"This is madness!" bellowed the hitherto unnamed sword-swinging Andronian, his voice cutting through the silence of the dead village. The air was thick with the buzzing of angry voices, each more eager than the last to spill a little blood. Some wanted to see Denor's head roll for his stupid stunt, while others—though they wouldn’t admit it out loud—found a grudging respect for his sheer bumbling audacity, even if it seemed completely accidental. In the end, common sense won the day, which, in these parts, was almost as rare as a friendly Gurruk. The mercenary lowered his blade, muttering, "this is madness!" as if expecting a response, or as if the word itself might start another fight, but he didn’t pursue it.
Ledo stood down from his fighting stance, a bemused smile still on his face. The Andronian mercs knew what battle weariness did to a man who had pushed his core to breaking point, and they weren’t eager to press the former gunsmith too hard.
"Onwards, then," Ledo grinned, his cheerful voice unnervingly out of character. He clapped his son on the shoulder, the way fathers do when they’re proud but won’t admit it unless seriously injured. “There’s no shortage of trouble lurking near the outpost. If this is madness, it’s the sort that comes with courage. When Stantych's goons showed up, I didn’t peg you for a warrior. But by Tamet, my boy, a warrior you are now. I wish I could have seen that Trunian warrior’s face when you plummeted from the skies!”
“Thank you, Ledo," Denor replied, his voice as concerned as anyone at his father’s transformation. “I shall try not to fail you at the outpost. I will carve a bloody swath through every Trunian from here to wherever it is they call home, but it still won’t satisfy the loss of our people.”
The Andronian mercs, who were growing in number like particularly tricky knotweed, gave him several slaps on the shoulder and there was much rumbling of agreement at these words.
“You’ve taken down Stantych,” the golden guide reminded him, with the kind of smile that’s more like a smirk. "Every poor soul who suffered under him would trade their last pack of rations to be in your shoes. And those you seek to avenge? Well they died opposing their oppressors to the last. They wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Better that than wasting away.”
Denor paused, staring at the man and trying to piece together why he seemed so familiar. "Sure, strange golden man," he conceded, though his voice said he wasn’t entirely convinced.
“Trust me, I know,” the golden man said, knowingly.
***
As they joined the other Andronian mercenaries on their march south, Denor arrived at the head of an invasion party to claim the outpost. "So, this is outpost," he mused.
“Er, Denor, we’ve been here several times.”
“Yes,” Denor replied, stroking his chin. “Indeed, this is the outpost.”
“Why are you telling everyone that?” Gella asked, gesturing with a hand. “We can see it’s the outpost.”
“Unmistakably so,” his father confirmed, a big grin plastered on his face that kept everyone a safe distance from him. Nobody had any right to be that happy in such a frozen waste, and he seemed to oscillate wildly between macabre and overjoyed. The sure sign of a core in need of much rest, not that he was going to get it.
"So how do we take it?” Denor asked the golden man, more curious than concerned, because to him, victory was as certain as the sunrise.
“This lot alone won’t do it,” Ledo said, surveying the force with the seasoned eye of someone who’d seen one too many battles and causing angry grumbles from the assembled mercs. “We’ll have to wait for reinforcements, then we’ll storm the place.”
“Okay,” Denor weighed in, with a tactically astute and reasoned response.
Ledo’s eyes gleamed with the unmistakable pride of a father whose son had just said something profoundly clever. “Now, that’s a war leader talking,” he said, clapping Denor on the back with enough force to dislodge a smaller man’s spine. "By Tamet, you might just lead us all one day!”
The golden man frowned. “Settle down over there.”
“Go on Denor, show the mean golden man what for!” Ledo urged. “Attack the outpost and take it single-handedly!”
“I’m not sure that’s wise…” Charan ventured, “I think the Trunians would have other ideas.”
The Trunians did in fact have other ideas. They weren’t ready to hide behind their walls just yet. Bolt throwers skulked in the shadows, and as soon as the Andronians got within range, the bolts started flying, forcing the Andronians into a retreat to a more tactically sound locale. The outpost wouldn’t fall so easily, especially now it was on high alert.
"Right, here's the plan," the golden man announced with the kind of confidence that could only come from someone who’d been perpetually glowing with ominous power from the onset. “We’ll spread out, and each of you will make a noise on my signal. That way, we won’t give the enemy much chance to make pincushions out of us before we’re inside their walls. From there we can start hunting down archers and anyone else who fancies themselves a hero.”
“Why are we spreading out?” Charan asked, because someone had to, so it might as well be him.
“To make them think that we outnumber them,” the guide responded. “Wait for the signal, then charge like your lives depend on it, because, well, they do.”
“Understood,” Denor lied, because it felt like the right thing to say.
The golden man turned to Ledo and the boy, and smiled at them, a hint of sadness in his eyes that as of yet had been completely unexplained. “It will be a pleasure to fight with you, brave warriors.”
For once, not a single soul dared to argue. The sight of the bodies piled up in the village had done wonders for their sense of teamwork. The Andronians, who were more accustomed to brawling like cats in a sack than having any tactical nuance, gathered their weapons and spread out among the treeline. Discipline was not their strong suit, but for once, they managed to organise as one, drawn forward by the promise of vengeance for the death of their people.
