From the Black
God is dead...We used to have so much pride in that phrase, wise men nodded profoundly as they came to their conclusions, students shouted it from the rooftops waving flags and drink. That phrase heralded the moment that we cast off our mysticism and blind faith, it heralded the moment when we embraced the world for what it was in all of its imperfect glory. We stopped demanding that some long dead god solve our problems and smooth the way forward and we began to look for ways to do it ourselves. It was slow at first. We didn't know which questions to ask or even how to ask them. We didn't know how to rule ourselves without the omnipresent priests and divine kings. We didn't know much of anything in those early days. But slowly we learned, we learned how to ask questions and how to go about finding an answer. We learned how to govern, messily, imperfectly but over time with increasing finesse. Our empires and ideals clashed time and time again and each time we grew stronger. We connected each other first with wires and then with radios, we made black powder weapons that required less training than a bow and then we added rifling, repeating mechanisms and eventually self-loading ones. We lit the night first with gas then with electric lights and even began to fly in balloons filled with gasses lighter than air. We didn't fear our world and had long forgotten our fear of the dark. And what's more: we'd done it without our dead gods. So, we stood bathed in our electric lights in a dining room suspended by hydrogen and helium and toasted to our strength in breaking the chains our gods had placed on us and our brilliance in driving back the night.
But we should have feared the dark, not the darkness of our world but the darkness between the stars.
______
"Councillor" The alien snapped off a salute "The T'sen have deployed one of their slave armies."
"Where?"
"The fourth quadrant section...seven."
"Keep an eye on them. And... mobilize the fifth infantry. Just in case."
"Yes Sir."
______
They descended from the skies and attacked: No word was spoken nor warning given. They rained fire and death onto the white city, the oldest on our world where the gods were once believed to have walked among us, now ran red with blood. We fought back, reservists were called up and volunteers armed, but airships and artillery were no use against weapons that fired beams of light and shells that screamed from space. Still the military fought a desperate action to hold the key junctions to let civilians flee and maybe, just maybe, kill a few of the aliens.
Henri was proud of himself. He had climbed through the ranks to claim a coveted position as a working boss. He had been able to graduate from a cramped dirty windowless room outside the city to a small home in the sprawling outskirts and, had things kept going his way he might have been able to get himself an education. But now, with the world on fire and the city in ruins there was little chance of that. The Aliens, the invaders, they weren’t after prisoners or even slaves. If they were, they would have encircled the city not shelled it half way to oblivion...no they only wanted to spread death and destruction. The city center had gone first, then the factories, and then Henri saw them descend in heavier than air craft. Death squads set to the apartments, possibly mistaking them for barracks or maybe they just wanted to cut their teeth on prey that couldn’t fight back, who could fathom an alien mind.
Henri thought about running but where could he run to? He thought about hiding, but where was there to hide? He thought about suicide but...it still felt a bit early for that. His only option was to fight. He had been young when the second rising tore through the empire pitting neighbours and friends against one another but by the time it had ended he had been old enough to fight. Old enough to remember the smells and sights and sounds and the feeling his heart pounding hard enough to burst through his chest.
Inside a locked box hidden within a false bottom of a desk was arguably the most illegal thing a civilian could own: A gun. A gun that had become a symbol of the second rising. Originally used to hunt Klixa on the plains it didn’t take long before risers realized that the long barrelled six shot revolver could punch through armoured soldiers just as well as it did armoured beasts. One six shot revolver, one hundred and twenty bullets, and a steel driving hammer. With this Henri would drive the invaders from his home, his city, his country and, if needs be, his world.
Still, despite his resolve, he wished the gods had been real. The someone else would deal with the invaders before they destroyed everything he and his people had built.
