Left. Right. Left. Right.
Without his active participation to focus it on any one object, the hololens captured everything before him in equal detail. The closer to the canyon-fortress’s walls they came, the more he could make out. The lizardmen atop the walls were almost exclusively warriors, but there were a few builders among them, wielding crude bolt-action slug throwers. The warriors that made up the bulk of the defenders were clad in a wide variety of garments, from the most basic, mass-printed short pants, to spindly servo-suits that looked older than their wearers. A small number among them had plates that looked to be the same material as the walls bolted into their skin, those that seemed most eager for combat, to see Amalgam approaching, or perhaps both. There among them, he saw a divide. Some had a murderous glint in their eyes, already taking aim with their slug-throwers and energy projectors. Others looked like they wanted to bow down and pray, but feared what might happen if they did anything that could be considered desertion or cowardice.
The main gate, makeshift as it was, consisted of a singular, colossal piece of plating. The assembly it was mounted to looked far too haphazardly bashed together to be able to bear the strain, but it did. From his current position, he could tell that it was large enough to accommodate Amalgam, let alone the rover. He didn’t expect to just be let in the front gate, of course. The canyon-fortress was far larger in scope than he had expected, a town in its own right, its scale further compounded by the element of verticality
Left. Right. Left. Right
As he closed in, less than five hundred meters from the main gate now, it began to stir and move. Whatever was hoisting it up clearly struggled with the weight, but it still lurched upwards and begun to rise on its frame. An over-eager muzzle flash went off, and seconds later, a stream of undersized slugs pinged off Amalgam’s armor. The perpetrator roared bloody murder, but shaming stares from her compatriots made her get her righteous fury under control.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
He expected a combat formation like the one he had participated in days prior. Instead, from beyond the gate there marched three figures, one flanked by two others. The leader looked downright glorious, encased in a suit of glistening armor covered in elaborate carvings and inlays, and what appeared to be pale, nearly white synth-fiber muscle, a sign of decay resulting from lackluster maintenance over a long period of time. “Of course,” he thought, “if the regular warriors have access to old servo-suits, of course the higher echelons would get full casements.”
The helmet was shaped to resemble the head of a mythical dragon, the teeth even looked to be separate pieces. Tacky as it was, he was almost impressed that the lizard could move around in a piece this antique. With a muscular system that old and poorly maintained, most of the load was left to bear for the backup servos. Sure enough, Amalgam’s sensor suite picked up distinct whining noises whenever the armored figure moved, nearly identical to the same noises Armless’s own joints made when he first staggered out of that crashed voidship.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
The figure’s steps were deliberate. Slow. Strained.
Whoever was inside was struggling to carry the weight of their own armor.
Armless thought they were putting on a show. The theatrical hand-raise confirmed that suspicion.
The two warriors that flanked the armored one stepped forward, their slug-throwers glistening in the sun. The magazine size and muzzle diameter suggested a large caliber, and the ostentatious etchings suggested high ranks, favor with their higher-ups, or significant personal wealth. The same was the case with their armor. Highly polished plates taken from the same source as those that made up the wall and gate, fitted to their bodies and barely concealed by their long dusters. They reached up and grabbed the armored one’s helmet, helping him take it off.
Underneath, he expected to see something like Rika or Red-eye, either mostly humanoid or with a relatively flat muzzle. Instead, the helmet had accurately reflected its wearer. It was like a humanoid dragon plucked straight out of old-world story books, his scales a gleaming, opalescent blue, broken up by stark white markings. His eyes were as though a pair of embers, a fiery orange that perfectly matched the colour of the light refracted by his scales. The others couldn’t use their radios to communicate with him for fear of being listened in on, but he had a strong feeling that at least those who hadn’t served under this man were as surprised as he was. The dragon-man’s markings shone a heavenly white, and he spoke. His voice kicked up a cloud of sand, and carried so clearly Armless could hear it inside the cockpit without any assistance. “We need not fight, many-limbed one. On this day, you are welcomed in my lord’s fortress,” he said, those upon the walls falling silent in reverence. His mouth closed, but Armless continued to hear him speak. There was disdain in his tone, only barely discernible, but not directed towards Armless. “The one responsible for the antagonism against those you’ve chosen to protect has left to the nearest oasis-city to beg for reinforcements. For the time being, I am the sole commander of this fortress. You and yours will not be touched for as long as you walk the streets, I swear upon my honor,” he said. This time there was no kicked-up cloud, and his words garnered no reaction. The defenders upon the walls chattered and argued amongst themselves, but dared not initiate conflict.
Another ostentatious hand gesture prompted his bodyguards to place the helmet back on his head, and the gate continued to rise. It didn’t stop until Amalgam could pass through it unimpeded. Armless felt that this screamed ambush, but he also knew how seriously the lizardmen took their honor. He took the risk, and hoped his comrades wouldn’t come to pay for his decision.
He willed amalgam to engage its sound projectors, tuning them to the most god-like, booming voice they could muster, the sheer volume blasting up a cloud several times larger than expected.
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“Then fight, we will not,” the colossus proclaimed, and the Truthseekers listened.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
It stomped stomped through their front gate, not raising its fists or scorching the earth with un-worldly light. The way it moved was almost entrancing, too smooth to be natural. The rover that followed was decidedly less impressive, and so garnered no attention beyond the superficial glance. The inhabitants of the canyon-fortress thought it to be no more than a maintenance vehicle. A means to carry supplies and personnel for the no doubt noble knight that chose to sequester himself within the walker’s cockpit.
