Skybuilders (Sorcery and Science Book 4) (15 page)

Ariella ducked as severed metal limbs flew over her head. Melted wires hung out of the hole in the golem’s chest, drooping like dying plants. The blue lights went out inside the head Silas held in his hand. The golem’s head alone was a third of Silas’s height and made of solid armored metal. And he held it easily in one hand, as though it weighed nothing. Ariella was shocked until she remembered that he'd torn it off with his bare hands. Then she was horrified.

“Now I think I could use a nap before we wake the others,” he commented.

Ariella scanned the snowy plain for shelter and found none besides the substantial chunks of golem debris. She didn’t care much to rest under that, though.

“Don’t worry. We don’t have time for a break anyway,” he assured her. “I can already feel those initial vibrations. We have half an hour until the next portal appears, and I have every intention to be there to take it. We don’t want to be stuck out here until it opens up again.”

Ariella shivered in agreement, silently wishing for someplace warm next. Warm and dry. Without any monsters or machines. Yeah, like that would happen.

“Are you planning to do something with that head?” Leonidas asked him, his eyes tracking the piece as Silas swung it back and forth.

“Yes, in fact. I’m going to wake our next dance partner,” he declared, pitching the head toward the first golem in the left column.

As head impacted head, the golem woke with a stumble. It studied the head at its feet, then stomped down hard to crush it into a flat sheet.

“It looks mad,” Leonidas pointed out to Silas.

“It’s not a living being. It has no feelings.”

A silver sliver cut through the snowy air. Ariella pushed Leonidas to the ground, saving him from being decapitated by a flattened head. It slammed hard into the debris behind them, scattering the pieces.

“He’s right, Silas. That golem does look upset,” said Ariella.

“Then we should be able to lure it over here,” Silas said, scooping up snow.

He launched one snowball after the other at the golem, which stopped at the field’s threshold. It took the barrage of snowballs in silence, refusing to make the step that would take it off the field.

“Maybe they cannot leave the field,” Ariella speculated.

“It will leave. We just have to convince its self-preservation program that we’re enough of a threat,” Silas replied as he threw a rock at the golem’s chest.

When that failed to move it to action, he tore a boulder out of the ground and hurled it. The colossal rock crumbled as it hit, trickling tiny stones down the giant’s chest.

“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Leonidas said.

“Leonidas, wait,” Ariella protested.

But she was too late. He'd already thrown the bomb at the golem. The disc suctioned onto its belly. A faint beep preceded the explosion that shot golem bits clear across the snowy field. Metal drummed against metal as they poured down on the five dormant guards. The golems screeched to life, and five pairs of blue lights turned their way. The sixth, the one still blocking the way onto the field, was missing an arm and half of its chest, but the lights still burned inside its head.

“It cannot still be operational. Not after being hit with that bomb. It’s just not fair,” protested Leonidas.

The golem lifted the sword in its remaining hand and made a run for him.

“It seems you managed to annoy it enough to make it finally abandon that spot,” Ariella commented.

“Lucky me.”

She pushed him out of the way as the golem’s sword swung down at his head. She blocked the strike, surprised that her slender blade did not break under the force of the golem’s mighty weapon. But she wasn’t sure her arms wouldn’t. The pressure was enormous, like trying to hold up a falling building. Her feet slid back against the ground before she steadied herself.

The seconds dripped by, trickling streams of sweat down her neck. Her arms would collapse soon, and the moment that happened, the golem’s enormous blade would plummet down and split her right in two.

Silas plunged his swords into the golem’s exposed chest, cutting and swirling at the tangled mess of wires, mixing them all together. Ariella took advantage of the decreased downward pressure on her arms to throw the machine’s sword off of her. She managed to slip out of reach but not quickly enough. The thick blade slashed the back of her shoulder as she turned, splattering the snow with her blood.

Silas stepped toward them, what remained of the golem crumbling to pieces behind him.

“You’ve awoken them all,” he said to Leonidas, his tone cold, his eyes pure ice. As he set a hand on Ariella’s arm, his eyes faded marginally to blue. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she assured him, coughing. “Just a scratch.”

