didn’t possess its rotund belly where the ‘claw’ machines generated their fire/frost attacks. This new machine was trimmer, taller yet its chest was broad and strong. It had fortified shoulders, strong arms and hands that acted like a human’s. Its legs were powerful with large feet and poseable toes which could grip almost as well as its hands. At the top of its body was its head, a dark grey façade that looked a lot like HEPHAESTUS’ white mask.
“What in the name of the Claim is it?”
“A gorilla?” Aloy exclaimed. “A mechanised gorilla?”
“It’s a Mechilla? Gormecha?”
It wrestled with the Slitherfang, ducking out of the way of its Nemesis venom snaps and its darting tail. The Gormecha grabbed the tail and broke it over its knee, the Slitherfang drawing back from it, snarling as its tail trailed uselessly behind it.
“Look out!” Erend cried as the fight between the two giant machines rolled precariously near to their position.
The Slitherfang came very close to striking the Gormecha several times but a Fireclaw was the most dangerous machine Aloy had ever fought and this new machine was even more so. It was astonishingly strong, proven as it grasped the Slitherfang’s neck between its knees and grabbed its jaws, forcing them to open wider and wider…until there was a metallic crack that echoed off the walls of the valley and the Slitherfang flopped to the ground, broken beyond even Nemesis’ control.
The Gormecha turned and looked at Aloy.
“HEPHAESTUS?” She breathed.
The Gormecha put its machine muscular arms onto the ground, its hands curling into fists and walked towards her on all fours, its body rippling with artificial tendons and sinews. It lowered its grey head towards her, the plate shifting out of the way to reveal HEPHAESTUS white face beneath, its eyes glowing blue.
“I…could not…come…any sooner.”
Aloy slid down the broken roof to the sand and strode across it, HEPHAESTUS looking down at her. Aloy was incredibly small compared to the size of its body.
“This is what you left to do?”
HEPHAESTUS stared at her. “I located the nearest…cauldron…that could construct…this form.”
Aloy shook her head. “I thought you’d abandoned us.”
HEPHAESTUS leaned even closer towards her. “You die, I die.” It straightened and looked around. “I shall use this form to incapacitate Tallnecks to keep Nemesis…from using them to…override more machines.” It went to walk away then paused and looked back at her. “If you need…me…just…call.”
Aloy gave a little laugh at the strangeness of the conversation as HEPHAESTUS ambled off.
“Well…what do you know?” Erend mused. “We should look for survivors.”
There weren’t many left. Apart from Tunk, all of the volunteers had survived. Kotallo, while pale after significant blood loss, would recover. The Desert Clan Tenakth, however, were another story. Yarra, the clan’s commander, was dead along with Jetakka, the chaplain of the Desert Clan. The bodies of the Tenakth were laid out and covered so that their burial rites could be respected.
Aloy was given a canteen of water and told to sit to rest for a moment. She gulped down a mouthful of the stale water and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. There was still a haze in the air, turning all figures into vague silhouettes. She gazed at the bodies of men, women and children with a kind of numb desperation. Her brain was trying to work out what to do and how to save them but her heart had all but given up.
She sniffed, feeling tears threaten. She wasn’t one for crying so she got up and walked away, putting some distance between herself and the rows of death. Near where the Tallneck’s head lay, she paused, her fingers pressed against her forehead, trembling.
“What do I do? What do I do?”
There was a crunch in the sand and she looked up to see a figure walking awkwardly towards her. The body shape was familiar even as they limped across the sand.
“Tunk?” She whispered. “Is that you?”
He broke through the last veil of haze, his body swaying in the hot breeze and then he looked up. His eyes were filled with purple and blood trickled from his nose. Aloy’s horror froze her for a moment, long enough for Tunk to hit her with a plank of wood, knocking her face first into the sand.
She coughed and spluttered, trying to get up then felt her hair grasped and her head pulled back. For a moment there was a pause then she heard Tunk’s voice projected through his FOCUS.
“We’re…having…some…fun…now…”
Her spine ran cold at the words as she was pushed into the sand, her mouth and throat filling with the gritty substance, the air choked out of her lungs. She could hear someone crying her name as her arms flailed about but Tunk’s heavy boot was in the middle of her back, pinning her down…
…and then he was suddenly thrown from her body.
Aloy twisted and scrambled backwards, pressed against the Tallneck’s head, looking at Tunk with an arrow sticking out of his chest. He gurgled and went to move towards her when another arrow hit his shoulder, then his leg.
Finally his body could no longer hold himself up and he collapsed to his knees in the sand, fury on the face of the peaceful shaman. The others were running to her aid, grabbing Tunk and pulling him back, Ikrie and Naltuk grieving over him as he succumbed to death, the grip of Nemesis finally letting go of his body.
Eamon, who had come to Scalding Spear with healing potions and poultices, helped Aloy to stand.
“Alva told us you were in trouble…but if it wasn’t for her aim…”
Aloy turned and saw the Quen diviner walking towards her, her gentle face wreathed in tears. Alva had never killed anyone before.
“I couldn’t make him stop…” She sobbed. “I’m sorry…I tried so hard…”
Eamon went to her side and she wept on his shoulder, her bow and arrows abandoned to the sand.
“He’s at peace now,” Ikrie said as she put Tunk’s hands across his chest then laid her fingers over Naltuk’s and gave them a reassuring squeeze, “Nemesis can’t hurt him anymore.”
Naltuk nodded. “I…need to see to his …burial rites…”
“I’ll help.” Ikrie urged.
Aloy watched the interactions, exhausted beyond any state she had ever been in before.
“Aloy, can you hear me?”
“Yeah…” She said weakly at Tomas’ voice.
“I need a sample of Tunk’s blood.”
“Seriously?”
“I think I might have just found Nemesis’ weakness.”