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Sometimes history isn't what it appears to be.
Fiction
Fantasy
Survive now. Mourn later.
The first lesson this war ever taught us.
As I trudge through the fetid swamp as fast as I can, the demons responsible for killing my companions right behind me, I keep that mantra repeated in my mind. We each have our advantages in this cat-and-mouse chase. The demons (at least some of them) have wings; I have the cover of foliage and trees. They’re fast and strong, but my soul-powered armor makes me their equal.
Well, almost.
The biggest advantage they’ve had since the beginning of this war is that they can use magic without needing devices—a skill we lost ages ago. Which reminds me, where’s my musket?
Back where you dropped it, comes the reply. A shiver travels up and down my neck. Every time my armor—or more accurately, the soul inside the gem that powers the fleshy carapace I’m enveloped in—speaks in my head, I just can’t help but wonder: was this one a volunteer or one who got volunteered? The difference can be a matter of life and death. When these things decide to get revenge, the outcome is never pleasant.
Don’t worry, David, I won’t kill you any time soon. Yeah. The “any time soon” part is what worries me.
Several bolts of fire and lightning come crashing through the treetops. I barely manage to roll out of the way, and feel a flash of heat go down my left thigh. Close. Too close.
I dive into the fetid water and sink like a rock to the bottom. My armor compensates by enclosing the “helmet,” making the visor see-through, and by filtering air. How it can do that, I have no idea. But then again, I’m not a technowizard.
I dig down into the muddy bottom and wait.
Armor wasn’t always this helpful, or treacherous. Fashioned from the cast-off chitin of the Crabfolk, they were cheaper and better than the steel plates we once wore. We had a good trade agreement, too—before the demons wiped them out. It’s the soul gems that power the armor, which makes them act as if they’re living creatures, a process the technowizards discovered soon after the Demon Invasion—when the material for the armor suddenly became scarce, then later non-existent.
At first there were plenty of volunteers for the infusion process. But volunteers became few as the war dragged on, and badly damaged armor had to get recycled, thus destroying the former soul that had once powered it. Now the “chosen” are picked from slaves or worse, criminals facing execution.
I wait an hour, long enough for them to give up the search. I cautiously make for the surface with chainsaw in hand, just in case they left a sentry. I spot the bloated floating eyeball just before my helmet breaks the water. Good. It’s looking the other way.
I take cautious, silent steps toward it. I wait until the last instance in my downswing to push the button that activates the diamond-tipped chain on my blade. As puss-filled gore sprays in all directions, and steam ejects from the holes along the handle, the orb falls to the ground in two pieces.
I miss the old days of curved steel swords and clean cuts, when finesse mattered as much as muscle. But those days ended when our swords shattered against hardened demon flesh. Now our hopes rest on diamond-tipped steam power, despite how clumsy they are to wield.
I dip once again into the swamp water to wash off the gore. But only for a short moment. I still have a quest to finish. Too bad the rest of my team won’t get to finish it with me.
Survive now. Mourn later.
“Uh, yeah; thanks for the reminder.”
You’re welcome.
“You sarcastic little—”
My body clenches in spasms as the armor constricts.
“—sexy thing you.”
She lets up. I let out a sigh of relief.
Our target’s twelve miles east of here. The armor moves my legs for me, breaking me into a run that would wear out an athlete. Before I can ask her how she knows, she replies, I can sense her.
And that scares me. Something in the infusion process makes the souls sensitive to two things: magic and demons. So either our fair damsel in distress is a demon or she’s surrounded by magical wards, neither of which is a pleasant thought.
“What type of wards?” I ask.
I’m sure there are some, but they’re still too far away to sense.
It takes a moment for my mind to process what it just received. “Wait a minute. Are you saying she’s what you’re sensing?”
Took you long enough to figure that out.
“She’s a technowizard? But why would they kidnap a technowizard? The demons always kill them on sight.”
How would I know? Maybe we can ask the next demon we meet.
So much for a simple search and rescue.
Two hours, and about ten miles, later I come to the edge of the swamp. The land slopes upward into a group of grassy hills, and on the tallest hill, surrounded by dead grass, rests an ancient tower keep. I notice the sky is darkened with clouds, and it begins to drizzle.
Panting, I sit next to a weeping willow and rest.
“Storm a keep, search a tower for the girl, and get her out while fighting who knows how many demons and evading wards as I do so. And all by myself. What fun.”
For once, the armor says nothing.
“Any ideas?”
Silence.
“I’m actually willing to listen this time.”
Be quiet. I’m thinking.
I nod and shut my eyes. “Then wake me up when you’re done.”
