Augustus fell on his back, and Praetorian lifted his axe to cleave him in two. The explorator rolled out of the blow, leaving blood on the metal surface. He rose up just in time to parry a decapitating blow and retreated toward the turret, feigning panic in his parries and adding loud breathing. Praetorian was too caught up in his rage and fell for the deception.
The axe landed on the turret, ending up being buried in it all the way to the head. And Augustus timed this moment to close the distance to the Condemned. He slashed at the man’s leading leg, bucking Praetorian down on a knee. Then he thrust both of his sabers at the falling body, catching the lower part of Praetorian’s helmet during the desperate dodge and jerking it free off his head, rupturing both energy chords and the torturous device installed in the man’s head. Augustus circled around his opponent, slicing through the power pack and turning the armor into a useless hunk of metal.
Praetorian reached out to his ruined face, all red and covered in a thick crust of blood. He clawed at his face, gasped for air, and fell, his entire body convulsing. Rho raised a saber to finish him off.
“Instructor!” Carlos’ yell snapped Augustus out of his concentration, alerting him of the missile from the bastion that was falling on the tank. He jumped off, leaving the remains of his enemy to burn in the searing flame.
“Are you two fine?” Augustus asked the trainees, and Carlos, along with Vasily, gave a thumbs up. Vasily rested himself on the slope of the hollow, and Carlos approached Augustus. The sight of both boys still wearing their helmets almost made him smile. He was more foolish at their age.
“We need to reunite with the rest of the team…” Augustus clenched his saber and received an update. The infiltration team had encountered difficulties; Jumail and Eliza were both injured, and worst of all, his trainees were still risking their lives. “Stay here and rendezvous with the Oathtakers; I am heading in.”
Carlos started reaching for his weapons, and Augustus saw a figure wreathed in flames in the reflection of his visor landing behind him with enough force to make the ground tremble.
“We… Hnghtttt… Not finished!” Praetorian whispered behind him.
The man gained two meters in height, his flesh and muscle pushing and cracking the armor plates in his path, leaving most of them dangling. Freed from the cruel prison of his iron helmet, Praetorian’s head ballooned into a folded mess of pink flesh, with slits for eyes and gathered pockets of flesh for ears and nose. The implants were torn from his head, and gray matter oozed from the torn wounds on his scalp.
He punched, roaring with pure rage. Augustus leapt aside, evading the strike that exploded the very ground with the air pressure alone. Was his power sealed or something? Mutation? Hundreds of questions and suggestions flashed through Augustus’ mind, but he concentrated on the task at hand. Physical-based Abnormal. Close to a moderate Wolf Hag in physical potency but lacking the finesse, health, and natural weapons of one. Manageable.
Praetorian noticed Vasily aiming his weapon at him. The man grabbed the remnants of his battle tank, moving with the precise, blurred, and jerking movements of a person trying to stay awake. His spasmodic hand hurled the wreckage at the trainee. Vasily’s grenade hit the thrown vehicle in the middle, exploding against it, and then the trainee gasped in pain as two hundred tons of steel rammed him into the side of the hollow, sending ripples through the ground. Augustus’ HUD immediately updated, showing that the boy had suffered broken bones and some bruising, but the armor had absorbed most of the impact, and he was pushed into the tortured ground rather than splattered against it.
“Leave Vasily alone!” Carlos shouted, firing both of his SMGs into the ruined face. “Try taking on someone of your caliber, you filthy, no-good and dirty peasant!”
Praetorian barely registered the pain, ignoring the crimson craters that bloomed across his face and a beam that pierced his jaw. He charged after Carlos, reaching for the boy. His first punch passed through the afterimage, and the Condemned’s arm went into the ground to the elbow.
“Too slow! But what else can I expect of the misbegotten spawn of a wh…” Carlos’ shout was cut short. Praetorian tore his arm free, along with a chunk of the ground before him, putting the trainee off his balance. The huge hand grasped the teen, locking his smaller body in a hold.
“Weak words,” Praetorian rumbled, a streak of red foam leaving his lips. The berserker slammed Carlos to the ground, shaking it and creating a web of cracks across Barjoni’s armor as it struggled to withstand the pressure. “Weak actions. In the arena, I have learned what you have failed to understand. Strength!” He accompanied each of his words with a slam. “Always! Prevails!”