Silas was clearly not fooled, but he didn't debate the point. “The portal is less than five minutes away. You two will make a run for the other side of the field. I'll try to distract the golems, then follow. Run as fast as you can
—
but be prepared to fight. I may not be able to keep all five of them busy.”

From what Ariella had seen, he would be lucky to keep one busy. Pushing through the pulsing ravine of pain slit across her back, she tightened her fumbling grip on her sword and tried not to pass out.

The golems hadn't yet advanced. All five were marching across the field in patterned paces. Ariella could pick out a few gaps in their patrol, but not many. Though seven were meant to block passage, they were big and fast enough to compensate. As soon as she and Leonidas ran for an opening, they would close it up around them. Ariella pushed the thoughts out of her head. She would just have to trust that Silas could keep the golems busy.

He moved past them so that he was the first to enter the field. Five metal heads turned his way. Silas took two more steps forward, his arms raised. Then
—
bracing his soles against the ground, his snow-sprinkled tangerine hair sticking up like flames
—
he thrust his hands forward. Metal screeched in protest, and a golem shot back, colliding hard with the next closest one. As the two golems tumbled into a twisted heap, the other three charged for Silas.

“Shit,” Leonidas gasped, gaping at Silas. “Every time I think he can’t get any scarier, he shows me how wrong I was.”

“Come,” Ariella said, tugging at his arm.

Thankfully, Leonidas snapped out of it. The closer the golems got, the harder it would be for them to dodge. Silas’s stunt had captivated their attention for the moment. Only one of the five golems veered off after Ariella and Leonidas. It was clear which person they'd identified as the biggest threat. Ariella wasn't offended. Neither she nor Leonidas could tear metal constructs apart with their bare hands.

The ground quaked, thumping ever louder as the golem closed in behind them. Its sword was nearly within striking range. Ariella swung around, preparing herself to confront it when a piece of metal the size of a tree trunk thudded against the golem’s back, sending it into a nosedive. Almost immediately it was back on its feet. The severed arm fell to the ground behind it. Ariella didn't dawdle. She sprinted forward to catch up with Leonidas, who waited beside the opening portal.

“Go!” Silas shouted, four golems close on his heels.

The fifth fell in beside the others. All were dented, many were cracked. Some were missing limbs. One was partially decapitated. Its head dangled by a slim bundle of wires, clinking against its back with each forceful stride forward it took.

Blood trickled down Silas’s face and his arms, sliding down his sword points, flicking a trail of red droplets behind him as he ran. He was supernaturally fast, but the golems were faster. And their injuries didn't slow them as Silas’s did. The golems were quickly closing the distance.

“He’s not going to make it,” Ariella said, biting her lip.

She stepped forward, ready to help him, when Leonidas’s arm barred the way.

“Wait.”

 
He opened his hand just long enough to show her the bomb on his palm, then he hurled it at the golems.

“Silas, duck!” he shouted.

Not slowing his pace, Silas threw himself into a roll. The bomb whizzed over his head. As he catapulted himself forward into Ariella and Leonidas, pushing the three of them through the portal, the sound of a thousand colliding pots clamored and roared across the snowy field.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

~
Falsified Forest ~

526AX August 23, The Falsified Forest

A WHIRLWIND OF snow flurries accompanied Silas through the portal, a souvenir from the field of golems. Steamy air popped across his skin, and the snow dropped from the air instantly like a swarm of dead butterflies. Silas turned in a tight circle, scanning the visible area. He did not register any immediate threats, so he took the time to observe the scenery more thoroughly.

Instead of hard ice and frozen mud, he felt his boots sink into a mushy ground of soft, wet grass. Besides its lime-green color, there was nothing particularly odd about it. In a fight, the squashy texture would reduce his agility and traction, but it didn’t appear to be a threat in and of itself.

The patch of grass was a perfect rectangle two meters wide and four meters long, enclosed by four walls of trees. Positioned at precise intervals with hardly a gap between them, the smooth silver-black trunks shimmered and shot up ten meters tall. Each was topped with a ball of pale green—nearly white—leaves. The air smelled of tar and rotting foliage, nearly masking a fainter scent of metal.