Resolve and bravado were strange and fickle things that often fled when it came time for action. Their flight left Henri paralyzed before his door, hands trembling with fear and nerves leaving him with barely enough strength to hold his gun never mind fit a key into a lock. He was a steel driver in the mines. His fate was to die of black lung or be crushed in a collapse and maybe, if he was exceptionally lucky, he might live to his old age with his health and body intact. He wasn’t supposed to die fighting, wasn’t supposed to be torn apart by space invaders. Plans...he’d had so many of them, so many...but what were they worth now? What good would his intricate plans do now? It was funny really, he’d planned what to do should the military raid his district. Funny. Terrified and desperate for a solution that didn’t seem to lead to certain death, Henri began laughing. Hysterical psychotic laughter that robbed his limbs of strength and caused his legs to collapse beneath him. He laughed until his lungs burned and face ached, he laughed until every emotion had drained from him leaving him staring, glassy eyed, at the pockmarked wall. He felt in himself the same thing he saw in the eyes of the blasters, men who opened new tunnels and were first into new caverns. A sort of resignation to whatever may come and the knowledge that it might well be death waiting for them just beyond the light cast by sputtering lamps. And somehow, for some reason that Henri didn’t quite understand that made it easier. He had seen others plunge into the abyss and he could too.
In a single fluid motion, he stood, redrew his gun, unlocked the door, threw it open...and severely regretted his courage. On the other side of the door was a four-legged monstrosity covered in jagged spikes. It was no better from the front, bearing eight-inch blood slicked fangs, gore caught between its other teeth. Operating on blood crazed instinct, the beast lunged, snarling as it did, spraying Henri with half dried flesh. Panic took over and Henri pulled the trigger and a thunderclap that rivalled a howitzer shook the alley. Henri was no marksman, he hadn’t used the gun in years but...the beast had all but puts its head at the end of the barrel. The gun smoke lingered encircling Henri’s head and coating his tongue and nose, his eyes ears rang, and eyes were blinded by the echo of burning powder. Henri felt alive, alive and brave. A feeling that lasted him for all of two steps and a turn: one out of his house, another into the street, and a turn which put him in the sightline of two hulking aliens. Henri froze mind trying to catch up with his eyes, the aliens hesitated eyes darting between Henri, his gun, and the dead beast. Then they bellowed in a strange guttural language and Henri’s half-forgotten riser’s instincts took over launching himself back into his house as the alley filled with deadly light.
He knew nothing about their weapons save for the fact that they shot beams of light. He knew nothing of their armour save that it was some sort of metal. He knew nothing about them save for the fact that they looked big and strong and spoke a disgusting language that ground at his ears. Worst of all, they knew where he was and though Henri was, relatively, well of his house still had only one entrance and one exit and he didn’t have time to break down the walls. Besides...if he was going to die, he would die on his feet like a man and not cowering in the dark like a dog. Henri the steel driving man was dying, rapidly being subsumed by Henri the Riser who had fought alongside Colonel Techkovic in the Partenian Mountains.
He could hear them approaching, heavy footfalls and loud voices, Henri the Driver would have been terrified but the Riser was well used to lying in wait behind sharp corners and fighting in dark narrow tunnels and mine shafts. The first stopped by the beast, maybe they had been bonded, all the better for Henri who took aim and fired. The alien had enough time to realize its mistake before the bullet tore through its visor dropping it like so much slag. It was easier than Henri had expected. Perhaps the army was having more success than he had thought. Maybe that’s why the big guns stopped firing, the army didn’t need the artillery against them. Maybe they were terrifying in space but weak on the ground. Maybe, maybe they stood a better chance than Henri had assumed. He was learning and learning quickly. He remembered that he could kill, he remembered that he enjoyed the sick satisfaction of vengeance. He learned that the war beasts were stupid. He learned that the alien’s armour was weaker than it looked.
Then he learned that he was a fucking idiot.
