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Chapter Twenty-Five

The Front

Kolakolvia

Illarion Glazkov


Time ceased to exist in the yellow fog. Illarion could only see a few feet out 12’s view port.

He glanced back toward the closed vent, terrified. He had no idea how long his air would last. All he could do was try to breathe slow.

It was hot. Unbearably hot. Maddeningly hot. Sweat poured into his eyes.

Carefully, ever so carefully he walked his Object away from the edge of Trench 303. He extended the halberd out, sweeping it from side to side, like a blind man with a cane. He couldn’t even see the end of the weapon when he held it straight out.

The suit pitched back slightly, and he heard the rattle of someone trying to pull one of the hatch handles. He spun hard to the right, dislodging the attacker who’d been trying to open the suit. The Almacian gas trooper hit the ground hard and lay there stunned by the impact. Illarion dropped the halberd’s haft on his ribs so hard blood squirted out the protective suit.

Object 12 responded better to his commands than it did to anyone else, and Illarion knew he had better control than most other pilots did over their armor. He could do this. He took a few steps in what he hoped was the right direction.

Eerie figures moved in the fog, glass-eyed specters. Illarion swung the halberd at the gas troopers and sent bodies flying. One man was barely nicked, but his fall shattered one of the eye lenses, letting in the poison, and he began to thrash and wail as it ate his face.

Reflexively, Illarion gasped, and immediately regretted it. He would run out of air quickly. What had Spartok said during training? It was basically a coffin’s worth of air. A few minutes. That was all that remained of his life if he couldn’t get out of this cloud. He kept moving. Occasionally feeling the crunch of a corpse beneath his Object’s steel feet.

The fallen form of Object 15 appeared in the yellow cloud. It lay facedown, back hatch wide open. Illarion approached. What was left of the driver had melted inside leaving a glistening, wet skeleton. He’d known every member of that crew by name but couldn’t tell who it was.

With a shock, Illarion realized that the pieces of dead golem attached to 82’s face weren’t glowing anymore. They’d been destroyed. Hacked to pieces by the Almacian elite. He’d seen men killed before, but never an Object. Men died so that their Objects could keep fighting for the empire. But 82 would never be salvaged. It was gone forever.

Opposite him another Object—a large 65 painted on its shoulder—resolved. It seemed lost. Illarion silently pointed the halberd in the direction of Trench 302 and hopefully safety. Thankfully the other suit saw the gesture and moved that direction.

They could do this. Sisters have mercy upon them, the rest of the Wall could escape this. Illarion turned toward where he had last seen 110, Svetlana’s Object.

Shadows rose in the mist all around him. They weren’t big enough to be Objects, and the only other things that could possibly be alive in this haze were the enemy. He swung the halberd and felt the vibration feed back into this hand, telling him he’d killed something.

Gas-masked Almacians rushed him. Some fired rifles, and since they were inside the barrier it did nothing to slow the projectiles. Bullets spanged off steel. Other soldiers grabbed onto the leg of his machine, striking at the joints with a pickax. Others tried to throw a chain over 12’s head, to pull him off-balance. If his Object toppled, he was doomed.

These Almacians were smooth, practiced, courageous. They must have fought the Wall before. More soldiers rushed out of the fog, swarming his legs. The hatch rattled as soldiers tried to pry it open. If they got that open he’d end up a red, oozing skeleton like the last pilot he’d seen.

Only Illarion’s Object did not react in the lumbering, clumsy fashion they’d come to expect. He brought the empty cannon barrel down on the head of one, crushing his skull and snapping his spine. Inside the coffin of rapidly dwindling air, Illarion twisted the controls. 12 spun and kicked. Frail bodies were crushed underfoot. Instinctively, he crouched as low as the braces around his legs allowed, then launched his body up. He’d never seen anyone jump in the suits before, and didn’t know if it was at all possible, but he had to try something.

12 was briefly airborne. The ground shook when he landed, and most of the soldiers were thrown free. He stomped down, popping skulls and driving bodies deep into the mud. A punch from his gun arm caved in a chest. A sweep of his halberd cut three bodies into six pieces. The last man hanging onto the latches was hurled free, but unfortunately for him, he left one of his gloves behind. He hit the ground, flesh already smoking, and quickly tried to bury his hand in the mud to save it. Illarion would’ve killed him, but that would’ve taken another second or two worth of air.

