Ryn of Avonside

The next two days saw us keeping out of sight as we travelled— avoiding main roads and the occasional patrol. The patrols weren’t Fennimore’s men thankfully, but rather the local men-at-arms doing their rounds. Still, being seen by them would be bad— they had surely heard of what’d happened back in Rotodunum.

I wish we knew what the actual local political situation was like. Medieval politics like the ones in this region were usually very… loose with their allegiances. Lords within the same kingdom were known to go to war with each other over lands and resources. It was kinda nuts how much was allowed between the nobility back in the day on Earth.

For this reason, we might be able to find a sympathetic lord or two who’d be able to help us in some way. I’m sure there was someone who’d love to throw a few coins at us just to spit in Fennimore's eye. Especially given the fact that this wasn’t even his nation we were in right now. Sure, their capital cities were a day’s trip by river barge away from each other, but that might not mean much politically.

As we plodded wearily down a road one day, we began to grow suspicious of the number of patrols going past us. They were all riding or marching hard in the same direction we were going, but the weird part was that they barely spared a glance in our direction.

It was about the time that a full forty armoured men on horseback rode past with lances held high that we realised that this wasn’t about us. The eyes of the riders were hard, but many also wore expressions of dread. Which begged the question, what were they worried about?

“I don’t like this,” Troy said, calling us to a halt. “There’s shit going down up ahead.”

“Do we try to go around it, or what?” I asked, looking down the road like I might be able to catch a glimpse of what was happening.

Troy frowned and did the same as me, his expression deep in thought. Finally, he sighed, “We’ll continue until we know for certain what’s happening. I have a feeling we’ll want to know what’s going on rather than get blindsided when it rides us down. Information is key to us right now, and anything we can observe here might be useful.”

With the decision made, we continued, although guns were loosened in holsters and helmets were put on. For my part, I’d been wearing my magical disguise since we left my grove— which also had the added benefit of telling me that at least those plants were still alive, since the disguise would've failed if the plants died. Now, I put on my physical disguise too, wrapping the scarf tightly around my face.

The farms nearby were quiet as the folk who usually tended them were making for their houses and closing up. They had realised that bad things were happening too. It was difficult to ignore the steady stream of soldiers. Even the very air seemed to thrum with the tension of it all.

Wait.

Was that thrum just tension? It seemed just a little more physical than simply my imagination. Something was making a very odd noise up ahead of us, and for a moment I was trying to listen for the whistling of that one monster, but caught none.

“Do you hear that?” Grace asked in a hushed whisper.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It almost sounds like… like a swarm of bees having a fight with a chainsaw.”

“That is an incredibly… accurate description actually,” she said with a dark laugh.

“Bodies,” Troy interrupted, and we all jerked our gazes forward.

I gulped and quickly looked away almost as soon as I saw them, but it was too late. The image was burned into my brain. A pair of farmhands were burned and in multiple pieces, each slice to their bodies having been cauterised as they were made. It reminded me of how lightsaber wounds from the movies, but it was more… visceral in person.

We all looked to Troy for reassurance and direction, but he just nodded us onwards. I was a little terrified now, what the hell had caused this? Was it a mage? Who just killed random farmhands like that, though?

As we turned a corner on the road, around a paddock lined with trees, a small village came into view. It has no more than twenty or thirty buildings, total, many of which had small flames eating away at thatch and wood. The settlement was threatening to become a blaze that would level the whole place if it wasn’t contained.

At least a hundred or so soldiers stood a ways back from the entrance to the place— it was the mounted knights and men-at-arms we’d seen earlier off. They'd formed up on the road and the commons outside the village, but no one was making a move to go inside.

Soon, a group of villagers fled out from between the buildings— ten or so of them, women with babies in hand, children following. They rushed towards the gathered men with tear streaked faces and eyes wild with fear. I saw no men. I held my breath as they neared the massed soldiers, but they weren’t cut down like I’d been suspecting. Rather, they were directed to the back and given water and first aid by a small gathering of retainers.

We approached quietly but without guile, stopping some twenty yards from the villagers and retainers. I could make out their terrified rambling from here, and what I heard was chilling.

“There’s none left, we’re… they all died, it killed everyone else!” one woman was wailing, clutching at her confused and scared looking toddler.

“You’ll stop it right, you’ll stop that thing?” a teenaged kid was asking, his face stained with ash. “It killed my dad! It killed my dad!”

“We sent for a mage, child. There was one back at the Angenver inn, but… we don’t know if she will deign to help us,” one of the retainers said. “We will keep you safe in the meantime and try to hold it back.”

Before I could translate their words to my friends, ‘it’ came crashing through one of the external houses. It stood at almost two storeys tall, made of a once-shining metal that was pitted with age and ancient battle scars. Four legs extended crablike from a central chassis, their outside surfaces broad and aesthetically curved into what looked like steel shields capable of stopping even armour piercing rounds from a modern Earth-based military.