The aliens weren’t weak, they were strong enough to kick the furniture he had piled in the doorway with enough force to break it against the wall. The light they fired could cut through thin cover better than bullets. He learned that vengeance was sweet but bittered quickly. Henri reached back and threw a pot, a heavy cast iron thing at the alien and dove into the doorframe where a door had been until he sold it for a couple coins a week ago. The pot made a satisfying sound as it either hit the alien or forced the alien to dodge out of the way. It bellowed, the aliens liked bellowing
Henri popped around the corner unloading catching the alien mid bellow. The first bullet caught its chest sending fragments back at Henri who nearly dropped his gun in surprise. Still, armoured or not, the shot was enough to both silence the alien and send it reeling. A second caught it in the hand, a third hit his helmet, which held, and a fourth caught the alien in the shoulder embedding itself in the armour. When no further shots were forthcoming the alien started shooting leaving Henri to utter a silent prayer that the light beams couldn’t cut through stone. An eerie silence descended when the alien finally stopped shooting. In one room an armed and armoured alien, in the other a riser with an empty revolver. And then it started laughing, its laughter much like its language: Guttural and violent. It moved through the door still laughing and completely unhurried, probably expecting to find Henri fumbling with his gun. Instead it found a twenty-five-pound sledge slamming into its head. The armour wasn’t made to absorb the force of a blow like that and neither was the body underneath. The armour cracked and the laughter turned into a scream as the alien went down still firing, a single beam of light caressing Henri’s face, a promise of the death they had brought. But death would, Henri demanded it. He swung again bringing the hammer down over the alien’s throat cutting off the screams. A third blow and both helmet and skull broke, gore clinging to the end of his hammer.
Henri’s legs crumpled for the second time. 114 bullets wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Oh, how he wished that the gods had been real.
___________
"My lord." One of the young fell to its knees before its superior more out of exhaustion than overblown respect.
"Yes?"
"The Humans they're..." It began breathlessly
"Breath child." The old one smiled.
"They're up to something."
It laughed "They're Human. They're always up to something."
“But my lord...They’re...”
The elder laughed again “Leave them.”
___________
The base was quiet, and empty. Not much for an MP to do on days like today. The previous batch of conscripts had been sent onwards and the new ones hadn't yet arrived. The careerists were off base, no doubt getting drunk in the city but that wasn't his problem. His greatest enemy was boredom, his greatest adversary the merciless sun. The only problem was their lieutenant, a man barely qualified to walk in a straight line who had, in the sergeant’s eyes, through barely concealed nepotism managed to get officers bars. If not for that jackass they could all have left to throw dice in a cool bunker or drink in a bar. But no here they were slowly boiling inside a checkpoint that no one was going to use for at least another week. He'd been through the meat grinder of the first war, the chaos of the first rising, he'd fought like a demon possessed to suppress the second rising and in return for a lifetime of service, he was left to deal with drunks, idiots and, malcontents under the watchful gaze of a moron.
Thankfully he was a moron who didn't like standing in the sun and had no fear of losing his position and so, after less than an hour, he had left to “investigate” a disturbance which was probably the arrival of a new troop of dancers at the officer’s club. Still that was enough for Zold and his mean to make themselves scarce, at least until the shift changed in twelve hours. The old mill with its cheap drinks and easy women beckoned him and his squad. They had left base, ducking behind a copse of trees which shielded them from the view of the officer’s club and were almost to their earthly paradise when the world exploded. Ships descended from the sky. Not Zeppelins nor the primitive biplanes the army was experimenting with...ships...like the largest dreadnoughts of the imperial navy but...in the sky. Sergeant Zold and his men stood, transfixed in slack jawed horror, as shells rained from above, ruination falling from the sky. It wasn’t until one of his men were struck, coating him in still warm viscera that he instinct kicked in. In the face of overwhelming attack from the sky Sergeant Zold executed his right to cowardice and ran. The other men following close behind as they vaulted trees and streams barrelling towards the old mill. The base was gone, the officers club was so much red stained dust not that that was much of a loss. Sure, there were a few good ones but...most of them were pricks promoted by the merit of connections and deep pockets. He only slowed when his feet began drumming on wood and the smell of dust faded to the still pure smell of the old forests home to the mill which was surprisingly empty. There were a few patrons, men like him who had been neglecting their duties, the staff who lived here and the dancers who had arrived in the morning. But everyone else was gone. They were on leave or had arranged to be away from the barracks. The only people here were the ones who didn’t have families.