“Harder…” Praetorian halted at Carlos’ words. The insufferable youngster made his visor transparent and his lips, trembling with fear, formed a smile. “Harder, daddy.”
“Die, degenerate.” Praetorian raised his hand.
Augustus threw one of his sabers. The giant Abnormal noticed the saber and leaned back, letting go of the teen. The saber flew past him, and the berserker lunged at Augustus himself, like a bull charging a red cloth. Carlos stood and broke into a blur, racing after the spinning saber. He reached it before the massive warrior came blow-to-blow with Augustus.
“Dude, it was a joke, and you missed the point!” Carlos shouted. He closed his hands over the hilt and threw the weapon at the Praetorian’s back. “No worries, old timer. I’ll help you get the point!”
Excellent! Augustus took his saber in both hands. He calmly waited for his opponent, unbreathing and unmoving, his full attention focused only on the map of his HUD. He did not need to see the enemy; the skills he had acquired over the years allowed him to predict its mad movements with perfect accuracy. And the last piece of the puzzle fell into place after Vasily crawled out of the rubble, bruised but more than capable of fighting.
The saber’s tip appeared below Praetorian’s left clavicle; in his haste, Carlos had missed a chance to strike both heart and lungs. But Augustus didn’t blame him one bit. The saber’s cutting edge was pointing up, and so Augustus slashed with his own saber from underneath his weapon, pushing the stuck blade upward and cleaving through the clavicle and the shoulder bones of his opponent. Praetorian’s left arm hanged uselessly, and Augustus pushed past his left side, safe and sound. The Condemned’s right hand exploded from a grenade blast, pushing Augustus even further out of harm’s way.
“B… Nrght… Not… Not a problem…” Praetorian growled. His right hand disappeared at the wrist; the explosion shattered his vambrace. And the Condemned tried to use the sharp remains of his armor as a spear. “Scar the world!”
Augustus had had enough of him. He took another saber and exploded toward the foe in a merciless storm of cuts and slashes. He aimed his first attack at Praetorian’s wounded leg, opening it all the way to the bone. Two thrusts punctured the man’s lungs. An overhead slash left Praetorian without his arm. A slash to the abdomen released the intestines. The man’s neck was caught in a crisscross of Augustus’ blades as he fell to one knee, and the Condemned’s head flew away, cut cleanly.
Praetorian’s headless body toppled; his head rolled, silently repeating, “Scar the world. This time there was no missile, no miracle, no surprise to save him. Augustus gave him the only mercy in his possession. A single thrust of the saber through the brain ended the flame visible in his eyes and the madness that ruled his soul.
“Iternians!” A shout came from the edge of the pit.
The Oathtakers have arrived. A group of soldiers was accompanied by three tall figures in power armors, stylized after a knight’s full plate. Green tabards hid most of the armor, proudly demonstrating holy symbols on their chests. Mighty, sprawling horns decorated each of their round helmets. All three carried one-handed spiked maces capable of becoming wreathed in a searing flame at the press of a button. Where the regular infantrymen were Normies, the templars were Trolls, members of one of two great Abnormal groups that inhabited the lands of the Oathtakers. Even without seeing their faces, their long, ankle-length arms betrayed their nature.
Out of respect, and to show that they meant no harm, the soldiers held the barrels of their weapons to the side and the maces to their shoulders. Regular green camouflage armor, with combat hazmat helmets, kept the Normies soldiers safe from most infections. The templars had no need for such protection. The helmet of their leader came apart in the front; his lenses became dim and slid into the openings in the helmet’s side, along with metal plates. A gray-skinned, dispassionate Troll nodded to the group.
“Is this your work?” His calm eyes scanned the battlefield, counting bodies. “At least twenty downed.”
“Yep! All us!” Carlos blurted out before Augustus could stop him. The boy darted to the Templars, leaving footprints on the ground, and turned his visor transparent. “We got thirty-four bastards, most of them even alive and ready to be prosecuted. Through our superior skills, we dealt with them like the weaklings they are—we barely even broke a sweat. You are most welcome to marvel and praise us for our invaluable assistance, good Oathtakers. You can start showing gratitude by prostrating yourself before us and by telling which workshop of yours is responsible for the design of your helmet; those horns of yours are majestic…” The boy halted when the Templar put his mace on his belt and grasped him by the shoulder in an iron hold.
