At the very edge of a sunsphere’s coverage, the deadly and orange swathe of clouds transitioned into safe and vibrant rose-colored puffs lit by an Aurrian sunset, wafting into the outer reaches of City S as a westerly wind pushed them towards a distant coastline. All seemed tranquil.

  Then the tiniest extended needle of a grand war emerged, for the first time in the City’s history. A dropship, an aircraft with four engines that was a lifetime ago a luxury carrier designed to carry royalty, emerged from the wall of clouds. Two escorts were at its side, formerly civilian chariots now outfitted with a pair of Earthen-like military grade jet engines that roared into the sky. Earth felt closer to Aurra now than it had before, and yet, it was still closed off, inaccessible; untouched by one of the largest wars humanity had ever waged, in a place where it was once unthinkable.

  “Sergeant Holden,” the dropship pilot called to his passengers in the spacious hold. “We’ve entered City S airspace.”

  Xavier, his three subordinates for the day at his side, checked his sidearm and rifle again and replied, “Hope the radio’s working so you can transmit the clearance code when they ask.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You look nervous, Sarge,” Corporal Sieger said.

  The commanding field officer looked at his second in command, a brutish man nearly twice his size, and told him after a chuckle, “Just excited. We’ve been trying to pull this off for a long time.”

  Specialist Finx, an earth-aligned archer-alchemagist, prepped her bow and made sure her magnetic arrows were all aligned and stuck to her flat metal quiver. “Turning point of the war, right, boss?”

  “Potentially. Remember, we’re not here to hold it. Still can’t devote resources to a campaign like that. But if we get one, maybe two of those freighters out and on our side, it’ll be a huge victory.”

  “Means hundreds of new weapons, better food, fewer supply lines to defend,” added Private Bryant, a rifleman. “Me? I just want the food.”

  “Sad to say, manifest mentioned only a few food synthids aboard.”

  The dropship was rocked by turbulence, after which Finx commented, “Bryant, man, always thinking with your stomach. A good bow beats some potato stew any day. Holy hell, this City’s changed…”

  The others looked out of their side window like she had to see the City below. Its buildings, many of which were tall and industrial, primarily utilized a fusion of Moroccan and Greco architecture, giving the pollutant-heavy metropolis a distinct Mediterranean style, with large factory sites that refined raw synthid ore, their chimneys pumping out noxious white smoke.

  Its most distinct feature: the massive, sprawling quarries that dotted its landscape. Some were still active, filled with vehicles and excavation machines the size of skyscrapers. The old ones were either allowed to become deep lakes or were turned into sunken tiered districts filled with housing. And the City was highly defended, with anti-air cannons on many of its towers. A full-out assault on it would produce devastating losses.

  “When did you live here last again?” Sieger asked Finx.

  “Just a lifetime ago. About eighty years? Number of quarries has doubled, maybe tripled. And they’re a lot bigger, too. Global demand must be crazy. If we ever took this City, we’d crash the market.”

  Sieger stood up, grabbed his single-bladed ax that had a distinct broken edge on one side close to the handle, and strapped it to his back.

  “You okay, Sarge?” he asked, noticing Xavier wincing just a little.

  “Ah, bad memories whenever I see you holding that thing.”

  “Used to belong to some pretorian,” Finx explained to Bryant, the newbie of the group. “Wait till you see him wave it about like a paper fan.”

  Up front, the console’s radio buzzed. “Aircraft identified as Calcutta Romeo, City S is under military lockdown. All arrivals must submit a daily clearance phrase. State the code or prepare for Guard intervention.”

  “No need for that, no need,” the pilot responded, keeping his tone casual. “As you must see, we already have escorts. I’m carrying a corporate head of the synthid industry from City B, a VIP. Destination is the local commerce center, and our phrase is Sigma Charlie Tillethy.”

  “Standby.”

  “If our contact gave us the wrong code, I swear…” Finx muttered. “I’ll have to find him in my next go-around and—”

  “Give him a talking-to?” Xavier interjected. “Easy. He’s reliable.”

  “Validation accepted,” the control center said. “We’re sending you an assigned route to the commerce center. Do not deviate.”

  The console above the windshield lit up with destination markers and text instructions for each way point.

  “The suppression tower is four klicks west of the center,” the pilot explained. “Doesn’t give us much time before they react to our correction.”

  “I think we’re already in the suppression field,” Sieger noted.

  “Yeah,” Finx replied. “My urge to attack Guardsmen is softening.”

  “So, what, if Xavier can’t destroy the transmitter, we don’t get our back up?” Bryant asked, seemingly just now realizing the fact.

  “He will,” she assured him. “The sergeant is a good breaker. He’ll find a way around whatever rules it’s pumping into our heads.”

  The dropship and its escorts lowered into the City and began flying high above a busy road and between buildings. Even at their speed, S was so large that it took ten minutes just to reach the City core. To their east, they could see its tallest tower for a moment each time they cleared another urban block. The monolith was the small strike team’s destination.

  “Get ready to go off course,” the pilot said. “Doors unlocked.”

  “Weapons at the ready,” Xavier commanded. “Doesn’t matter if we can shoot them directly just yet. Suppressing fire still does a little bit of good—remember, they never know for sure we can’t attack them.”

  “Here we go,” Finx exclaimed anxiously.

  With a tight bank, the pilot made a sharp right turn towards the corporate headquarters of global synthid production, and the escorts followed. At the top was a transmitter sending a set of instructions from a datastone somewhere inside the building, telling every Aurrian citizen within the City that they couldn’t attack any Guardsman. They had still lost their global providence, but had managed to set up localized suppression fields in many areas vital to governmental operations.

  The moment that air traffic control saw the three aircraft leave their given route, every force in S that fought for the Guard was alerted—but until their target left the safety of the buildings around them, they wouldn’t be shot at by the anti-air cannons throughout the City. Maybe. They still weren’t above collateral damage and civilian casualties.

  Once the enemy interceptors had gathered behind them, the dropship escorts broke off, performing graceful Immelmann turns between the buildings to take the incoming fighter chariots head-on and protect the strike team. As tight corridor dogfights broke out behind Xavier’s crew, the dropship left safety to climb up high and get above the transmission tower. Anti-air defenses began to target and fire at them right away.