Families...Shit.
Zold forced himself to look at the horizon which glowed red as the world burned.
Zold was a bastard who never knew his father.
Zold was a brute, that's why he was a sergeant.
Zold was an ass, that's why he no longer lived with his wife.
He swore pushing past the shell-shocked soldiers and sobbing staff and grabbed one of the heavy rifles. It was an old weapon designed during the second rising when imperial loyalists found themselves outmatched by increasingly heavy rebel armaments. Affectionately called a thirty pacer by soldiers who had had the pleasure of wielding one. It was useless beyond fifty paces but within thirty it could and did shred anyone and anything that got in its way.
Zold had been a thug who was given a choice to enlist or die.
Zold had been a grunt who survived the killing fields of the western front.
Zold was a decorated sergeant who had been shot, stabbed, and damn near killed during the risings.
And now.
Now Zold, bastard child of an unknown father was going to be big fucking hero.
He uttered a quick prayer to the gods he never cared much for, and rode off towards the sounds of guns. The river alerted him to the devastation ahead, its normally blue water becoming churned then clogged with debris and the corpses of soldiers and civilians alike. But even so, Zold wasn’t prepared for the scene that awaited him when he crested Hangman's Hill.
The city was already a ruin but the sharp staccato of gunfire and the thunder of artillery firing from some hidden position made clear that the city was still fighting and would continue fighting street for street and building for building until their last dying breath. His marriage barely passed for one and existed only as a technicality and... though he might not have always been the best father but he owed his children more than to just leave them to die.
The city outskirts where his wife lived was still mostly intact trapped between the bombed-out center and the burning apartment blocks. Even for a man as jaded and numbed as Zold burning people alive was a line he had never crossed. The closer he got the more distinct the noises became, the screams of the wounded, the wicked laughter of cruel killers, the howls of rage, the sound of steel on steel. Zold couldn’t help but chuckle as he felt his bloodlust rise, the urge to violence building, and a familiar itch running down his hand settling in his trigger finger. His people were fighting and he would be too. The smell of ash and dust, the bitter scent of gunpowder, the ferric stench of drying blood and... something else. Something sharp and somehow clean despite the apocalyptic destruction, something...alien.
He encountered his first one in an alley that ran through from the slums through the outskirts into the richer parts of town that Zold had never had reason to and now never would visit. It was looting a corpse, stupid. Nobody in a shit stinking alley would have anything worth stealing but still Zold almost felt bad for the poor bastard. Almost. Lighting and Thunder erupted from the barrel of his gun sending the alien sprawling, its armour bent inwards possibly severing its spine. A second shot from point blank range tore a fist sized hole in its armour mincing its flesh. A third, for good measure to the head, if only to deprive one widow of seeing its dead mate again. He considered taking the weapon, a useful tool if he could use it, a trophy if he couldn’t but it was a consideration he swiftly abandoned when he heard shrieks and shouts from the end of the alley. Zold swore, outnumbered at least two to one and with nowhere to hide but...he did have a really big gun and, he looked down at the corpse and smiled, a headless meat shield. Still unless they were stupid enough to walk down the first part of the alley with their eyes closed his almost twenty-pound gun was a twenty-pound paperweight. A suicidal charge was always an option but...Zold wanted to confirm that his family was dead before he strapped as many grenades to himself as possible and ran headlong into a group of their officers.
A garbage unit. Of all the things in this world to give him a second lease on life, he would never have expected it to be a garbage unit. He heard them despite the din, they were utterly unconcerned with being a quiet. It was a nice change from fighting the risers who moved like ghosts and could bring entire mountainsides down leaving thousands of soldiers to wake up with their throats slashed or buried alive.