They hadn’t marched into the mouth of hell, but their task might’ve been easier if they had. With a single step, Amalgam caught up to the knight, and Armless effectively had no choice but to painstakingly wait for him to advance far enough before taking another step. The issue was much lesser for the rover, as it could just roll along at the knight’s walking pace. The people that had taken up firing positions on the walls had begun to leave their previous positions, some walking off into the fortress’s network of walkways, while others more brazenly followed along with to watch Amalgam.
It wasn’t all bad, though. At least Armless had plentiful time to observe and take in the canyon-fortress and its structures. The canyon itself was wide enough to easily accommodate an entire town, but with the verticality of the canyon walls, the fortress blossomed out into something approaching a small city. It had a single main road paved with slabs of the same plating that made up the walls, and smaller side streets that branched off and winded throughout the ground-level of the canyon, some paved with smaller pieces of plating, while others were just carved into the ground by years of usage. At the center of it all, a few hundred meters ahead, was a very literal town square. It was a square of plating even larger than the main gate, covered in elaborate etchings singing the praises and depicting the supposed achievements of the Ecclesiarch. The prefabbed buildings, which were differentiated by their facades and other modifications, were interconnected by networks of stairs, walkways, and elevators of various types, some rudimentary and others surprisingly well-built. Along the way he noticed the expected variety of facades. General goods store. Several bars. Butcher. Butcher? Where’d they get meat? Gunsmith. There were several larger buildings that were clearly made from multiple shells put together, one of which had the words “Town Hall” flickering on ancient LED panels above the front doors.
Partially built into the canyon walls, off to the right and left of the main square, he even saw a pair of full-scale cargo elevators. They looked to be large enough to fit many shipping containers, or even the shells of entire buildings. Further off still, at the other side of the canyon, he could make out the top of another cargo elevator. The fortress’s streets and walkways were otherwise deserted. Doors and windows closed and shuttered. It felt like he’d walked into a forest that the animals fled in the wake of a predator, only he was that predator.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
He wasn’t sure how long it took, but the knight led them all the way to the other side of the fortress, to that cargo elevator. Ten minutes, perhaps twenty. Along the way, he noticed prying eyes watching from beyond shut windows and cracked open doors, some frantic and terrified, others curious and fascinated, and yet more filled with a stunned, shuddering reverence. When Amalgam finally stepped onto the elevator, it surprisingly didn’t even creak under its weight, and the platform allowed Amalgam and the rover to stand atop it and still leave nearly half the surface area unoccupied. The knight made an ostentatious hand signal, and his guards walked to levers at opposite corners of the platform. Another signal, and they pulled the levers in perfect synchronicity, triggering a long and surprisingly smooth descent on a downward slope. It felt like it took nearly half as long to reach the bottom as it took them to walk from the gate to the elevator, and at the bottom, they were met with a tremendous cavern, or rather, a tunnel. It was illuminated by a variety of electric lights, from floodlights to edison bulbs, and there was a wide variety of machinery and supplies all around. There were clearly artificial tunnels extending off to the sides, large enough to accommodate warriors, and footpaths crisscrossed the ground. The tunnel had been further reinforced with a mixture of supports made of reclaimed structural material held together and reinforced with printed polymer components.
The tunnel went on for a while, becoming more and more level as it did. At the very bottom, he could discern something far from a natural formation. It was a surface of polished black stone, buried amongst the sandstone. In the middle of it was something that had a name in his memory, something that had tenuous attachments to the video fragments he’d sifted through. An airlock. Before he could give it any deeper thought, the knight gestured for his bodyguards to take off his helmet, and spoke out loud, with his own voice. His markings did not glow, the ground did not shake, and what came out of his mouth was not booming in the slightest. His voice was a weak rasp, the voice of an old man beaten down by a life he pretended to be larger than. “I apologize for the theatrics. Now, I am sure we have many things to dis-” he began to speak, but was interrupted. The rover’s driver-side door opened, and he had the edge of a cleaver-like bayonet to his neck, attached to a shotgun, which was attached to a positively fuming Rika, a low rumble continuously rising from her throat. “What is the meaning of this, Gilded Butcher?” she demanded to know, and a semblance of guilt flooded the knight’s face. His bodyguards raised their rifles at her, their markings beginning to glow amber, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
Vezkig and the Word-bearer weren’t far behind, both leaping out of the rover and grabbing onto her, trying to pull her away from the so-called Gilded Butcher. Though they struggled to even budge her, their efforts were sufficient to break her rage, if only briefly, but for long enough that she regained self-control. Slowly and with a shaky hand, she lowered her gun, placed it back in its holster, and stomped back to the rover, leaning up against it. Vezkig and the Word-bearer followed. The bodyguards kept their guns raised until the knight dismissed them with a gesture. He did his best to seem unmoved, but a brief sudder was evident in his voice as he began to speak once more. “I am sure we have many things to discuss, and you must have many questions to ask. Please, disembark your walker and follow me.”
“This could be a trap,” he thought, “an attempt to get me out of the walker. Collapse the tunnel on top of us, maybe.”
Once more, it all came back to honor. He knew a human tactician might have thought of this, but he wasn’t so certain the lizardmen could even consider such ambush tactics within the context of their honor code.
He made the walker kneel on its left knee, causing the knight to shrink back and confusedly fidget about before reciprocating what he had perceived as a gesture of respect. Armless dispelled the confusion by saying “It’s not a gesture, I just do this so I don’t drop as hard when I leave the cockpit.”
The knight and his bodyguards were already halfway to a kneeling position when he said it, and they chose to complete the gesture regardless before returning to a standing position.
“Amalgam, status report. Disengage dataplugs and open the cockpit hatch.”