Bayne

The golem’s controls responded as smoothly as a metal piston in a well-oiled cylinder. Bayne swiveled the machine’s right hand and worked the fingers to snatch up a Goblin. Then he reared the arm back and sent it flying over the treetops, its wail growing quieter as it soared over the canopy.

Bayne knew it wasn’t appropriate to laugh, but he did smile. The other golems had creaked to a halt, but with the converter, his was still going. That made him smile, too.

Around and below him, the battle raged. Goblins leapt atop Dwarves and Imperials, and Bayne reached down to pluck them off like ticks and either bash them against the rock face or send them flying. There were bodies everywhere. Pools of blood blighted the land. Where goblin blood soaked into the ground, the foliage died, as if their blood was made of crystal. Part of the forest was ablaze with Wizard fire gone astray, and animals streamed across the battlefield to escape it, the wolves stopping to tear into the bodies of the fallen. Goblin, Dwarf, and Imperial alike—they were all fair game.

He’d seen Ivy running for the mines and made certain she reached them. Once he’d confirmed she’d scaled the rock wall successfully, he’d turned his attention to the fight. She would be safe up there while he did his Dwarfly duty.

The power in these great ancient legs astounded him as he stomped across the battlefield, knocking foes aside with a swipe of his hand. The one thing his engineering mind did not grasp was why magic didn’t affect the golems or their drivers. Perhaps the metal itself had magic dampening technology built in.

More Goblins scaled the ridge opposite the forest fire. They kept coming. How many of them were there? How many more would the bloody Wizards make? Bayne glanced down at his machine’s great foot and realized he was about to crush the Imperial Emperor’s litter with it.

Actually, it was already crushed, partially. Was the Emperor still inside? His golem lifted the vehicle up to Bayne’s eye level, careful not to tilt it or damage it further. It was empty. Had the old man escaped? Been captured? If the Wizards got hold of the Imperial leader, that would be bad.

Wolves howled nearby, even though it was day. Bayne thought he saw a Goblin mount one like a steed. Was he seeing things? Was he going mad?

Th-th-th-th-th.

A clawed hand reached into the driver compartment, swiping at Bayne’s neck. He shoved himself back against the seat and maneuvered the golem’s opposite hand to grab it off the machine’s torso. And to squeeze.

Bayne closed his eyes as the goblin wailed, a wet sound heralding the end of its cries. At least he didn’t have to feel the squashing of its body in his own hand.

Then came a sound like thunder rolling in from distant lands. No, not thunder. Hooves! Imperials were coming on horseback to join the fight. Thank the Rubies! Perhaps he could go find Ivy now, confirm she was safe. Or maybe he should try to put out the forest fire. Or find the conclave leaders and let them send him where the golem was needed most. Actually, the smartest thing for him to do, as an engineer, would be to upgrade the generators in each of the other golems so they’d all be ready for the next fight.

The Imperial cavalry poured onto the battlefield and began their grisly work. Bayne turned off the golem and unbuckled himself. He made sure his dagger was holstered against his hip before clambering down the rungs to the ground. His feet hit dead, white soil. The desiccated exoskeletons of ants lay like punctuation marks on a land crying out its death throes.

Rubies help us! Bayne prayed, running for his campsite.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

The site was a shambles.Their tents were charred piles of cloth, victims of the raging forest fire. Dead Goblins lay all around, dripping their dark blood into the land beneath, which immediately went dry and white as a bone in the desert. Where were the Elementals? Why were they not protesting this devastation?

He kicked through the charred remains of his tent until he uncovered the uncut piece of opal. Then he went to work gathering his strewn metal tools and what was left of his hoard of purple test crystals. His circuitry kit had been trampled. Muttering, Bayne stuffed what he could find into a scavenged sack. He glanced at Ivy’s tent and the smoking bushes behind it, relieved not to see any small burnt bodies, other than the Goblins’.

She knew better than to come back in the middle of the battle, didn’t she?

Of course she did. The bairn had survived a long time on her own. It was silly of him to think she needed his guidance.

That’s what ye told yerself about Dayne, too, Ruthie’s voice in his head reminded him. That he didn’t need ye. That he would do fine without ye.

“Enough!” Bayne blustered to himself. They were at war and it wouldn’t help for him to be battling himself as well.

“Don’t move!”

He froze. The voice was coming from behind him. Slowly, he peeked over his shoulder. It was an Imperial boy, in what looked like a nightshirt, pointing a crossbow at him. His eyes were sunken, but they burned with determination.

Bayne raised his hands. “Don’t shoot me!” He suddenly wished he hadn’t left the protection of his golem, its impotent shadow falling over them.

“Where are the rest of the Imperial contingent?” the boy cried. “Which way did they go?”

“Have they left?” Bayne asked.

“They’re marching to the crash site.”

“Then we’ll follow them.”

Bayne wanted to ask him what he was doing out here. This was no place for bairns in nightshirts. Especially not sickly ones, like this pale boy with his thin, sweaty hair, sunken eyes, and dirty velvet slippers. Velvet even! But it was not his business.

Speaking of bairns.

“There’s an Imperial girl, a little younger than ye. Have ye seen her?”

“Ivy?”

“So ye know her?”

He nodded. “I haven’t seen her. Not since before the attack.”

Bayne eyed the crossbow, now lowered to the boy’s side. “Two golems were left behind. I’ll collect their power sources and upgrade them. It’ll make them last longer, and they won’t burn through the crystals, which, as we’ve seen, is bad for Terris.”

A gross understatement, that was. Everywhere they’d marched they’d seen the dead patches of land where a crystal had been consumed. The goblin blood seemed to have the same effect. The Wizards must have created them using the crystals—there was no other explanation.

The boy winced and lowered himself onto a rock. He was breathing heavily after doing what looked to Bayne like not much at all. Just maintaining himself on his feet. “I’d like to see how you do that.”

Bayne wasn’t sure he should show the Imperial boy. Of course, they were supposed to be allies now, so where was the harm in it? Ruthie would have told him it was prejudice, pure and simple, and not very becoming. The Wizards and Elves were the enemies now, not the Imperials.

Bayne spotted one of his testing boards sticking halfway out of a patch of dead white sand. He moved around a dead Goblin to fetch it, but recoiled when he saw what was growing out of the dead blotch of ground. It didn’t look like a plant, at least not like any plant Bayne had ever seen. It looked more like... wires. Thick, black wires, or the licorice whips the Imperials liked to eat, or magnified threads of fungus on the underside of a dead log. He quickly moved away from them and grabbed his circuit board.

Things were happening that he didn’t understand. Didn’t want to understand. If only Ruthie were here to deal with this new and frightening world. Bayne could go back to his workshop and make new discoveries. He would miss Ivy, though.

Ivy! Where was she? The battle had died down with the advent of the Imperial villagers. The danger was over. Why wasn’t she coming back to camp? If she wasn’t back by the time he’d completed the upgrades, he would go and look for her.

“I’ll be back soon with the power sources, and I’ll show ye how they work,” Bayne told the boy. He gestured to the crossbow. “If ye see a Wizard or a Goblin, an Elf even, ye shoot ‘em. Got it?”

The boy’s eyes hardened and he gave a stiff nod. “Don’t worry, Dwarf. I know what to do.”