Bayne

What was the lad doing? He’d told him to stay put and now Bayne heard shouting and commotion. He activated the golem whose power generator he’d just upgraded, then stomped the machine over to their old campsite. Descending the rungs, he sent a white dust cloud up when his feet hit the ravaged ground. He scooped up a battleaxe from one of his fallen comrades—the contingent really shouldn’t have left without giving these soldiers a proper burial—and followed the sound of arguing, a sickening feeling growing in his gut. He hated arguments.

Although perhaps the person he was fighting with was Ivy. After leaving the boy, Bayne had searched the area where he’d last seen her with no luck. Then, as he climbed each golem to upgrade it, he’d scanned for her as well. Still no luck. Her absence was a stone in his gut.

Bayne rounded the corner to find the boy swinging his crossbow between a regal-looking Elf on a palomino mare and the Summoner on the ground, palms out in surrender. He hefted the axe and took his place at the boy’s shoulder. “Good work, lad,” he said. “I see ye’ve captured two enemies.”

“Three,” the boy chirped, nodding to a shriveled little thing on the end of a leash. It looked like a Goblin, but was smaller and more cowardly, with yellow eyes instead of purple.

Bayne dropped his axe in the dirt and pulled some wire from his pocket to tie their hands with.

“There’s no need for weapons. We mean you no harm,” the Summoner said in his maple-syrup voice. “We’re not your enemies.”

“Don’t bother, they’re too stupid to understand,” Yelora snarled from her mount.

“Get down!” the boy shouted, waving the crossbow at her.

“Wait, lad! First things first. I need to tie her hands.”

“I’m the Queen of the Elven Faire. You will regret this,” the Elf said as Bayne dragged a shortladder over to her and climbed up.

He cringed at the threat. Was she who she said she was? There was no way to be sure, although she did have a crown. Bayne wasn’t wise in the ways of Elven royalty, and since the queen hadn’t shown up at the Council meeting that day, he didn’t know what she really looked like.

Not that it mattered. He held her wrists together at her back and wrapped the wire around them tight. Queen or not, she was a prisoner now. And if she was the queen, it would be a sweet surprise for the Conclave leaders when Bayne marched into the new campsite with her in tow.

“Now ye can get down, and the boy will tell ye where to sit,” he said, making his way over to the Summoner.

“Bayne, come on. Tell this little stripling here that we’re friends.” The Summoner was turning up the charm.

“Aye, I’ll tell him that,” Bayne said, snapping the wires angrily. “As soon as ye tell me where Ivy is!”

“Ivy?” The Summoner craned his neck over his shoulder as Bayne looped the wire around his wrists. “Is that her name? The little girl?”

“Ye told her to come with ye! Ye said ye’d protect her!”

“She didn’t listen! She ran off! You did, too, as I recall!”

“It was a battle! I had a golem to drive! I trusted ye!” Bayne shoved Kashur to the ground beside the Elf and glared at him. “She could be dead!”

Stolen story; please report.

“I’m looking for her! That’s exactly what I was doing when your boy here pulled a weapon on me.”

“I’m not interested in yer excuses.” Bayne’s attention was caught by a discarded metal box on the ground. It was one of the magic dampeners he’d been hearing about. That could come in handy with these two.

With his focus on the golems, he hadn’t had a chance to take a good look at one yet, but he’d been itching to. He picked it up and fiddled with it. This one wasn’t powering up, but Bayne was confident he could fix that problem, given some time and tools.

But first things first. “Yer both now prisoners of the Dwarven and Imperial forces—” he began.

“Imperial and Dwarven forces,” the boy corrected.

Bayne ignored him. “Ye have the option of being immediately executed, or taken to the closest camp for interrogation.”

“How dare you—” the Elf raged.

“We’ll take the interrogation, thank you,” the Summoner cut in. “But how about this? First, we find Ivy.”

Bayne removed the housing on the box and studied the innards. It worked on gem tech, just like his power converter. All the connections looked good. The box was being powered by a purple crystal that had run out and crumbled to dust. That was an easy fix. “I’ll find her myself,” he grumbled.

“You’re not gonna leave us with that trigger-happy lad, are you?” the Summoner asked.

“No, he’s not,” the Elf answered primly. “Because he’s gone, too.”

Bayne glanced up from the box. She hadn’t mis-spoken. The boy was gone.

For Rubies’ sake! How was he to control a Wizard and an Elf all by himself with nothing but an axe and a spent dampener? He scanned the area for a purple crystal. There were none in sight. Crystals had become harder and harder to procure out in the wild.

And where had the boy gone?

A familiar sound cut the air—the whine of a golem powering up. Then the awkward stomping sound of a golem being poorly driven.

“What’re ye doing?” Bayne shouted, waving his arms at the boy in the cockpit. “Are ye mad?”

“This is amazing!” the boy called back. “Better than I even imagined!”

The golem arms flexed and bent, punched and swung. One fist struck a pelliote tree. Bayne covered his head as nuts rained down. “Get yer hide out of there immediately!”

“Sod off!” the boy cried. “By order of the Emperor!” He crashed off into the trees, almost toppling the machine in the process.

Bayne stood, hands helpless at his sides, and watched. Behind him, the Wizard spoke.

“Well, we’re not going to win any childcare awards today, are we?”

He spun. The Wizard and the Elf had freed themselves from their bonds, but neither looked about to cast a spell. He wouldn’t have tried to stop them if they had. He deserved whatever came to him. When it came to machines, they called him a genius. When it came to people...

Well, this is what happened.

“I have another golem,” Bayne told them, unsure what else to do. “Over there.”

“Great idea,” Kashur said as the queen mounted her horse. “I’ll go with you.”

Bayne led the way, then clambered up the rungs and into the cockpit. From this vantage point, he could see the Imperial boy’s golem crashing its way through the forest, fists punching randomly in what looked like drunken robot joy. The Wizard popped his head into the cockpit as Bayne buckled in.

“It’s a little tight in here.”

“It’s only meant for one,” Bayne growled. He’d forgotten to mention that. “You can hang on the outside.”

The Elf whistled from below, atop her mare. The Wizard waved in the direction of the lumbering golem, and she took off ahead of them, her little monster galloping beside her on all fours.

What had the world come to? What would Ruthie say, if she were here?

Bayne, ye have to learn to be flexible. Things may not go the way ye think they should, and that’s okay. Follow where the tunnel leads.

And so he would. He threw the gearshift and the golem lurched forward.

“Whoa!” the Wizard cried, followed by a laugh. “You gotta give me a warning next time!”

They thumped through the forest, following the crashing path the boy had left behind. The Elf, more nimble on her horse, wove through the trees at a breakneck pace. Bayne took a moment to feel pride in the fact that his power converter was still purring like a fat and happy cat until he saw the boy’s golem trip and pitch forward, face down onto a copse of trees, its heavy body crushing the canopies.