  “Hold on,” the pilot said and pushed the throttle.

  Preparing to jump out, the four members of the strike team did their final weapon checks, with Sieger sliding his muscular left arm through a thick iron brace, which he could command to take the form of a shield.

  “Looks like some rairer at the bottom of the building, guarding it,” Bryant observed through his rifle’s scope. “Guess they weren’t expecting an air drop. Wouldn’t want to tangle with those big guys.”

  “Gonna be rough,” the pilot shouted back and pulled all the way back on the stick, bringing the dropship nearly full-vertical as it climbed up the side of the brick-and-mortar skyscraper. “Ya got maybe three seconds!”

  Everyone held on tight while a few stray defense cannon bursts ripped into the tower they were now parallel with. Just before their g-force tolerances gave out, the dropship evened out and came to a sudden stop. The doors slid open, and without a moment to recover the four leapt out and hit the roof a few feet below. Once the bird departed and its engines were no longer deafening them, they could hear the loud, power line-like buzz of the nearby antenna, which was buffeted by cold gusts of wind.

  “Sieger, keep the rooftop access blocked,” Xavier ordered. “Finx, you watch the skies. Bryant, keep an eye on those rairer. They’ll probably try to scale the building. Cover me while I work.”

  They took their positions, with Sieger using his iron powers to bend the access door out of shape and keep it immobile, Bryant covering the edge of the building with this scoped rifle, and Finx on the look out for any aircraft coming their way, her bow and two arrows at the ready.

  Right after Xavier began to study the transmitter to see and feel what he was dealing with, their transport was shot down by cannon fire, its pilot ejecting before it crashed into a building and exploded. The loss was expected and planned for, though it would make their escape more difficult.

  Clearing his mind of the surrounding danger so that he could concentrate on his important work, Xavier began his mental flowchart of how to deal with the transmitter and the rules it was broadcasting. It wasn’t like the damaged central suppression in City A; it couldn’t fill the airwaves with too many laws at once. Basically, it gave any registered Guardsmen their providence and near-invulnerability, and any remaining space on its datastone had inscriptions to protect itself and the antenna.

  Can’t damage it, can’t move it, and so forth, with every variance of terms and sentence structure imaginable, all with multiple fail-safes. Xavier had to find a way to subvert a law book’s worth of rules to take it down. The last time he had neutralized a transmitter, it was a five-step specific process that let him kick the explosives into just the right spot under one of its supports. A quick mental walkthrough told him that was no longer an option—as a breaker, he could identify what his mind wouldn’t let his body do before he raised a finger, and then move onto the next idea, and the hundred other “nexts” that followed. Eventually, an answer would emerge.

  “Those rairer are coming up fast,” Bryant reported. “And I can’t even make myself shoot them. We’ll be their lunch if we don’t hurry.”

  “Bull,” Finx replied after she was forced to move her aim off of a passing nearby enemy aircraft. “You’d puff away before you’d get digested.”

  “I know how Aurra works! I’m just saying, you know?”

  “Two-lifer,” she exhaled. “Ugh, why can’t Verim just come up here and cut it down? Doesn’t providence not affect him or something?”

  “Only for living things otherwise protected by it,” Sieger answered.

  “Quiet,” Xavier ordered and tried to keep himself from worrying about the rhythmic thumping of the beasts climbing up from below them. “They’ve changed things around. I need to figure this out from scratch.”

  “Someone’s already at the door,” Sieger called out. “I don’t know how long I can hold them off.”

  “And it looks like a squadron is coming straight for us,” Finx reported. “I give us about a minute before they get here.”

  Not letting the mounting pressure coming from all sides get to him, Xavier concentrated deeply after a quick meditation, ran dozens of scenarios in his head, and then managed to find a solution. It would be a strange one, but it didn’t seem like it would be blocked.

  He slid off a boot, took out the explosives from his side pack, and stuck them inside—without the others watching, which was important. He ran the numbers, set the timer, and called out to Bryant, off to his right.

  “Hey, Private,” he shouted to him. “Sieger wanted to see if this would fit on him. Toss it over to him right away, would you?”

  Bryant caught it with his free hand, tried not to think about why it was so heavy, and chucked it to Sieger, on the other side of the transmitter. He had to throw it in a way so it would clear the antenna as to not “attack” it, but since he didn’t let himself assume a bomb was packed inside, he was able to beat the suppression and it went off right where it was meant to.

  The explosion damaged the antenna girder supports just enough, and with some help from the strong wind, the tall metal rod in the center steadily bent and toppled across the span of around ten seconds. It snapped off entirely and fell off the top of the building, just missing a rairer.

  It was instantaneous—as soon as the transmitter was down, the four recognized that they were able to fight the Guard, and their working animals. Bryant began taking straight-down pot shots at the rairer, Sieger turned his iron brace into a vertical shield, and Finx was able to take direct aim at the five attack chariots that had just entered firing range.

  “This is Holden,” Xavier said into his mouthpiece. “Suppression is down, you can commence the strike. My team is without a means of egress and needs backup. We won’t be able to hold this position for long.”

  Finx fired two arrows, which broke off towards the enemy aircraft. Regular arrows would never take them down easily, but these were infused with alchemagi and she could control them at a distance. She turned their heads into small but heavy pointed rock, slamming them into the chariots.

  “Copy, Xavier,” Commander Tabi said from her airship hiding in the clouds outside the City, as Finx’s targets crashed and burned and she prepped another strike. “We’re coming in now and will assist. Good work.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Feretta.” Xavier looked down at right foot, now protected by nothing but a sock, and let out a sigh. “But we knew the risks. The synthids are more important, if you really must leave us behind.”

  “Same old Xavier,” a familiar voice said into his ear. “Didn’t you know? You’re the most important guy in this war. Screw the synthids.”

  “Lieutenant Nolland. Good to hear you’re onboard.”

  “I’m not. We just left the Red Tenor. Hold tight, we’re coming.”

  The airship emerged from the clouds and settled over the outer reaches of the City, where it was out of anti-aircraft range and could deploy the fighters hanging off of its main cabin. It was a small vessel, built for speed considering that it was little more than a blimp with cannons.