He took a few steps forward, and almost fell into a shell crater. Looking down, all the body parts were skeletal messes with gelled tissue piled around them. It was a nightmare. He wanted to scream. To beg the gods for help, but he couldn’t spare the precious air. He’d thought that nothing could be worse than what he’d seen in Ilyushka, but he’d been wrong. So very wrong.

Extending the halberd, he pushed on through the swirling mists. Lesser pilots would have tripped over the bodies and wire, but Object 12 was an extension of his will, moving like a giant version of his own body, and he was no stranger to being unable to see well.

Within a few more feet, the halberd clanged against something metal. It was another Object, flat on its back, unmoving. It was 110. Its barrier was still visible to him, so the Almacians hadn’t reached it yet. The driver—possibly Svetlana—had to be trapped inside, and since the suit wasn’t moving, they were dead or unconscious.

A fallen Object was too heavy for a standing Object to lift. To risk that would be to endanger both machines. Righting an Object on its back required a crew and leverage, but there was no way that would happen before this pilot ran out of air. Regardless, the smart thing to do would have been to abandon them and save himself.

Illarion stabbed his halberd down into the mud and left it behind. Then he reached down, grabbed the fallen suit by the leg and began pulling. He wasn’t leaving Svetlana behind. He pushed his machine forward, harder than he ever had before. The temperature went from unbearable to unimaginable. He didn’t know if the Object could go any faster. All he could do was hope he was going in the right direction.

The air felt thin. Time was running out. With every step, his vision darkened. He barely noticed as he crushed more gas troops. He back-handed another with his arm cannon so hard the soldier’s head exploded.

The gas looked lighter ahead. He took a last, deep breath and held it, pushing his armor toward the light. Suddenly, they were free. In the distance, past the hordes of fleeing infantry, were the wind flags, lying limp. The wind temporarily dying was the only mercy in this otherwise merciless day. He took several more steps to make sure they were out of the gas, then turned back and saw that it was hanging there, thick and deadly, but only sluggishly creeping forward.

Thousands of Kolakolvians were running for their lives. He saw a great many Objects lumbering along with them, but not nearly enough. Others must have fallen or gotten lost in the cloud. Many of his comrades were still out there.

Illarion cracked open the vent. Cool air rushed in. He sucked it in, and didn’t immediately die. So he rolled 110 over so he could reach the hatch, and tore it open. Svetlana had been driving after all. Her eyes were closed, maybe dead, maybe just passed out, he couldn’t tell from here. He spotted some infantrymen nearby. “You there. Stop.” The Object’s magnified voice must have struck them like a command from God, because they briefly quit running. “Get this pilot out of here and get her to safety.” They hesitated, so Illarion added, “Or I swear by the Sisters I’ll kill you myself.” He leveled the arm cannon directly at the face of one of the trenchers to drive the point home. That did it, and they rushed to Svetlana’s aid.

Satisfied they wouldn’t abandon her, Illarion took one last deep breath, closed the vent, and headed back into the poison gas to try and save more of the Wall.


The Front

Kolakolvia

Natalya Baston


When Natalya first saw the yellow gas in action, it had been against animals. Those screams could never be unheard. Seeing the gas used on people was another horror entirely. The screams ripped from any soldier the gas touched would haunt her forever. And yet, she found looking away impossible.

She shot a few of the masked troops deploying the gas, but they were soon completely obscured.

Natalya adjusted to the next best series of targets, the suffering.

Her vision blurred, and she paused to wipe the tears in her eyes. No one deserved this fate. This was savagery never before seen, even in this endless war. The fighting was temporarily over. They were all fleeing the yellow fog. Almacian and Kolakolvian carried each other, their enmity forgotten for the moment. Except from what the officers were shouting behind her, a huge force of Almacians were mobilized on the other side of the gas, ready to push their advantage.

Infantry ran past her and climbed down into their trench, only they didn’t stop there. After what they’d seen, they immediately scrambled up the eastern wall and kept running. An officer bellowed for them to stop. She saw a commissar shoot one of the climbing soldiers in the back in an attempt to cow the others, but then somebody bashed that political officer over the head with a hatchet, and then they all fled.

Natalya turned back to no-man’s-land.