When the blare of the space trumpet finally sounded, the Andronians let out a collective roar that echoed off the walls of outpost, a noise that suggested there was far more of them than there actually was, they’d all had bit too much to drink, and they’d decided the best way to sober up was to charge an outpost. Denor, caught up in the frenzy, felt as though he was drunk himself. Ahead, the grim silhouette of the outpost with its energy walls loomed, and they seemed a lot larger than when he wasn’t attacking them with a handful of mercenaries.
How exactly were they supposed to break through these walls again?
That was when the golden man made his move.
***
“By Tamet, what is he doing?” Charan roared, as the golden figure proceeded to ascend into the sky.
Ledo said nothing, a film of something that definitely wasn’t tears coating his eyes.
“Do we charge?” the boy asked, noticing that none of the mercenaries had moved since the space trumpet had sounded.
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Bolts flew out from the city walls, but they didn’t seem to do anything to the floating figure. It wasn’t the only energy seeping out of the city walls.
Then, as if reading the previous sentence, the energy wall flickered and fell.
“Now!” roared Ledo, and sprinted out into the open with terrifying speed.
The Andronians pressed on by his shouts, became a roaring avalanche of steel and rage, hell-bent on tearing their land free from the grip of the invaders. The outpost had lost both its shielding and its walls, and the ramshackle metal that comprised the remaining defences were easy to climb.
The Trunians manning the walls, however, were stubborn blighters and not the sort to give up just because things looked grim. Bolts kept flying at the attackers and less of them were aimed at the glowing figure in the sky.
Denor quickly discovered that a sword is a poor match for a bolt, especially when the bolt’s in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing. He reached the top of the wall and nearly got a bolt of energy sent through him trying to close the distance with one of the throwers, but fortune smiled on him when the appearance of Gella distracted the man just long enough for Denor to stumble and accidentally drive his blade into the man’s neck. As the Trunian dropped, spurting blood like a particularly macabre fountain, another enemy stepped up to take his place. A well-aimed bolt from Charan hit this one square in the face, turning it into a mask of blood and pain. Gella, ever helpful around her future husband, ended their opponents misery with a quick thrust that definitely wasn’t a stumble.
Unfortunately for them, Stantych had been clever enough not to let the outpost walls encroach on his inner sanctum. If they charged blindly then the cleared space around it would turn into a killing ground.
This was due to the Kilru mercenaries that had just exited the sanctum. The attackers had known they would be there, they just weren’t entirely sure how they were going to deal with them when the time arrived. This meant their current options ranged from ‘grim’ to ‘no, really, very grim indeed.’
And the Andronians, with the single-minded determination of people who had spent far too much time under the heel of the Trunian occupation to be deterred now, were more than willing to foot the bill. They lurked on the walls, and prepared to face the mercenaries, no matter how many lives were lost in the process.
Okay, so technically it was two groups of mercenaries facing off against each other for credits, but this planet technically belonged to one set, so it wasn’t just about the credits.
“Denor, I’m not so sure about this,” Gella said, crouching behind the wall that was now distinctly devoid of any energy. “Shouldn’t we just leave this to the mercenaries, they seem to know what they’re doing.”
“Nonsense Gella! This is war! Besides, if they kill you then you can just come back to life anyway!”
There was an awkward silence, waiting patiently for Denor to correct himself.
“Denor?” Charan interjected, hoping that would be enough.
More awkward silence as the two groups sized each other up in the background, neither side willing to make the first move.
“It’s Charan that can’t die, I’m Gella.”
More bolts flared up from the Trunians as they attempted to dislodge the attackers from the safety of the walls.
“Huh, I guess you better avoid that then,” Denor said, pointing at the bolts arcing toward them. Then he charged.
“Denor!” Gella wailed after him before following in his exceedingly-dangerous footsteps.
***
The Andronian mercenaries were supposed to be hacking and slashing their way through the battlefield with a methodical persistence. They weren’t supposed to be standing still and eyeing the Kilru mercenaries like an unwanted house party guest that you vaguely remember from that one meeting in work.
Denor was in his element with the defending Trunians. Ledo’s axe swung through the air, with the rhythmic precision of someone chopping wood, except the wood in this case was mostly made of people. “Come on you dogs!” he bellowed, trying to urge the relucatant mercenaries to fight. “Fight for the freedom of your homeland!”
Gella was stabbing all around her with gusto, Charan was throwing bolts like they were going out of style and Denor was being his usual self, so enthused at the prospect that he had been described twice.
The Kilru had become an island of gleaming armor in a clash of Trunians and Andronians. If either of those combatants came to close, the Kilru casually hacked at them. Or anything within reach that looked vaguely hostile, which was most things. Said things soon decided to go and be hostile somewhere else.
The Andronians fought savagely, but there were only four of them under Ledo’s extended shield, while the Trunians seemed to have an endless supply of reinforcements. The Kilru were few, irreplaceable, and still distinctly uninterested in combat so long as their fellow mercenaries mirrored that indifference.