  A sling—a larger, faster dropship—pulled ahead of the fighters and bombers and dipped down low to fly between buildings for cover.

  “All fighters, we don’t have time to take out their defenses,” a young boy’s voice said across the radio channel. “Only engage enemy aircraft, focus on securing the port.”

  “Commander Menin,” the sling pilot replied, “formally requesting permission to assist Sergeant Holden and his squad.”

  “You’ll have to talk to Sasoire about that. Change channels. Over.”

  “Copy, over and out.”

  He adjusted a dial to drop out of the frequency every other soldier was using, so that he could speak directly to the young lady that issued the orders for Garder’s elite strike team, who followed suit with their headsets.

  As the ship banked and rocked from its dramatic turns through and over city blocks, Garder checked the extendable alchemagi shield on his right wrist and gave Viveri’s old elemental sword hanging off his left side a tap. He had to change sword hands years ago, but had more than made up for it with strength training. The muscles he had built over the course of the war surprised him each time he looked in the mirror, like his body belonged to someone else. But the scar down the right side of his face, he had earned and accepted. The eyepatch was there more to hide the worst of him.

  Verim was in the next seat, his large blade strapped to his back like always. He had also changed over the war, and like Garder, his once mostly carefree personality had worn away, and he didn’t speak nearly as much as he used to. Wendell, on the other side of the carrier, had only gotten more rugged and aged, his beard longer, his preferred rifle larger.

  A girl’s voice spoke to Garder, “Nolland, the local air defenses are fully activated by now. You will be shot down if you try for the rooftop.”

  “Then we’ll go through the building,” Garder replied. “The rairer at the bottom are climbing up it, so we should be able to get inside.”

  The child that he grudgingly answered to thought for a moment and answered, “Fine. But we need you for the control center. We can only spare, maybe, ten minutes.”

  Garder wanted to argue and tell her that his friend would get all the time he needed, but he swallowed his pride and responded, “Should be in and out in less time than that. We can’t lose Xavier.”

  “What’s the plan, lad?” Wendell asked in his rough voice.

  “I’m more worried about the rairer than anything else. Wendell, get their attention with your gun, and if some of them come back down, see if you can talk them into backing off before trying to fight them.”

  “I’m so tired of talking to those creatures,” Verim said with a sigh. “It’s like speaking with a giant, slobbering brute.”

  “Yes, but you’re good at breaking their training, convincing them to go elsewhere,” Wendell said. “Better than having a tussle.”

  After a quick, intense flight through the City provided by an expert pilot, they slowed to a stop and the floor hatch opened up. The three rebels slid out of their seats and onto the pavement just outside of the corporate tower’s lobby. The sling took off, staying low with a quiet hum.

  Taking in the surrounding space from the safety of a large cubic art installation, Garder noted, “Looks like security’s already responded, and backup hasn’t arrived.” He gazed upward. “Rairer are about halfway up.”

  In order to get their attention, Wendell loaded a flare round, set a fuse, and fired into the air. It loudly exploded like a firework, setting off a dazzling display that would entice the beasts better than simply shooting at them. Three of the five heavily armored combat rairer looked down, turned around with their five legs, and began heading back to the ground.

  “All right. I’m going in,” Garder told his friends.

  “Watch out for yourself in there,” Verim cautioned.

  The lieutenant, pressed for time, rushed inside. The building was on lockdown and metal shutters were unrolled, but they were easily cut apart with a few precision air-slashes from the sword. In the lobby, sheltering in place, were a few employees; bystanders who just happened to work in the tower that the Guard had relied on for providence.

  He ignored them at first, went to the elevator, and saw that it required a key card—so he had to go back to the front desk and firmly ask for one. The secretary obliged, fearfully, and he was able to head to the top.

  Sasoire came in, “Where are you now, Nolland?”

  “Elevator, on my way. What’s going on out there?”

  “Resistance is heavier around the harbor than we predicted.”

  “Do you think the control center is still viable?”

  “Too early to say. There’s something… No, I’ll tell you later. Out.”

  His radio buzzed again the moment she finished—this time it was Verim shouting, “Garder! I think you’ve got some of those alchemagist elites just behind you—we saw four of them rushing in.”

  “Wait, what? What’d they do, run right past you?”

  Down below, Verim and Wendell stood with weapons at the ready, staring at an armored and large bull rairer looking back at them. About fifty feet from the bottom, it leapt off the building and crashed down into the plaza with a threatening roar, intent on destroying its prey.

  “We ‘convinced’ two of the rairer to leave us alone, but the big one wasn’t having it. Guess the alchemagists figured it’d take care of us.”

  “Great,” Garder groaned back. “But do try and take that thing out. I’ll be sending Xavier down soon, and you know how he feels about them.”

  “Don’t get too confident now,” Wendell said and loaded an explosive around. “Those damned wizards are getting tougher.”

  Garder arrived at the top office, which took up the entire floor and had been emptied of all its executives some time ago. His eyes went from the lavish modern baroque décor to the rooftop access stairs at the other end of the foyer, where nine or ten Guardsmen were trying to push their way onto the roof. On the other side, they were having to contend with a man swinging an ax about and knocking men off the building.

  Garder was about to run over and hit them from the back to help Xavier and his friends, but he already had new problems of his own. The second elevator, right next to the one he had taken, arrived and its doors opened to reveal the four skilled alchemagists that would want to earn the fame of taking down such a scourge of the Guard.

  They rushed out ready to help the building security, but once they saw Garder, they stopped suddenly. Looks were briefly exchanged.

  “Is that…” one of them murmured.

  Three of them were younger, maybe fresh out of the academy. The senior member of the squad was the first to react properly, bringing up a shield made of ice that he assumed would protect him. The four would be frightening opponents for most, and their intricate red and black robes indicated that they were the end result of the forbidden or other high-level alchemagi training that king Lontonkon began long ago.

  But, for Garder, they were merely foes he couldn’t simply bat aside.

  The three younger men attacked together, while the officer helped them with support spells in the form of wind at their backs to boost their speed and ice shields of their own, which he kept levitated in front of them. They covered the ground between themselves and Garder quickly.