She couldn’t imagine anyone surviving out there. Was the Wall broken?

Is Illarion gone?

Her heart sank. Not only was the battle lost, but some of the only good people left in Kolakolvia were lost with it. Had her divination about Illarion and her fate being linked been wrong? Rolmani gods couldn’t lie to their children, but had she been too stupid to understand what they’d really meant?

Weep for the dead tomorrow, survive today. That was the Rolmani way. All she could do now was run before the wind picked up again. She didn’t want to be anywhere near this place when the Almacians broke through. Now was her chance to escape. Natalya slid down from her shooting position, past the reinforcing beams, to drop into the trench.

Her uniform caught on a nail, ripping open a pocket. Her collection of bones spilled out into the mud.

Quickly, she extended a hand to snatch up her treasures, but froze. A pressure formed in her head, causing her vision to tunnel until all she could see were white bones on the black dirt. The pattern was stark.

It was the sign of the raven.

The Goddess wasn’t done with her yet. She was to bear witness.

She snatched up the bones. Then cursing, Natalya climbed back up to her previous shooting position. The gods might not ever lie to their children, but they found many other ways to be frustrating.

Bear witness to what? The fall of Kolakolvia? Not that having the Tsar overthrown would be a bad thing, except knowing that monster he’d probably order all his political prisoners executed just out of spite, rather than free a single Rolmani hostage.

The putrid smoke wasn’t dissipating. The Almacians had to be releasing more of their poison for it to be so thick. She scanned across the battlefield. There were many Objects headed this way, but she couldn’t spot 12. Then she looked toward the nearest wind flag, hanging limp. If that changed to the east, damn the bones, she wasn’t going to stay here and get her skin burned off.

The gas swirled, parted, and an Object burst out of it, dragging a second suit of the walking armor by its leg. Moving her rifle over, she peered through the scope. There was a large number 12 painted on its shoulder.

Natalya sank back into the mud, relief flooding her.

The driver had to be Illarion, because in all the many times she’d seen the Objects of the Wall operate, she’d never seen this one move this quickly. The clanking, metal giants were awkward, slow, swaying things, but not this one. It moved almost like it was a man.

A desperate, angry man.

Once safely away from the gas, Object 12 stopped, flipped the fallen suit over, and tore open the hatch so the driver inside—if they were still alive—could breathe. Then 12 turned back, staring at the cloud of death it had just exited from, and went right back in.

She knew what he was doing. Too many nights, sitting around a campfire, listening to him talk about the waste of war, the cost of lives, he would not rest until he helped everyone he could. He would not stop as long as there might be someone else lost in the fog. Any other man, and she would’ve cursed him as a fool. But she knew Illarion would survive. It was written in the bones. Watching Illarion run back into the noxious gas, she also felt something in her chest she hadn’t felt in years.

Pride.

Three times Object 12 came either leading or carrying another suit. Each time, Illarion would pause only long enough to replenish his air, and then he’d charge back in.

Illarion would call it atonement.

Natalya called it courage.

Not all of the soldiers had fled, and those who remained saw what 12 was doing and began to cheer him on. The fresh smile on Natalya’s face slowly faded away as she felt the shift in wind. The small flag ahead of her began to flicker.

Death was coming for them.


The Front

Kolakolvia

Illarion Glazkov


Object 12 stumbled out of the poison and made it several big steps before he dropped the other suit—its number was too obscured with blood and filth to read it—and tore open the hatch. The driver was unmoving and blue, probably already asphyxiated.

Illarion was delirious from the heat. His body had run out of water. Despite needing to close the vents, his breathing was rapid and shallow. He was dizzy and near passing out. But he couldn’t stop. Surely anyone left out there was dead from the lack of air, but even if he couldn’t save the driver, he could at least save their Object from meeting the same fate as 82, with its golem letters smashed, and magic torn away forever. The whispers screamed at him to save the other Objects.

Just one more, he thought. Just one . . . 

But when he turned back, he discovered the cloud was drifting toward him once again. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but there was no way to feel the wind through hardened steel.

There was a standard-bearer nearby, dead on his knees—face a red, wide hole, its body propped up by the wooden pole. Illarion watched in horror as the red flag of Kolakolvia began to flicker, lifting as the wind grew in strength.