Denor was anything but indifferent. “Come on!” he roared, because that’s what you do in these situations. “Attack! Once we reach the inner sanctum, the outpost is ours!”
Unfortunately for our hero, his father had already been roaring such things for the better part of the last few minutes, and if his urgings did nothing for the mercs then a young boy’s would make no difference whatsoever.
Before Denor could realise this, a thrower loosed a bolt that narrowly missed his face and scorched the outpost wall.
Denor, taking that rather personally, was upon him, moving with the kind of speed that usually involves large felines. He grabbed the little man and, deciding that a Trunian bolt thrower makes a perfectly acceptable weapon, threw him into several other Trunians, sending them crashing down to the ground. When he was done with his impromptu weapon, Denor hurled a bolt of his own, roaring all the while. He didn’t realise he was throwing the bolt, and just kind of went with it as it seemed to be working so far.
Where Denor went, his companions followed, completely ignoring the odds and improbably protected by a manic Ledo. Meanwhile, Trunians—who had an unfortunate habit of dying when poked with pointy things—kept trying to kill them, albeit with limited success. The enemy, to their credit, knew exactly what was at stake if they didn’t hold their ground. And that made them all the more dangerous.
You could now hand it to the deceased General Stantych without him seizing it from you first—he was the sort who saw the big picture, even if that picture involved a lot of bodies. Around the outpost walls, he’d insisted on a wide, empty space, free from the usual detritus of settlements. It wasn’t that he didn’t like a booze or brothels, it was just that he liked not being invaded more. He’d affectionally called the space a ‘kill zone’ and had given orders to fire at will should the Andronians breach this area. And so, the Trunian bolt throwers, with a clear view and even clearer consciences, took shots at anything that moved—Andronian, Trunian, and even some confused birds who hadn’t planned on being part of a battle today. You see, in their mind they were expecting hordes of enemies, and so their perceptions were helpfully coloured into seeing them. Even if they looked distinctly Trunian in nature.
The Kilru and Andronian mercenaries continued to not move, and were rather large and powerful looking, so they managed to be avoided by the aforementioned bolt throwers, who had a sense of self-preservation.
"Move aside, by Tamet!" boomed a voice that could have belonged to a mountain with laryngitis. Ledo, who had been doing the bulk of the fighting, muscled his way forward, his axe as bloody as his grin was wide. "At them!" he roared, and Denor, seeing no reason to argue with a man who could probably wrestle an Aurox into submission, followed suit.
The bolt-throwers took one look at this seemingly unkillable monster and turned tail. “To the ships!” was their totally not cowardly cry.
The Kilru mercenaries shrugged, offered a nod in the direction of their contemporaries, and followed orders.
The remaining Trunians fought with a desperation that Denor had once thought reserved for people tackling Ledo’s cookery or trying to stay awake listening to Hevath’s stories. But flesh and bone have their limits, especially against Andronian steel. Charan and Ledo carved through their enemies like a scythe through particularly unlucky wheat. Gella presumably helped, and Denor was also present.
Our hero slashed, thrust, and hacked with the enthusiasm if not the efficiency of a butcher at a particularly busy market. Step by bloody step, they neared the launch pad of the entire outpost, despite the best efforts of the defenders, who threw themselves at the Andronians with all the desperation of men who had just realized they were taking on a Jade with a crazy look plastered on his face.
The soldiers tried to hold back the tide, but Ledo was having none of it. His axe took off a Trunian's head, then an arm from a passing Kilru mercenary who hadn’t involved himself in the battle, all with the ease of a man slicing through particularly annoying weeds. "Come on!" he bellowed in the guttural Trunian tones. "Who’s next to die?"
A Trunian was pushed and fell, and his back proceeded to practically scream ‘me, Ledo! Me please!’ so the former gunsmith obliged.
"Forward!" Ledo shouted, over and over, until his voice was almost lost in the din of battle, completely oblivious to the fact that it was largely him going forward and the others obediently following. Until at last, with a triumphant roar, Ledo entered the sanctum of the Outpost.
"The outpost has fallen! Soon New Titania will be ours!" he proclaimed, a conqueror in his element with wildly optimistic statements.
The hundred remaining Trunian soldiers who hadn’t involved themselves in the battle yet looked up from their playing cards and general lounging about.
“Oh,” Charan stated, realising that he was going to die a lot and very soon.
“Retreat! Retreat!” Ledo shouted, over and over, expanding his shielding even further to cover the others as the bolts came flaring out of the sanctum.
The true invasion force poured out of the sanctum, but instead of firing any more bolts at the backs of their foes, they couldn’t help but notice that the day was looking a lot brighter than when they had last been outside.
Andron VII had seemingly sprouted a second star, and it was hovering above the battlefield.
Ledo’s manic grin faded at the sight of it, and he offered a brief nod in its direction as he ran, knowing that the old man would have seen it and acknowledged it in his own way.
They had taken the bait, and the others had survived, now it was out of his hands.
“Go about your business then, you old goat,” he muttered, exiting the outpost walls and preparing for fireworks.
As if on cue, Tycho began to descend.