  Before he got himself surrounded, Garder used his own native watairre talents to blast away the alchemagist in the middle back toward the elevator. His foe on the left made a small, fast vector mandala that he must have assumed the scourge had no defense against. But with his semi-apostle powers, Garder was able to form a simple yet strong triangle in the right place, breaking the mandala on impact. He took advantage of the vector adept’s stunned reaction to remotely grab the marble statuette on the nearby executive desk, and used his minimal talent in the earth alignment to turn it into a projectile. It hit him on the side of his head, either knocking him out or killing him; it would take a minute or so to know for sure.

  A little curious what the one on the right’s alignment might be, he waited to see the next attack he could counter. The recent graduate raised a single finger up behind his shoulder, out of eyesight. It was an odd but telling pre-spell position, and Garder was fairly confident he knew what was coming. He closed his eye right before the bright burst of light went off.

  This one’s assumption was that the scourge had just been blinded and was vulnerable. Before he opened his eye again, Garder heard the faint whisper of moving air and knew that his foe had traveled elementally. In a fast movement, he unsheathed his blade, positioning its sharp end behind him. It was a stupid move to turn into light and abandon the protection of ice armor whose summoner wouldn’t be able to reposition it in time. Once the rare solar adept began to materialize behind him, Garder moved his sword back to pierce his heart the moment he became solid again.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Bastard!” the last of the trio shouted when he was in range again.

  With an empty set of robes still falling to the floor behind Garder, the officer raised his remaining subordinate into the air—who formed two iron javelins out of the bracers on his wrists and came back down with the pair aimed at his foe’s neck. Garder sliced his palms when he grabbed onto their sharp edges and kept himself from being impaled, but it was worth it just to send a jolt of electricity through them and back to their creator, who toppled to the ground once he landed. He lost control of his spears, which reverted to the braces, and was finished off before he could recover by an always reliable jab of a sword, which broke straight through his ice armor.

  “You monster,” the officer grunted and prepared an offensive spell. “You’re nothing but a false apostle. Master Drides is the only true apostle. And he will lead us to victory against you murderers.”

  “He had a chance,” Garder replied. “But he’d rather hide and scheme. Tell me something. Why does City M keep sending their best, and brightest, and brainwashed out into this war just to be slaughtered?”

  In no mood for further banter, the officer launched a fusion ice-iron shrapnel attack, proclaiming, “Glory to King Lontonkon.”

  Garder raised his shield to protect his face, but just two seconds of exposure to the horizontal, blasting rain of sharp ice and metal particles was enough to inflict body-wide pain; it felt like hundreds of tiny paper cuts on any exposed skin. But the pain really only served to elevate his rage, and he reacted with a shockwave of air, mixed in with a little bit of fire alchemagi to superheat it. The ice melted, and the metal was blown away. Garder then charged at the officer, who only had time to produce one more spell.

  Pulling in all the remaining moisture in the room, he generated a forward barrier of jutting icicles that Garder would impale himself into if he kept at his running speed. But with another half of a soul inside that also helped him think faster, he remembered the marble statuette, resting on the floor next to recently vacated robes. He directed a burst of air to propel it, then accelerated it with earth control. It smashed into the frozen needles, and they broke apart right as he passed through. He immediately cut down the officer with his sword, which he had imbued with ice to make it frigid and give his attacker a taste of the cold he used on others.

  “Long live… the Guard…” he moaned before collapsing.

  To Garder, none of those he had just killed mattered; they were just in the way, a minor delay. He turned and rushed to the rooftop access, now empty of security. Worried that those waiting on the other side had been killed, he took the stairs up expecting the worst.

  Instead, Xavier’s team was just mopping up the last of them, with Sieger using his large shield to bash one right off the roof. Finx, Xavier, and Bryant had already turned their attention to the two rairer nipping at them from the side of the building. They had managed to keep the beasts off the roof itself, but weren’t having any luck loosening their grip so that they might fall off. It wasn’t really a fight worth getting involved in.

  “Xavier, the way down is clear,” Garder told them. “Forget the five-legs, go help Verim and Wendell below and wait for pick-up.”

  “Thanks, Garder,” Xavier huffed and fired off one more shot with his rifle. “Everyone, fall back. He’s cleared the way for us.”

  Dodging rairer bites, all but Finx went inside to head down. She was trying to prove herself by scoring a hit into the small gap between a rairer’s armor plates, even though she was on her last arrow.

  “Finx, what are you doing? Go!”

  Concentrating on a perfect shot with her string all the way pulled back, she muttered back, “But I can… So close…”

  “You’re trying too hard to impress us again—forget these two.”

  She sighed, nodded, and joined the rest of her squad after lowering her bow. With the roof defenders gone, the rairer were free to crawl onto it and approach Garder with growls and hisses. But his mind was elsewhere.

  With the beasts closing in on him, Garder looked out towards the harbor in the distance, where the bursts of light from the aerial firefight going on there had become too sparse and sporadic; it didn’t look like a full out assault was going on anymore. Had his side lost most of their forward attackers? Whoever was left certainly needed help.

  “Nolland,” Sasoire came in again. “Holden reports that you saved his team and they’re heading down, where we can pick them up.”

  “If they can take care of the rairer first,” Garder replied, eyeing the two almost within bite range. “I’m going to get a better look at the harbor.”

  “Negative. The area is more dangerous than we thought. Our intel was off, and we’re pulling out as soon as we can.”

  “That’s a mistake. We may not get another chance.”

  “Nolland—”

  “At least let me help out the survivors, or there won’t be anyone left to rescue. I’m going out there, kid.”

  “Do not disrespect or disobey me, Nolland.”

  He did just that and took off right before a rairer chomp would have bit him in two, blasting into the air using the same method of travel that his once-mentor Kamsa taught him long ago. He twirled to reposition himself and landed perfectly on the next tower, where he took out his powered binoculars and zoomed in, his coat flapping in the breeze.

  “Are you seeing this?” Garder spoke into his earpiece, with the binoculars sending back a video signal of the harbor to the Red Tenor. “The control center is covered in… big… vines.”

  “Yes…” Sasoire said after a sigh. “We know. We haven’t been able to get inside. Ms. Feretta, what were the vines called again?”