Dozens of figures moved just inside the cloud. Gas troopers, breaking the rest of their orbs, filling the battlefield with a poison that was about to drift back over the Kolakolvian trenches, killing untold numbers.

The Object’s whispers had turned to screams. They wanted him to do something, but what? He was powerless. In his armor he could pulverize bodies and shrug off bombs, but what could he do against a threat like this?

Behind him were his countrymen. How many more of them would die before this day was through? Natalya was back there as well, and in that desperate moment he didn’t think about her informing on him to the secret police, but rather how her smile made him feel, how her efforts had enabled him to see, and how after all their nights of talk he knew her far better than he’d ever known Hana, whom he had loved.

And her last words to him the previous night—or a lifetime ago.

Because I think I’m in love with you!

There was something black in the corner of his vision. For a moment, he thought he was fading out again because his body could no longer take any more heat, but then he realized the shadow was real. For just out the view port, a raven had landed on 12’s shoulder. It cocked its head, studying him through the Object’s eyes, as if asking what he intended to do.

The crackling flag reminded Illarion of standing alone at the top of the hill during training. He had refused to budge then.

He would not move now.

There was a blue flash as one of the gas troopers shot at him. The bullet sparked harmlessly off the golem’s barrier. The sphere of magic flickered.

In that moment, fueled by exhaustion and dehydration, somewhere between calm acceptance of death and furious defiance, Illarion’s mind knew exactly what he had to do.

A driver had no physical control over an Object’s barrier. It simply was. There was no knob to turn, or switch to flip, so Illarion simply willed it.

“I am the Wall.”

The magical barrier surged outward. Fast as a whip crack. The flag was torn from its pole and sent hurtling away. The energy smashed against the gas, blasting it back toward the Almacians. It went rolling away, pushed violently back toward Trench 303.

The gas troops couldn’t see the barrier as it flashed past them, but they all staggered, and then were left suddenly in the open, confused as their cover was swept away. Before, the gas had been a sluggish thing. Now it was a force of nature, swift, hungry. Where it collided with the wind gusts it spun off into yellow vortices. With incredible speed, the heavy gas rolled over the enemy trench, and then right into the nothing-but-cloth-covered faces of the division of waiting Almacian troops on the other side.

Illarion hadn’t even known they were there until the screaming began.

The raven perched on 12’s shoulder cawed.


The Front

Kolakolvia

Kristoph Vals


“Beautiful,” Kristoph whispered as he watched thousands of Almacians die horribly. He couldn’t recall the last time he had uttered that word aloud.

“It’s a miracle the wind shifted so suddenly,” Petra said.

“Indeed.” He had been watching Glazkov’s Object through the telescope when everything had changed. Kristoph believed Petra was right about the miracle, but not about the wind. It was still blowing this way. It had only been in that one narrow slice of the battlefield that the forces of nature had been violently subverted, right in front of Object 12.

That was not coincidence.

“What’s that?” Petra pointed.

Kristoph scowled at the scarlet line that had formed in the air. Then he aimed the telescope at it and adjusted the focus wheel.

The line suddenly widened, like a knife gash across a throat. Light bent oddly in numerous places, causing shadows that shouldn’t have existed. Blinding threads of red light slithered into view. First one, then two, then ten. They drew themselves vertically over where the Almacians were melting.

Blood storm.

Kristoph had never seen such a thing in person, but he’d heard about them his entire life. Everyone had. Strange, temporary tears between Novimir and the land below—though he had learned enough from the memorized maps in the Chancellor’s laboratory to know “below” was a figure of speech. The storms were a rare, unnatural phenomena, and not an area he had studied . . . until he had noted the Chancellor’s interest in them.

“A blood storm!” Petra cried. “Impossible!”

He was so disappointed in her. Years ago, she had been one of the people he respected—and feared—the most. Now she was so . . . myopic. “You know little of what is possible. Here, you are a child. The Chancellor knew this might happen. Of that I have no doubt.”

“Why?”

“We know sometimes violence draws the ghouls. More death attracts more of them, and sometimes many deaths at once causes . . . ” He gestured toward the hole in the world where hell was spilling out. “If that is the case, then what would pure slaughter bring?”

Blood thinned the veil between realms.

Today had been the bloodiest of days.