David, wake up.
I open my eyes and shake the grogginess from my head. Nighttime. “How long was I asleep?”
Three hours.
“Took you that long to come up with a plan?”
No. It took that long to wake you up.
My cheeks get warm. “Sorry. Been a rough day.”
I have the wards and demons located. Follow my advice and we should be able to sneak in and out without them finding us.
“Unless you know a way in other than the front gate—”
The sewer drains into the moat.
“How do you—”
My last bearer had to escape from here.
“Oh. So you—”
Just do what I say, and keep your mouth shut.
Swimming through a stagnant moat and crawling through a sewage tunnel aren’t exactly what I’ll call the highlight of my career, but at least the helmet’s still enclosed so I won’t have to smell myself. I’ll probably gag if I do.
No torches or lights, of course, but we have our own little tricks. Glowsticks. And no, I don’t know how they’re made, either. Although I did hear it has something to do with some weird vapor.
I reach down to where the glowsticks are stored on my right thigh only to feel carapace. I lick my lips then whisper, “Um, armor?”
What?
My, she’s testy tonight. “I need a glowstick.”
I hear the carapace crack open and feel a glowstick pop up against my fingers. I pull it out, feel for the knobs at the ends and give them a small twist. The immediate area around me gets illuminated by a bluish-green light.
Above me is a steel grate. I push against it, slowly applying more pressure until it pops open. The sound of creaking rusted metal makes me flinch. I leap up and onto the courtyard with my chainsaw ready.
Third-floor tower window! Quick!
I sheathe my chainsaw and close the grate, then I extend my hand. The carapace behind my wrist cracks open, and a rope-attached grapple shoots out. Bull’s-eye. I make a hasty climb up, and I’m through the window with the rope and grapple pulled back in before the sentry makes it around the tower. I duck down, cover the glowstick, and count to thirty before I look out the window. The sentry’s gone.
I step around piles of smashed metal and stone, broken gears and pipes, on my way to the door.
Now go through the door and downstairs to the basement dungeon. Be careful, though. There’s a demon guarding the dungeon entrance.
“Isn’t there always?” I can’t help but smirk.
Behave.
“Yes, Mother.”
Halfway between the first and second floor I lean over and drop the glowstick. I draw my saw, and the second I see the demon below, I drop and activate the chain. My legs land on its shoulders, and my saw tears through its skull.
The leapers are easy to dispatch. It’s the flyers that are a pain.
I roll the demon off my glowstick then tear the lock off the dungeon door.
Don’t open the door. It’s warded.
I pull my hand away from the door and bite back the urge to shiver. The last thing I need is to end up as a pile of gelatinous sludge.
The soul gem in my breastplate glows red for a moment then stops. Ward broken.
Yeah. Maybe. Wards can be a tricky thing, sometimes; at least as tricky as the armors themselves. “You, um, don’t feel suicidal, do you?”
Just open the damn door, dimwit!
Since making her angry can be even less healthy, I utter a quick apology and open the door. The portal swings open, and I’m still standing here, intact. I let out a sigh of relief and head down the steps.
When I see the damsel in one of the cells and her eyes meet mine, the armor gasps. She’s…beautiful.
“Yeah. No kidding.”
No. I mean her aura. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before. She’s filled with magic.
“Well, yeah. Technowizards usually are.”
I know that. That’s not what I mean. This is pure magic, wild, untainted.
The damsel in distress clears her throat. There’s a mirthful look on her fine-featured face. “So, are you going to rescue me, or do you plan to stand there and talk to yourself all night.”
My cheeks turn red as the armor giggles in my mind. “Er, um, yeah. I’m Sir David, Knight of the Kingdom of Ptah.”
“Brianna.” She looks at the padlock on the bars and smiles. “You can rescue me anytime now.”
“Oh, yeah.” I break the padlock off, open the door, and with a bow and outstretched hand, say, “After you.”
An ear-piercing ring erupts in the room. Despite the presence of a lady, I curse. Why didn’t you tell me it was warded?
Her aura cancelled out the ward’s aura. I couldn’t feel it.
“On second thought,” I move Brianna to the side and move forward, chainsaw ready, “after me.”
I go up the steps, keeping my run at a slower pace than I’m used to so Brianna can keep up. I slice through a demon’s torso as I exit the door. Massive claws strike my shoulder and send me crashing against a wall. And wouldn’t you know it? My saw goes flying out of my hands.
The demon—a massive half-reptilian, half-mammal behemoth—picks me up by the waist and begins to squeeze. As I beat my fists vainly against its face, its massive fanged maw opened in a roar, I hear my carapace crack. “Armor. That bomb will come in mighty handy right about now.”