  Tabi, though busy with other matters, gave a few seconds to the two and answered, “Cevenicks. Bio-engineered. Basically fireproof, soaks in moisture like crazy. They’re making the place pretty much inaccessible.”

  “That’s something the Royal Botany Academy created, isn’t it? Only the pretorians should have access to it. You know what that means.”

  “Yes,” Sasoire admitted. “Connarth is probably in there, but—”

  “Good. Then we can get a pair of victories today.”

  “Absolutely not. We can’t even give you back up at this point.”

  “Won’t need any.”

  As he had done in the past, Garder turned off his connection to his many superiors and took off on his own, leaping from building to building, one after another, always landing on his feet onto every rooftop.

  Connarth, the first plant adept pretorian in sixty years, had been given his post by Queen Pristil and was an officer in the war, but his actions were anything but noble. Any chance to take him out had to be taken.

  Back down at the base of the tower, not much progress had been made against the warrior rairer, other than a few scratches and dents in its armor. Verim and Wendell were feeling a bit desperate, but upon seeing Xavier and his team running out of the building, their spirits lifted. And then they fell again when they noticed that Garder wasn’t with them.

  “What happened?” Verim shouted after blocking a clawed strike with his blade, also assuming the worst. “Where’s Garder?”

  “Ran off on his own,” Xavier yelled back and took a few shots at the beast. “You know how he is. Creature trouble?”

  “Can’t land a hit on the damned thing!” Wendell exclaimed.

  Xavier’s squad leapt in to assist, with Finx prepping her last arrow, Bryant holding back with his sergeant and trying to hit some exposed scales, and Sieger charging ahead, shield in one hand and ax in the other. The rairer was surprisingly agile for its size and despite the heavy metal it wore, it was always on the move, spinning around and threatening them with its tail-leg. Sieger managed to get close, but before he could plant the ax into its belly, he was grabbed and tossed by its rear claw.

  “Damn it, why do you have to be so difficult?” Verim shouted at the rairer and rushed over to Sieger to check his injuries.

  The beast, able to understand him, reacted with what sounded like a throaty chortle. Wendell was a little disturbed by the sight, but seeing a chance, he shook it off and grabbed the bolas hanging off his side, which had explosive spheres. He gave the rope a twirl to get them going before tossing them at one of the creature’s lower legs, where the balls wrapped up and exploded. They didn’t quite sever a limb, but the wound wasn’t pretty.

  With the rairer shrieking in pain behind him, Verim gave Sieger some medicinal herbs for his pain; he had been smashed into the side of the building but it didn’t look like he had broken anything.

  “I was close…” Sieger groaned. “Really thought I could hit it.”

  “You’re the risk-reward type, Kyth. Just didn’t pay off this time.”

  Verim turned around to study the injured animal. He then looked at Finx, still waiting for the perfect shot, and quickly came up with an idea.

  “Hey, Izae!” he called out to Finx. “I got enough seeds to tie him down, think you could uplift him and get a shot on the soft spot?”

  She looked at the ground, which given that they were in the city center meant that the plaza was made of concrete. Molding into it would be tough and drain her reserves quickly, but that was okay if Verim only had a few seeds and there was already one chance between them anyway.

  “Waiting on you!” she shouted back.

  “All right. Lift it up before it frees itself.”

  He took out his bag of vine seeds and tossed them at the rairer’s feet before it could recover, where he forced them to sprout and rapidly grow. They tangled around its legs, but wouldn’t do much good until they had something soft to grow into—so Finx did her part and after some effort and ground tremors, she was able to push the dirt and rock under the rairer upwards, fracturing the concrete and creating a spire. Before the beast had a chance to leap off to safety, Verim directed his vines to dig into the uprooted ground and pin the beast to the dirt mound.

  In a panic, it suddenly started launching the spines on its back, which fired off like missiles. They blasted up without direction, slamming into buildings and exploding into intensely burning globs of napalm.

  “Finx, take it out!” Xavier shouted. “Too much collateral!”

  With things blowing up above and around her, she had to take a moment to focus before unleashing her arrow into the beast’s underside. The sharp rock pierced just below its neck, at which point she used a quick spell to break it up into granite shrapnel that tore apart the beast’s insides. The rairer fell quiet, stopped moving, and after a few seconds vanished into orange smoke, its heavy armor slamming into the ground.

  “Damn…” Xavier grumbled, taking in the sight of the damage and burning fires. “Menin, are you there? Rairer’s down, we need a pick-up.”

  “The sling is on its way,” the boy that led the aerial forces replied. “We’re pulling everyone out. Garder’s on his own, but he’s capable.”

  Their wings arrived in under a minute, and once they were onboard and in the air, they were able to get a good look at the City following a targeted assault mission that had only last maybe thirty minutes. There were more plumes of billowing black smoke than the white smoke from the factories and refineries, indicative of the destruction they had caused.

  “Well. We’re not winning any hearts and minds here,” Finx said.

  “Does it matter?” Bryant asked from the opened side of the bird. “War’s been good for this City, super charged production and jobs. Big supporters of the Guard, yeah? Sarge is right, day was a long time coming.”

  “That isn’t…” Xavier sighed, looking at Sieger, still in pain. “I’m afraid you’re wrong about that, Private. It’s always worth doing our best.”

  “Sure, but we can only do so much,” Wendell said. “The Guard’s always done the most damage to its own people, and their homes. Big part of what instigated this whole thing, remember? As bad as it looks out there, it’s nothing compared to what we’ve seen. Entire City blocks on fire, miles of nothing but rubble, black smoke blotting out the sun…”

  “If we get these synthids, I hope it will help end this war even a day sooner,” Xavier said, crossing his arms and looking at his shoeless foot again. “After seven years, it’s become something more than just fatigue.”

  Wondering why the sky had become so quiet, Garder stopped jumping when he reached the roof of the last tall building outside of the harbor, a large warehouse. He looked back and saw that the air was empty of aircraft, meaning he would have to find his own way back.