Zold waited silently with his shield. No matter how professional the soldier, no matter how experienced, finding corpses where they shouldn’t be always drew a quiet reaction. Finding a lone mulched head drew a much louder one which usually involved shouting. Zold grinned as they approached, quickly, guns down...hopefully. Closer...closer...closer. Like a charging bull Zold roared throwing the dead alien at his compatriots coating one with whatever blood was still left in its veins. It was a brief moment, a small window in time but it was enough for Zold to raise his Pacer and fire. Thunder and lightning followed by a quick death as the alien’s helmet broke under the blow. The second alien disentangled himself him his once living friend only to find himself ducking out of the way of another body. Zold was vaguely aware of shouting from the mouth of the alley but it wasn’t important yet. He fired, the shot going wide but with the alien’s head so close to the barrel the shot was deafening. A third shot failed to even make contact with the alien’s armour, the bullet fragmented on an energy shield peppering Zold’s face with bits of metal. Shallow cuts that were quickly clogged with blood and dust. His gun obviously useless Zold drew his knife. Not really a knife, it couldn’t but worth a damn, but it did end in a diamond tipped point. Zold took pleasure every time he killed with it, a symbol of rank and power that had once belonged to a noble scion that sided with the Risers only to be cut down by a bottom feeder and have his corpse looted by a man like Zold. He launched himself at the alien before it could put enough distance between them to fire. Whatever technological mastery had protected him from bullets was insufficient to protect him from a raging blood mad Sargent. Zold went for the throat, no matter the species stab something in the neck often enough and it will, eventually, die. The first stabs cut through armour drawing for bitter smelling green blood the fourth ground into bone after the sixth stab it stopped struggling and a seventh through the visor into the head was simple insurance.
Zold pushed himself off the alien, breath ragged with the ecstasy of violence, exertion and surprise at still being alive. Especially given the alien standing at the end of the alley.
“Come ON!” Zold bellowed brandishing his knife, if he was going to get shot, he’d rather get it over with while his blood was still hot.
But the alien didn’t shoot. It didn’t even draw a gun. Instead it roared a challenge of its own and charged at Zold who picked his gun off the ground and waited. At 70 paces he’d be wasting bullets, at 50 he’d only piss the alien off, at 40 its sword caught fire giving Zold pause, at 20 Zold fired. Without armour and without its strange shield the alien was launched backwards nearly cut in two, its burning sword fell to the ground setting the stone on fire. Four dead aliens, three without their heads and the fourth nearly cleaved in two...it got to keep its head, its suicidal charged earned it that right.
As the roar of blood quieted in Zold’s head he became aware of the slowly changing sounds around him. Shells still fell from the sky but fewer and more distant. Screams and shouts were pierced and punctuated by gunfire and the omnipresent smell of blood thickened the air. Zold grabbed a smaller gun off one of the dead aliens, he knew a pistol when he saw one, and ran. He ran past the ruined buildings, destroyed by ships in orbit. Darted through alleys ignoring the sounds of violence barely sparing a glance for the dead. Then he came upon the narrow street where he had lived before making the barracks his home. It had been purged. The invaders had exterminated everyone who had lived in the alley. Doors had been kicked down, people dragged out, and systematically executed. He would have admired the efficiency and ruthless brutality if it hadn’t been his street and his people.
Three aliens, too far to shoot with a pacer, holding a woman and, for the third time in the day Zold prayed. He prayed they hadn’t cleared his house, that they hadn’t killed his family. Before he could shout, and probably get himself killed, he heard the awful sound of a Huntsman’s Revolver and instinctively threw himself behind the nearest bit of cover he could find. Originally made to hunt the largest beasts of the world it was quickly taken up by risers but the sound, the awful sound that heralded death for so many loyalists was a product of Trina del Ves. A woman who defected to the risers after her estate was occupied and laboratory destroyed. She turned a revolver into an instrument of death that, even a decade later, struck fear into the hearts of any man still loyal to the old empire. Still he couldn’t argue with the results, a beast he hadn’t noticed was torn apart and when an alien hesitated over its corpse, it had its head blown in. Poor fucker, the third alien was one of the armoured ones but… the ex-riser might be enough of a distraction for Zold to get his family out.