“Your face,” the Templar said, not a hint of emotion in his voice. Augustus had worked with Trolls long enough to know that the Abnormal was shocked. “How old are you, gentle one, fifteen, sixteen years at most?” Without giving Carlos a chance to answer, the Troll tilted his head, let go of his tower shield, tore off his tabard, and placed it on Carlos’ shoulders. “Faithful. Ground every Iternian you encounter, assume you are dealing with the overzealous gentle ones. Medics. We have wounded. We need a team you can spare at my location. Command, I have an urgent revelation in need of the blessed champion’s and general’s attention…”
Augustus sheathed his weapons and started moving up the hollow, sending a silent command for Vasily and Carlos to stay here. And another command, ordering Carlos to keep his mouth shut and let Vasily do the talking. He was almost at the crest when a templar stood before him.
“Halt, friend,” the Troll said, observing crimson steam coming out of the rift in Augustus’ armor. His flesh bubbled, the torn edges overlapping as regeneration protocols activated to take advantage of the respite. “Crude, but impressive, kindred soul. Iterna’s machines are truly a gift from God.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“Out of my way.” Augustus placed a hand on his saber. “I have my students in Birchshell.”
“In the tower and on the streets, we know.” The Troll nodded and moved his hand away from his weapon, refusing to bulge. “Your worries are admirable and understandable. Yet you won’t reach the tower before the flock. And the noble general had graced our unexpected friend himself. Look and see, noble Iternian, and still all thoughts of rash actions. Your gentle ones need you alive and well.”
The Oathtakers’ systems have sent a request, and the explorator’s armor has accepted it. Augustus’ HUD filled with reports and communications chatter. The Templars had included him in the central network of the Forward Battle Group. A sign of absolute trust. The explorator copied the authorization codes for future missions.
Their unexpected allies were busy taking over the bastion. Heavily armored Trolls waded through the corridors, braving the fury of the defenders’ fire. Zombies swarmed the Oathtakers, buying time for the Condemned to fall back and reorganize their ranks. Flaming maces sliced through the corrupted flesh, setting shambles aflame. Their rotten bodies got thrown on the ground in the wake of the merciless advance, and armored boots popped the tormented bones. Normies kept in the rear, supporting the Abnormals’ advance with the occasional an overhead launch of a rocket or grenades.
Augustus saw how a troll lost his arm and his partner got bisected at the waist by a heavy anti-personnel turret installed in a hangar. The ranks of their allies had immediately closed around the wounded, taking the bluntest of attacks on their tower shields. A crusader raised a flamethrower and opened fire, melting through the turret’s armor plates and armored glass window, setting the Condemned inside ablaze. The armless troll simply picked up the missing limb and pressed it against his damaged elbow. The flesh at the ends of his horrible wounds twitched and came together, merging and overlapping. His torn muscles began to reknot, and a glimmer of white bone appeared before the grayness engulfed it. The Templar’s arm twitched, and he picked up his weapon, wearing the damaged sleeve of his power armor as a gauntlet.
The other wounded could not regenerate as quickly and was left in the company of five Normie soldiers, who fed the Troll compact field nutrient batons and gave him water as his body worked to heal the wounds. Augustus found himself astounded by the fact, despite having seen it before. Regeneration. These abnormals performed with casual ease something that had cost so much in Iterna. Even his own healing potential was but a shadow of what the Trolls could do. There were reports of Trolls surviving just from their heads alone.
Not everywhere was the situation stable. The Condemned fought for every corridor, willing to sell their lives for the highest price. In one hangar, one of their kind, an Abnormal, had lunged forward; the top of his armor exploded into shards of metal, and a gaping maw formed from his shoulders and head. This maw closed on a crusader’s round helmet, biting the head clean off and killing the troll. Several quick blows with the flaming maces had cost the Condemned one arm, but the man ignored the injuries and charged the trolls, biting the head of another.
Normies stopped him. The sergeant in charge of supporting the squad had given the order to use grenades, knocking down both their allies and the enemy with a series of explosions. His soldiers closed ranks, firing at the twitching Condemned with shotguns. Their efforts spared the trolls further carnage, but the rest of the Condemned charged in, whipped into action at the sight of prey they could kill. The bursts of automatic fire pierced several soldiers and left the sergeant on the ground, his heart torn by bullets, before the Templars and Crusaders had regrouped, throwing themselves between their allies and the gunfire and pushing the Condemned out of the hangar, trying to deny them access to the remaining vehicles.