  Unconcerned, he used his binoculars again, and with his one good eye got a closer look at the vegetation-covered control center by the ocean, purified by the City’s sunsphere. On the narrow stone bridge leading up to it, between the ships, loading docks, and metal storage crates, a lone man was locked in combat with the building’s external security—a mechanized weapon, slow-moving but dangerous, in the shape of a lobster.

  Looking to save someone from a schutz but worried about the air defenses still active at the harbor, Garder took out his demirriage scroll, waited for the carriage to form, and got inside to transport himself down to the bridge, just behind the robotic menace. He arrived just as it unleashed a barrage from the chain gun inside its body. He could hear the sound of a torrent of bullets hitting metal, and once its spool slowed down and stopped so it could cool off, he got a look at its potential victim.

  The man parted the dual shields that covered his arms, revealing his preferred weapons: large claws attached to his metal gauntlets. He was a shorter but muscular and grizzled man—some would say crazed, a berserker. It was Harken, one of the few men in the rebellion that would go one-on-one with a schutz and not think twice about it.

  “That you, Nolland?” he called out, the clockwork defender marching towards him and ignoring Garder entirely. “Here to join the fun?”

  “What happened to the others?” Garder shouted back as Harken batted away a spear that had been launched from one of the schutz’ arms.

  “Things didn’t go so good, most of ‘em got shot down. Survivors split up into those two freighters, probably trying to seize ‘em.”

  “That’s… brave.” Garder said and looked at the control center, its main door especially covered in vines. It wouldn’t be easy to get inside.

  “Gimme a minute with this thing,” Harken said after creating a fireball to destroy a whirring gyrojet bullet that the schutz had shot out. “I’ll cut those vines down for you with my claws as soon as I’m done here.”

  Having no desire to waste time helping Harken get through the robot’s thick armor, Garder decided a second time to proceed alone.

  “Sorry, I’m not going to wait around,” he told his occasional rival.

  “Don’t be crazy, that place is a death trap for you! I got a better chance against Connarth, don’t go seeking glory!”

  “You’re the crazy one, staying here alone fighting that thing. You got your hands full—I’ll go on ahead.”

  Harken let out a grunt and knocked away another gyrojet slug with his armor as Garder headed on without him.

  On closer inspection, he saw that the front door was actually open, forcibly so by thick green vines that created a barrier of vegetation. He took out his sword and prepared to spend some time cutting… only to watch as the vines moved and parted, as if just for him. Hesitantly, he walked into the dark hallway beyond, and the vines closed back up behind him.

  He knew that this was, in all likelihood, a trap. But the building was key to the entire mission. Unless he could get into the control room at the top, the shipments would never leave the harbor and get to the Angels.

  After several meters, the vines gave way to an otherwise normal and functioning municipal building, with all of the lights that hadn’t been crushed by oversized plant life still up and running. But the stairwell was blocked off, making the lone cargo elevator the only way up. He proceeded carefully with his shield up, ready for anything that might leap out at him. Booby traps, more alchemagists, an army of Guardsmen perhaps.

  Surely, even a pretorian and major Guard officer wouldn’t be so overly confident that he’d lure in a vanguard half-apostle for a duel. But it certainly began to seem that way once Garder was on his way up.

  It looked like the elevator didn’t have direct access to the control center, but rather stopped at a floor marked as a conference room, which he assumed was just below his actual destination. After a short ride, the elevator doors opened up into a large chamber that must have at one point been an amphitheater where trade commissioners from all over Aurra came to discuss the world’s largest, nearly only industry. Now it was a jungle of overgrowth, dimly lit by the few wall lamps that weren’t covered by vines.

  He walked across the tough skin of dozens of root-like tendrils and through sprouting leaves, down to the center of the theater. On the other side of the room was another, smaller elevator, left uncovered. As he made the trek, he realized just how dry the air felt. There was probably no moisture for him to work with at all—not even in the plants, as they were enhanced with alchemagi and under control by someone else. Someone, he assumed, was watching him right now, waiting to attack.

  “Just come out already, Connarth,” he called out from the middle of the room, where he knew he was the most vulnerable. “Let’s get this over with. I’ve already killed two pretorians; I don’t care about theatrics.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be dramatic, Mr. Nolland,” a stately voice responded, its sound absorbed by the vines and without echo. “Levin and Sefis underestimated you, yes, but they also met you on battlefields that gave them no advantage. I also employed some actual planning here.”

  “Lures and traps. How honorable.”

  Erin Connarth emerged from the ceiling, lowered by a serpentine vine under his control. As an officer currently in command of the City’s defenses, he wore a white uniform and had his campaign medals on display. His posture was that of a dignified leader, with his arms crossed behind his back. He had short black hair and few other distinguishable features, other than a young face, being only three years older than Garder.

  “Did you set all of this up just for me?” Garder asked him. “Am I that high of a priority? You’re willing to risk two full shipments?”

  “A small loss in the grand scheme, and I’m not expecting to lose them in any case. After all, you’re this mission’s last hope now, aren’t you? And I have no plan of letting you leave this room alive.”

  “Yeah, but seriously, I mean… all of this effort?”

  “Oh, you’re worth it, Mr. Nolland. For what you are, what the threat of your existence carries, what you’ve done to us, to Aurra… To kill a leader, one that inspires a cause, eventually no expense is too great.”

  “Then go on and try.”

  Without any pre-existing wind to work with, the sudden air slash Garder created with his sword was weak, and by the time it reached his target, it left only a faint scratch on his cheek. Connarth raised a hand, wiped the blood off and looked at it, and then used raised three fingers on the same hand. The vines in the room, arranged like a bowl of noodles, began to writhe, shift, and slither. Hoping that a quick vector line was an easy solution, Garder generated one and sent it towards the pretorian. It managed to slice through the first defensive vine that sprung up to protect him, but dissipated upon hitting the second one behind it.

  His chance for an instant victory now gone, Garder attempted to at least turn his sword into ice to make it more effective against the plants but couldn’t manage it; there was simply no water in the air to work with. The vines wrapped tightly around his feet and worked their way up, quickly immobilizing him. He slashed with the blade but couldn’t quite cut through the plants quickly enough before they ensnared him entirely.