Zold slunk closer, there had to be more in the houses, three aliens and a beast wouldn't be enough to kill everyone. The buildings were almost unrecognizable, some had pieces missing, others were smoldering ruins, some were simply coated in debris or had their walls sagging inwards under the weight of detritus. Only the occasional number from when soldiers were billeted here during the Pretender’s War oriented Zold. His heart fell as he saw which building the woman had been dragged from. He didn’t have the heart to turn her over it was easier to make peace with the dead when you didn’t have to look into their eyes. A quick prayer for the dead was all Zold could do. He crossed the threshold in silence. His salary wasn’t much but his penchant for capturing and ransoming nobles over the course of his carrier had allowed his family the luxury of a clean, well furnished home. Unrecognizable now. It had once been a place of peace and calm in a section of the city that was often the opposite. It had carried the sweet smells of life and now...had been desecrated. Bloodstains on the floor and walls...she’d been beaten before being dragged out and shot. They’d torn the house apart looking for the others, for his...their...children. The house had belonged to a republican faction during the interregnum and they had been exceptionally paranoid. He kicked away broken bits of furniture looking for a slightly chipped floorboard. Easier said than done when everything was damaged beyond repair.
"Come on up." He shouted down, hoping that his children had survived. Time, a war, a pair of rebellions resulting in a broken empire, a war for the throne resulting in its partial restoration had destroyed his marriage. His children though, time had only improved them. Zold laughed when he saw the figures rising to meet him.
"Father!" A pair of voices. Children that would, in any other situation, been too old to embrace him leapt into his arms. He was grateful, that his children were mostly grown, they had had a childhood. And later they would make the invaders bleed but...but for now and though it was selfish, and perhaps and insult to his wife, Zold wanted to remember what life had been like in the good times when he had been young and his eldest only a thought in his and his wife’s mind.
The bell ruined the moment almost as soon as it began. It pealed over and over and over again, as if anyone would come to mass...speaking off. Zold looked out the hole in the back wall to confirm what he thought he saw: The Cathedral of the Mother of Mercy was in ruins, a not too subtle omen, but still the bell kept ringing.
"Your mother..." Zold began
"We know. We...heard" Csond's eyes didn't water, he'd already cried all his tears, even his sister had few to shed. It would have been a poignant moment if not for that gods damned bell.
"Stay here, say goodbye, she's outside and, don't die. I'm going to investigate the bell." Zold said handing his sidearm to his son. "Keep your sister alive." He added handing her a proper knife, she wouldn't be able to use the spike anyways.
Csond look at the weapon, at his father and, out the door before shaking his head "We already did...when the shelling started...I want..." He breath shook as his throat tightened "I don't want to see her now."
Zold nodded "Stay here."
The sound was coming from six houses down and Zold was impressed at the carnage. Beyond the original three another couple decorated the interior, bodies broken by massive blows from a heavy hammer or felled by shot. Zold grimaced, if his countryman was still alive, he should make contact and if he was dead, he should say a prayer. Zold kicked at the debris, broken bits of furniture and shards of plaster raising small plumes of dust and sending the broken pieces of a life skittering into the next room. Zold turned the corner, eyes darting first to the bodies on the ground and then to the figure in front of him. It was one of his own, a young man, skin scratched and torn by shrapnel, scarred from a lifetime of labour that had build strong muscles and, most importantly, he was holding a long weight of iron pointed at Zold’s head. He gave a silent prayer to the mother of mercy that this one had only inherited the revolver and never wielded it in anger or with conviction.