A tank engine roared inside the hangar; its crew had managed to sneak inside amid the chaos, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The treads mowed down two trolls, leaving them with half of their bodies. The main cannon moved to aim at the Oathtakers, intending to fire at their rear and create an opening for the Condemned to push back. A six-limbed form landed on top of the tank’s tower; four arms covered by brown carapace and a common exoskeleton wrapped themselves around the barrel. The member of the Insectoid Commune had lifted the cannon, sending its shot at the ceiling, and kicked through the hatch with his leg, tossing down a grenade and earning a shot through the eye with a laser pistol. The soldier died next to the vehicle; the blast from inside threw his remains at the wounded trolls.
The Oathtakers surged in Birchshell, spreading a wall of flame in front of their advance. The Avengers, an elite crusaders’ chapter who were the first to arrive to relieve Stonehelm and the last to leave the battle, led the assault. Unlike other crusaders, these men and women wielded electric-powered gladiī and autocannons mounted on their left wrists, and the crusaders themselves were bedecked in thicker battle plates. They waded through the gunfire and hellfire created by missiles undaunted and almost undamaged, advancing so fiercely that even the Condemned were caught unprepared. The Avengers’ golden cloaks, bearing the heraldry of a crimson blade piercing a tyrant’s black skull, billowed behind the trolls’ backs. Flame itself posed no threat to their royal tabards of special material.
During the days of the siege, their leader was Brogard, a troll considered by many to be a perfect crusader and a man of many virtues. With his disappearance at the end of the siege, the chapter swelled with fresh recruits from other chapters and grew to be the largest military order among the Oathtakers. And still, no one dared to assume the mantle of Grand Master, believing that Brogard was still alive and would one day return. Instead, four countymeisters were elected, four trolls who represented the four greatest virtues of the missing Grandmaster.
One countymeister used a tower shield and a long warhammer, smiting the opposition off her path with calm and methodical swings. This woman represented the chapter’s duty and oversaw the military affairs before the battle. An armored vehicle tried to ram her, forcing the countymeister to shield herself behind the shield. At the last moment before the collision, she moved the tower shield to the side, hooked under the front of the armored carrier with her hammer, and yanked the whole thing up, tearing off some of the armor plates. Energy coalesced around her archeotech hammer, and the countymeister brought the weapon down. Her mighty swing carried the head of her hammer all the way to the generator. The machine exploded, leaving cuts and slashes at the countymeister’s armor as she moved through the rubble, sparing not a thought to a single survived Condemned, who was dragged aside to be captured. Her crusaders followed, chanting solemn sermons; their impersonal voices could be heard even through the chaos of battle.
Another countymeister represented the righteous fury; this one always led at the forefront of battle. The voice modulators of his helmet changed the dispassionate voice into roars of chilling hatred, and twin claws at his hands harvested victims, leaving mangled corpses for his troops to march on. An oracle on a parallel street has surprised a group of crusaders. The woman jumped off the roof with the speed of a bullet; her heavy armor left a red crater in the ground made of bulging concrete and the remains of a dead crusader. Without halting for a second, she spun around; new arms and appendages appeared from underneath her armor, and the oracle started tearing the trolls apart, growing stronger with each dealt wound and taken life. Augustus made a guess that the woman must’ve had some sort of power to allow for such rapid growth without sustenance.
The countymeister of fury charged through the building, exiting in an explosion of stone and violence against the woman, crushing scurrying insects beneath his feet. Her helmet collapsed, unable to support the growing muscles beneath, and the troll rammed his claws into her laughing mouth, her expression changing from glee to panic as the tips of his claws emerged from her nape. The autocannon on his wrist fired, reducing the oracle’s nose to nothing and breaking the bone. Her body jerked, convulsing with the pain of the electric shock. The countymeister started his butcher job, hacking and slashing at his opponent with such ferocity that the oracle’s few seconds of hesitation had cost her life. Limbs were severed, the chest cavity pulverized, the abdomen opened, the knees reduced to a mixture of torn muscle and bone dust, and the lower jaw torn out along with the tongue. The oracle fell, and the countymeister roared his victory to the skies and stalked off in search of fresh prey.