There was absolutely nothing natural about this place.

“At least there are no golems,” Leonidas said to Ariella as they both looked around.

She nodded and sheathed her sword. Silas thought the action premature. True, there were no belligerent beasts or machines in sight, but if their encounters over the past three days were any indication, it was unlikely the area was home to a school of wish-granting bunnies. Any moment, something could burst out of those trees and target them.

“What do you think?” Ariella asked Leonidas.

They'd drifted over to one of the tree walls. Another mistake. At that range, they wouldn't have time to dodge an attacker before it was on them. Leonidas ran a finger down the smooth bark, then knocked on the trunk. A hollow clunk echoed faintly.

“Fake,” he declared.

“Any idea which way they went?” Silas asked him.

“Why are you asking me? Aren’t you the tracker?”

“While I can track, that is not my specialty,” replied Silas. “I asked you because of all of us, you are the one who knows Marin best.”

“Perhaps, she's deferred to the Selpe brothers’ judgment. Hayden Selpe is her emperor, after all.”

Ariella snorted. “More likely, she’s the one coming up with the crazy schemes that will get them all into trouble.”

Leonidas chuckled in agreement. Silas gave them both a hard look. This wasn't the time for jokes—especially, not about Hayden and Ian’s lives being in danger.

“They could have gone in any number of directions from here,” Ariella said, walking alongside the trees.

Silas and Leonidas did the same. As they scanned the trees for clues to where Hayden, Ian, and Marin had gone, they said nothing more. Only the slush of Leonidas’s ridiculous boots as he trudged through the sinking grass punctuated the silence. Actually, Silas could hear no other sound of any kind within range. That was even more disturbing than the engineered environment.

The tree trunks all looked completely identical, right down to the slightest color variations in the shade spectrum between brown-black and gunmetal grey. From the smell, the trees were probably even made of metal.

“Here,” Ariella said. “What's this?”

She had stopped in front of a trunk not unlike the others—except for the sliver of bark curled around the corner. Silas stretched his neck around the trunk, his eyes following the stray strip of paper-thin metal to a half-open panel.

He swung it all the way open to find a board of colored wires and blinking lights. Mounted above that was some sort of computer display. Though more proficient around human technology than most Elitions, Silas wasn't intimately familiar with the internal workings of their machines. He had no idea what it did, and he had enough sense to not poke it to find out.

Leonidas pressed his face into the shallow opening. “If I were to guess, I’d say they went this way.”

“Is this Marin’s work?” Ariella asked.

“Possibly. Someone was definitely messing around in here.”

“Trying to land the city perhaps?” she suggested.

Leonidas tapped the display a few times. Apparently, prudence was not contagious.

“If that’s what she'd hoped, it wouldn’t have taken her long to figure out that’s not possible from here.” He pushed on the cover, but it bounced back open. “It does nothing more than control this environment’s heat and humidity.”

“Marin has proven herself quite adept at refashioning devices to serve a completely different purpose altogether,” Silas commented.

Leonidas stared at him blankly, then shook himself. “Sorry. I got lost in that sentence. Do you mean to ask whether she could hack the thing?”

Silas inclined his head.

“No matter how much you fiddle with it, a thermostat is still just a thermostat.”

Ariella looked at Silas. “Is that a no?”

“That’s a no. Apparently, this temperature control mechanism cannot be modified to control other systems,” he told her. He eyed the still-open panel. “Whatever she was doing, she left in a hurry. Marin doesn't seem the type to leave her tools lying around—or panels open, for that matter.”

“Perhaps they ran off when the assassins appeared,” said Ariella.

“It’s the best lead we have. We'll go this way,” Silas decided, turning sideways to squeeze his wide body through the narrow opening between the tree trunks. With a bit of shuffling—and sucking in his breath—he managed to get through. Thankfully. That incident with the magnetic tree had been bad enough. If he got himself wedged between two trees, Ariella would tease him into eternity.

“Just so we’re clear,” Leonidas’s voice said from the other side of the trees. “We’re planning on just marching right up to a band of elite assassins, right?”