_____
The sound of what had probably been his dining table being kicked across the floor forced Henri to his feet. The invaders were strange. The first three he’d killed had worn armour the fourth didn’t have any protection just a strange fire sword. Probably a religious fanatic judging by the way it screamed as it charged. The fifth had cost Henri a finger and burned another scar into his face when its energy shield absorbed every chamber fired into it. But it went down the same way as the others in the end. They were prepared for firefights not being on the receiving end of a driver's hammer and he had rung like a bell as he was beaten down. The footsteps were light, probably an unarmoured one. Henri’s hammer was ready standing on its head but his arms were shaking with exertion, adrenaline, and no small amount of fear. This problem would be solved with a gun.
One of his. One of his people. It made sense that some had survived and were still moving through the ruin that the city was rapidly becoming but it still came as a surprise. He was happy for a moment until he saw the gun. An old soldier holding a pacer facing a young man holding a Huntsman’s Revolver. Under normal circumstances they would have shot each other but the sound of another district being levelled by an artillery barrage made their choices for them.
“Once they’re all dead...” Henri gestured to the corpses in the room "Once the invaders are dealt with, we'll take an accounting."
The old soldier nodded, grim face pulling into a half smile.
It was the same agreement reached between the Republicans, Monarchists, and Risers during the invasion by the Boreal Kingdoms. Each faction loathed each other but hated the Boreal Kingdoms for trying to interfere in a proper civil war and turned on them. For four years the warring factions united to shatter the vaunted armies of the Boreal Kingdoms before turning on each other.
Some say that the execution never took place as one faction, which one changes depending on who tells the story, started killing before the firing squad had done its duty.
"Zold" He offered a hand, carefully keeping his pacer pointed at the ground
"Henri" I took it and lowered my gun.
They didn’t really trust each other but, when you’re being attacked by a stronger third party that wasn’t entirely relevant. Sure, one might try and push the other in front of an alien later but...that was a problem for later. Henri knew Zold was a murderous thug of the highest order, everyone who lived through the chaos of the past decades had become one, but his children were innocent and if they were all going to die, they might as well die together.
A riser, a veteran, a child with a gun, and one too young to fight. Hardly a formidable force but there was some utility to it. Zold was able to take command of the few soldiers who sheltered around the broken fountains that had, only hours before, been surrounded by merchants, preachers, and entertainers. Now though, they were congregations for the dead and the ragged soldiers were eager to leave them behind. Henri could holler into churches that had become funeral pyres for the faithful and, when the half-armed civilians emerged from the catacombs and saw his hammer and saw his gun, they were happy to follow his lead.
The ever-fickle Mistress of Fortune watched over the growing band as they flitted between the lengthening shadows. Few alien marauders crossed their paths and of those only a single one had been shielded. The others all went down easily either riddled by bullets or with a spike through the head or a crushed chest. But it was inevitable that the Mistress of Fortune would turn her gaze away and leave them at the mercy of the Weavress. It was fitting though that they would face their fates at the banks of the mighty Destuna. The Destuna...deep, cold, merciless...it was responsible for drowning hundreds of people a year and it was guarded by two dozen aliens. No doubt the skeins of their lives had already been cut and were now being rearranged in the most pleasing pattern. Still even if Fortune had abandoned Henri and the gods had condemned Zold, neither would go down quietly.
"There. The roof. It's close enough to the river that we can shoot the firebrands and the stairs will limit how many can storm the buildings.”
Technically Zold wasn't wrong. It was, technically, a building or at least it had been. It was missing its roof most of one wall and sections of the rest. But despite that it offered better odds than charging the bridge and being gunned down like savages. Savage...the culture of the aliens must have had a brutal savage primitive culture. Nothing else could explain the devastation within. Corpses decorated with charred black wounds, clearly the work of firebrands while others had wounds that ran along their extremities towards their vital organs, intended to extend their suffering.
Firebrands...Henri hated the name. It felt far too elegant for such a savage people but it was slightly better than Zold’s nomenclature which consisted mostly of “Bastards” “Fuckers” and “Sons’a’bitches”. Still, it would have been more accurate given how many had been simply beaten to death, well beyond recognition. A reminder that the aliens would show no mercy or kindness in their quest to steal our lands.