Behind the front forces moved the countymeister in white power armor, shielding other crusaders, templars, and even Normies with his tower shield and taking down opponents with a careful fire from his energy rifle. The warriors, under the countymeister of compassion and humility, sought to save the wounded and bring aid and relief to allies and enemies alike. Though praised as a perfect swordsman, Brogard had no recorded victories over his fellow Grandmasters, always ending the fight in a draw or surrendering outright, preferring to surround himself with friends rather than enemies. His demonstration of humility inspired the soldiers of his chapter to follow his example.
And at the bastion was the last countymeister, a woman in the most technologically advanced armor, with two mechanical arms protruding from her shoulder blades. Under her command, the forces had started placing new artillery emplacements and repurposing the defensive weapons of the Condemned against them. She represented Brogard’s inquisitiveness and open-mindedness; by her orders, the crusaders were rummaging through the terminals in the bastions, searching for the names of collaborators involved in the invasion. The precise artillery strikes made by the artillery under the countymeister’s command had opened new avenues of advance for the Oathtakers.
Four in place of one. Four, who honored the lost soul in their own way, transforming the strict monastic order into a new and flexible instrument of war. Augustus recorded their approach for Intelligence to investigate. There have been conflicting reports about the Avengers’ doctrine thus far. Like everyone else, the Oathtakers evolved.
General Crawler directed the operation. Standing amidst the corpses and slaughtering more foes, his keen eyes didn’t miss even a single misstep made by his forces. With an almost bored professionalism, the general orchestrated the advance, sending squads to assist his beleaguered troops. Under his direction, a small mobile artillery emplacement was set up in the captured sections of the bastion, and mortar fire demolished the barricades the Condemned had attempted to erect inside the city. No flaw was overlooked, and no mistake was left without a rebuke. Crawler’s forces were small, but he wielded them with the precision of a professional surgeon removing a tumor.
Now Augustus understood why Crawler had chosen to rescue his pupil in person. Not only had he put Iterna in his debt, but he had made his whereabouts known, drawing the ire of all oracles across Birchshell toward his location, splitting the enemy force in two. He could have killed the three Oracles from behind, long before they had a chance to see him. And the enemy commander realized it, too. The Condemned and a few oracles willing to listen were redirected away from Crawler and were sent to the Oathtakers’ front in a last, grand charge accompanied by tanks, mobile harnesses, and hordes of zombies. They couldn’t kill Crawler. But they could kill the regular forces, and a group of Crusaders was trapped on the ruins of the central road, caught in the crossfire of hidden heavy weapons teams and mobile armor.
The general noticed the peril of his troops and revealed his trump card. The clouds over Birchshell ripped open, and two bodies taller than a warlord in full battle gear appeared, landing on tanks and crushing the metal and crews inside. Two crimson beams shot out, slicing through the heavy weapons teams and burning everything above the waists of several soldiers. Augustus felt his heart quicken as he realized who was standing among the swirling carpets of rushing insects. The enemies understood too late; otherwise, they would never bother to fire at them. Rounds ricocheted off the brown carapace, and energy beams washed over it, unable to even heat it a little.
Oathguards. Two of them. Where the Reclaimers had a savage fighting force known as the Skinwalkers, the mad killers who occasionally answered the call of the Wolf Tribe from whose ranks they came, the Oathtakers had the Oathguards. These men and women came from the ranks of the Insectoid Commune, blessed with perfect bodies after shedding their larval forms. They didn’t have the mad genius of the Skinwalkers, nor their unimaginable regeneration or ability to take the form of others. What they did have was the speed of a Skinwalker, greater physical strength, and a nearly indestructible carapace. They had four arms and two legs, with a slightly round torso.
And a natural weapon of their own. The wing casings of these towering soldiers opened, releasing four sets of membrane wings. The Oathguards wings started vibrating, producing a sound of such frequency that it turned the advancing enemy forces into a red haze and the nearby buildings into dust. Two warriors had ended the enemy assault and located the commander, lifting the heavy energy cannons with ease. The value of the Oathguards was so great that the Oathtakers were often willing to admit defeat rather than risk their lives. Where the Skinwalkers were despised and hunted throughout the world, even by the Wolf Tribe, the Oathguards were cherished and beloved.