  “You’re lucky that you were given the gifts you have,” Connarth said, lowering himself closer to Garder. “But you’re still a watairre adept before anything else, and this room is, in essence, a Venus flytrap. You see? All it took to kill you was some careful preparation. You’re not invincible.”

  Garder took on an angry scowl as his left arm, holding the sword, was forced up by a dozen smaller vines. Connarth looked at the blade, or what little he could see of it that wasn’t covered by plants, and gave it a tap with his finger. Feeling like he was being swallowed by a snake, Garder was helpless to move even an inch. The pretorian looked at him with a sigh.

  “Fine craftsmanship. I suppose it’s served you well over the years.”

  “Ask Levin and Sefis next time you see them. They got to know it rather intimately.”

  “Tsk, your affinity for unmitigated, cold-hearted violence really is unbecoming of you. What’s driving that? Is it Caeden, perhaps, speaking to you? Or has this war just truly made you so cynical?” He reached over and was about to flip up Garder’s eyepatch, but at the last moment chose not to. “You and Milla really are a mystery. It’s a shame we couldn’t study you.”

  “Go to hell…” Garder muttered.

  Connarth looked at the sword again. “I doubt Viveri, wherever he ended up, is still looking for that. I’ll dispose of it for him.”

  He commanded his plants into a crushing embrace, nearly breaking Garder’s arm. He growled in pain but knew that most of the force was going into the sword. After several seconds, it began to crack in the middle. After several more, the crystalline structure of the alchemagi-based blade broke in half. The sight and sound of the breakage triggered an emotional response. It had become a trusted friend to him, a steady weapon. Now it was nothing more than a hilt and at best, a jagged-edged knife. The broken halves were seemingly consumed by the plants and disappeared.

  “I don’t enjoy inflicting pain, not like Ms. Trinqit, but I do think you deserve some moments of deserved agony for the terrible crimes you’ve committed against the state. So… I’ll have to crush you to death. I would exhale. It will cut a few seconds off of your suffering.”

  Enraged but trying his hardest not to show it, Garder sent all of his strength into his left arm as the vines tightened around his chest. Before they became too compacted, he managed to slip his left hand out of their grasp without Connarth noticing, who stood on his personal vine only a few inches up and away to watch. The watairre adept, though hobbled in such an environment, still had a trick that relied on self-infliction and not thinking too much about the way it relied on the body.

  At the tip of his ring fingernail was a small white blade, barely noticeable against the natural keratin. He used it to slice into his palm, reopening and deepening the wound already there from before. Now bleeding, he had access to a source of water—his own. It hurt like hell, but he was able to manipulate the water inside of his arm and freeze it into a sharp, hardened blade, stained red by the blood mixed in. Grimacing as he did so, he protruded the short organic weapon from his wound and began cutting into the vines on his left side, steadily loosening their grip.

  “I want to tell you something, Mr. Nolland,” Connarth began to ramble. “I believe that everyone deserves some closure, after all. I know you’ve been looking for some for… has it been four years? Some would say that seeking answers and vengeance for that long is obsessive.”

  Knowing what the officer was referring to, Garder’s inner rage spiked, and he cut into the vines faster and harder.

  “I was the one that ordered the bombing. I realize you must have suspected, but there it is, straight from the perpetrator. Do you feel any better? Was it really worth it to come after me? Especially when all it did in the end was give me something to use against you? Don’t you tire of your endless need for revenge, or as I’m sure you’d rather call it, justice? This is war, Mr. Nolland. People die. We try to be efficient, but people will always die. For you, the bombing was worth the risk, and the lives. If you just died there—that’s how you would have honored the innocent. But you had to live, didn’t you? And I’ll tell you right here: I’d do it again. And again.”

  Feeling his rib cage begin to crack, Garder glared at a man he now considered nothing more than subhuman scum with a burning hatred.

  “You still have air in your lungs, don’t you? Before I shove it out of you, why not use it to tell me how you really feel? Curse me, Mr. Nolland. Or say your last words, share your regrets. I’ll pass them onto your sister.”

  Die was now the only word on Garder’s mind.

  “Speak, you miserable bastard. Enemy to all Aurra, scourge of the—” he was cut off the moment he felt a sharp pain in his side. He looked down and only grew confused upon seeing nothing other than Garder’s freed hand pressing against his waist. “What is…”

  Garder pulled his frozen blood-knife out, now dripping with some of Connarth’s own red life. The pretorian still wasn’t sure of just what he was looking at, and in his bafflement, wondered why there was no hilt.

  “That’s not possible…” he muttered.

  His right knee gave out from the pain, and he partially collapsed as he covered his wound. At the same moment, with Connarth’s tight control of the vines now diminished, Garder was able to break free entirely. Before the decorated war criminal in the room had a chance to recover, Garder jolted up and cleanly slashed his neck with his frozen blade.

  No longer able to speak, Connarth fell off of his vine and into the suddenly-still plant life below. Garder finally breathed out, heartily. He let go of his alchemagi control through his left arm, and the blade melted and splashed the vegetation below in his blood. Having lost a pint or two to make the weapon, he felt a bit lightheaded—but safe.

  “You all talk too much,” he grunted and watched Connarth’s body disappear. “And you… make three.”

  He tore a piece of cloth from Connarth’s uniform to use as a bandage for his hand, and then dug around in the now harmless vines until he found both parts of the sword, hoping it could be fixed. Done spending time in the trap that had been set just for him, he headed up.

  The elevator doors opened to a dark control room, illuminated only by the old pulsating monitors that were circled around it. He found the shutter release switch and pulled it, sending the metal shields that had covered the windows back up and filling the room with the dark red light of an Aurrian sunset. Their star looked weaker than ever, and if City S wasn’t so close to the equator, it would have been another bitterly cold battlefield.

  He found the harbor master’s terminal and looked out at the vast ocean and the cargo ships waiting to leave.

  “Okay, Simon… Your old program better still work.”

  He took out a data-crystal—a flat, inscribed silicon square and the Aurrian equivalent of a floppy disk. After shoving it into the drive, it loaded itself into the shipping control system and overwrote files that would both keep the freighters docked without official approval, and keep them tracked by the Guard’s vast oceanic buoy network. Now they could sail off into the distance, disappear, and re-emerge on coasts controlled by the Angels.