It was why the Chancellor hadn’t warned the army about the looming threat of the gas. Their deaths or the Almacians, either would do.

But why? What did he hope to accomplish by creating this thing?

Normally the blood storms only lasted a few minutes, but this one did not appear to be going anywhere. It hung there in the distance, silent and ominous. Looking through the telescope at it was making his eye hurt, so he had to look away.

What world lay on the other side of that gate? That it was full of horrors, he had no doubts. The ghouls had to come from there. If the ancient Sisters the religions prattled on about were real, this was the land one of them had been banished to.

“The Chancellor will hear of this,” Petra said. Petulance did not suit her.

“The Chancellor already has.”

Kristoph stiffened, and Petra did the same. They both turned to see Chancellor Nicodemus Firsch walking up the bunker stairs toward them, flanked by four Cursed.

“Chancellor!” Petra went down on one knee. Kristoph followed her example.

“Rise.” The Chancellor joined them at the view port, stopping between them. His Cursed fanned out, blocking the exit. Their superior stared at the blood storm for a time in appreciation, like it was a glorious sunset. “It’s truly a marvel.”

“It is,” Kristoph agreed out of habit.

The Chancellor’s eyes burned holes into Kristoph’s soul—of which little remained. His lank, black hair, pale skin, and fevered eyes were enough to cause unease with even the strongest-willed men. “It’s fortunate that this secret Almacian weapon—which we knew nothing about—failed and ended up killing so many Almacians instead of our own.”

Especially fortunate for me, Kristoph thought, because he had no doubt now that the Chancellor had expected many Kolakolvians to be killed instead, and then Kristoph would’ve been the necessary scapegoat. “Indeed, sir.”

“Well. No matter. Everything ended well enough.” They had not even begun to count the dead yet, but such things didn’t matter to Nicodemus Firsch.

“May I ask why you are here, Chancellor?” Petra asked.

“You may. When the Kommandant asks, I will tell him my presence in this region was a coincidence, and I was here on other business. But Section 7 is not so easily lied to. For you, I’m here for that.” He nodded out the view port toward the anomaly. “Now come. Even though the casualties were probably even greater than my most hopeful estimates, by my calculations this gate will linger for less than a day. We have much work to do before then.”

“Wait . . . you knew? You wanted this?” Petra may have been a cold-blooded killer, but even killers had their limit. “You used them?”

“Do not be a fool, Banic,” Nicodemus snapped. “Of course I used them. I use everyone and everything as I see fit. If you disapprove, I can easily find a place for you amongst the refuse in the trenches.”

Petra quickly composed herself. “No, Chancellor. I was just impressed by your foresight and dedication.”

It must have brought him some measure of joy being unpredictable even to his subordinates. “You have no idea what I am working toward, but your loyalty is noted.” Nicodemus smiled, a sight Kristoph wished he had not seen. This time, the smile was genuine over the black, stained teeth. Kristoph did not believe in evil as an entity, but if he did, it would have worn Nicodemus Firsch as a uniform.

Then Kristoph threw out one more thing, just to test how much the Chancellor knew. “It is fortunate the wind direction shifted when it did.”

“True. I shall tell the Tsar that this was a sign almighty God watches over this empire. The Tsar loves that sort of thing.”

Kristoph smiled and nodded, because that meant if Glazkov was still alive, he could make use of his talents without the Chancellor’s knowledge. A small victory.

“You two will come with me now. We must speak with the Kommandant immediately. While I am pleased with the results of today’s experiment, we are nevertheless in a delicate position, and must move quickly in order to capitalize on events.”

“Whatever you would have us do, Chancellor,” Kristoph said.

“Of course. The time has come for you to launch your mission against the Almacian gas factory in Transellia. They must be punished.”

Kristoph breathed a sigh of relief. After all this time, he would finally be able to capture Amos Lowe for himself . . . and destroy the gas factory. Which, come to think of it, after today’s horrors, would make Kristoph even more of a hero. “My operation is prepared.”

“Obviously, you will have to change your plans a bit to accommodate recent developments.”

“No changes are necessary. I already have a handpicked unit in place near the river, and a boat for transportation.”

“Oh, your raiders will not be traveling by river, Mr. Vals. Welcome to the bold, new future of warfare.” The Chancellor pointed toward the roiling blood storm. “You will be going through that.”


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