The upper chassis was shaped like a wedge to deflect projectiles, and sprouting from the shoulders of the thing were two arms of similar construction to the legs. On their tips however they bore the distinctive barrels of projectile weapons. The head of the thing was a small football shaped lump of metal sitting deep within the shoulders. It bore no sensor equipment as far as I could see, but it was turning and rotating as if surveying the massed troops. This had to be one of the Steel Ones that I'd heard mentioned a few times now.

I hurried into a job, then a run, before the others even realised it. Combat loomed, baring its teeth with eager anticipation, and fear flooded my system, but… I didn't want to see all these people die— not when I could do something— not when I could act before the eleventh hour.

“Ryn!” Grace cried from behind me, her feet pounding on the dirt of the road in an effort to catch up. “Shit, Ryn!”

Idly, a small few of the mounted men turned to watch me as I ran between squads. None of the massed soldiers made any attempt to stop me— every one of them standing pinned in place by the mere presence of the enemy in front of them.

The terrible raw thrumming sound began again, rising in pitch, and I looked across the massed heads to see energy building in one of the cannons protruding from its forearms.

A beam of deathly red energy lanced out from the weapon, running an arc through the massed troops— a white hot scythe through screaming wheat. I wasn’t in the path, but two dozen people must have just been cut down by that beam, and I staggered to a halt just behind the last of the ranks, staring at the mess of bodies in awed dread.

People were shouting around me, the knights were now charging it from the side, crossbows were firing, their bolts ineffectually bouncing off the metal hull of the terrible mechanical death machine. Some men were turning to flee, others charging headlong into the path of the second beam just as it fired.

Atop the steel one, the chassis opened at the shoulders to allow two extra twin guns to rise on smaller arms. They took aim and began a rapid fire hissing as they hosed the crowd of men down with buzzing bolts of energy. Half of the men before me were already dead or dying, their wounded cries for help crashing into my psyche like the projectiles that had taken them.

I almost faltered. I almost turned and followed those who'd turned to run. But no. No. I had willpower, fragile as it was. Being a mage had taught me the power of mental fortitude, and I focused, pushing the horror of massed human suffering out of my mind. I was a damned mage, I’d crush this awful robot into scrap— and pass out from the strain, bleeding from my ears if I had to.

Pulling both of my disguises from my face, I raised my arms towards the steel one. I sent my mind-vines rushing out towards it, lashing them around each of the four weapons. Gripping tight, I yanked them upwards with all the strength of will that I could manage and held them there. God, it was strong. My confidence began to wane, especially when I realised just how tough its metal armour was. I was so atupid— there was no way I'd be able to crush this thing.

The knights saw their enemy mysteriously waylaid and rushed again, hacking at it with swords that did nothing but ring uselessly off its steel hide. They needed to go for the joints, damn it! They might be able to fuck its joints up, but their current approach wasn’t going to work.

“Ryn,” Grace gasped from beside me, staring at the carnage around us in horror.

“They need to go for the joints!” I ground out through clenched teeth. “Their swords are useless if they keep hitting the damn armoured plates.”

“We should be leaving!” Troy replied hotly instead, coming up on my other side. “But… since we’re committed, we’ll see what we can do. There are a few points that our guns might do some damage too, but I’m not confident. Keep that thing’s weapons pointed away and we might have a chance.”

“I’m sorry! I just— these people!” I cried, beginning to lose my hold on my panic. Tears bubbled up, running down my cheeks. All the misery around us… Oh, my head— it began to pound in earnest. Had my stupid reckless actions gotten us all killed?

Troy gave a grunt, eyeing our foe. “Hang in there, kid. The rest of you, come on, it looks like we’re playing hero.”

“A little warning would have been nice,” Grace sighed, her voice tight as she finally looked up from the bodies. “But yeah… it’s the right thing to do. After you, boss.”

“Sorry,” was all I could manage through the increasing pain in my skull. “But please hurry. This really hurts.”

They were off, rushing towards the evil death robot that stood shackled opposite me, across the carpet of bodies. I watched through the narrowed slits of my eyes as Troy raised his gun and took careful aim, popping off shots at some small area I couldn’t see. The others joined in, gunshots ringing loud even over the cries of battle.

It didn’t take long to see that the bullets weren’t working, nor the swords of the knights, and certainly not the pathetic crossbow bolts fired by some of the soldiers. Nothing was doing anything, not even my vines could crush it. Instead, my powers simply bound it helpless but impervious. That is… until my grip on them failed.

With one large spike of pain driven directly into my skull, my vines fell away into nothing, and the weapons of the ancient machine fell back into position, humming with promised death.