My chest pocket opens up and a black ball shoots out. I catch it then strike the wick against the carapace until the wick ignites. The demon opens for another roar but ends up with my fist down its gullet.
The demon drops me and stumbles backward. “Brianna, on the floor now!” I lay flat and cover my head. Two seconds later a loud explosion makes my ears ring. When I look up, I see a headless demon on the ground and green blood splattered all over the walls.
Hopefully I won’t need any more bombs because that was my last one.
I pick up my saw, help Brianna to her feet, and then we exit the tower. I head straight for the gate, picking up speed, and slam my shoulders against it so hard my teeth chatter. The rusted pins snap and the gate falls. I lose my footing and follow its descent into the moat.
Forgot the bridge was gone, didn’t you?
Not exactly my most heroic moment.
I hear the sound of roaring demons and beckon Brianna to jump. She does.
Brianna piggybacks as I swim. By the time I reach the bank, two of the demons have already leaped across. I cut them down at a speed wrought by desperation with a screaming Brianna still on my back. Then I take off at a full run toward the swamp.
“I have a question.”
“What?” Brianna asks.
“You’re not a technowizard, so what are you?”
“I have a gift. A magical one, that doesn’t require a device to use.”
Magic? Without devices? Is it still possible? “That why the demons kidnapped you?”
“I can sense magic, real magic.” Her voice breaks up. “They were using me to find others like me.”
I hear a roar from up above. Instincts make me leap and a bolt of lightning strikes where I once stood. The thudding sounds of hooves make the ground shake.
If I can just make it to the edge of the swamp…
The armor pours on more speed for me, straining my muscles to their limits. I’ll be lucky if I don’t tear every muscle and tendon in me.
“Others like you? I thought the magi were extinct.”
“We almost were when the Cataclysm struck. We’re very few, and have been in hiding since.”
“Hiding from the demons?” I already know that question is absurd the moment I ask it. The Cataclysm happened long before I was born, long before the demons arrived. It was what made magic impossible, or so we had been led to believe.
“The demons were created by others.” Brianna places her hand on the soul gem in my armor’s breastplate. “By the very monsters that make us into this.”
I reach the edge of the swamp and stop running. Brianna hops down, and I grab her arm. “What are you saying? That the technowizards created the demons?”
She nods.
I hear the demons approach, but I no longer care. “Then why did they send us to rescue you?” At first I don’t realize I’m shaking her. “What did my companions die for?”
Brianna looks at the soul gem. “She knows why.”
“Armor, what does she mean?”
Make it a command.
“Fine. I command you to tell me what she means.”
For the first time, I detect no sarcasm from the armor. She speaks true. The only way to power the armors is by infusing the souls of magi. We volunteered at first, because it allowed us to have the power we once wielded before magic faded. But when we realized the cost, we refused. The technowizards hunted us down and enslaved us.
“Then where do the demons fit in?”
They are us. The first of the armors. They are what you and I will become…in time.
So the war has been a lie from the start. Strange. You’d think a revelation like that would leave me stunned, or numb, or something. “Let me guess. This whole “war” is just to clean up their mess.”
I see the shadowy forms of the demons descending the hill—at least thirty leapers and one flyer circling somewhere above. I look at Brianna. “Run into the swamp. Run as fast as you can, as far as you can, and don’t look back.”
“But what about—”
“Do it! Now!”
She runs.
I face the charging demons. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather go down fighting than become one of them.”
Agreed.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Mystic binding. I couldn’t tell you until you commanded me to. Just like I’m bound to not kill you and myself until the change is imminent.
I activate the saw. “I don’t think I ever asked you what your name was.”
Terra.
“Well, Terra, it was a pleasure to know you.”
I know.
I chuckle. “Sarcastic and arrogant to the end, eh?”
You know you wouldn’t want me any other way.
I nod in agreement and, with a battle cry, charge at the onrushing horde.
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Copyright 2008, Scott M. Sandridge. All rights reserved. Scott M. Sandridge learned how to write through hard work, trial-and-error, and the occasional writers' workshop. His fiction has appeared in Better Fiction Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Dragons, Knights, & Angels, Ray Gun Revival, The Sword Review, and Silver Blade; and the anthologies Distant Passages, Volume 1, The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008, and Chimeraworld #6 (New World Disorder). He also writes reviews for Withersin and The Fix, is a columnist for the Double-Edged Publishing webzines, and the Managing Editor for Fear and Trembling. More info can be found at his website.
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