“Those of you with long guns aim for the firebrands. Everyone else start barricading the stairs.” Henri spoke, the riser fully dominant as death approached. The resolve in his voice shored up the faltering wills of their younger members. His ancestors would look down, proud of what their final descendant had achieved.
Zold added his voice in short order and the professional soldiers snapped to order dragging debris into position while the labourers weakened key supports hoping they would break under the armoured alien’s bulk. It wouldn’t stop determined attackers but...if they could bleed the aliens, they will have fulfilled their purpose. More importantly, every second the aliens spent climbing over concrete slabs was another dozen bullets fired and once they vaulted the barricades...well none of them ever expected to live forever.
“Ready?” Zold asked
“Not at all” Henri grinned “Brothers!” He had never given a speech before and as Henri tried to formulate a speech the old soldier stood beside him.
"Murder" Zold bellowed raising his gun to the sky prompting the others to follow suit
"For the gods! For the Empire" Henri shouted, his war cry punctuated by another barrage of artillery from the far side of the river.
To Henri’s left stood resolute men ready to die. To his right stood his comrades who would embrace the bloody harvest without fear. Behind him stood the scarred soldiers of the old empire who hadn’t flinched through four wars and wouldn’t fail now. In front of them, four floors down were invaders who had come to reclaim their homeland. And for that they would be made to die. He cocked the hammer of his revolver taking aim at the firebrands clustered around a burning pile of wreckage. But before he could fire Henri saw a cloaked figure approach the bridge, indifferent to the jeering guards and their weapons. As it took its first step on the bridge its cloak caught on a loose stone pulling it from its shoulders promoting a rush of muted curses from the men on the roof prompting Zold’s soldiers to come rushing towards the edge.
Four floors down and at the edge of the river stood a god.
His brown hair was long and matted, intertwined with verdant broad-leafed ivy. His beard was thick its white colour a product of the mycelium that grew over the roots that sprouted from his chin. His skin was hard and gnarled like the bark of an ancient tree but beneath it ran the thick ropes of a predator’s muscles. His arms ended in vicious claws honed to a razors edge. A single swipe from those brutal weapons was said to have been what cleaved through the marble cliffs of Ostragon creating the bay. They couldn’t hear his words but they could feel them. The smells of an industrial war faded and were replaced by those of the deep forest where no living man dared tread and became heavy with the smells of a thousand animals and flowers. From his feet a flood of plants grew reclaiming the land and erasing all signs of bombardment and conflict. Even the bridge was quickly overwhelmed by plants, some not native to the capitol region.
Whichever direction the conversation was going the aliens were not impressed. One of the firebrands took a swipe at the Ancient Warden but before it could move more than a few inches a tree erupted from the ground impaling him. It continued to grow giving the firebrand a heartbeat to scream in agony before the tree tore through his body leaving his bones on the bark as a macabre totem to the awful power of the gods. In the sky, the birds of prey that had been circling dove towards the aliens diving too fast for them to do more than point and scream as they lost eyes to talons and chunks of flesh to their breaks. The firebrands died first and, if their screams were anything to go by, they died in agony. A few were shot by their own people who had been aiming for the birds and another few foolishly tried to brave the river and were rewarded by being dragged down by the current which seemed to only grow stronger as the fight continued.
“The Old Man of the Trees has done enough!” One of the troopers shouted “We’ll take the bridge by storm.” He finished with an impressive war cry prompting several others to join in.
“Let’s not.” Zold spoke quietly. So quiet that it was a wonder than anyone had heard him but it still gave the soldiers pause. That a normally brutal man had made no effort to hide his fear was enough to cool even the most blood crazed.
“Lost your nerve old man?” One of the soldiers said, a brave man willing to risk mocking his senior.
“If you want to meet one of the Istirla.” Zold trailed off gesturing to the bridge that still held his gaze “I won’t stop you.”
“Oh.” The soldier trailed off, pale as death’s kiss
“Fuck.” Henri swore.
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Continues Below