  Partaking in a moment of peace and watching the cargo ships disembark, Garder got back on the radio and told his CO, “Sasoire. I took the control room, and the shipments are heading out. Connarth is down.”

  “Well…” she replied after a long exhale. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I still wish you’d listen to me more often, but good work. We can’t pick you up, and the Red Tenor has already left the City outskirts. You’ll have to demirriage in when the field is offline.”

  Garder checked the pocket watch he kept on him to see that the airship would be open for only sixty seconds, in about six minutes. If he missed his scheduled window, he’d have to wait another hour.

  He brought out his scroll and let the carriage form, which given the light in the room, would take a few moments longer. While the transport took shape, he looked outside again and noticed that the freighters, now just off the coast, were splitting off into two separate directions.

  “Hey,” he spoke into his earpiece. “Aren’t both of the ships supposed to be heading to the same place?”

  “That information is restricted. I definitely can’t tell you anything over the air. Get back aboard and have a warm dinner. You’ve earned it.”

  “Copy. Out.”

  Sasoire hadn’t mentioned Harken at all, maybe assuming that he was dead or on one of the ships. Knowing he’d need a pick up, Garder first took the demirriage back to the bridge, where he saw that Harken had been victorious. He was sitting on top of the dead schutz, sipping from his flask. He had torn into the top of the machine and ripped out its brain, a cubic datastone filled with command instructions. Half the size of Harken, the block rested broken in two on the concrete next to the robot.

  “Hey, Garder,” he greeted him, without turning around as he was more interested in the sunset. “How’d it go? Kill another pretorian?”

  “All that matters is that I completed the mission.”

  “Right, right. You’re bad at modesty. One day you’ll have to let someone else get the glory, kid.”

  “You’ve killed a pretorian, too, if that’s so important.”

  “Yeah. One. They just keep popping up.”

  Garder checked his watch again. “Should I leave you here, or are you getting in the carriage?”

  Harken pocketed his flask, jumped down, and did a playful feint punch at Garder, just to see how he would react. He wasn’t so brotherly, and remained stone faced. Harken sighed and got into the light carriage.

  “You don’t really enjoy yourself anymore, do ya?” he asked as Garder followed him in. “Ya have to let in the lighter moments, bond, make war pals. If ya don’t, the death and destruction will drive ya insane.”

  The moment the second hand hit twelve for the minute of 5:37, Garder pocketed his watch and hit the nearly invisible button inside the carriage. They were warped many miles away, into the airship’s only available space meant to allow in demirriages. The Red Tenor followed Eden’s Burrow’s entry protocol, using a field to block their travel outside of a brief window, to keep anyone who wasn’t supposed to be onboard from coming in. Four armed guards kept their rifles on the arrived carriage in the middle of the bay until they properly identified the travelers.

  “Easy, boys,” Harken said and stepped out. “Yer lookin’ at today’s big war hero here. And I helped a bit, too.”

  Garder left the carriage next before it disappeared and gave the guards a stoic wave. The bay was positioned at the belly of the ship, partially outside. He could see the ground below through the bay’s grated metal floor, and the engine vibrations that rattled the thin supports made the place feel like it was about to break off. The rest of the ship wasn’t much better. It was old and built for speed and military use, not luxury.

  He stepped inside to see Sasoire waiting for him and Harken already past her, whom she didn’t have a need to bother. She was an eight-year-old officer with dark red hair, freckles, and a gray uniform. It was smaller and of a different shade, but no less formal than Connarth’s.

  The child commanders, many of whom were born just before the war began, were sought out for their minds and knowledge of modern Earthen military tactics, not their potential in combat. Even so, she had a side arm just like the others. The program had given the Angels a tactical edge at the expense of making their fighters have to put up with being ordered about by Aurra’s youngest. Garder was no exception.

  “Nolland,” she said, looking up at his tired face. “I was having my doubts. Felt like everything was riding against us. But you pulled it off.”

  “Barely.” He took out the two pieces of Viveri’s sword. “I’d like to see if this can be mended. I’m without a weapon.”

  “Hm. We’re turning west soon, to our base on Murnyr Island. I’m sure there will be someone who can work on it there.”

  “West, over the ocean? What’s going on out there?”

  Sasoire looked over her shoulder to check if the narrow metal hallway was clear, before gesturing with her eyes. “Follow me.”

  He did so, and the two ended up in the small but comfortable onboard meditation chamber. The young commanders would use the spaces to hone their recall ability, often to remember more tactics. There was just enough room inside for two—though after Sasoire had unhooked the tea table from the wall and laid in the center, it became a tight squeeze. She was typically a reserved, thoughtful, and patient child, especially after a mission when she would wind down with tea, which she poured for them.

  “I’ve just heard that we’re mobilizing a small force to take and possibly hold City W.” She took a sip of her hot drink. “It’s not a frontline assault, and the City has stayed out of it, but this move may be vital.”

  “To what?” Garder asked and waited for his tea to cool. “City W is underground, on an island, and they don’t produce anything for the war.”

  “New intel suggests that they are, or rather, will be if we don’t act soon. It took time to track him down since he fled Y, but we believe Nish Formel is now operating there. I knew that you’d want to be involved.”

  “You think he’s still advancing his Escellé cloning program?” Garder thought of Kamsa and felt that same old twinge of guilt. “Could they… possibly be entering the war soon? Hundreds of paradigm copies…”

  “That’s our fear. And, Garder,” she spoke to him more personally now that they were officially off-duty, “the timing and placement may work out in a way in which your sister and other Burrowers could join us. They’re preparing another campaign in V, which isn’t that far from W.”

  Garder stared into his tea. “I haven’t seen her in five years. She probably wouldn’t recognize me. And I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”

  “I’m sure she’s been forced to, as well. Garder, savor this brief moment of tranquility, despite this being another discussion about war.”

  “I try to…” he said and took his first sip.

  Minutes later, he joined everyone else in the mess hall, where there was comradery that he felt he could never feel again for himself. Wendell, Verim, Harken, and Xavier and his squad all welcomed him in with waves and congratulations of the victory. To him, it was just another one in a long nightmare that needed to see many more until it might end.